Sooo. Game of Thrones season eight. I feel a little bad about setting my thoughts on this season down at all, because judging from the Internet sources I've seen, many real GoT fans hated it. And though I came to enjoy the series, mostly from the second season onward, I can't call myself a die-hard fan. I didn't particularly want to like the series, only came round to it reluctantly and have always claimed that it was over-hyped. Of course it's much easier to enjoy a somewhat rushed final season of a series if your expectations aren't sky-high to begin with. It feels a little insulting to those more invested in the series and its characters to smugly state "well, I like it", especially as I see where they're coming from with many of their criticisms.
Having said all that, I've started writing blog posts about Game of Thrones, in spite of knowing nothing (in true Jon Snow fashion) about the books and suchlike, so I'll finish. It's hard to resist when there's plenty to discuss.
People have claimed that the series started going downhill once the scriptwriters ran out of books to adapt (George R.R. Martin hasn't yet finished the book series A Song of Ice and Fire on which the TV series is based - but you knew that already). From what I've found out from some superficial net surfing, the first four seasons are based on the books, and there was some material left for season five as well, but it was here the scriptwriters had to start flying solo in some instances. Now, if I would have had to guess where the join between adaptation and new content was in the series, I would have said season seven. Season five and six don't feel very different to what went before - though it's remarkable how many characters who have no role to play in the final showdowns get killed off in season six (no complaints from me in most cases). Season seven did have a more pacy and soap-operatic feel to it, but I kind of enjoyed that. I was never much of an admirer of the "edgy otherness" of Game of Thrones, and the more it resembled a regular epic drama, the more pleased I was. But yes, there was a change of tone. The dialogue in the earlier seasons was pretty full (at least it felt that way) of rambling speeches which were finished off with some strong lines, and the plot strands followed the same pattern in a way - they ambled along for a time, then there was a dramatic payoff. How much you enjoyed the plots depended on how good the payoff was and how well the road to getting there worked for you, much like the character monologues. In season seven, the monologuing is pretty much history, as are the plot lines that take some time to develop. It's less of an amble, more of a rush to the finish line. Season eight carries on the trend.
Ironically, though, the scriptwriters came into trouble with the fans not just for things that felt different to the "book seasons", but also for things that follow the tradition of the whole series - the "anything can happen" factor of earlier seasons clearly made them feel that they had to serve up some plot twists so as not to make the outcome too predictable. Here's the thing with predictability, though: sometimes an outcome is predictable because it's clearly the one that makes most sense. Injecting unpredictability just for the sake of it can be risky. For me, the most predictable character arcs in season eight were often the most satisfying. Theon was killed while redeeming himself by defending Bran, whom he had betrayed by invading Winterfell with his Ironborn troops many seasons back. Ser Jorah died in battle protecting his beloved Daenerys. Varys was dragon-executed for treason after yet another plot against his current ruler candidate in the higher interest of the realm. These deaths felt logical, and true to the characters.
As for the twists - I, for one, completely bought Daenerys's descent into darkness. It's fair to state beforehand that I never really cared for Daenerys. Having her torch King's Landing with her one remaining dragon after the town had surrendered boosted one of my particular hobby horses: the dangers of self-righteousness. I've already touched on how much I dislike murdering for moral reasons, and Daenerys did a lot of that. She was always implacable to her enemies, her rhetoric to her troops was continuously bloodthirsty, and she had intended to conquer King's Landing with all dragons blazing until Tyrion persuaded her otherwise. As her faith in his judgement dwindled, it's not that much of a leap to imagine that she would want to return to plan A. Many seasons ago, when she conquered Mereen, she had the whole slave-owning nobility of the town nailed up along the highway. Daenerys fans have pointed out that this is completely different from setting innocents - including children carrying affecting little wooden toys - aflame as the Mereen nobles were "bad men". However, as we later learned, there were one or two quite decent coves among them - inevitable when you go down the collective punishment route - and besides, there are some things so horrible that they remain wrong whoever you're doing them to.
Once Daenerys had a licence to mass-slaughter, as it were, it's not that strange that she ends up crossing another line. And after all, it's not unheard of in the history of warfare to specifically target civilians and level towns - resident kids and all - to the ground. The inhabitants of King's Landing weren't slaves: they had the option of leaving their homes or helping Daenerys out with conquering the city (as the slaves of Mereen did). However, though they loathed Cersei (as illustrated in her Walk of Shame), they still preferred her to an invading warrior queen and let themselves be used as pawns in Cersei's plans. Daenerys had already learned in Mereen, by the workings of the Sons of the Harpy, that civilians can pose a threat. If she needed arguments to rationalise the atrocity, they weren't impossible to find, especially as she was so convinced of possessing the moral high ground.
As for many of the other twists I wasn't too keen on them, so I can understand the fans' frustration there. Bran - who ended up king - was one of the first characters of the show I cared about, but back in the day when he was still a bright boy and hadn't merged with a mystical being which enabled him to have visions, detach himself from everyone and make vague statements in an annoying monotone. From the get-go of him becoming the Three-Eyed Raven, he was something of a dead loss, and it seems foolish to appoint someone who gives you lines like "I don't really 'want' anymore" to a position which requires savvyness in worldly affairs. He does have a great Small Council, though. Jaime haring back to Cersei after finally getting together with Brienne was a strange plot move - it's as if he hadn't had any character development the last five seasons. Jaimienne was the only GoT couple I shipped, but I felt that it would have been better if they had remained just mates if this was to be Jaime's end game. His "no, sorry, I'm not redeemed" speech might actually have worked then. And what was the deal with having Arya kill the Night King? I did think they backed away from making her a Grand Assassin Heroine quite neatly in the final episodes, though, so I can live with it. Her giving up her Kill List (which I was never a fan of) courtesy of The Hound and instead settling on a life of exploration felt like a good way of ending her story. Better Christopher Columbus than Titus Andronicus (yep, she went there).
fredag 31 maj 2019
lördag 18 maj 2019
Eurovision 2019: Not too bad
For the first time in years, I've been pretty pumped for Eurovision - both the Swedish heats and the European competition. Not having to worry about your latest villain crush's fate does free up time and energy to engage in more trivial matters. However, I've come to realise that I'll never again be enthusiastic enough to watch all the entries before the semi-finals, which means pre-final blogging pretty much has to take place the same day as the big event. OK then. On the basis of the semi-finals and Youtube clips of the already qualified entries, here are my favourites for this evening:
Sweden: Yeah, I bet you didn't know Sweden had good Gospel singers, did you? But we're multicultural, us. Someone will doubtlessly make fun of the cosmopolitan vibe of this number - the folk song trend is clearly dead - but this, in Eurovision terms, is typically Swedish in the most important way: it's high-quality stuff. John Lundvik has charm in spades, and the choir of seasoned Gospel ladies adds that little bit extra. For the first time in forever (the last time was Måns Zelmerlöw, I think), I'm fully behind Sweden's choice for Eurovision. Lundvik for the win!
Russia: The way I've previously gone on about "You're the Only One", Sergey's entry from 2016, as the song to beat you'd have thought it was from the Beatles. And OK, maybe I have been overselling it a trifle, considering that it contained lyrics like "Thunder and lightning/It's getting exciting", but I really liked it. The song Sergey is competing with this year is not as strong or as hummable, but it's not bad either, and the man's a real pro. A serious contender, who'll probably be kept down by the jury groups (they nobbled his chances of winning back in 2016).
Serbia: I'm growing old, aren't I? The kind of Balkan ballad I found boring twenty years back now strangely appeals to me. Serbia was probably helped by being in the first semi-final which was considerably weaker than the second, but it was my favourite in that one. Nice and melodic.
North Macedonia: On the subject of ballads, this one delivered after a breathy start. If the whole "what will happen to my daughter/s in this uncertain world?" message is a bit too pompously worthy for you, pretend that Cersei from Game of Thrones is singing it. It's what I do.
Czech Republic: I think I like the idea behind this song more than the song itself - the lyrics seem to be about a guy explaining to his jealous girlfriend why he's so pally with the girl next door ("We knew each other when we were both thirteen... there's not much between us now... you know what I mean..."), and that's a witty idea. The song is upbeat, too, which will be welcome in a field where many of the numbers take themselves a mite too seriously.
United Kingdom: Right. This is the test. I'm not expecting the UK to win by any means, but the song is solid (written by Lundvik as it happens - which is a bit awkward as his own song is better), the singer, Michael Rice, is endearing and the video (I haven't seen this one live) was really sweet. It should do decently. If it doesn't, even after the Brits have shaped up their act in this competition for several years in a row, maybe it's time they took drastic action.
It's overblown, its expensive, many of the countries - even the ones you're subsidising - are hostile, and you'll never catch a break from the French. Brits, heed my advice: if you bomb this year as well, maybe you should consider exiting the Eurovision Song Contest.
On the subject of France: I think it's likely that they will win the whole competition this year. Many of the winners of recent years have had a Message that was In Tune With The Times. It's not what I enjoy, but it seems to fly with (extended) Europe's juries and voters. France's earnest inclusivity number will probably hit the spot. And to be fair, they are serious about it - it's not just surfing a trend, and it's not as gimmicky as Israel's winner from last year. (Is it just me who thinks it doesn't sound so bad to be someone's toy? It is, isn't it?)
Nevertheless, I'm still hoping that a good tune, preferably without world-improving overtones, wins this year. Apart from the ones mentioned above, entries from the Netherlands, Estonia and Azerbaijan kept a high standard. Not that I can hum them.
Sweden: Yeah, I bet you didn't know Sweden had good Gospel singers, did you? But we're multicultural, us. Someone will doubtlessly make fun of the cosmopolitan vibe of this number - the folk song trend is clearly dead - but this, in Eurovision terms, is typically Swedish in the most important way: it's high-quality stuff. John Lundvik has charm in spades, and the choir of seasoned Gospel ladies adds that little bit extra. For the first time in forever (the last time was Måns Zelmerlöw, I think), I'm fully behind Sweden's choice for Eurovision. Lundvik for the win!
Russia: The way I've previously gone on about "You're the Only One", Sergey's entry from 2016, as the song to beat you'd have thought it was from the Beatles. And OK, maybe I have been overselling it a trifle, considering that it contained lyrics like "Thunder and lightning/It's getting exciting", but I really liked it. The song Sergey is competing with this year is not as strong or as hummable, but it's not bad either, and the man's a real pro. A serious contender, who'll probably be kept down by the jury groups (they nobbled his chances of winning back in 2016).
Serbia: I'm growing old, aren't I? The kind of Balkan ballad I found boring twenty years back now strangely appeals to me. Serbia was probably helped by being in the first semi-final which was considerably weaker than the second, but it was my favourite in that one. Nice and melodic.
North Macedonia: On the subject of ballads, this one delivered after a breathy start. If the whole "what will happen to my daughter/s in this uncertain world?" message is a bit too pompously worthy for you, pretend that Cersei from Game of Thrones is singing it. It's what I do.
Czech Republic: I think I like the idea behind this song more than the song itself - the lyrics seem to be about a guy explaining to his jealous girlfriend why he's so pally with the girl next door ("We knew each other when we were both thirteen... there's not much between us now... you know what I mean..."), and that's a witty idea. The song is upbeat, too, which will be welcome in a field where many of the numbers take themselves a mite too seriously.
United Kingdom: Right. This is the test. I'm not expecting the UK to win by any means, but the song is solid (written by Lundvik as it happens - which is a bit awkward as his own song is better), the singer, Michael Rice, is endearing and the video (I haven't seen this one live) was really sweet. It should do decently. If it doesn't, even after the Brits have shaped up their act in this competition for several years in a row, maybe it's time they took drastic action.
It's overblown, its expensive, many of the countries - even the ones you're subsidising - are hostile, and you'll never catch a break from the French. Brits, heed my advice: if you bomb this year as well, maybe you should consider exiting the Eurovision Song Contest.
On the subject of France: I think it's likely that they will win the whole competition this year. Many of the winners of recent years have had a Message that was In Tune With The Times. It's not what I enjoy, but it seems to fly with (extended) Europe's juries and voters. France's earnest inclusivity number will probably hit the spot. And to be fair, they are serious about it - it's not just surfing a trend, and it's not as gimmicky as Israel's winner from last year. (Is it just me who thinks it doesn't sound so bad to be someone's toy? It is, isn't it?)
Nevertheless, I'm still hoping that a good tune, preferably without world-improving overtones, wins this year. Apart from the ones mentioned above, entries from the Netherlands, Estonia and Azerbaijan kept a high standard. Not that I can hum them.
lördag 4 maj 2019
Heroine misfire
I was counting on making Game of Thrones my blog subject for this instalment, as I'm now completely up to speed with the series. I'd watched all of the previous seven seasons in time for the final season premiere and, thanks to an opportunistic subscription to HBO Nordic, I'm now able to see new episodes only a day or so after they air in the US. The trouble is, the latest episode threw us such a curve ball that I realise I'll have to wait until the end of the series before going off on a rant which might be rendered unnecessary by future plot twists. For now, though, I'm with the disgruntled fans who think that Jon Snow was robbed.
Instead I'll have to move to the other end of the fantasy spectrum and the sugary confection that is The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which I watched quite a while back. The theme addressed, though, will not be that far from my current issues with Game of Thrones, as it has to do with what makes a good heroine, something I've touched on earlier. Not that the heroine of Nutcracker has much in common with the supposed heroines in GoT. Her main fault is blandness, which is not something you can accuse the women of Westeros of. The way that the creators of Nutcracker have tried to "fix" the blandness, however, is symptomatic of a specific heroine trend which makes itself felt in Game of Thrones as well as in family-friendly Disney films.
The heroine in Nutcracker, Clara, is a girl who's lost her mother at a young age. Still grieving, she doesn't realise that her father is mourning too, and that his attempts to soldier on with life do not constitute a betrayal. The setting is Victorian London - which is a bit unexpected as I would have thought families called Stahlbaum and Drosselmeyer would be hanging out in Berlin or Vienna - but it hardly matters as Victorian London has seldom looked prettier. Clara is given a box which belonged to her mother as a Christmas present, but the key is missing. However, at a lavish Christmas party at her godfather Drosselmeyer's, the traditional hunt for Christmas presents leads her to the key, but also into another world where her dead mother was once Queen and where she is now hailed as the new leader.
The plot is generic fantasy stuff, reminiscent of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and a hundred yarns about the Chosen One, and there's a plot twist you can spot from a mile off. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the film. It was just the sort of light-hearted fluff one needs once in a while to rest one's brain, and it looks gorgeous. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, and if like me you have a fondness for his feel-good formula, you could do worse than to see it. But Clara remained a bore throughout. The scriptwriters thought it would be enough to endow her with inventive skills - the same shorthand for "see, she's brainy!" as was tried on Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, and with the same indifferent result - and to make sure that she went into clinch with the Big Bad herself, climbing waterfalls and whatnot in the process. These empowerment traits just felt tacked on, and don't tell us anything about Clara as a person. Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, the kind of character who professes to be good but to whom you would rather not entrust as much as a pot plant (see also Galinda in the musical Wicked and the Blue Fairy in Once Upon a Time) is a great deal more fun.
This is consistent with the trend I alluded to earlier: an overreliance on making your heroine "kick-ass". Action hero stunts themselves do not make a heroine interesting - unsurprisingly, as they do not make a hero interesting either. What a heroine needs is personality. The reason I like, say, Rey in Star Wars is not that she can wield a light sabre, though admittedly it's a plus. It's that Daisy Ridley who plays her can sell her to me as a complex character with relatable feelings and insecurities. A character who has a strong personality doesn't have to kick ass to be interesting: she can stay at home and make everyone beer and sandwiches if she so chooses and still be the focus of a story. Not that I'm suggesting that heroines should stay at home and make sandwiches as a rule - that would make the plots very boring. I'm just tired of film and TV series providers taking the easy route with female characters and including "look, she fights better than a bloke!" scenes only to show us how feministically minded they (the film/series creators) are. I frankly don't care about their feminist credentials. Give me a strong plot and strong characters (ideally including a brainy villain - male) and I'm a happy part of the female popular-culture-consuming demographic.
Instead I'll have to move to the other end of the fantasy spectrum and the sugary confection that is The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which I watched quite a while back. The theme addressed, though, will not be that far from my current issues with Game of Thrones, as it has to do with what makes a good heroine, something I've touched on earlier. Not that the heroine of Nutcracker has much in common with the supposed heroines in GoT. Her main fault is blandness, which is not something you can accuse the women of Westeros of. The way that the creators of Nutcracker have tried to "fix" the blandness, however, is symptomatic of a specific heroine trend which makes itself felt in Game of Thrones as well as in family-friendly Disney films.
The heroine in Nutcracker, Clara, is a girl who's lost her mother at a young age. Still grieving, she doesn't realise that her father is mourning too, and that his attempts to soldier on with life do not constitute a betrayal. The setting is Victorian London - which is a bit unexpected as I would have thought families called Stahlbaum and Drosselmeyer would be hanging out in Berlin or Vienna - but it hardly matters as Victorian London has seldom looked prettier. Clara is given a box which belonged to her mother as a Christmas present, but the key is missing. However, at a lavish Christmas party at her godfather Drosselmeyer's, the traditional hunt for Christmas presents leads her to the key, but also into another world where her dead mother was once Queen and where she is now hailed as the new leader.
The plot is generic fantasy stuff, reminiscent of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and a hundred yarns about the Chosen One, and there's a plot twist you can spot from a mile off. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the film. It was just the sort of light-hearted fluff one needs once in a while to rest one's brain, and it looks gorgeous. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, and if like me you have a fondness for his feel-good formula, you could do worse than to see it. But Clara remained a bore throughout. The scriptwriters thought it would be enough to endow her with inventive skills - the same shorthand for "see, she's brainy!" as was tried on Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, and with the same indifferent result - and to make sure that she went into clinch with the Big Bad herself, climbing waterfalls and whatnot in the process. These empowerment traits just felt tacked on, and don't tell us anything about Clara as a person. Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, the kind of character who professes to be good but to whom you would rather not entrust as much as a pot plant (see also Galinda in the musical Wicked and the Blue Fairy in Once Upon a Time) is a great deal more fun.
This is consistent with the trend I alluded to earlier: an overreliance on making your heroine "kick-ass". Action hero stunts themselves do not make a heroine interesting - unsurprisingly, as they do not make a hero interesting either. What a heroine needs is personality. The reason I like, say, Rey in Star Wars is not that she can wield a light sabre, though admittedly it's a plus. It's that Daisy Ridley who plays her can sell her to me as a complex character with relatable feelings and insecurities. A character who has a strong personality doesn't have to kick ass to be interesting: she can stay at home and make everyone beer and sandwiches if she so chooses and still be the focus of a story. Not that I'm suggesting that heroines should stay at home and make sandwiches as a rule - that would make the plots very boring. I'm just tired of film and TV series providers taking the easy route with female characters and including "look, she fights better than a bloke!" scenes only to show us how feministically minded they (the film/series creators) are. I frankly don't care about their feminist credentials. Give me a strong plot and strong characters (ideally including a brainy villain - male) and I'm a happy part of the female popular-culture-consuming demographic.
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