With Season 3 of Game of Thrones just begun, I took
advantage of my maternity leave to sit down and watch the whole of Season 2
over the last few days. As I did, I had cause to ask myself a question.
Why am I watching this?
Let’s face it, Game of Thrones is marvellously well done,
but the story is downright depressing. I’ve read the books as well as watched
the TV series, and I remember being desperately angry when I discovered I had
to wait for Dance of Dragons. I bought it as soon as it was released,
and 18 months later I’ve not read it.
Why not?
I remember almost nothing of the books, except that everyone
dies. It’s as bad as a Shakespeare tragedy. Most of the characters are rotten,
and there’s slim pickings when it comes to admirable characters. Every time you
actually do decide whose side you should be on, that person gets the sword. I’m
reduced to rooting for Tyrion Lannister who, despite being a Lannister, appears
to be one of the nicer characters. He’s been hard done by as a child, unloved
by his family, not to mention unvalued for the skills he actually does have,
and appears to have a decent stab at being a good Hand of the King. He’s not
perfect, he’s definitely self-interested, and he plays politics for the sake of
it, but he has the basic decency to be revolted by the notion of killing
babies.
And on top of that, he’s funny.
In fact, without the humour injected by Tyrion, I wonder
would I watch the series? Without him, there is precious little uplifting about
the story. A throne under contention. Good men, like Ned Stark, dying. Monsters
like Joffrey in command. Babes torn from their mothers’ arms and murdered.
Rape, and pillage, and greed, and dead men walking south from the Wall, and
there’s no one I can point to who can save the day. No hero.
Epic fantasy does tend to run to grim, with worlds under
threat, and lives in the balance. Most aren’t as grim as Game of Thrones. More
usually the hopes of everyone, including the reader, are pinned on the likes of
Rand al’Thor or Richard Rahl. With heroes to light the way, to give hope, there’s
something to keep us reading past all the horror and fear. In fact, it’s the
assurance that someone will save the day that entices many readers of
fantasy; an assurance not present in the real world.
Even then, I sometimes find myself taking a break from the
doom and gloom of a world under threat to read another genre, or to lose myself
in the light-hearted comic relief of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
Humour can be important in epic fantasy. A moment of levity
can be used to highlight the horrors or to offer the reader relief from them. It’s
not a necessary element of every fantasy, and Terry Goodkind’s Sword of
Truth has been successful without much in the way of humour, but it can be
a useful part of the fantasy writer’s toolkit to avoid depressing the reader to
the point where they don’t see the point in reading on.
When writing a story as depressing as Game of Thrones,
I’d argue it may be downright critical.
Do you watch Game of Thrones? Do you like Tyrion? How many
of the other characters did you like – and how many of them are now dead?
How important do you think the humour is in Game of
Thrones?
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| Arya Stark - one of the few other likeable characters |
2 comments:
I haven't got round to watching the TV series to any great extent but I'm a huge fan of the books, and I have to agree that Tyrion's dry sense of humour is a highlight, though if it wasn't that it's so integral to his character it might jar the tone a little. For likeable characters I'd also like to nominate Jon Snow, and to an extent Daenerys Targaryen - I don't know what it is about her, I just think she's fabulous.
Absolutely, the usual rules about characterisation etc apply - you couldn't just toss in humour if it was out of character. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen would be on my list of likeable characters as well.
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