'Game of Thrones' Haters Don't Understand That Actually Seeing What's Happening on TV is Bad
By Kyle Koster
The Long Night, the highly anticipated and grunt-filled third episode of Game of Thrones’ final season aired Sunday. The living tried to fend off the dead in the north. Beloved characters seemed not long for this world. Dragons fought dragons and extremely ill-conceived battle plans were executed.
It was a good, old-fashioned television event. One of those moments in time where it feels like everyone is doing the same thing. And it climaxed with a surprising, satisfying kill.
There was one small problem, of course, for impossible-to-please-viewers. It was tough make out what was happening most of the time. Classic MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 issue, it seems.
Everyone’s a critic, right? You build for 69 episodes to the biggest turning point, hype it up like the Super Bowl, and these people get all huffy when they can’t see what’s going on. Social media has ruined us all. In the old days a showrunner could have spent $15 million on a night battle that turned out to look like The Spice Channel and viewers would have just accepted it.
No longer. Sad.
Don’t they understand that this was an artistic choice to show the fog of war, the confusion of the moment? Sure, the choice was reverse-engineered by fanboys but it’s something, right? People will buy that it was intentional if you repeat it enough.
Sight is but one of the five senses. Stop overvaluing it when it comes to television. Have a little perspective.
Also not as important as everyone says? Developing a baseline level of reason for main characters’ actions. Like, it’s no problem that the Night King, the Big Bad, had a paper-thin backstory where his motivations were barely explored. The Bad Guy was Bad and therefore wanted to do Bad Things. What more do you people need to know, dammit?
Do you think a more complex understanding would have made his death any more rewarding? Be reasonable. When has that ever been the case? It’s important to realize that any time spent character-building the top villain takes away from time with any of the other 340 personalities that have been introduced. Tight budget.
Those hating on Game of Thrones and the greatness of this episode you couldn’t really see just don’t get it. Things have changed. It’s 2019 and no one watches television to understand what the hell is happening. Ideally, the plot and action sequences should be borderline impossible to decipher. That’s when the true fun starts.
Think of every great thing you’ve ever seen on television. Now think about if you hadn’t seen it. It would have been better, right?
Here’s hoping GOT gets even murkier and dark in the final three episodes. Maybe the finale will just be a static black screen. That’d be ideal.