Spoiler alert: character deaths on series like Game of Thrones, House of Cards and The Good Wife push limits of serialized dramas.
MACALL B. POLAY / HBO
There was a nasty surprise for one character at the wedding of King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), seen pouring wine on the head of his uncle Tyrion (Peter Dinklage).
This article contains spoilers on a number of TV programs. It’s similar to the modern series, which is one giant spoiler — at least, in the sense that it spoiled the old way of telling dramatic stories.
Just as there’s been a pronounced and unexpected shift in the way we watch TV shows — from a communal viewing experience in which we all sat down at the same time on the same night, to a fragmented one that can be indulged at any time — so has there been in the type of series embraced by viewers.
Decades ago, you could watch a show safe in the knowledge the actors starring in it would be key cogs for years and years, but you’ll get no such guarantee these days. That’s because TV has entered the age of sudden death. And the wildly successful Game of Thrones (Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO) has paved the way by swinging the meanest scythe, killing off characters with no regard for the audience’s affection (or malice, as the case may be).
As we’re seeing in the first episodes of its fourth season, Game of Thrones isn’t shying away from its reputation as the medium’s bloodiest production: it’s ramping up the body count. In seasons 1 through 3, fans had to wait until closer to the finales for the untimely ends of characters; this year, we’re just three episodes in and there’s already been a jaw-dropping death, with rank villain King Joffrey murdered by an unknown poisoner.
It wasn’t long ago the death of a character on a hit series meant one of two things: an actor’s contract demands were sufficiently exorbitant to offend the producers and get them written off the show; or an actor actually had died and their role wasn’t recast.
The predictability of most series was wonderful for a star looking to lock into a multi-year, multimillion contract but significantly lowered the stakes of the plot. Did anybody really believe Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer was going to die on 24? Of course not. He was the show’s centrepiece, which meant he would always live another day.
That mentality began changing when Game of Thrones premiered on HBO in spring 2011. Scottish actor Sean Bean was the cast’s most recognizable name and his Ned Stark was quickly established as the series’ lead character. So when Stark found himself endangered near the end of Season 1, viewers unfamiliar with the books on which the show was based fully expected him to be rescued. It didn’t happen. Stark was beheaded and the audience was horrified and captivated all at once.
The show’s willingness to discard key figures comes from its source material and its author, George R.R. Martin. This isn’t to say Martin is a sadist who delights in making his readers suffer; rather, it’s a measure of his respect for them.
“As a reader, or as a viewer of television and film, I always like unexpected things,” Martin told Conan O’Brien last June. “We’ve all seen the movies where the hero is in trouble. He’s surrounded by 20 people, but you know he’s gonna get away ’cause he’s the hero. You don’t really feel any fear for him.”
You definitely feel fear watching Game of Thrones. Series producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have cultivated an aura of constant dread and, after last season’s infamous “Red Wedding” and this season’s “Purple Wedding,” viewers are justified in worrying about the future of anyone onscreen. But the increasing appeal of Game of Thrones and its method of doing dramatic business has caused other series to follow its approach.
In Season 2 of Netflix’s House of Cards, the producers killed off Kate Mara’s character, who was the conscience and protagonist of Season 1. Julianna Margulies’ The Good Wife stunned its fan base in late March when lawyer Will Gardner (Josh Charles) was shot to death in a courtroom. And the brand new series Fargo, starring Billy Bob Thornton, saw a character who appeared to be key to the plot murdered by the end of the first episode.
When Ned Stark was decapitated, the safe way of storytelling was as well.
The new direction of the modern drama is a nod to the bleak world we inhabit: a world where we don’t have to leave the house to learn gruesome details about sudden and awful events that change the lives of humans in an instant. The Disneyfied happy ending works for kids but rings hollow for the rest of us.
And it’s not just about the killing of characters. Breaking Bad was a series-long spoiler.
The old way of doing things would have seen the producers redeem Bryan Cranston’s Walter White. He would have been brought to a morally appropriate epiphany that would leave the viewer with a warm feeling about humanity. But showrunner Vince Gilligan was not about to travel that road. Like Martin, he wasn’t interested in redemption or rainbows.
Game of Thrones has demonstrated we can have dramatic TV fantasies without them being preposterously fantastic. It has raised the bar for televised tension and rendered obsolete the traditional limits of what a series could do.
If audiences are asked to believe anything is possible, the least storytellers owe us is a demonstration it’s true. Game of Thrones recognized and embraced that notion, and TV drama is eternally better, if not safer, for it.
Adam Proteau is a columnist for the Hockey News. He can be reached via email at aproteau@thehockeynews.com and on Twitter @ProteauType
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