Game of Thrones

The leaves are falling hard now, so, naturally, my mind turns again to Game of Thrones. I'd have to watch it all again to be sure, but here's what I'm thinking today:

• season 1 is clearly the best
• 2-5 are admirable but wandering and miserable
• 6 is great
• 7-8 are glorious, though too cinematic

I'm thinking S1 could be a whole 3-to-5-season series in itself. Practically every day elapsed breeds something interesting. That Ned's entire arc is contained in 10 or so episodes is baffling and devastating. He holds such a place in my heart, you'd think he was the cornerstone of the series. Well, he was! But only appeared in one season. His arc could be significantly extended in screen time without covering any more of his lifetime, because each moment is packed with quality. Same for Robert -- he wasn't even around the whole season, yet I feel like he made such an impact. I could watch whole seasons with Robert in reign.

We only get like a quarter episode of life at Winterfell before Arryn's death precipitates the whole series. I need to see the Stark kids growing up in peacetime, Ned ruling justly, life in the North. Maybe it would have been boring if it really would have started out like that, without the instant intrigue, before I'd built such affection for the characters... but then again, the intrigue comes so fast it's hard to follow. Maybe a little slower ramp-up would set the stage for a more thorough juicing of the intrigue. Maybe I just mixed three metaphors.

S1 has enough plot, and strong enough characters, to warrant more than one season. It feels like, if 2-8 never happened, you'd still call S1 Game of Thrones and you'd still have the essence and most of the value of the series. It feels like S1 is really the defining season, which may go without saying for any given series, but feels especially true for GoT. Ned is special, and S1 is special. Everything matters, everything is interesting, the whole season is charged in a way the others aren't. 6-8 are glorious, but S1 is so electric it doesn't need that cinematic glory, it just needs the characters and the machinations it already has in spades. The intrigue is so crisp you don't need grandiosity. You don't need dragons. You don't even need dynasties converging in the person of Jon Snow, sorry as I am to admit it. The things I love about 6-8 are superfluous compared to S1 -- are almost a different series, actually. S1 is a self-contained masterpiece; 2-5 are respectable but brutal; 6-8 are amazing but don't feel like the same hand.