Game of thrones and the issue with fantasy television.

Yes, this is a veiled discussion of season 8 of game of thrones. Yes it will include criticism of Benioff and Weiss, and yes it will lament at the sheer shame of the finale.  Why you ask? Because it represents a theme that has plagued fantasy adaptation before and after the production of Game of Thrones. With the changing of the guard occurring at Netflix around the Witcher, reportedly due to Henry Cavil disputing the studio’s less than accurate approach to adaptation. There has not been a better time to take a closer look at the issue of fantasy adaptation. 

“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult reason,” Tolkien writing in 1939 struck upon an idea that still haunts the world of fantasy today.

Game of Thrones success was built upon its realism and its adult themes. It ran against the popular representation of fantasy in the main stream. Fantasy in the widest of public eyes before Game of Thrones was, directly or indirectly, exclusively informed by a cursory knowledge of Tolkien.  It seems a bold claim but Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit particularly formed the bedrock for much of the fantasy of the 20^thcentury and its perceptions. The result? Fantasy became whimsical, it became hobbits, Gandalf smoking a pipe and magical rings. Sexless fairy tales to be read at bed time. It took Game of Thrones about sixty minutes to change that in the public eye. S1 E1 Winter is coming has two beheadings, one by a creature ripped from a horror story and one by our ostensibly main character. It has prostitutes, incest and attempted child murder. What else could you want? Well people wanted a lot more. The popularity of Game of Thrones supposedly changed the way we approach fantasy, it can have explicit sex and violence and of course anyone could die. This was what Tolkien meant in his 1939 essay, perhaps in a less excessive way, but Tolkien held firmly to the belief that fantasy was an adult genre, not just for bedtime stories.

So fast forward eight seasons of slowly declining television. The audience was left feeling empty as characters abandoned their complex storylines and survived dangers that would and had killed characters from early seasons. The end of the long night and the battle for the iron throne disappointed. There are a myriad of reasons. Importantly one one excuse that was not present was a lack of budget. From all the discussion pre and post the release of season eight of the show, there appears to have been an essentially limitless budget, for practical purposes at the very least. Miguel Sopochnik, the most reliable of the returning episode directors responsible for the greatest battle scenes in the series and now the show runner for the upcoming House of the Dragon, talked regularly about the missed opportunities in The Long Night. The resistance appears to have been from the writing duo. 

Now a number of critics and reviewers have criticised David Benioff and Dan Weiss for a variety of reasons. However most of these are specific to the duo and to game of thrones, and here we diverge, for all of the shortcomings of Benioff and Weiss they have taken the brunt of the criticism for what is a much more widespread issue within the world of television and film. Writer’s and studio executives seem unable to take fantasy seriously. 

The only legitimately faultless example of translating fantasy from page to screen is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Key to its success was the detail Jackson put into bringing Tolkien’s vision into the world of film as faithfully as he could. Importantly the most fantastical elements were approached with relish. Golem, a character ripe for alteration or misrepresentation, was instead the focus of an entirely new type of acting, one that turned Andy Serkis into a household name. Similarly, the army of the dead from Dunharrow, the Balrog, even Orcs, were treated with a respect we don’t see in other fantasy media. Game of thrones exemplified this, the lack of inclusion of elements like Lady Stoneheart and Nymeria’s pack, the butchering of Bran’s storyline and the clear lack of understanding of how to marry the fantasy to the real world elements stank of a writer’s room unable to buy into the fantasy. 

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this is that recently we have seen fantasy concepts succeed when they are approached with full confidence. Spiderman: Far From Home the premise of which is built upon the wacky and wonderful marvel multiverse grossed $1.9 Billion. This sum is frankly obscene. When looking at the rest of Marvel’s lack lustre showing in phase 4, we can pick out the successes and see a consistent theme. The two properties that were met with the best critical success were Loki, and the recent Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3. The two of these wholeheartedly embraced the unique aspects of their settings. We saw a crocodile Loki and a romance between alternate versions of our traditional Loki. Guardian’s hardest hitting moment was the death a cybernetic otter, a walrus called Teefs and a spider-rabbit called Floor. People cried in the cinema. Why? Because the story was treated with the utmost seriousness. The ridiculous elements of the world were treated with an adult approach and the result was an outstanding piece of media. James Gunn was able to stamp his style on the film and made it an outstanding success. Comparably Sam Raimi was limited by the studio reportedly and the result was Multiverse of Madness did not live up to the potential it carried. Here then we can see emphasised the difference that treating the content seriously makes. Again the through line is the artists involved approach the material with respect and with an aim to bring the crazy ideas to life. 

For all the attempts to create fantasy shows in the wake of the success of Game of Thrones, based upon successful IP like Wheel of Time, Shannara Chronicles even Halo, none have succeeded. They all suffer from the same issues: limited budget, acting on a scale from cheesy to outright awful, and lacklustre story and character. These issues stem from a systemic lack of confidence in the source material, from studio head to lowly extra. It is here perhaps there is hope. House of the Dragon’s first season did what Game of Thrones could not and embrace the more fantastical elements. Miguel Sopochnik has talked about faithfulness to the source material since he was directing in early seasons of Game of Thrones and as showrunner he has a chance to continue to right some wrongs. Perhaps if House of the dragon succeeds further we may see a change in the winds of fantasy, a shift toward the fantastic. Maybe the dance of dragons and Matt Smith in a white wig can bring us all to appreciate that: “If a fairy story as a kind is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults.” – J.R.R. Tolkien.