Game of Thrones, for all its reputation for playing with conventions, is apparently unable to resist a particularly old romantic trope.
“The Dragon and the Wolf,” metaphorically speaking, officially got together in Game of Thrones‘ season 7 finale. We talked about how it worked on a double level before the episode even aired, but, just to be specific, we’re talking about Daenerys and Aegon Targaryen … okay, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, just so everyone knows who we’re talking about here.
Speaking to IndieWire, and discovered by us via Entertainment Weekly, Jeremy Podeswa, who was behind the camera for the finale, had all kinds of things to say about the new official couple of the show.
Just sit yourselves down before you read this one (and note that IndieWire and Podeswa both comment on the ties between the two levels of the episode title):
"“[There’s] an understanding between them that even though they know in some part of them that they shouldn’t really be doing this, they cannot not do it. There’s some element of destiny that’s brought them together, and they can’t fight it.”"
Funnily enough, yours truly reviewed a book recently that runs entirely on effectively the same romantic cliché, Alisha Rai’s Hate to Want You. I ended up liking the book, because it executed well. In the words of TVTropes … “tropes are not bad.”
In short, Daenerys and Jon being the kind of couple who has this undeniable pull towards each other, come what may, is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. The problem is that the execution is lacking.
Sure, io9 offered the excuse based on an interview with Kit Harington that Jon, at least, was trying to deny it to himself at the time of the first encounter, but Daenerys’ sudden turn towards Jon for advice on things felt like it came out of nowhere. And as the season wore on, it basically seemed inexorable, spoilers or no.
So, with the season 8 scripts apparently already finished for a start of production in October, will D.B. Weiss and David Benioff go back and maybe punch up them up to at least give the two of them better lines to sell this relationship?
More importantly, do we actually trust them to write this relationship in a way that makes us believe it’s happening? Or are we about to have another “Why do Padmé and Anakin love each other?” moment?
In the Culturess recap of the finale, linked above, my colleague Buckie Wells pointed out that it’s likely Daenerys and Jon are going to have a baby together, and all I can say is that it’s “breaking my heart,” because Game of Thrones might have finally gone “somewhere I can’t follow.”
Maybe they really are doomed, as we speculated in the fashion analysis of the finale. Maybe that post-finale season 8 prediction we have for their fates was, indeed, a touch premature. (I’m bitter about my ship being sunk here, to refer back to that prediction.) The way Podeswa is talking, it really might be.
Next: Game of Thrones season 8: 5 early predictions
The sad part is, even that wouldn’t be unexpected for Game of Thrones, because of all of those callbacks and ties.