Game of Thrones Goes Off Book

*No spoilers this time!*

Well, Game of Thrones is back in style- sort of. There were some heart in the mouth moments, some seriously-did-they-just-kill-another-good-guy moments (hey- that’s not spoilery- it’s Game of Thrones) and some parts where people repeated sentiments they had 4 seasons ago and I just wanted to nudge the plot along.

Just to whiz through some of my favourite bits, the opening and ending scenes in Castle Black were dark and gritty and quite excellent. Davos reminded me why I love him; Melisandra reminded me why she freaks me out. I swear if the whole episode had just stayed in the north (including the brief but epic Sansa scenes- *squeals all round for that bit*) then I’d have been a very happy bunny. But immediately after Sansa had done her bit, it hopped down south for what felt like a bit of a recap and some predictable back-stabbing.

Which was fine- the problem wasn’t really the physical direction of the story, but how disconnected all the scenes felt from each other. In the past, Game of Thrones was able to beautifully balance one story or theme across all the different board games. Here that just didn’t happen. I suppose that’s in part due to how big the story has become. It just doesn’t have the cohesiveness it used to and I wonder how long it will take before it starts to feel like one story again.

But that’s being super nit-picky because it’s still Game of Thrones and it’s still awesome. I think it’s fair that they used the first episode to set the scene, pick up all the threads of the old stories and set the tempo for the rest of the series. I’m just not sure if it’s going to be the calibre of seasons 1-4, or a bit lacklustre like last season. At the moment there are parts that feel a bit repetitive and are bordering on boring (I seriously don’t know whether I’m ever gonna care about the Sand Snakes- I should– but I don’t). We shall have to wait and see how this continues…

I hope you enjoyed that- I’m planning to do reviews of all the upcoming episodes of Game of Thrones (just cos!)- which may in the future get quite spoilery, fairly fangirly and very excitable!