![]() ![]() Dissent had been brewing under Robb, such as the incident with the Karstarks. That’s how it goes sometimes in the real world. Robb Stark had all the elements of being the next hero: he was the son of the previous fake-out protagonist, was charismatic and gifted in war…but he angered a lot of people and was assassinated for his mistake. The Type B argument is similar to Ned’s death. This is a little of Type A and a little of Type B. GRRM put a character in an awful situation that would normally call for a heroic escape, then dashed our hopes. Of course he takes the opportunity to execute a threat to his power. Joffrey is impulsive, short-sighted, and bloodthirsty. It’s not about how the story usually goes it’s about how these characters in these situations would act. Martin is sending the message that he follows through on his threats. It’s a genre subversion, plain and simple. Joffrey impulsively demands Ned’s head right then and there because he wants to feel like a badass. Ned Stark’s execution showed us that the good guys don’t always win. Maybe Joffrey will want to establish himself as a kind and merciful king. Maybe Tywin or Cersei will convince him of the strategic importance of not inciting the North to rebel. Someone will convince Joffrey to see reason. Sure, he was sentenced to death, but come on. He has a lot of unfinished story and a major mystery in his backstory (Jon’s mother). He’s caught up in the subplot about Robert’s heirs being illegitimate. He’s advertised as the only honorable noble in Westeros. Ned Stark is the apparent protagonist of the series at that point. ![]() This is a classic case of Type B, especially if you read the book before Sean Bean was cast in the role. So let’s take a look at some of the major plot twists in Game of Thrones and classify them. This can be a great way to add tension, false hope, or a creeping sense of doom. The story can be taken at face value after all. Characters say what they are going to do, audiences reject that idea and assume that a twist is going to happen, and then it doesn’t. Other times, the author makes a seemingly random decision simply for the value of a surprise. This leads to the audience shaking their heads and asking, “WTF?” There will often be a faction who will try to explain how the twist works if you read between the lines while making certain assumptions, but at its heart, the writer didn’t lay the groundwork to make the twist feel fair. Again, the author badly wants to surprise the reader and guards information so tightly that the audience isn’t even aware that information is being withheld. It can also leave them feeling manipulated because they were denied the tools to see where the story might go. This can cause the audience to give up on theorizing because they know they don’t have the information to make a reasonable guess. The writer badly wants to surprise the reader with a twist, so writes in a secretive fashion: unreliable narrators, missing scenes, time skips, and generally making it clear to the audience that information is being withheld. Sometimes it leaves the reader thinking, “Wow, they actually went there.” The genre subversion throws out the usual rules of the genre to make some kind of statement about it. After reading or watching a few stories in a genre, the audience has a pretty good idea of where these things go. Westworld Season 1 is a great recent example. When they find the solution, the audience wants to rewatch/reread to look for all the clues they missed. As the story goes on, possible solutions get pruned one at a time. The audience treats the story as a puzzle and comes up with many solutions. This leads to a deep level of engagement, with water cooler talk and vibrant online forums full of fan theories. The audience know they are missing information and are looking for clues. There are a lot of ways to handle this, and they often stem from the motives of the author. You want the audience to think the story is going one way, then jerk the wheel to the left and drive the plot somewhere else. As the author, your job is to control the flow of information, misdirect, build multiple sets of possibilities, and set expectations. When you want to surprise readers, or have plot twists, it affects how you write. I’m going to use a few major events from the show as examples, so if you haven’t finished the series, click away now because there will be spoilers. After the finale of Game of Thrones, I’ve seen the phrase “subverting expectations” being used as a tongue-in-cheek euphemism for “bad writing.” So let’s talk about plot twists. ![]()
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