We can understand where they're coming from. Even when they're despicable, we admire them. After all, we've grown to love (and sometimes love to hate) just about every major character on this show. When he tells Daenerys that she needs to understand how her enemies think, he might as well be talking about us. This new context is not lost on the audience and it's not lost on Tyrion.
Watching each of them pair off to share a few words could fall into the "wish fulfillment" issue we talked about above, but after all these years, Game of Thrones has earned the right to bring these disparate characters together. These seven men, all so very different from the next, make for the most exquisitely entertaining ragtag team-up Game of Thrones has ever crafted (and we've seen plenty of awesome ragtag team-ups on this show). Jon Snow and Jorah share a quiet moment where they discuss the fate of Longclaw, the Valyrian steel sword that was supposed to stay in House Mormont before Jorah fled Westeros and his father gave it to a fresh recruit of the Night's Watch.įew of these conversations needed to happen, but they add texture and character to a season that always seems winded from sprinting toward the endgame. Gendry finally gets to give Beric and Thoros a piece of his mind four seasons after they sold him to a red witch so she could use his blood to assassinate kings. Tormund's continued pining for Brienne, even from afar, is the gift that keeps on giving. With nothing to see except snow and nothing to do except anticipate death at the hands of an undead army, this eclectic crew finds themselves in conversations that range from hilarious to moving. Let's find a better way to talk about this. Right now, it belongs to them. The time for fan ownership, of accusations of "bad fan fiction," will arrive in a few years. Let's not accuse the world builders of treating their world frivolously. When we talk about what doesn't work in Game of Thrones season 7 (and oh, we'll get there in a little bit), we can talk about them on their own terms.
Part of being a fan of anything is a willingness to criticize, to dissect and tear apart and admit that flaws only make something more interesting in the long run. Finding an unlikely meeting convenient or an exchange of dialogue too cute for your liking is fine, but the "bad fan fiction" label suggests that the makers of the series are reacting to a finished world and delivering nuggets of wish fulfillment rather than telling the story they want to tell and satisfying the beats they want to satisfy. In other words, we don't know what Game of Thrones fan fiction even feels like because the rules of what Game of Thrones is right now, at this very moment, are still being written by the series writers, producers, directors, and cast. We won't be able to define Game of Thrones, to react to it and judge it as a whole complete work, until the credits roll on the final episode.
It's still being cooked before our very eyes and being served on a weekly basis. But Game of Thrones is not something we need to let go yet.
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