That episode, an alternative

A lot has been made about how lazily written the latest episode of Game Of Thrones is, and while I generally agree, I think it is important to point out that this is fantasy, which requires that we suspend logic while we watch.

The Starbucks cup is seen by many as evidence of laziness on the part of the producers.

Having said that, what I want to do now is just to talk about the fact that the writers of the show have probably thrown away a chance to be truly great. They went for the conventional, rather than what would have gotten everyone. To be fair, many television dramas that I consider to be great fell into this, last season fatigue, where it became kind of clear that the writers just wanted to get it over and done with. This list includes what to me remains the greatest television drama I have ever watched, The Wire. Season 5 of that excellent drama was a bit of a chore. Other television dramas that had that “last season fatigue” include The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Designated Survivor.

Having pointed that out, here is where GoT missed the opportunity for greatness…

Put yourself in a time-space displacement device and take yourself to the English Royal Theatre sometime in 1595 when Will Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet first played. Now, most people in England love happy endings, and I suspect that it was like that four centuries ago as well. They transmitted that habit to us, then along came Shakespeare and this his drama which did not end happily. Cue, the greatest love story of all time.

It was all in the twist.

Now imagine this — what if in the Battle for Winterfell, the White Walkers had won, and in this episode just played, we had seen some of our favourites converted into wights and marching on King’s Landing, while a few others had somehow made it out, and were desperately running ahead of the Night King’s army to try and save the day? In my view, it would have made for a more compelling, and long lasting tale, if Arya’s defeat of the Night King had happened in King’s Landing, after pretty much every other person were dead.

But that’s just me. It’s time for work.