The <em>Game of Thrones</em> Season 5 Finale: A Bleakness Binge

Spencer Kornhaber, Christopher Orr, and Amy Sullivan discuss the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

Orr: [Long pause. Everyone, catch your breath. Maybe a glass of water? Depending on when you’re reading this, you might also want to tour the web for the horrified-reaction videos that will confirm you’re not alone. See? A perfectly normal response to extreme (televisual) trauma. You’re ready.]

So, yes, that happened. Rest assured, non-book-readers, that the mega-stabbing of Jon Snow was the last Big Terrible Moment that the George-R.-R.-Martinized among us knew was coming. For what it’s worth, pretty much no one believes Jon is going to stay dead. The two predominant theories are that Melisandre will raise him with that Lord-of-Light mojo (which we know is possible thanks to Thoros of Myr’s resurrection of Beric Dondarrion back in season three) or that he somehow wargs into his direwolf, Ghost. Melisandre’s conveniently timed return to Wall—in the books, she never left, staying behind when Stannis marched on Winterfell—is certainly in keeping with theory one.

That said, non-book-readers, you have to admit that maybe it wasn’t really that great a surprise. After all, the show has been hinting quite heavily in the direction of a Night’s Watch mutiny for weeks. Olly—a non-book character created for the show—has done pretty much everything but wander around Castle Black in a T-shirt that says “Did You Know the Wildlings Ate My Ma and Pa?”

Indeed, there’s been a notable difference between the major shocks of previous seasons (the Red Wedding, the Ned beheading, Joffrey’s not-at-all tasty helping of wine and pigeon pie) and those of this one (Sansa’s marital rape, Jon’s Ides-of-March moment, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the auto-da-fe of Shireen). The former were genuinely unexpected events (however much sense they made in retrospect), but the latter, however shocking, haven’t been nearly so surprising because they’ve been so heavily foreshadowed. I’ve mentioned this before, but despite their strong eye for drama, Benioff and Weiss lack the subtlety of Martin: They tend to go for bigger, rather than cleverer or more nuanced. This finale offered an awful lot of the former and not much of the latter.

Before discussing the many, many terrible things that happened this episode, let me get the small number of non-terrible things out of the way. First, Sam let Jon know that he had become unexpectedly sexually active, and that having learned to enjoy breaking