(Warning: Spoilers)
by David Keating
The Keating Files – October 15, 2020
About a year and a half ago, the end of the television series Game of Thrones aired for the first time. In the aftermath of what was, in many people’s estimation, the most poorly received finale for a series of Game of Thrones’ magnitude, there has been much written and dissected about the show. This spoiler-heavy article discusses the ending, so for those who haven’t finished the show, be warned.
Complaints about the ending to Game of Thrones seem to stem from two main areas. The first complaint focuses on the unsatisfying character arcs. It wasn’t that people necessarily had a problem with where the characters ended up at the finale, but rather it was how the writers chose to get them from point A to point B. Bran Stark may very well have been destined to rule over the Seven Kingdoms, but given that the writers refused to “show their work,” so to speak, people came away frustrated and angry.
The second main complaint emerged from the showrunners decision regarding actions taken by certain characters. I’ll explain.
Jon Snow, the bastard son of Ned Stark (or so we are led to believe), takes the typical “hero’s journey.” The journey of our main protagonist seemed to follow the monomyth, clearly outlined by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero’s journey typically starts with a call to adventure, the death of a mentor, the descent into the abyss (death and rebirth), followed by the hero winning the day having been transformed by his experience.
For the first seven seasons of the show, Jon Snow followed this formula and people were, by and large, happy with it. The problem for Game of Thrones emerged in season 8. Instead of our hero who is on his journey defeating the Night King (who quite literally is the harbinger of death, having raised an army of zombies to do his bidding), another character kills the avatar of ice and death. That character was Arya Stark.
Arya Stark, the youngest daughter in the Stark family, uses her skills as an assassin to kill the Night King while our hero with a thousand faces watches on, unable to get to the final confrontation, let alone deal the deadly blow. The scene is beautifully shot, the music is intense, and the action is well choreographed. The only problem is: it didn’t fit her character arc. Arya’s character arc was meant to lead her into confrontation with the nobles in King’s Landing; the same nobles who took her father’s head and propelled her on her call to adventure.
By contrast, the Night King had nothing to do with Arya’s call to adventure, nor her emergence from the conflict in her character arc. The writers sacrificed good writing for a surprise, twist ending, which they thought audiences would react to. And react they did! Audiences signed petitions demanding a new ending, they punished HBO’s social media via Twitter, and review-bombed the show’s scores on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon’s customer reviews.
That behavior aside, why were audiences so displeased? I would argue it comes back to fundamental understandings of good, evil, and the monomyth that I wrote about earlier. Perhaps, most importantly, the showrunners ignored what people know about death and resurrection. Characters that die and then rise again, necessarily have to defeat evil and win the day. It’s true of fiction, but it’s also true of Christianity as well. When Jesus rises from the dead, Christianity teaches that sin, death, and the devil are defeated, the battle is over and the day is won. It wouldn’t make any sense, as far as the narrative and the story are concerned, for Christ to rise from the dead and then hand off the final victorious blow to someone else.
I’m not sure that the writers of the show would have been aware of this idea, but audiences certainly were. What is particularly neat about this, as far as Christianity is concerned, is that your average viewer still intuitively understands themes surrounding death and resurrection, good and evil, and the arc of a hero. The arc of the various heroes we read about and watch closely mirror the arc of Jesus for this very reason. Heroes like Jon Snow are meant to follow the path of Christ Jesus as they die, rise again, and defeat a powerful foe. Perhaps the predominantly negative reaction to the ending of Game of Thrones is a reminder to fans and creators that the monomyth still works for a reason, and that reason, I would argue, comes from a fondness for the Christian imagery inherent in good mythmaking.
__________
The Reverend David Keating is pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Curtis, Nebraska.
Previously by Pastor Keating…
“Greta Gerwig’s Church Nostalgia: Why Does Hollywood Miss Christianity?”
“Interstellar: Love, Time, and Space”
“Mad Men - What is Happiness? Don Draper and St. Augustine”
“Zack Snyder’s Messy Super-Jesus”
“Short Message: How Do, or Should, Christians Witness?”
“Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ - Does Christianity Have a Culture Problem?”
“Reflecting on 9/11: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”
