It's OK To Critique Something You Love

I’ve seen a disturbing trend going on all over the internet in recent months. Its concerning. Its scary. And its downright boring. The notion that you cannot criticize, critique, or dislike something without being called a contrarian. Without being called a troll. Without being accused of not liking said topic you are voicing displeasure in. Game of Thrones is the current topic but it will happen on anything that has a subjective opinion, Music, movies, TV, whatever. If you don’t like something thats popular, they call it a “shtick.” They all cut and paste the same meme saying “Hating popular things doesn’t make you an interesting person.” OK, unoriginal dickhead who is repeating the same dumbass line that every other simpleton on the internet is using, please tell me how to be an interesting person.

You know what most certainly doesnt make you an interesting person? Blindly liking everything about any of your interests in life. How unrealistic is that? Do you like absolutely everything on the menu at your favorite restaurant? Do you like every single song your favorite band has put out? Do you like every player and every move your favorite sports team makes? I sincerely hope not. Because that is the very definition of a sheep. If you like something, you like absolutely every single piece of it without any room for a nuanced discussion?? What are you, like 7? I’d go as far to argue that if you lack the ability to admit that something you like isn’t always fantastic, you’re not that deep of a fan.

That is, of course, assuming you are very into Game of Thrones, or whatever topic is at hand. If you casually like a show or movie or artist, I dont expect you to be very critical or to have the same passionate opinions. If you’re just going with the flow and watching on the surface, we’re gonna view things very differently, and thats OK. I’m not worried about anybody who’s casually enjoying. But I absolutely love Game of Thrones. After the Season 6 Finale, Winds of Winter, with Cersei and the sept, I launched Thrones into “Best Show Ever” territory for my liking. And when I love something like that, I have certain standards and expectations. Once a bar is set, you get judged against that level of quality. I watched 7 seasons of phenomenal television. (6 seasons of phenomenal television and 1 pretty good season if you wanna get technical about it). I dated Game of Thrones, and then we moved in together, and after Winds of Winter I proposed. And then once you’re married you have a different relationship. You have higher demands. You hold them to a different standard than every one else. You’re tough on them because of the commitment you’ve made. Some of you are just hooking up with Thrones and just fucking your sports team, but I’m married to Thrones and the Mets. So I call them on their bullshit. I care too goddam much about those two things to just be like “Ah, whatever that was still fun!” when they fuck up.  I cant just go with the flow if they commit a huge misstep thinking “I’m just along for the ride!”

When Game of Thrones spends a decade building incredibly deep characters and complex story lines, I came to expect that same level of that development for every person, for every season. Every single person on that show is multi dimensional and dynamic. Not all good, not all bad. Nothing is black and white with any character. And when it was finally time for the Night King and the army of the dead to have their time in the spotlight, thats what I expected for him as well. After 7 seasons of very briefly teasing their ominous presence, we knew their big moment was coming with this Battle of Winterfell. After alluding to it the entire series, and essentially abandoning most of the rest of the show for the last season+ to focus entirely on the battle between the living and the dead…between good and evil…between Jon Snow and the Night King,…I thought we would get that same fantastic writing that every other major character benefitted from. We had heard the story of the Night King’s creation, and we had been told that he was created with one goal and that was to kill humanity. But much like every other character who has a purpose on the surface in this story, theres more to them than just that first impression. I thought this show simply HAD TO give us more on the Night King. Why did he begin his march of death now, after a zillion years laying dormant? What is his special connection with Bran? Why can he ride dragons? Why do they assemble body parts in a very deliberate swirling pattern? Certain questions ranging from simple curiosity to I-Have-To-Know-This-To-Be-Satisfied.

And along with the past precedent set by legit every other character and every other piece of writing, I stupidly went down the same route as I did with True Detective. Reddit threads and theories from the books and conspiracy videos and every other piece of supplementary content that the fan base created. Those two things combined gets your hopes up for some fucking awesome televsion. It happened in the early days with Lost, and then with True Detective, and its happening again. Its wild to think, but when you crowdsource discussion from the entire internet of the most diehard fans, the material that comes out is in some ways potentially better and more creative than what the writers end up delivering. We were thinking about circular time travel and warging into different minds. We were discussing what it would be like if the Night King could communicate and/or feel emotions. Could alliances be formed? Could motivations be more complicated than simply “destroy humanity.” Guess not. Night King was a zombie monster created to kill humans. He showed up to do that and only that. And the Good Guys prevailed with a Hail Mary. End of a SEVENTY EPISODE ARC. We took a detour for dozens of hours to turn into a glorified episode of The Walking Dead at Winterfell.

Now maybe youre a casual fan and you’re ok with that. But when you invest a lot of time and effort and emotions into this shit, that is horrendously anticlimactic. Maybe when your team loses in the playoffs youre the type to say “Ah well, it was still a good season. Had a lot of fun.” But I’m the type to be irrationally devastated after watching your team week after week or day after day for months on end, only to see them fail when it counts. I feel incredibly empty when you expect something based on all the previous greatness and you fall very short of said expectations. To me, Thrones is like a sports team in a TV show’s clothing. And the first couple episodes of Season 8 and the Battle of Winterfell feels like we’re down 3-0 in the Finals.

Maybe I’m too invested. Maybe I’m unfair. But I cant help but feel let down. There’s two ways to look at it – 1) Either they botched the Night King’s story by not giving him the same treatment every other major character received. Every other character you learn their initial back story and motive, and over time you see twists and turns of development. They just never did that, and thats disappointing given how important they made him in the later stages of the series, or 2) they never planned on making him that complex in the first place, and the idea that our beloved winding and weaving labyrinthine of political sabotage actually turned out to be a zombie action movie for a long time, is also disappointing.

And I have to believe its option A. I have to believe that this is the result of no longer having George RR Martin source material like they did for most of the bigger moments in earlier seasons.. I think when we look back on the series as a whole, there will be a clear divide between episodes based on the book, and episodes based on HBO writers. I think the big criticisms of the Battle of Winterfell were that its was a structurally incoherent mess and that they story telling came up short, and its no coincidence that happened without George RR Martin’s books. Its no coincidence that the die hard Stans are reduced to saying “Just enjoy the show!” or pointing to suspending disbelief or appreciating escapism. The biggest moment of the show with the most pressure on the writers to deliver is when you go with the “Stop over analyzing!” defense? Cmon now.

Now if you’ve made it to this part of the blog, you’ve heard all my arguments about which direction I wish the show went, why I think they fucked up not taking it there, and how much that disappointed me after all these years. And I guess you could read ALL that shit that I just said above and simply say “Youre a hater. This is your shtick!” To which I would say that sounds a lot like a person who cant make a counter argument or hold a discussion about any of the points being made by fans who didnt like the Battle of Winterfell. If you had some compelling arguments why the story line with the Night King being one dimensional is actually good, I’d love to hear it. Instead all I hear is “You dont really like the show!” because apparently the new norm is that you cant say anything critical while simultaneously remaining a fan of something. I’m sure some of you think that this is just KFC being KFC but what about every other one of your favorite bloggers? When Clem, one of the most positive guys and diehard fans, shares the same thoughts? What about when Dave Portnoy agrees he didnt like it? When Big Cat felt nothing but confusion? Or what about the real TV critics? The ones everyone respects and listens to. What about when Alan Sepinwall said it was trash? When Ryan McGee was sorely disappointed? I mean can this even be called a contrarian take when most everyone seems to be saying it wasnt that good? Hmmmm. Chinese riddle for ya, Rhonda.

I’m still tuning in next week hoping they pull some shit that makes me feel like an idiot. I hope we learn what Bran was doing when he warged all episode. I hope we learn what was said between Tyrion and Bran in that convo prior to battle. I’m excited to get back to my bad bitch Cersei and resume the political back stabbing. I hope episodes 4 5 and 6 and make 1 2 and 3 look incredible in retrospect. But right now, I’d love to argue and debate and discuss based on everything we’ve seen. The whole point of the internet to me – the whole point of blogs and podcasts and social media – is to give your takes and defend them. Discuss them. Change them if you’re persuaded. But instead we’ve got to a point where people just throw around words like contrarian and troll and shtick when they dont have any tangible opinions to offer up. Its a sad state of affairs. The internet used to be a different place the same way Thrones used to be a different type of show. Now both feel pretty predictable and disappointing. Would love to get back to a place where both of them are once again interesting and unexpected and a bit more complex than the average hive mind reaction of “wow Game of Thrones is amazing.” No matter what just happened.

PS – if you tell me “Well KFC theres a prequel coming out. You didnt think they’d give it away without getting you to tune in, did you?” and you think thats a reasonable defense of what just happened over the course of 70 fucking hours of TV, I’ll come to your house and smash your TV with a hammer and burn your house down. If we watched endless amounts of Game of Thrones eps focusing on the Whitewalkers only to find out its one big advertisement for another show that will occur years from now – and thats they actual reasoning for being vague about the Night King – I’ll kill someone.

PS – Maybe this is all a regional thing, I dunno? Whenever I am a tough critic of a song or a movie or a trend of any kind, the internet often confuses me. Because pretty much every time, virtually everyone I know in my day to day life often agrees with my skepticism or my cynicism. Maybe I’m an asshole New Yorker surrounded by the same type of assholes and people from the Midwest or other parts of the country cant comprehend not being satisfied all the time with everything thats popular? But I dont ever feel contrarian because I dont ever actually see anybody who is exclusively positive like that all the time. I dunno, theres some interesting psychology behind it all. Who you are, where your from, how you grew up, and what your standards for certain things are. Would love to unlock that answer one day.