'Game Of Thrones' Season 7, Episode 2: 'You're A Dragon. Be A Dragon'
We're recapping Season 7 of HBO's Game of Thrones here on Monkey See. We'll try to turn them around overnight, so look for them first thing on Mondays. And of course: Spoilers abound.
One of the most frustrating things about a show like Game of Thrones is how much of the action is driven by someone — or, often, many someones — withholding information from other characters. A lack of communication, in a show with so many plot threads and so many characters, generates story; people who lack a full understanding of a given situation act on their ignorance, which leads to wacky misunderstandings, impulsive actions, misdirected anger — in other words, conflict.
Conflict is good. Conflict is story. But what's frustrating about shows that allow characters to hoard information is that the conflict it breeds is so often unmotivated, and unnecessary. It maintains narrative tension by postponing resolution, sure. But when the audience is privy to the information that's being kept from Character A, and when then there's no logical, story-based reason for Character B not to just tell it to Character A already, that's when things get annoying.
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... Look all I'm saying is that Sansa should have told Jon before the Battle of the Bastards that she had a a whole freaking army in her back pocket, okay?
But here's what else I'm saying: If you've
