lost

How will A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones end? (No spoilers)

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment
With two books to go by the self-admitted slow writer and the producers of the HBO show estimating the series to end at eight seasons the end game for A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones is far off. Still, I know how it will end, at least I know how viewers will perceive it to end. There will be no spoilers beyond conjecture, and no details of the fates of any characters.
The hype machine is still going strong for this series, with George R.R. Martin’s name constantly in the news, making appearances on Conan and casting confirmations as well unofficial filming footage constantly hitting the sites centered around pop culture. The show’s intention with each season is to build upon the overall arcs of each character with some ending as the seasons go on. The books likewise, because of the way they tell stories using third person limited point of view for different characters in each chapter, tell the stories of said characters as part of any overall story Martin is building towards.
Recalling an article from io9 speaking of Game of Thrones scratching that mystery itch that was left in the wake of Lost brings up the disappointment many felt by the end of series over the ending as it left questions unanswered and the overall conclusion deemed disappointing. Martin himself has said his intention is to avoid a Lost-like ending, proclaiming his disappointment and his hope to deliver on the high expectations of his fans. However, he also expects the ending to be bittersweet.
This is just conjecture but just as the story was inspired by the image of the two dying animals in the first episode and the first book, I expect Martin has had the ending in mind from the very beginning with obvious editing needing to be done as the plot changes and characters are added. While I’ve always expected a bittersweet ending given that the story for the majority a tragedy how satisfying will that ending be to it’s viewers and it’s readers? Let’s avoid questions of a production nature like it’s budget, it’s directing, the cinematography, the acting, etc and just explore it from a storytelling perspective.
Game of Thrones and the even more so the books it’s based on is a world full of characters. With this many characters the odds of satisfying every consumer is slim, but that is to be expected. Every character is someone’s favorite character including the antagonists but not every character is slated to have a complete story-arc as some of the secondary ones are doomed to be metaphorical and sometimes literal causalities to the major point of view ones. If we break it down even further using just the main characters we can expect that when they all converge once again as they did in the beginning of the series that some of these characters will come into conflict. As this is in a sense a political tragedy most of the characters fall into a morally gray area rather than one group being good and the other evil. Therefore, each character probably has a fanbase that’ll be disappoint and one that will be satisfied with how it’ll end overall.

How will it end though? I know how will it end in vague details, just going by what I’ve seen and what I’ve read from the source material plus Martin’s expectation of a “bittersweet” ending and his hope to avoid an ending like Lost. Here it is in the vaguest terms possible. Westeros will be left completely changed but stable in the political sense, not all the characters people hate will die and not all the ones people like will live. There will be sacrifices, sometimes that means a character’s life and sometimes that’ll mean a character’s power. 
Questions that have had speculation surrounding them will be answered with obvious answers and ones no one expected. Questions people didn’t know they should be asking will be answered, which in hindsight viewers will believe that should of been obvious. Questions that everyone has been wondering about for ages will never be answered because stories, like life, don’t have to answer all the questions. 
There will be love, sadness, tears, triumph, victory, tragedy, loneliness, isolation, and most likely satisfaction. Before it is over surely there will be fire and blood, you will hear some roar and some will pay their debts, there will be fury by some, sharp blades by others, and winter will most definitely come. 

We can’t stop here, this is spoiler country! – Spoiler Paranoia: When is it warranted, and when isn’t it?

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Ah, a short reprieve from Thesis to do some writing. I’ve been working on Thesis since May 10th and the time it takes up has made me antsy to write so badly.

     Since yesterday was a monumental episode for HBO’s Game of Thrones I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss spoilers. In case you don’t know what spoilers are they’re facts about any medium that has a story or plot revealed to you before you can find out for yourself.
     It seems to me lately that spoilers, the term not spoilers themselves, has entered mainstream pop culture over the last couple of years. I think this is akin to the pop culture phenomenon of both Harry Potter and Lost. That’s just what is on the forefront of my mind as far as spoilers in mainstream media. I distinctly remember when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out the controversy of an important plot point, which I will not post here, being scanned onto the internet and displayed. The series was a big enough hit that the controversy had made it into the news. Then there was ABC’s Lost which had a strong structure around the mystery of the island. Thinking about it now, I wonder if that coincided with the rise of DVR and Tivo because if you spoiled Lost for anyone before they were able to see it, you were in trouble.
     But why are spoilers such a big deal? The big deal is that you are robbing people of an emotional connection to a story they may only get to experience once. Not everyone has time to rewatch, reread and replay. Not everyone wants to figure out what’s going to happen before it happens. People with intense careers, families and limited money only get to experience a story once and then have to move on. There’s only so much time in a day. So when a plot element is revealed to them before they’re given the chance to experience it for themselves the journey may seem like a waste of time. No one wants their time wasted. Sometimes it’s better to not know. In my life I have never peaked at a Christmas or Birthday present because I wanted to be surprised. I only get to unwrap that specific present on that specific day once. Once you know how a story ends, who dies, who lives, who sleeps together and who gets married you never not know. So to that extent I understand why people would want to shield themselves from spoilers.
     There are some spoilers that are just ingrained into pop culture now and there’s no way around them. If you’re complaining about someone spoiling something that came out anymore before the turn of the century you are asking for too much. As a kid the only Star Wars film I had ever seen was the first one but I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father. It had been beaten over my head for years but when I finally borrowed a set of the three movies from a friend on VHS when I was twelve and watched Empire Strikes Back I was still blown away by the movie even though I knew what happened.
     That’s just me though. I’m a rereader, rewatcher, replayed. The replay value of stories is important to me. I am not a fan of throwaway entertainment and if a spoiler is enough to ruin the story for me I am probably not going to waste my time with it.
     I see both sides of it though. For example, last night t-shirt brand RIPT apparel immediately on their twitter account spoiled last night’s episode of Game of Thrones. This is a company that probably sells Game of Thrones t-shirts and should know their market doesn’t take too kindly to spoilers like that. If you haven’t seen last night’s episode do not search out their twitter account. An editor of a website I frequent who called them out on the spoiler proceeded to get into an argument with another twitter user on whether or not it was a big deal because the book has been out for so many number of years and the information is out there no matter what. This is an example of someone being insensitive to another person’s experience of a story.
     On the flipside recently Matt Smith announced he’d be leaving Doctor Who during the Christmas special this year. This was literally a press release and people were complaining of spoilers. Similarly a couple months ago when comedian and host of The Talking Dead Chris Hardwick hosted a panel for The Walking Dead an audience member who voluntarily attended the show complained about spoilers in heckling manner when they began talking about episodes from the current season. This is when Spoiler Paranoia crosses the line into ridiculous.
     For me though, spoilers aren’t a grey area. When I first read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Sword of Storms I was glad none of it was spoiled for me because they had an emotional impact on me. On the other hand, remember that spoiler about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? I know what it is, and wasn’t a reader of those books at the time. I only began reading them last summer and have just gotten up to the sixth book. I know what happens because I’ve seen the movies with friends and because of that spoiler but it won’t ruin those books for me because they’re fun.
     I guess my point is that spoilers are on a case by case basis for me but do everyone a favor and don’t spoil anything for anyone. I’ve been guilty of this because I get excited about stories, and I want to talk about them to the point that sometimes I don’t think before I speak but don’t ruin the experience for other people. At least try not to.