Game of Thrones and Black Mirror

## **Fixing HBO's *Game of Thrones***

HBO's Game of Thrones is undoubtedly one of the most popular TV shows within the last decade. Game of Thrones has rightfully earned one of the highest average ratings on IMBd. It would be an understatement to say that every component of the show is seemingly perfect; the masterfully composed score, the acting, dialogue, story, and the cinematography are all quite phenomenal. Over the course of the show’s lifetime, nearly every single aspect of the show started strong and only improved with time. Except for one: the story. There are primarily two reasons why the story regressed over time, the rushed pacing and the show writer’s disregard for character arcs. These issues are most apparent within the last couple seasons of the show.

### **Pacing**

The world within Game of Thrones is slowly and methodically developed over a long period of time, but this pacing completely changes during the seventh and eighth season. One reason for this is the length of the final two seasons compared to the previous seasons. Seasons one through six had ten episodes each, while season seven had seven episodes and season eight had six episodes. This resulted in a significantly rushed pace within the final seasons, for instance characters quite literally teleported across the world within a single cut and the events within the world felt extremely abrupt. In order to fix the pacing issue, one solution would be to give the final seasons more episodes. This would allow for more respect for time within the world. With more time, key events and turning points of the show would not have to occur so abruptly. For example, the Night King, the show’s biggest threat which is literally developed from the first episode of the show, would not be killed in one episode. The show could have spent more episodes in order to build up the battle to be much more climactic. In addition, Daenerys Targaryen’s descent into madness would not occur in two episodes, but instead could slowly occur over several episodes, therefore becoming a much more believable part to her arc. Overall, more episodes would enable more room for believable character development and believable events within the world.

### **Character Arcs**

The next problem with the final seasons of the show is the disregard for character arcs. Nearly all of the characters within Game of Thrones are dynamic and go through a long change over the show. However, at the end of the show, these gradual changes are disregarded and disrespected; characters actually regress and characters are given moments which are not in line with their arcs. For instance, the character Jon Snow spends his entire arc trying to become a leader for humanity and constantly tries to warn people about the Night King’s threat. However, Jon Snow does not end up killing the Night King, the show writers decide to let his sister kill the Night King. Instead, Jon Snow should have been the one to kill the Night King. This would be a satisfying way to end his arc because from the very beginning, his goal is to warn people about the Night King’s inevitable threat. Instead of his sister finishing his job, he should have gotten support from all the characters around him to enable him to finish the Night King. The next instance is Jaime Lannister. Jaime is, at first, an extremely dislikable character from the beginning of the show. As the show progresses, however, Jaime’s actions make him into one of the most loved characters of the show. Jaime learns much more love and humanity throughout the show and he slowly starts to leave Cersei’s side. But, at the end of the show, Jaime decides to run away to die with Cersei. This decision was hated by many, and instead, Jaime should have killed Cersei. This would be the best way to end his arc; Jaime ultimately learns that Cersei is a terrible person for all of her actions and that he should no longer love her. He learns that Cersei goes against everything he learns over the show and decides that he should kill her.

## **Fixing Netflix's *Black Mirror* Season 5 Episode 3 ("Ashley Too")**

Netflix’s show Black Mirror is often regarded as a modern masterpiece. The show delves deeply within the science fiction genre and mostly examines aspects of modern society and consequences of technologies. Black Mirror features masterful writing that grips and twists the audience until the very end with nearly every episode. With the most recent season, however, critics and fans agree that the show is starting to take a downhill path. Upon analyzing the show’s third episode in the most recent season, one glaring issue of the show is predictability of the plots. Using Black Mirror S05E03 as an example, predictability seems to be an increasing issue within the series. Specifically, the poisoning of the main character and the actions during the climax should be changed.

### **Ashley's Coma**

One particular issue within this episode is the fact that Ashley, a mainstream artist who creates music, is put into a coma through her food being laced with poisoned. This specific action within the episode feels lazy and the scene itself was very predictable. Instead, one way Ashley could have been put in a coma could have been through some sort of mechanism that was implanted into her brain. During this episode, it is revealed that Ashley had her consciousness implanted into dolls called “Ashley Too”. Therefore, it is actually plausible that people within the world could have accessed mechanisms in her brain to put her into a coma. This issue is one which Black Mirror could genuinely explore. Perhaps in the future, progression through technology and science results in ways to control the brain through chips in order to eradicate neurodegenerative diseases. But this technology also has the side effect of companies having access to the brains of its customers. Consciousnesses can be examined and specific functions of the brain can be turned off remotely. This is just the surface of an idea that could have been implemented within the episode to make it more thematically consistent with the earlier seasons of the show.

### **Climax**

The biggest missed opportunity within this episode is the climax. During the climax, the Ashley Too robot kills her human self. The characters around her are in shock, but the robot exclaims “I’m still alive! I still count! I’m still me!”. Although the robot kills her human self, her consciousness within the robot argues that she still exists and merely just put her human self out of misery. Then, the human Ashley is somehow revived and the show resolves into a happy ending for everyone. This is the specific moment that needs to be changed. The human Ashley should have remained dead and the show should have explored the idea of multiple brains of one person existing at a time. Not only does this enable deviation from the extremely predictable happy ending that the episode was given, it is thematically in line with the type of conflicts Black Mirror always explores. Although the multiple consciousness issue has been used in a previous episode, the contexts are quite different, therefore allowing for a different perspective on the issue. Will her consciousness live forever inside of the doll? Is life actually worth living when your consciousness is constrained to a mechanical doll? These are just a couple of questions that could have been explored through this topic, for instance. This bittersweet and thought provoking ending feels much more natural for Black Mirror, a show which gained much of its popularity through the unpleasant questions and situations of the brilliant writing within previous episodes.