When the biggest villain of your show tells you that anyone who expects a happy ending isn’t paying attention, when a show trades on cruelty and violence and rape the way Game of Thrones has, then even a slanted happy ending would’ve been a huge subversion of our expectations. Truly, if the show was going to subvert our expectations, it would’ve had some semblance of a happy ending. In this final season - and specifically in the most recent episode - Game of Thrones went wide on spectacle, subversion and shock and sacrificed story and character to get it. It’s certainly quite a subversion of expectations to tell a story that’s so rooted in the present. Game of Thrones started its journey as a show where anyone could be killed and anything could happen, and it’s ending its reign as a show where nothing matters - specifically not the seven seasons which came before it. Sandor Clegane was always going to die alone and unloved, with only his brother and fire at the very end, despite everything he might’ve deserved. Jaime was always going to wind up back with Cersei, no matter what character development he went through. Instead of continuing to have any sort of thoughtful discussion or storytelling about breaking the wheel, it seems as though the message of Game of Thrones is that the wheel is unbreakable and to try to work against it is futile.ĭaenerys, this eighth season tells us, was always going to be mad, no matter what route she took or what her actions were prior. Rather than see his redemption arc through to the end, our expectations were subverted, and we instead watched an egregious example of character assassination.Īnd, finally, after spending seven seasons of talking about breaking the wheel, and setting up various characters to be breakers of the wheel - both personal cycles and ones writ large - Game of Thrones then went and subverted all of our expectations about the thematic elements it has spent 10 years setting up and writing about. We expected Daenerys Targaryen’s descent into becoming The Mad Queen to be a tragedy instead, it was an emotionless afterthought, one that was foreshadowed but wasn’t supported by either the story or characterization.Īfter tracing Jaime’s growth over seven seasons and seeing him finally break free of Cersei’s influence, we then saw him regress in the span of an episode and a half to become the same person he was in the first season. But as has been said over and over again, it’s not the what, but the how. Of course, most of us were clued into Daenerys’ fall into that which she tried so hard to fight against - the madness of the Targaryen. Which is exactly what this most recent Game of Thrones episode did. Turns out it’s very easy to shock audiences and subvert expectations when you throw out seven seasons worth of storytelling and characterization. Unfortunately, when the goal became to subvert expectations rather than tell a good story, that left very little regard to their own plot points, in-universe rules and seasons-long character arcs. Weiss decided to tell a shocking one - one which subverted the audience’s expectations with regards to both character and narrative. I have never used it, although I have seen it in books a few times.So rather than choosing to tell a narratively satisfying story, David Benioff and D.B. This is not a term or phrase that is commonly used. So you can imagine something that subverts as overturning or flipping the usual way of doing things, like a student who subverts a teacher's authority, causing chaos in the classroom. To subvert an institution like a school or a government is to overthrow it or stop its normal way of functioning. The girl who wears a tuxedo to the prom might subvert traditional ideas about beauty. When you subvert something, your words or actions criticize or undermine the usual way of doing something or common values. Come on! I was just trying to subvert expectations! Your report written in crayon was very unprofessional.ī. Star Wars: The Last Jedi did a great job of subverting audience expectations!Ī. ![]() Sometimes mistakenly used as a positive when the result in neither fresh nor interesting.Ī. Usually used in the arts when analyzing the reaction of the audience to a performance or piece of writing. To behave contrary to an established belief or assumption for the purpose of being fresh and interesting. Here's the definition from the Urban Dictionary:
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