Game of Thrones: A Show about Terrible People
I finished watching the first season of Game of Thrones about a week ago. See my season 1 wrap-up. Before diving into season 2 I figured I'd take a break for a few days. I don't like bingeing streaming TV, per se; I enjoy pacing myself, even if at an accelerated pace of ~5 episodes per week. After those few days of break passed, though, I've found myself... oddly reluctant... to resume. Today the reason why crystallized: Game of Thrones is a show about terrible people. I don't have much appetite for watching terrible people. Especially when, as the director says, terrible people are rewarded for being terrible.
One obvious point of comparison here is The Sopranos. That's also a show about terrible people. The main character is a crime boss who oversees murder, assault, robbery, fraud, and corruption. Most of the other characters are his criminal subordinates and peers.
A big difference with The Sopranos is that the protagonist criminals personified the old saying, "Honor among thieves." There were lines they wouldn't cross, or at least tried very hard not to cross. Key among those lines was not harming anyone who wasn't involved in their criminal underworld. The terrible people in Game of Thrones have no lines. And they seem positioned to keep winning.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/178937.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
One obvious point of comparison here is The Sopranos. That's also a show about terrible people. The main character is a crime boss who oversees murder, assault, robbery, fraud, and corruption. Most of the other characters are his criminal subordinates and peers.
A big difference with The Sopranos is that the protagonist criminals personified the old saying, "Honor among thieves." There were lines they wouldn't cross, or at least tried very hard not to cross. Key among those lines was not harming anyone who wasn't involved in their criminal underworld. The terrible people in Game of Thrones have no lines. And they seem positioned to keep winning.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/178937.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]