Here is a review from someone who doesn't watch Game of Thrones.
I've never been enchanted by Game of Thrones. There may be a perverse strain in my character, but when something becomes so ridiculously popular, when my Twitter feed becomes swollen with people raving and OMG-ing about something, when people keep poking me in the chest, insisting you have got to watch this I naturally flinch from it. I start to dig my heels in. Indeed, the mania for Game of Thrones has provoked me to dig my heels in so far and so deep I fear I may dunt a koala.
But I had to watch this final episode, Mother's Mercy, because this is a TV column after all, and Game of Thrones is surely one of the most spectacular things on the box, so there were two choices: I could try valiantly to catch up with the previous episodes, and do hours of Wikipedia cramming, learning the hundreds of Lannister and Stark names and relationships, or I could just throw myself into it as a trembling inncoent.
I chose the latter option because there isn't enough time - no, not enough time in the world - to get acquainted with this show now.
Amidst the constant and exhausting deaths, the strongest scene was Cersei's naked 'walk of atonement' because it involved silence and facial expressions and nuance. What a powerful, haunting interlude it was as she stepped down into the crowd with a woman cowled in grey following her, tolling a bell and repeating, 'shame' at her naked back. Unfortunately this powerful scene couldn't be allowed to continue in this awesomely muted manner, because this is Game of Thrones, so it soon descended into howling, with the crowd pelting Cersei with dung and screaming 'whore' at her. One yokel from the crowd dangled his penis and screamed obscenities in her face. (Was this comical little glimpse of the penis meant to correct the balance, and stop complaints on Twitter that the show is obsessed with the naked female?) Soon, Cersei's naked body was streaked in blood. She stumbled, and the camera lingered on her as she squatted naked on all-fours. 'Shame' the voice kept repeating, and it was. It's a shame to always trample on anything subtle and to stamp and ruffle it into violence.
I don't object to violence on TV but I resent it when it's simply done for its own sake, rather than to advance a scene or shade a character. So much of this episode just seemed like a constant list of deaths, murders to be ticked off, though I appreciate this tiresome procession of killings may have meant more had I been a dedicated follower of the series. Without the back story this was often just an endless ream of stabbings, slashings, gougings and jumpings from high castles.
So I didn't enjoy this, but it's my own fault as I don't follow the show. I assume I'd be swooning, raging and chattering online with the rest if I did. Yet when I do look at the online debate surrounding Game of Thrones it's all rather bad-tempered. People are angry that the show is deviating from the novels, or that it's too violent, or they're raging that the author isn't writing his books fast enough. It's all sour, but one thing does unite the grumblers, and that's a furious obsession with Game of Thrones. I can relish and respect that, I just don't share it.
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