Game of Thrones S5

What a miserable show. I've been justifying it with my mild infrequent regret at how I handled Lost, and with a YOLO nihilism. Neither would matter if it weren't entertaining. It is. But I hardly like it anymore. At this point it's a 3-star-out-of-5 show that's sucking up my evenings, and I still have three seasons left.

I still admire certain elements, and it's still engaging. But it's miserable.

Nearly every season finale has tempted me to quit. What a luxurious life I live, that I can indulge something of such little worth with such feeble justification. If anything important came up (family dying) I tell myself I'd abandon Game of Thrones in a heartbeat and never look back. But life is important all around me, and I'm watching Game of Thrones instead.

On the other hand, this is what I want, and life is short, and who cares?

Anyway it's been quite an experiment for me.

In a given episode I get maybe one good feeling inside of me. The other 50 minutes are tedious or brutal.

But the narrative is still expertly spun.

Audience: "we need redemption for X character. This is too horrible, too hopeless."

Writers: "rape X character and burn alive. Make sure the audience hears the screams."

Game of Thrones S4

Finally, some victories for some likable characters. It's like they realized after four seasons what The Office realized after one: we shouldn't make the entire show miserable. We need some counter-tension.

Are the devastating deaths finally paying off through these recent victories? Maybe these victories shine a little brighter against that night. But we're still numb.

I haven't found my new hero since season 1. Tyrion is highly sympathetic, not quite heroic. Daenerys is proud. Jon is budding but bland -- maybe that's why the other characters call him Jon Snore. Jaime's competence went with his right hand, and he's barely shedding his deplorable past. Arya may be the best I've got, considering Joffrey, my favorite character, died.

Game of Thrones S3

Like S2, everything felt secondary; like S1, it dealt a painful penultimate.

Pros:

• I enjoy the show
• I respect certain elements

Cons:

• it's cheesy
• it's depressing

Devastation and death aren't sufficient to call it depressing: it's the void where the heart should be. It's orbiting a black hole. It's the aimlessness we avoid by establishing an ego and protecting it. Game of Thrones doesn't protect it. I appreciate the honesty, but I would rather protect it.

Game of Thrones S2

Season 2 was disappointing. I never recovered from the second to last episode of Season 1. I still see him as the heart of the show; everyone else is amusing; he's the emotional core. Maybe they killed him to teach us fear, to make other characters' lives more precious. It did exactly the opposite for me. I learned life isn't precious; I hardened. Any character can drop tomorrow, so we should cherish what we have without fearing the loss. But what is there to cherish without him? Other characters are ignoble or uninteresting. I could see some blossoming in the coming seasons, but Season 2 was really a recoil from the aforementioned episode -- as no one filled the emotional hole it continued to callous. Not as many major characters dropped as in Season 1, but not as many seized center stage either. The entire season felt like subplots.

The first few episodes of Season 1 were stunning to me; the rest of the season disappointed or devastated those expectations; Season 2 didn't bounce back.