(What happened with the wig budget, we'll never know.)įor any GoT watchers who still doubt that the show is just a soap opera with direwolves, "Eastwatch" will clear away those doubts and prove that, yes, this is the soapiest thing currently on TV, but that's just fine-in fact, that's why it's as compelling as it is. (The fact that a woman can be fierce and fearless in a leadership role is not a subversion merely because it isn't done enough.) In truth, the show's most subversive element is that it has employed soap opera tropes-sudden deaths of main characters! unlikely revivals of those dead main characters! surprise pregnancies! mistaken identities! murder plots! twins!-but presented them in a way that screams "prestige," by casting incredible actors, shooting in sumptuous locations, and spending tons of money to make dragons and zombies look like real, living (or not-so-living, as the case may be) beings. ![]() Other than sharing an air time on Sunday nights, Game of Thrones doesn't have anywhere near the nuance or character development of those shows it doesn't subvert archetypes, it reinforces them. Last week, Ira Madison III, who both writes for the Daily Beast and is the best person on Twitter, wrote that Game of Thrones is "actually a soap and not a drama." Madison's assertion undoubtedly ruffled a few GoT fans' feathers, because the hugely popular series is often held up as an example of Peak TV, and talked about in the same breath as shows like The Wire, Mad Men, and Twin Peaks.
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