Text | Sipack
Chief Editor of Himalaya FM Movie Channel
This Monday, the seventh season of "Game of Thrones" ended with a lot of praise. Although there was the shadow of the script being leaked a year in advance, and the HBO hacker blackmail crisis later, the ratings of the series continued to rise, reaching a new high in the finale, reaching 16.5 million, an increase of 50% from the previous season. %.
In the past seven years, the two main creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have completed the pioneering work of bringing the series from a niche geek fantasy culture into the mainstream. Let all the audience feel why their geek friends were excited and crying ten years ago.
The progress of George R.R. Martin's original novel has stagnated for many years. Starting from the second half of the sixth season, the series has transcended the timeline of the novel (but has not completely covered all the story lines of the novel) and begun to enter a completely original New rhythm.
In previous interviews, Benioff and Weiss said they had heard Martin describe the ending of the entire novel. All roads lead to Rome. The series and the novel approached the finale in different ways, but the two creators chose a shortcut to speed up the process. It also makes the current series increasingly deviate from the original direction of the first season.
One detail in the finale also defines the change in direction of the series. In the first season, the screenwriter had the little devil accidentally knocked unconscious by a hammer on the battlefield. When he woke up, the war was over.
Game of Thrones Season 1
In the seventh season, the same technique was used in dramas. The little devil negotiated with Cersei in private. The two were about to collapse, but when the scene changed, the little devil finally persuaded Cersei to join in the joint crusade against the White Walkers.
The same technique is used to reduce budget-consuming action scenes, and the other is used to reduce brain-consuming large lines. The changes can already be seen.
Once upon a time, this series did not have the budget to shoot big scenes, but the drama could perfectly restore the novel. By the seventh season, several battles followed one episode after another, but the drama was lackluster. Under the unreasonable plot advancement, the screenwriter is keen to bring characters from different storylines together, repeating some plots that the audience is already familiar with, making up most of the meaningless drama, and leaving the rest of the time for large-scale battles.
It is for the same reason that "Littlefinger" Baelish, the most adept at playing tricks in the show and the real behind-the-scenes driving force of "War of the Five Kings", was inactive all season and was accidentally killed at the end.
The screenwriter used the death of this character who is considered to be the highest IQ character in the whole drama and his panic at the moment to clearly tell the audience that "Game of Thrones" is over and there will only be "War of Ice and Fire" to watch next. .
The main reason for making such a choice is that the two script creators have weak original abilities and are no longer able to control Martin's grand world view of ice and fire.
In fact, until the fifth volume of the novel, Martin continued to cast a net, and new characters continued to appear one after another. However, due to space limitations, the series deleted a large number of minor characters and merged similar plot lines (even giving a completely illogical setting such as Sansa marrying Little Skin). Martin's layout was quickly completed and the story began. A new season of creation with blind eyes.
There is no new novel support, but a large number of screenwriters with original plots are needed to wrap up the plot as quickly as possible, eliminate existing families and characters in the shortest possible time, and allow the real protagonist to remain until the end to prepare for the final battle.
Dragon Mother landed in Westeros, immediately occupied half of the country, and quickly lost almost all her troops. Jon Snow became the King in the North for seven episodes, and then gave up quickly. His time on the throne was even less than that of Robb, who lost the King in the North.
The little devil's IQ was offline throughout the whole process, and his only achievement was hidden in the editing. The two Westeros landmarks of Highgarden and Casterly Rock are only briefly glimpsed and don't even appear on the map in the opening credits.
Every character appears across Westeros as if they were on a plane, causing frequent bugs in the series that should be rigorous. In the first season, it took a month to walk from King's Landing to Winterfell. In the new season, every character can appear wherever the writers want him to appear in a single episode. In the setting, Westeros is as big as South America, and was even ridiculed by netizens as just Henan Province.
What makes Martin's novels unique is that no one has the halo of the protagonist. Every wrong decision made by the character will lead to death. In the dangerous Westeros, there is no real opposition between good and evil, everything is a competition of interests.
The series went exactly the opposite of the original intention of the novel. Justice and evil were clearly divided, and heroes and villains were gradually revealed. The blurred dividing line between good guys and bad guys has actually been broken down. The Dragon Girl here is portrayed as a great revolutionary who supports democracy, loves ministers, opposes slavery, and is even willing to put the overall situation first and give up the best opportunity to sit on the Iron Throne.
Cersei over there has become the main villain of the series, pretending to negotiate peace and scheming behind the scenes.
The historical discussion in the last episode became the most intuitive display of the confrontation between the two parties. In the end, James, who had been washed away as the conscience of the whole drama, finally gave up on Cersei and joined the righteous army.
The setting that it was once difficult to distinguish between good and evil, and good people rarely get rewarded has been overturned. The "pseudo-protagonist" Ned in the first season is regarded by fans as a negative teaching material who cannot play the "Game of Thrones" and is a good old man without political acumen. . But now Snow, who has inherited Ned's integrity, is getting stronger and stronger and has become the real protagonist.
In Martin's previous classic fantasy works, there was often such a simple opposition between good and evil. The heroes were heroes, and the villains were all ugly and evil monsters.
As Martin said in the interview, although he respects "The Lord of the Rings", that world is not real. After Aragorn ascends the throne, half-orcs still exist, and it is impossible to integrate into the world of other races. Aragorn may have to fight under the guise of A genocide was carried out in the name of justice.
This model existed in most fantasy works before "Ice and Fire", and it was the emergence of Martin that truly revolutionized the fantasy landscape.
In order to make the existence of the protagonists of the Justice Squad more reasonable, the series also set up the Night King, a villain who completely represents "evil". This villain has no human emotions, no expressions, and no lines. He is almost a big boss. And turned into a villain.
He has no needs of his own, and we don't know his purpose of going south. In the real world that Martin wants to build, it doesn't make sense at all.
Martin has stated in many interviews that he does not want to continue the Tolkien model, but is trying to create a new fantasy based on real logic. Therefore, he removed the halo of the protagonist and adopted a multi-character POV narrative, striving to open up a real fantasy world. He also said that in the future, he would give the White Walkers a reasonable explanation for going south that everyone can agree with.
A demonic boss like the Night King cannot exist in the novel. The Night King in the book is just a commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch mentioned in history who married a White Walker and established himself as king. Perhaps just because this name has a royal aura, it was used for the King of the White Walkers in the series.
After seven seasons, the show has finally gone the opposite direction of the novel. However, the audience loves to watch heroes, epics, and even more dragon showdowns. Without Martin's literary nature, today's dramas give a faster and simpler answer.
In the original series, there were complaints that there were no big scenes, that the names were too long, and that the plot was too slow. Nowadays, there are more pragmatic solutions. The rise in ratings also proves the effectiveness of the simplified plan.
However, for viewers who love certain protagonists, this season is finally less sadistic.
The little devil who defected to the Dragon Girl met his Lannister brothers and sisters again. His guilt for Jaime and his hatred and sympathy for Cersei were intertwined. Although they were briefly passed over at the end of the play, Peter Dinklage His acting skills still have the power to move people.
The Dragon Girl truly fell in love after wandering for many years, and she was surrounded by almost all the most charming characters in the entire series.
The most comforting thing is the reunion of the Starks. They were separated since the first season and finally reunited in the seventh season. And everyone completed their own trials. Jon became the king and fell in love with his aunt. Arya became an assassin and killed her biggest enemy Littlefinger. Sansa finally gave up her struggle for power and became a mature leader. Moreover, Bran is even more transcendent from the world, becoming a transcendent existence similar to Dr. Manhattan. And every encounter between a pair of Starks is a spiritual blessing for all viewers.
Now, all fans know that the series is a parallel universe to the novels. But after all, the screenwriters still have first-hand inside information about Martin, and some plots will definitely appear in the novel.
The death of Hodor "Hold the Door" in the last season made everyone cry. Martin also admitted that this was his setting. Jon's life experience was finally confirmed, and it is also the most widely circulated setting among Ice and Fire fans.
Game of Thrones Season 6
In this season, there are also some eye-catching settings, which may also come from Martin orthodoxy.
One is the alliance between Euron and Cersei, two of the most hated characters by fans, coming together is a natural fit.
The second is the gathering of ice and fire. Snow and Dragon Girl are almost recognized as the male and female protagonists in TV dramas and novels. After sacrificing a large number of characters who have the protagonist's image, they still stand firm. How the two people, who are so far apart from each other, meet each other in the novel, and whether Snow will be loyal to him, is also a big question.
The three episodes are carefully designed to reveal the biggest secret of Snow and Leijia's legitimate successor after her remarriage. This also puts him ahead of the Dragon Mother in the line of succession. In this way, the protagonist is given a kingly aura, and Rhaegar is labeled as a scumbag who regrets his marriage. I don’t know if that was Martin’s original intention as well. However, the screenwriter allowed the audience to witness the wedding of Rhaegar and Lyanna in flashback, which can be regarded as the greatest feedback to the fans.
The fourth is also the most exciting scene of this season, the ice dragon resurrected by the White Walkers. The mother of dragons sitting on three dragons was once a nuclear weapon-like existence. However, the novel has also hinted at the existence of ice dragons under Winterfell. Regardless of the world view, it seems that the duel between ice dragons and fire dragons in the future is inevitable.
The eighth season, which will return next year, will only have six episodes, one less than this season. The two creators said that they had no more stories to write, and the 13 episodes in the last two seasons were their limit. But for the novel party, it is not enough. Such a huge world view as Binghuo should be displayed in more dimensions. There is too much material to be mined in history and the present.
On the same scale, "Game of Thrones" is undoubtedly a masterpiece that represents the highest level of American drama production, but fans who love this series more deeply will demand more. Now that the spoilers for Season 8 have been widely circulated on the Internet, the anticipation for these six episodes has also turned into the fear of denser scenes and faster harvesting of characters.
The hunger for more details in this huge and real world of ice and fire may only be truly satisfied when Martin fills the hole in the future. It must be a brand new story that is very different from the series.
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