Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 is a Masterpiece, 3 reasons why.
Spoilers ahead!
There has been huge backlash this week in the wake of Season 8 Episode 5, "The Bells". The main source of dissatisfaction among fans is of course the character Daenerys turning from the heroine to a villain, but I think the episode is pure genius. It's widely accepted that you'll never please everybody as you approach the end of what is probably the most popular show ever made, but the hate this week has been substantial.
An article shared on the Facebook pages of both Indiewire and Nofilmschool most condescendingly titled, "How to write a good character arc" seems to hint that David Benioff and DB Weiss have erred and could use some lessons from the pundits and Indiewire and Nofilmschool. Then there's a pathetic petition to remake season 8, supported no doubt by people who named their children Khaleesi or Daenerys, conveniently ignoring the clues to the dark side of her character that have been there since the beginning.
The whole internet seems to be a wave of hateful backlash, but I think this episode was one of the best of the series, and here are at least 3 reasons why.
1) The human realism peaks this episode
We outgrow fairy tales in childhood because all the characters are very one-sided. They are either pure good or pure evil, or they are just extras neither good nor bad. A good drama will have good characters with a bad side, bad characters with a good side, and they will develop the characters so that the viewer's feelings about them change over time. We started off hating Jamie Lannister, through the journey we grow to like him, but we are reminded later that he is a bit of a monster, after all he pushed a child out of a window. Is this really the same guy who knights Brienne in a very tender moment? This kind of duplicity is what makes him human, what makes him believable. I've often heard it said that Ned stark was a bit of a boring character, perhaps it is because he is one of the more one-sided, predictable fairy-tale only-good characters.
Throughout the show, Cersei has been built up as a supervillain, and Daenerys as the heroine. In this episode we see a very human side of Cersei, at the moment of her impending death, she cries, she doesn't want to be alone, her only wish is that her unborn child would live - all very natural, human, relatable emotions. And this provides contrast to the opposite, corresponding shift in Daenerys.
What makes the show great is the human interaction - this is what makes the viewer able to identify with the characters able to suspend disbelief in the fantasy elements and therefore able to immerse themselves in the fantasy world created by George Martin, and by Benioff and Weiss. Some fans have clearly become a little too immersed.
In this episode, we see a more real, human side of Daenerys than we have seen before. We see a fragile, lonely queen. She is terrified of not being loved, and when this fear is realized it turns to rage.
Her whole life, she has been taught that the throne was stolen from her family, and since her brother's demise every interaction she has had has reinforced her sense of entitlement to the throne, and then she finds out that John's claim is superior to hers, because his father was ahead of her in the birth order and he was born before she came to the throne. The sudden loss of this entitlement is like a bad dream for her, made worse by the fact that her lover is her nephew and doesn't want to be her lover anymore.
With a shock she realizes that the only reason her subjects follow her is because of the legend and power of her dragons. With two of her dragons dead, she is painfully aware of how fragile her power is, especially in the light of John's claim - if her remaining dragon died she would be totally powerless. As Varys (rest his soul) says, "Power resides where men believe it lies". Without her dragon, why would anyone believe that power resides with Daenerys?
How to despots become despots? History shows us that they don't start off that way. They are usually liberators. Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro, to name but a few - they were all liberators to start with, in much the same way as the dragon queen was. Every human being has the capacity to become very good and very bad. Even a toddler every day has moments of tender compassion and murderous rage. The ingredients of tyranny are inside all of us. In the case of ageing liberators the despotism comes as a desperate attempt to cling to power. Warlords can't retire, for fear of vengeance by their enemies. Daenerys isn't ageing but she certainly has reached the end of her cause.
Besides this dark outburst, the signs have been there all along. When her brother is killed in season 1, she calmly stands by and watches, knowing it means her own rise to power. In Mereen the crowds plead for the life of a former slave who has killed prisoners, against all practical wisdom she has him beheaded and the city erupts into revolution as a result. When Samwell finds out she executed his father and brother, there is no kind of "gee I'm sorry for your loss Sam" - just a deadpan, bemused detachment. The writers have certainly built up to this.
When the city surrenders, she feels she didn't get enough of her personal vendetta out, so she decides to destroy the city anyway. At the moment of surrender, she alone has complete, unchallenged power in all of Westeros. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely," as Lord Acton famously put it. At the moment of surrender, the decade long campaign to restore Daenerys to power is complete, and what she does with it is a frightening lesson in human nature.
If the war between Cersei and Daenerys played out in a straightforward, fairytale battle, it would have been really boring. Director Micheal Sapochnik's job would have been impossible, as then one of the best battle scenes ever filmed would only have appealed to a few VFX geeks.
Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) as interviewed about getting involved with the show - He didn't want to do a fantasy show where he would be a kind of slapstick clown figure as people of his size normally are in the fantasy genre. He said that most fantasy shows were big on dragons and small on drama, but he took the role in Game of Thrones because it was a show that was big on drama, and it had dragons too for good measure.
2) The historical and film references are powerful
The entire series is of course full of references to events in real history, which supports the realism and therefore the extent to which the viewer can engage with the show. This episode in particular, contains many, very strong references. Here I will discuss just one or two.
The major historical reference is the firebombing of Dresden. David Benioff mentions this in the Game Revealed interview. Like Daenery's burning of the city, the firebombing of Dresden served no military objective. It was a warcrime of sickening proportions. At the end of the second world war, a stress-fatigued allied army arrived on the tail of a retreating, weakened army and used the civilian population of the town as the object of wrath. With no strategic reason, wanton destruction was unleashed. In these moments the army became a mob, bloodlust would not be abated until the destruction was total. Once an army of good people let go of reason, the atrocities the mob commits are endless. Dresden was totally obliterated by unnecessary forece and fire. King's landing too was destroyed by fire, and the protagonist's army descended into rape, tearing people limb from limb, destruction without benefit, as history has shown again and again. The mob here was like the mob tearing people apart during the French Revolution -indiscriminate, mindless slaughter.
Greyworm until now has shown nothing but total control, but here at last his frustration, and his grief in the loss of Missandei, the only person he valued, suddenly find voice in the throw of the spear that opens the floodgates of senseless obliteration and gruesome death.
In these moments, the worst parts of human psyche are unleashed. At the same time, desperate situations like this also bring out the best in people. Here the 'enemy' soldiers are seen trying to render aid and guide civilians to safety, in peril of their own lives, while our heroes take on the role of the enemy.
Another reference that keeps coming up is John's insistence that he doesn't want the throne, which is exactly what makes him perfect for it, as Varys points out in this episode. This is one of the central themes in Gladiator, with a number of striking parallels between Maximus and a number of Daenery's generals - John and Jorah most notably.
To me the most powerful visual reference here is to Schindler's List. The bone chilling moment when Oskar Schindler realizes that the ash falling is the ash of human bodies; is mirrored in the moment we see Arya standing in the ashen landscape.
Another reference from the same film, is the motif of the girl in the red coat, mirrored here by the little girl Arya tries to save - a symbol of the life of the town being snuffed out.
3) The stage is set for unprecedented drama
The writers have shown before that they like playing yo-yo with the emotions of the viewers. The Dothraki are about to perish outside Mereen, then they survive. John Snow dies, and then he's back. Jorah is sent away, then he is accepted back. It's always darkest before dawn, as the saying goes, "There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning." The writers are masters of setting up contrasts. We have to experience hardship as it provides contrast for elation that comes with success, otherwise we get disillusioned and depressed. That contrast is what makes great drama, and we have a lot of it here.In episode 3 nobody thought the night king would die - we thought that would be episode 6. He is killed unexpectedly, and so the villain is gone. In episode 5 the next villain is gone too (Cersei) and for episode 6 the stage is set for a new villain. The biggest possible drama is between 2 lovers breaking up into opposing armies. The stage is set. Varys's letters have gone out, and did the wildlings really go home so easily? is that really the end of Ghost? Is Sansa going to bend the knee to Daenerys knowing that John is the rightful king? John's new cause is to bring a tyrant to justice. What inner turmoil does Tyrion face? He gave up his friend in service of Daenerys, risked everything to set Jamie free to try for a peaceful surrender, now that it has failed, who will he serve? His service of Daenerys was founded on trying to establish a new, better kind of ruler, so now that her coin has been flipped what will he do?
Let's wait until the final episode before we decide if we are happy or not.
When a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin and the world holds its breath to see which kind they will be. Now we know which kind Daenerys is, and her duplicity is matched by the duplicity common to every human being, most notably by the millions of dedicated fans of the show who turned their backs on GOT this week.
