Game of Thrones 8 – Finale – Stoppage.

After 8 years of complex and well-told stories, with characters that have impressed and captivated the audience, the series ends with sequences of illogical events that lead to an uninspired and no longer complex and interestingly told stoppage.

The first 30 minutes of the final episode were a consistent and likely continuation of the previous episode. The figure of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) sets off in search of his siblings and is shocked by their death. Jon-Aegon (Kit Harrington) tries to prevent last mad acts in the destroyed city, but he did not succeed because he does not reveal his true identity. The figure of Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson), on the other hand, has blindly adopted his queen’s madness and one of those who has given up his identity carries out her orders mercilessly as a No-One.

game-of-thrones-season-8-finale-grey-worm-jon-snow-1558351314

Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) continues to show her true character traits as a fascist commander who calls for a ‚total war‘. Where do the many Unsullied and Dothraki fighters suddenly come from in such flocks, after being considerably decimated in both previous battles?

Larson-GoTFinale

The figure of the Tyrion gets a little honor back when he dares to quit as the hand of the queen. Arrested and incarcerated, he can convince Jon-Aegon that the only rescue – for himself and Westeros – can come from him by keeping Daenerys from further mad deeds that would also hit him, Jon, and his sisters. No sooner said than done. Jon-Aegon stabs the mass murderer, amazingly still beloved by him. The fact that the dragon child notices this immediately and approaches it, also lies just in the logic of the previous narrative. Also, that he does not murder Jon-Aegon, but lets the throne melt away, can be believed just yet, within the logic of the previous narrative. So far so good. But then we experience a radical change in the quality of the dramaturgy, like the narrative.

drogon-burn-throne_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgraGopcmrrTFxIoxHKfHPJqoT6mMBMkp7SOuCpLJHS8

From this moment on, illogical sequences of events meet a persiflage of the previous series.

The dramaturge first wonders how Grey Worm and everyone else knew that Jon-Aegon had stabbed Daenerys. There was nobody there and the dragon flew with her into the far distance before anyone could see her being murdered with their own eyes. Did Jon tell everyone what he did? Why should he? So, how does Jon get into the dungeon, and that without objection of any of the others from those characters still alive? Got Grey Worm so powerful that no one could stand up to him and stop him from threatening Jon with the death penalty? Unlikely, in the sense of the story as it got told so far. Has Arya suddenly lost all her abilities or for whatever reason has given up her trust and hopes in the brother who is now a cousin? The Arya from the episodes before would have been able to free him, for example.

Then, when it comes to appointing the new king, everyone, including Sam (John Bradley) and Bran (Isaak Hempstead Wright), have forgotten that Jon would be the rightful heir to the throne, although until a few minutes earlier everyone still assumed that he should be the one and only king of Westeros, and both did everything they could to make him and others aware of it. What happened to them? Do they resent his love for Daenerys? But he separated from her in the most drastic way imaginable. This ending presented in the last hour of the series is therefore also illogical, in the sense of the previous action. Even Tyrion has forgotten this fact, which just saved his life because he would have been cremated by the dragon by now, and now suggests Bran be the new king and Jon to stay prisoner, why? Because of the knowledge that he gathered through his spiritual abilities? If so, Sam could have been king there too. And why is Sam suddenly wearing a monk’s robe?

Who quickly rebuilt the hall that had just been destroyed and who repaired the chairs in no time in which the king’s advisers now sit together?

It is completely absurd, dramaturgically seen, that Jon returns to Castle Black, and welcomed there by Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) and then Jon rides further north with his old buddy, fishing and hunting? To enjoy the life as buddies?

game-of-thrones-season-8-finale-spinoff-sequels

The decision for the figure of Arya can be interpreted a little bit more positive and consistent because she got developed into a person who does not fit into the moral concept of this Westeros, behaves against the rules and carries the only blink of a reflection of feminism within the series. To move on corresponds to the activities of this character as they were shown in the course of the action. In this sense, her journey beyond the borders known so far represents a consequent end when Westeros is placed in the hands of an asexual spiritual leader who is balanced with men who are devoted to alcohol and enjoying to spend time with prostitutes, with one who is allowed to wear a monk’s robe despite having a family, and a deceived woman who nevertheless worships her lover.

Bran, the new king, prefers to go for spiritual hunting the dragon instead of discussing the matters of reconstructing and consolidating the kingdom after these disastrous events?

So much narrative effort, with gods, Satan, choice, secrets, family ties, but at the end we must listen to a discussion about the reconstruction of brothels; and that Jon is changed and not presented accepting to be not Aegon after all and although he did a few episodes back in the family crypt, but in the heartache suddenly mutated into a character who doesn’t care about anybody else? So many lives/characters sacrificed to get him, the chosen one, at the throne, and then he gets shown to have decided for fishing.

Dramaturgically speaking, this end makes little sense – in my view – except that it could in principle allow HBO the option of a sequel. From a dramaturgical point of view, this end has little to do with the plot told for over 85 hours or more. And an ingenious and surprising postmodern twist on declaring everything to be the author’s dream or imagination this end does not offer either, although the series has operated to some extent with the aesthetics of postmodern cinema. But also in postmodern movies, there is a logic in presenting such a twist, which gets prepared long before it happens, due to the fundamental rules of film dramaturgy.

A good ending is crucial. In film dramaturgy, everything is composed to drive towards the ending; and to achieve this requires a well-woven story, that is within the framework of the conventions one set for the plot as logical as possible and presenting a probably evolving progressive chain of events. In a film, unlike to a novel, the ending must be a consequence resulting from the course of the plot. The rules of the literary narrative are a little different from those of film drama, which has its roots in theatre and performing narrative. A cinematic narrative is bound to a time-space continuum, it is perceived by the audience at the moment. The film is ‚time-based‘, therefore the dramaturgy for an observing audience must be organised in such a way that the events result in an interplay of family structures and surprising twists and turns or a surprising arrangement, as well as a logical and probable development within the framework of the cosmos, presented and its rules. The crux here is that the last hour of this series does not correspond to the conventions of the imagined cosmos in which the action takes place; and thus is not in the least logical and probably a result of the action. This disappoints the really large fan-audience as well as the few academics who have followed this series with interest. This also reduces the chance for a successful sequel, as the disappointed fans will now hardly hope for a continuation.

While the „Game-of-Thrones-Dramaturgy“ has so far been spoken of with admiration, this final episode has also destroyed this enthusiasm. There are three possible theories for understanding or interpreting this end: Maybe it was the concession of the serial makers to an end, which was perhaps decided by RR Martin? That he is the less talented narrator, who weaves in many ideas, religious and occult sparkles as references like hints, but who is not always able to organise the narrative strands in an interesting way, which can easily be understood when comparing the novels to the first seasons of the series. Or was it just trying to get rid of the fans? Or, however, the authors of the series have gone upside down and wanted to create a more modern end (in sense of diversity, with the man in the wheelchair and the small adult plus all outcasts, that make it to the top jobs by scarifying the one who is most outcast of them all and designed in the tradition of the Western genre?) than their previous narrative allows. or, this is a much more speculative and – my apologies – ironic one, is it a try to reflect on contemporary politics, to see misogynists and a spiritual character who might be a reference to a TV character as the new heads of politics.

 

Kerstin Stutterheim

 

Selected bibliography for further reading:

ECO, U. 1977. The Open Work of Art, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp.

KLOTZ, V. 1980. Closed and open form in drama (1969), Munich, C. Hanser.

KLOTZ, V. 1998: The dramaturgy of the audience: How stage and audience interact, especially with Raimund, Büchner, Wedekind, Horváth, Gatti and in political agitation theatre, Würzburg, Königshausen and Neumann.

RANCIÈRE, J. 2006 The aesthetic unconscious, Zurich [et al.], Diaphanes.

RANCIÈRE, J. 2011. The emancipated spectator, London, Verso.

STUTTERHEIM, K. 2015. Handbook of applied dramaturgy. Vom Geheimnis des filmischen Erzählens, Frankfurt am Main et al., Peter Lang Verlag.

STUTTERHEIM, K. 2019. Modern Film Dramaturgy, London and New York, Routledge.

STUTTERHEIM, K. & LANG, C. 2013. Come and play with us Dramaturgie und Ästhetik im postmodernen Kino, Marburg, Schüren.

 

Women in Film and TV productions V – Female Characters and Gender Construction in ‚TOP OF THE LAKE‘

by Kerstin Stutterheim

Gertrud Stein once wrote that it takes hundred years, three generations, to change habits and narratives. Is Generation One still in charge? And, can the American Way of Life (and thinking) and thus film productions using following the “American Dramaturgy” (cf. Frenz 1962, Stutterheim 2015, pp153) give us a model for living today and the future?

Fatherhood, motherhood, and the biological family are core elements of the “American Narrative” (cf. Fiedler 2017 , Gelfert 2006). And that specific form of designing the narrative, and much more importantly the implicit dramaturgy, mirrors the culture and feeds back into the understanding of gender, hierarchies and more into the Anglo-American film industry, thus the global world as well.

An unwritten rule of designing a successful movie or series for US-American or British audiences involves the narrative referring to conservative Jewish-Christian believes, which are mingled with historical experiences thus priming the Cultural Memory (cf. Assmann 2010, Assmann 2002, 2004, Gelfert 2006) of these nations. And, apparently, one can find here traditions, topics, and themes from the American Novel transformed into elements of “American Dramaturgy”. The novel emerged as the new mass medium. (Fiedler 2017 44) It’s core elements are a result out of the shift from Catholicism (or other religions respecting female Goddesses) towards the father-cantered Protestantism, which was the religion of the new mass of that time in the developing United States of America. (Fiedler 2017 44)

Other elements of “American Dramaturgy” reflect the influence of ‘the Code’ and its moral stakes for representational spaces towards Hollywood (Maras 2016, pp1) and film productions elsewhere.

The series Top of the Lake is an American-British co-production for Sundance TV and BBC One. Jane Campion and Gerard Lee wrote the series. Season one is directed by Campion and Garth Davis.

Although the main character – at least for season one – is a young female character, Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss), the overall narration again follows the ‘American dramaturgy’ – a version of that old story. The first season is about sexual abuse and paedophilia intertwined with questions of fatherhood, relationships and family. Young Robin, who usually lives in Sydney, is visiting her dying mother Grishina (Skye Wansey) in New Zealand. The mother-daughter-relationship is overshadowed by an event from their past, fitting the model of an analytical drama as well as a crime story. Robin remembers her father as the better parent. Soon after her arrival Robin becomes involved in a case of sexual abuse of a very young girl, Tui (Jaqueline Joe). Tui is the 12-year-old daughter of a bad macho and drug dealer, Matt (Peter Mullan) and an Asian woman who no longer lives with Matt’s patchwork family. Since Robin’s character is introduced as a specialist in cases involving children, this is in the beginning reasonable enough to make us believe she could be asked to join this department; besides which, the story is situated on the South Island, where the capital is located and thus very likely there may exist a specialist too.

Robin is set up as a detective who tries her best to solve the case. In the beginning, her character acts professionally in as much as she has to keep voyeuristic policemen at a distance and to be the only one Tui is communicating with. The promising start, reminding one of such series as The Killing (here I refer to the original Danish production, not the US adaptation), is soon interfered by Robin’s backstory and diminishing the gestus of professionalism, inviting the audience to fall back into or a typical critical-incredulous look at her.

Thus, the narration is split into different levels – central is the case, secondary the private story of Robin. In dramatic tradition usually telling a story this way – divided into a ‘collective’ or more general level and one private thread – would indicate an ‘open form’. But within this model of narration one doesn’t need a backstory and definitely not a Happy Ending. The way the narrative is set up for Top of the Lake mixes traditions of narration but focussing more on drama traditions derived from the hero driven tragedy in combination with ‘the journey of the hero’. The latter brings us clearly back to patriarchal Christian-puritanical worldviews (cf. Campbell 1949). As one can see, these are dominant against the modern approach of using an open form.

In the backstory, in the private thread, it is told that Robin was raped as a 16-year-old girl and got pregnant as result of it. Her Catholic mother did not allow an abortion. Thus Robin became a mother but gave her baby away for adoption the very next day after giving birth.

There is also an additional storyline of a group of women who set up a community close by in a place called ‘paradise’. These women have different stories to tell and to overcome, all related to relationships with men. At some point as well Tui and Robin have to ask for shelter there. Paradise is situated at the end of a dead-end street close to the end of the world surrounded by a most beautiful landscape. Is this a place to be compared with monasteries from Middle Ages, which accommodated women having physical, psychological or monetary stigmas from a male point of view, labelled as ‘unfuckable’?

While Robin is working on the case, she has to encounter not only voyeuristic colleagues but as well an increasingly abusive boss and one of her rapists. With a closer look, it becomes evident that the action of season one is designed in such a way that the enthusiasm Robin is investing in solving the case appears more and more like displacement behaviour to processing her own traumata and not so much the action of a professional detective. This approach by the authors/directors of telling her story supports two other old stereotypes within Anglo-American narratives. The first one is that working women are acting more emotionally than logically and that they are working intensely and passionately (only) to overcome trauma, disappointment or misbehaviour excluding them from their social group – as becoming a single mother no matter the circumstances. One influential novel in this regard is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Hawthorne and Murfin 2006), which shines through the pattern of the construction of Robin’s story as well. For example, when Robin finds out that everyone in the police department knows she has been raped as a young girl and Elisabeth Moss as Robin is directed as sitting there stunned and tears forming in her eyes or stunned and tearful.

By surviving all this she is not only proving her ability to solving the case, rescuing the girl and the baby, but as a reward, the prospect of sentimental love lies ahead for her. The happy ending as establishing a man-woman-relationship in love is another traditional element of American Narratives, grown out of the American Novel representing the worldviews of the protestant/puritan bourgeoisie (Fiedler 2017 pp 44) transformed for the movies by the founder generation of Hollywood (Gabler 1989).

Season two was broadcasted recently, again written by Gerard Lee and Jane Campion; directed by her and Ariel Kleiman. China Girl tells the story of Robin coming back to Sydney, after years of having a not-much-defined break from the police work. The authors trigger a presumption seeing her having been at home with her beloved Jonno. An intense emotional private disappointment spurred her to return to the police force she left years ago, but no one other than her boss seems to know her from these earlier times.

With the very first episode, the character becomes damaged. Firstly, when Robin is inappropriate reacting to a provocation in a common situation, in front of the whole department and some superior men observing the event. Secondly, she is presented drinking beer regularly after duty. By doing so, she is endangering her brother who managed to overcome his drinking habits. Soon she gets her new case – a murdered China Girl. She is supposed to solve this case together with her colleague Miranda Hilmarson (Gwendoline Christie) and all other staff of the department, one of them attracted to Robin from the very first meeting at the corpse. He is trying every possible way to start any kind of relationship with her.

The murder case leads Robin and her team into a milieu of prostitution and surrogacy. Correspondingly, the theme of season two mirrors and potentiates themes of season one – now it is biological motherhood, prostitution, abuse, and men seeing themselves as superior to women.

From a dramaturgical point of view interestingly, Robin is no longer the main character. As a very dominant antagonist to Robin, a pimp called ‘Puss’ (David Dencik) is established, and besides the actor speaking with an East-European accent, he is also called ‘the German’. Pervasive is the character not only as lousy character dominating and exploiting a group of women, terrifying people around him but more importantly as a character who is designed to be controlling the progress of the action. Actions this character got from the author-directors bolstering him driving the story, not the detective. She is designed as a much more reacting character than in season one.

This pimp has a similar hairstyle to Matt in season one, and he appears as an incarnation of the “Eternal Wanderer of Misogynism”. That Puss is designed and directed as a character, who lives in and from the conviction that it would be man’s destiny to enslave women. He has a stream of dialogues written, and the character can present this thinking in a variety of argumentations. Accordingly, he can declare prostitution as a profession and portray himself as a feminist who is supporting women to earn money to be able to support their families. This character is situated as the antagonist to Robin on both levels – the murder case and the private level of the narration. Sure, a bad persona has to say and do terrible things fitting the designed character; this is not the point I want to question here. There are decisions to be made within the process of how to use dramaturgy to balance the dynamic between characters. Interestingly, dialogues and actions between the pimp and the detective are following the traditional “Western”-model more – the male outlaw being the more exciting persona, having the potential to become the one who is acting out the morally better one. By invoking that model in a combination of giving that persona this ample opportunity to make the point of the misogynist, he gets more influence on the action, thus he is a main character. Consequently, this persona ‘Puss’ is not only challenging the character of Robin, he is a dramatic opponent too but as well – from a dramaturgical point of view – diminishing the importance of the persona Robin within the structure and hence the effect of that character. From a dramaturgical point of view, the character of Puss is designed as the potentially morally good outlaw, in which he is allowed to see himself, hence the one questioning the Sherriff. One could write all this that way and contrast it with the directorial approach and the representation of that character, but that isn’t happening here. On the contrary, Puss is shown as the active and smart persona, while Robin is deliberately designed as a most vulnerable Female.

The main task given to the character of Robin by the creators Campion and Lee is to understand herself as a mother. She has to get to know her daughter Mary – incorporated by Jane Campion’s daughter Alice Englert. Campion and Lee designed Robin’s character as being haunted by her past and working to forget her pain. Her salvation is to understand and accept her motherhood and to get a new perspective on herself. (Bonus Material, Making Robin. Campion and Kleiman 2017) Thus, she has to meet her daughter Mary and her new parents. Through her actions, and since she is designed as another most vulnerable and at the same time exceptionally stupidly-behaving young woman, Robin is brought into challenging situations – in the private as well as the crime level of the narration. Throughout this action, her character is again and increasingly taken into circumstances in which she is challenged to react on her emotions or to act professionally.

In addition to the conflict between the detective and the pimp/murderer, Robin is set into a conflict with her subordinate colleague Miranda. Another stereotype is employed with setting up this conflict – women can’t work together. The persona of Miranda is outlined as a bit naïve, not well-educated, but longing for love and being loved. Since this character was deliberately designed for Gwendoline Christie (Bonus Material, Making Miranda. Campion & Kleiman, 2017), her problem is apparent – she is taller than everyone else, hence misperceived as a female monster. Her character also gets no chance to become a role model. Her character has been set up as being in a new relationship with her married boss, lying to Robin and others. And much worse – after the boss declared his relationship with Miranda as true to Robin, Miranda seems to be flirting with Robin’s brother Liam (Kirin J. Callinam). Consequently, following the rules of the American Dramaturgy, Miranda has to be in real danger when she is wearing Liam’s shirt. Cheating against the new relationship and wearing a visible sign of it, like a ‘scarlet letter’, makes her dramatically vulnerable and punishment – for her sin – is inevitable.

A similar traditional layer of traditional, as well as conservative American Dramaturgy pattern, is recognisable for the development written for Robin within the action. In addition to aspects mentioned earlier, two other issues can be emphasised here as well. Firstly, the promise of a sentimental love-relationship is used as reward for Robin, of a man who appears as a mixture of her father and Jonno (Thomas M. Wright) as we remember both from season one. Interestingly, the dynamics of the relationship between Robin and Mary’s father Pyke (Ewan Leslie) according to her motherhood success. When Robin is shown as understanding herself as the mother of Mary and acting accordingly, the dynamics between her and Pyke are good. In situations, Robin is working as the detective, and given the construct of the crime story acting against the interests of Mary, Pyke has to backtrack from her. And, since this relationship is against standards of morality, the situation when they are having sex has to be interrupted by a call of high importance.

The other weird issue, dramaturgically speaking, is the situation of the encounter of Robin and her former senior Al Parker (David Wenham) for a hearing. The overall story gives the impression that some years lay between the end of season one – Robin shooting Al – and beginning of season two. Robin had three miscarriages, and as we can see, Al has a new family and two children. The boy must be about five or at least four years old, to estimate from the appearance and dialogue. What made them wait so long to set up the hearing about the events happening at end of season one? What took the authorities four to five years to arrange that? That situation – of meeting again for the hearing – enables the authors and the director to display a violent attack against Robin. Although it may have been planned as a situation showing Robin’s strengths and cleverness, it shows first of all that the man in his wheelchair still is stronger than her, and very much determined to abuse her – and all of this is demonstrated much in detail and length supporting a voyeuristic view.

After Robin’s character suffered this much, accepted her motherhood and was able to solve the case, she is rewarded with being trusted by her boss to deputise for him for some time. Mary manages to free herself from her relationship with Puss and goes back to her adoptive mother; who herself has returned to her marriage and gets rewarded for doing so by getting Mary back.

Just the Thai-women are still in the hands of Puss, and all those couples that were about to buy themselves the service of substitutes were penalised as well.

Thus, the dramaturgical analysis disappointingly reveals a white-male supremacy worldview dominating the layout and construct, the motivation and design of the narration and characters; as well the aesthetic representation.

Both seasons of Top of the Lake were perceived as exceptional productions making a difference in presenting female characters within TV productions. Nevertheless, it is pleasant to watch excellent actresses in exciting, challenging and rewarding roles; the implicit message is still questioning women in their rights and their economic, social as well as mental independence.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Assmann, Aleida. 2010. Memory in a global age: discourses, practices and trajectories. 1. publ. ed, Palgrave Macmillan memory studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Assmann, Jan. 2002. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. 4. Aufl. dieser Ausg. ed, Beck’sche Reihe. München: Beck.

Assmann, Jan. 2004. Religion und kulturelles Gedächtnis: zehn Studien. Orig.-Ausg., 2. Aufl. ed, Beck’sche Reihe. München: Beck.

Campbell, Joseph. 1949. The hero with a thousand faces. New York: Pantheon books.

Campion, Jane, and A. Kleiman. 2017. Top of the Lake – China Girl. In Top of the Lake. UK/USA: BBC.

Fiedler, Leslie A. 2017 Love and death in the American novel. 3rd printing Dalkey Archive ed. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press.

Frenz, Horst, ed. 1962. Amerikanische Dramaturgie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag.

Gabler, Neal. 1989. An empire of their own: How the Jews invented Hollywood. New York: Doubleday.

Gelfert, Hans-Dieter. 2006. Typisch amerikanisch: Wie die Amerikaner wurden, was sie sind. 3., aktualisierte und um ein Nachwort Amerika 2006 erg. Aufl., Originalausg. ed. München: Beck.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Ross C. Murfin. 2006. The scarlet letter: complete, authoritative text with biographical, historical, and cultural contexts, critical history, and essays from contemporary critical perspectives. 2. ed, Case studies in contemporary criticism. Boston u.a.: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Maras, Steven (Ed). 2016. „Ethics in Screenwriting – New Perspectives.“ In Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting, ed Steven Maras. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54493-3.

Stutterheim, Kerstin. 2015. Handbuch angewandter Dramaturgie. Vom Geheimnis des filmischen Erzählens, Babelsberger Schriften zu Mediendramaturgie und Ästhetik /. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Peter Lang Verlag.

 

many thanks to Sue Warren for proof reading