The Problem with Game of Thrones
Released on 04/03/2014
(train whistle blows)
Game of Thrones is back in early April.
More Game of Thrones means more violent sword play,
more abrupt cuts from scorching deserts
to Arctic snow scapes,
and more sexposition.
The HBO show is adapted from a series of books
by George RR Martin,
or as I like to call him, Grr,
because that's the sound I make
when I think of what he's doing to us.
Grr!
Does it really take seven books
and a zillion pages a pop
when it's been clear since book one, chapter 14,
that this series is building to a pitch battle
between ice zombies and fire-breathing dragons?
Cut to the chase already, Grr.
The pace of his book releases is slowing
from one every two years
to a gap of six years between books.
But, despite what some of you geeks are saying,
I'm okay with that.
Hey, Asimov spent three decades on the Foundation series.
That is, I was okay with that until
my calculations suggested
that the HBO series, the best show on television,
except for Arrow,
is going to run out of material before the saga concludes.
Oh, seven hells, no.
Nope, not okay.
If this trend line continues
the next book won't be out until 2018
and the concluding book won't be out until 2026.
Even if HBO continues splitting each book
into two seasons worth of episodes
they'll run out of material
six years before the last book appears.
We may reach a point where things happen on the show
before they happen in books.
That's just wrong.
Clearly HBO will have to slow
things down.
I suggest they dig deeper for more details,
Silmarillion-style.
They could devote an entire episode
to enumerating the 77 dishes
served at Joffrey Baratheon's wedding feast.
Or how about an episode-long refresher course
on the various royal sigils
found in the land of Westeros.
I mean, there's a golden kraken of House Greyjoy,
the flayed man of House Bolton,
the silver crowd of House Tully.
What's happening?
Hey, are you sexpositioning over me?
Not cool!
Well, fine then.
If menus and sigils are too boring
then the Game of Thrones TV show
needs to go full-on Swedish soft core.
10 minutes of plot per episode
followed by 45 minutes of nudity.
The series could run for decades
on Skinemax, sure,
but it would be worth it.
Is George RR Martin a master of detail
or a slave to it?
Did we really need to know
all of the ingredients in the mutton stew?
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Starring: Chris Baker
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