2019.05.20,

Critique

If Journalists Were In The Game Of Thrones

author_posts/nikolay-torosyan
Nikolay Torosyan

Editor of PanARMENIAN.Net

And so it ends. The 10-year era, when everyone around began discussing dragons, walking corpses and medieval political passages every Monday, came to an end.

The series has set many different records over the past 10 years, and from the very beginning, it has been loved by millions because of the apparent lack of “black and white,” the logic of the screenplay and lack of senseless steps.

The weakening of those characteristics also became the main reason for criticizing its latest episodes. Historians and military art critics criticize the gaps in the battle scenes, and critics criticize the weakness of the screenplay.

Journalists and people working with information can imagine what would have changed if some in the series had their profession or their skills.

Heroes in the film manipulate and are manipulated, they conceal important knowledge, use information for mercenary purposes, and this behavior often does not ruin, but has beautified the television series, making it so humane and interesting.

But from the journalistic perspective, not an artistic one, the behavior of the heroes is often criticized.

Thus, the irresponsible attitude of the information allows the Lannisters to succeed in the battle against the Starks at the very beginning. Ned Stark, knowing the secret of the origin of the crown prince, tries to organize a palace coup, but fails and is killed.

Stark would have faced a difficult choice if he was a journalist or had those skills. On one hand, not to damage the children of the Lannisters and respect their privacy. On the other hand, there is the question of the legitimacy of their crown, which is a priority for the public interest.

If he chose the first, he would keep silent. It is more likely that he would have chosen the second option, publicizing the secret of the Lannisters. That would hinder the Lannisters depriving them of their supporters. The throne would remain in the hands of the Baratheons, and the Lannisters would be killed or deported.

The most intriguing strangeness with regards to the dissemination of information was the last episode of the 7th season when Daenerys, Snow and others were planning to meet Cersei to discuss a possible alliance in order to fight against the approaching army.  

Snow and his friends doubted that they would be believed without proof, as the information about white walkers is fantastic even for the fantasy world (it’s possible that the population of Westeros is more media literate than the population of Armenia).  

Therefore, there is only one thing to bring to the meeting, a walking corpse, as a justification of words.

In the language of journalists, Snow and his friends go north to find the trusted and impartial proof of exclusivity that they possess.  

As a result of huge losses, including the death of one of the dragons, they bring this evidence and show Cersei… destroying it, not waiting for the end of the negotiations and the Lannister agreement.

In the language of journalists, having no exclusive copy and not understanding how it will work. And having received a refusal, they put all their efforts into finding the hard to find proof of a disaster in vain and were left empty-handed.

 

If the characters in Game of Thrones were journalists, after such a failure, the editor-in-chief, Daenerys would burn all the subordinates and she would leave the world of the 7 editorial offices and return to Esos, to find a new profession.

It’s like having an exclusive interview, showing it to one person and burning the video.

The step is also wrong with the logic of the series. In the future, the heroes again suffer from the idea that no one will believe the existence of the walking corpses.

Even after proving the Night King, when discussing further steps, it is said that they cannot play the role of the saviors since there is no evidence of a victory and there is not enough proof about the existence of the army in general.  

There were boys and girls. Instead of destroying this evidence, it could be shown in cities and villages, even trying to secretly bring them to Cersei’s capital and show the inhabitants, send ravens in all directions and take advantage of all the other sources of your world’s communications.

Instead, you showed a few people and burned it.

And in the last season, the winning team’s conflict arises as a result of the inadequacy of the information being sent on time.

Sam Tarly and Bran Stark couldn’t do anything better before the battle of humanity than to tell Jon about his origin. He does not find anything better than telling the queen, and then the family, the latter will tell the world, which leads to chaos in the ranks of allies who are in a heavy situation.

Let’s repeat, all of this did not ruin the series but made it more beautiful.

However, it can be assumed that the story of the series would change if the main characters acted as journalists.

Thus, if Ned Stark didn’t try to use the acquired news “exclusively” to overthrow the palace, but to share it with the public from the very beginning, he may have continued to live, the Baratheons would have stayed on the throne, the Lannisters would have been deported.

Daenerys, whose father they killed and who became an alien thanks to them, would become their natural ally thanks to having a common enemy. And we would see the Stark-Baratheons competition with the Targaryen-Lannister alliance, which would change the whole logic of the series.

If Snow and Daenerys could prove the existence of the Night King and the army of the white walkers to the “wide circle of the public,” they might have come out with more forces against the army of the corpses (and an even more aggravated Queen Cersei). After the victory, they would not have to stand up to prove their own heroism, and the population of the capital would have accepted them as heroes and would have remained whole.

And if Sam Tarly and Bran Stark kept the secret of Jon’s origin until the end of the war until the conclusion of the wars with the Night King and Lannisters, guided by the principle of not causing damage, there would not have been an uprising against Daenerys, there would not have been so many useless deaths, some of which being the main heroes, and again, it would have been possible to avoid the genocide.  

And after publicizing the information, we would have watched another season of Game of Thrones.

However, that did not happen. And as a regular TV audience, we only have two words to say to the creators of the most epic television series project. Thank you.

Nikolay Torosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.


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