“My Name is Dickon, and That Name Means Something
by Aaron Bady”
“The argument from names wants to subordinate all the messy, senseless chaos—in a show whose plotlines are as mixed up and tangled and confusing as a battle between two Iron Fleets of basically identical ships, filled with basically identical pirates, all fighting under the same squid-kraken banner, at night—but regardless of how individual fights turn out, the show is eventually going to have to decide if names mean anything: do bloodlines and names and prophecies actually prove true? Or is it just some bullshit that powerful people sell?”
“The show has been teasing us with ICE + FIRE = CLIMAX for the entirety of its existence, but if there’s one thing that’s more boring than Dany and Jon joining forces, or dragonfire against ice zombies, it’s the predictable slide into Chosen One narratives and prophecy nonsense. Like Homeric poetry, Game of Thrones is at its best when something truly surprising happens and we watch intelligent, desperate people scheme an improvised response. But if it’s all planned out, epithets just demonstrate a lack of imagination, the kind of paint-by-number plotting that only has one color paint.”