Why Season 5 of Game of Thrones is So Mediocre

to start out this video i want to run a little exercise with you it's probably been a while since you have watched anything from season 5 of game of thrones but i want you to try to think of a genuinely great moment from the season besides some of the main events that happen later in the season like the ones i'm showing on screen i'll give you a second to try to think of one [Music] it's hard isn't it i've made a ton of game of throne videos and i'm even struggling trying to think of one myself and i assume you know where i'm going with this and that is all the subplots within season 5 are inherently dull and are mostly just boring this is ironic given that for season 4 the subplots were basically at their peak and i talked about that in the last video but now the subplots are almost at their worst for season five so let's figure out why there was a remarkable decline in quality for these subplots looking at john stone's stannis baratheon subplot not much really happens there is barely any conflict that goes on in the night's watch for these two characters this applies for stannis especially because he acts like that weird uncle that crashes on your couch for far too long he stays at the night's watch for a total of 5 episodes and the only thing he does is ask jon stone to recruit the wildlings and for john to join his army multiple times by the way kneel before me lay your sword at my feet pledge me your service and you'll rise again as jon stark traitor who plunged a dagger in rob stark's heart don't you want to avenge him you want the wildlings to march in your army or you could see if this torment fell as more willing to compromise than manso was but the best way to help the most people might not be sitting in a frozen castle at the edge of the world this obviously becomes very repetitive given that even after getting denied by jon snow he keeps asking to the point of where it just gets awkward how long you plan to stay at castle are you bored of us already he should have just left after episode two but instead he awkwardly just stays it's as if david and dan didn't know what to do with stannis so they just left him at the night's watch to run out the clock on his eventual demise what was once an interesting character devolves into a more hollow shell of what he once was feels bad man for jon snow as well the conflict throughout most of the beginning of the season was pretty boring like i really doubt that anyone wants to watch him sign papers for this long really his only conflict was jano's slint disobeying his orders besides that though he basically just sits around running the night's watch until things finally get more interesting when he goes to hard home so in that fact staying in the same setting with very little conflict hurt these two subplots immensely for tyrion's journey at least we have some visual and setting variety but pairing him in sergio or mormont is very lackluster the dialogue between these two characters just revolves around tyrion saying something and sir jorah getting mad at him or giving a very minimal response you think daenerys will execute me and pardon you i'd say the reverse is just as likely this just ruins the strengths for tyrion as a character because a part of what makes him so engaging is his rich dialogue a primary similarity for this is tyrion's traveling companion in season one i should just take your food and leave you here what would you do then starve most likely the pairing of brawn and tyrion made for a great duo of comedy and witty dialogue that is mostly missing with the pairing of sergiora in season 5. also i noticed a trend that started this season which is tyrion constantly making crude or demeaning jokes in front of varys and him responding with a disappointed or annoyed reaction this basically happens for the entirety of their time together for their first few episodes this is where i think tyrion's initial decline as an intellectual character started because david and dan have proven that they can't write dialogue on the same caliber as george rr martin given that they kind of ran out of books after the fourth season a few other subplots that are dull that i want to mention without going into depth is jamie's subplot and having to deal with the sand snakes sansa getting tortured by ramsay daenerys having to deal with the sons of the harpy and brain of tarth just sitting around waiting for sansa to become a damsel in distress none of these subplots are anything special the sand snakes were a bunch of irritating tweens and jaime despite failing and getting captured still achieved his goal by just asking the king of dorne for marcella and him agreeing which in of itself was anti-climactic sansa getting tortured by ramsay feels redundant given that we've already experienced all that drama with theon then for daenerys she has to deal with an enemy that is basically an anonymous organization and the writers failed to come up with any engaging conflict for that subplot like does anyone really care about trying to have a fair trial for a sons of the harpy member and drama ensuing from one of your advisors disobeying your orders because of that but yeah things for that subplot really only get interesting towards the end for cersei it's hard to sympathize with her in creating a lot of unnecessary conflict given that marjorie and tommen seemed very happy together for arya a lot of her training involved her just sitting around and cleaning so that was just a massive waste of opportunity for potentially the coolest subplot overall all these subplots show a significant downturn in both writing and any meaningful or interesting conflict to drive their narratives going on to the second point we have a forced character death for the sake of action and shock value this is a small issue for the season as a whole but it signifies something much greater that impacts the entire show and because of that this point annoys me the most so david and dan the strongers of game of thrones decided to kill star barristan selmy who initially at this point in the story for the books was not supposed to die one of the main issues with forcing his character death here is a ripple effect that impacts daenerys's entire subplots this ripple being that cerberus and selmy could have had a major role to play in the mad queen arc for season 8. since sir barristan acts as an anchor for daenerys to see the good side in life this would have made him have more of a contribution to the story if he were to have died in season 8 to thus propel dany to an even more catastrophic mental state instead of missandei getting executed in season 8 it would have made more sense for sir barrison to take her place instead sir barristan is like a father figure for daenerys and throwing his character death in some meaningless scene for season 5 is insulting and building on that sentiment even more if you were to remove this ambush scene from season 5 the marine storyline would not change this ambush scene doesn't have any lasting impact besides sir barristan's death and greyworm being injured it's just a bunch of random nobodies that come out of nowhere for the sake of action a main issue with this method of writing is that it completely contrasts what game of thrones used to be in its prior seasons in season 1 for example there is like two action scenes and those two scenes had a lot of build up and had actual lasting impacts for the story bronze saves tyrion in the climactic trial by combat and jaime confronts ned stark from the consequences for lady catelyn kidnapping tyrion these scenes have meaning they are built up to and what happens heavily affects the story and its characters for this sense of the heartbeat action scene they only check off one of those boxes due to them killing an important character so david and dan take an easy way out for this action scene instead of trying to write a scene that checks off these three boxes like the first season and a part of why the first season didn't rely on action was because the writing and dialogue was so engaging and since david and dan can't rely on dialogue pre-written by george rr martin anymore they had to do something like this force action scene to make the season more interesting this is why i think this one small aspect is so insulting and also acts as one of the first red flags for game of thrones starting to lose its charm so looking at the third reason i want to go into more depth about the deterioration of writing that is done by david and dan so one of the most important aspects of good writing is for it to be purposeful for it to have purpose it needs to build the characters move the plot forward and to build a world in which the characters inhabit i'll show an example for each one of these characteristics of good writing that is violated in season 5. so first let's look at character development i think the best example that breaks this in season 5 is the development with littlefinger he actually has quite a bit of screen time in season 5 but most of his actions throughout the season go against the intellect of his character and he just becomes a dumb scheming villain for the sake of creating conflict and the main example of this is a little finger selling off sansa to ramsay the reason why this is an absolutely terrible idea is that you don't want to alienate the person that literally witnessed you killing lysa aaron you should be trying to get closer to sansa and winter over along with the veil instead of making a random pact with roose bolton the manus has made you one of the great lords of westeros yet here you are in the north undermining them i gamble with your position i mean literally anyone should know that the boltons are running on borrowed time given that they don't have the backing of the lannisters anymore the north hates them and stannis is also coming to attack them as well although that didn't necessarily pan out but my point still stands so it just seems like littlefinger makes a very stupid decision that compromises his character and that decision also turns out to be one of the main factors that leads to his death and it was seemingly all to create unnecessary conflict in sansa's storyline also in the books sansa wasn't supposed to go back to winterfell and marry ramsay so this is a change made by david and dan probably because they didn't know what to do with sansa for the second aspect of good writing it has to move the plot forward and set up future conflicts for this we have the scene between lady olenna and the high sparrow you are the few we are the many and when the many stop fearing the few so that final line you are the few and we are the many implies a future conflict that gets completely dropped in season seven and this happens because at the end of season six when cersei blows up the great sept there are no ramifications for her actions in actuality there should have been a massive revolution where the citizens of king's landing took over the right keep because as stated in season 5 you are the few we are the many so this makes some of the build up in season 5 seem like a waste of time along with it not having proper payoff later on for the last aspect of good writing that gets violated let's look at world building to me this is the most significant aspect because game of thrones has a massive fantasy world that has so much depth and for this point i have a big example which is the complete exemption of the brand storyline a part of what makes brand's storyline so interesting and powerful at this stage in the story is that he can travel to any point in time he can effectively show us any aspect of the world that is still a mystery they did this to a very small degree in season six but imagine if that subplot was extended throughout season five we could have gotten more answers to the world especially with answers regarding the white walkers but instead david and dan for some reason cop out and don't even bother including bran in season 5. i don't want to play with you anymore my only assumption for this is that david and dan couldn't come up with a good enough story and just made a shortened version of his journey in season six but yeah overall for this point david and dan show they aren't the best writers given that they sacrifice proper character development setting up the plot and building the world for the final reason as to why season 5 is so mediocre i want to go into a couple unsatisfying conclusions for this season so for the first conclusion this one has pissed off a lot of people and that is the demise of stannis baratheon the actual ending of him getting killed by bryn of tarth and losing the war is fine but the overall build-up to that conclusion made it very unsatisfying and anti-climatic this is mostly due to sanus not doing anything for most of the season as pointed out when i talked about the doll subplots however this directly affects his conclusion because there's a complete lack of any interesting or engaging build up to lead to his demise if you look at his defeat for king's landing the build-up to that fight was engaging and every dialogue seen along the way with stannis made us care more about his journey stannis deciding to kill his brother conspiring with the red priestess sees black magic his debates with davos and stannis deciding to push on even after losing a large portion of his fleet are all examples of great build up to his inevitable defeat for season 5 however a lot of this happens off screen his army just leaves in the night the storm crows rolled off last night many deserted before dawn how many nearly half melisandre eats out of there without talking about it lenny milasana was just seen riding out of camp and the weather if anything ended up beating santa's which is just stupid using weather as a plot device to hinder a character's journey is unsatisfying to watch unfold we want to see someone genuinely lose a battle instead of losing to snow we're on and out of food we can't open the supply line until the snow clears that's like saying there was a terrible storm at sea when sanus was trying to attack king's landing and he lost most of his fleet it's just bad writing instead have the characters make genuine mistakes or have the other side outsmart them at every turn similar to tyrion blowing up the blackwater this is close to what ramsay did in his strategy since he led a surprise attack against stannis but at that point in the story it was already too late and everyone knew that stannis was going to lose the only satisfying lead-up to stannis demise was the death of shireen through a true act of desperation he decided to sacrifice his daughter to the lord of lights in order to give himself better odds in the war but that was really the only interesting scene in santa's journey for season 5. for a second conclusion that is pretty unsatisfying we have the death of jon snow initially i really enjoyed this conclusion when the show was airing and i thought that the show was returning to what season 1 did and had the balls to kill one of the main characters but that wasn't really true because he's kind of an integral character to the overall story and then he ends up getting resurrected literally two episodes later this completely undercuts the severity of what happens and looking back at that conclusion it feels as though it's just there for shock value and to end the season on a crazy cliffhanger so after re-watch especially this ending loses a lot of its weight by the way i think the scene itself is enjoyable given the heartbreaking portrayal of ali but it could have been much better if david and dan gave us more scenes of john and ali actually bonding together besides ollie just being jon stewart so yeah these were my four overall points as to why i think season five of game of thrones is pretty mediocre it has dull subplots it has a forced character death that essentially marks the downfall of the show it shows off how much worse steven and dan's writing ability is and this season has some pretty unsatisfying conclusions besides a few good ones like with cersei this is also me primarily talking about the flaws of the season and there are some gems there like with hard home but anyways if you like this video analyzing season 5 then i've made 2 prior videos on season 4 and 1. the next season i'll most likely do will be season 6 and then after that i'll probably do season 7. i hope you enjoyed the video and let me know what you thought about season 5 of game of thrones in the comments

Channel: Supercuts Delight

Views: 762,707

Keywords: Game of thrones, Why Season 5 of Game of Thrones is so mediocre, Season 5, Season 5 game of thrones, Jon Snow, HBO, HBO Max, Game of thrones video essay, mediocre, video essay, GoT, Walk of shame, Hardhome, Season 5 mediocre, Supercuts delight, Supercuts delight game of thrones, Analysis

Id: zfkEqCjjGk4

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021