Sunday, June 23, 2019

Don't overinterpret the Behind-the-episode-pieces

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

After every episode of "Game of Thrones" airs, HBO also releases a documentary of sorts, called "Inside the Episode", like you find as bonus material on practically every DVD or BlueRay. In it, the actors are interviewed, we get looks into the production process, people show how the sausage is being made. Prominently featured in all these videos are Benioff and Weiss, the show's creators, who explain the plot.


At least, that's the form these things take. They inspired a lot of ire in recent weeks, since actors are giving sometimes surprising accounts of what their characters were doing (Peter Dinklage, for example, explaining that Tyrion did kind of forget about certain obvious things that in less generous interpretations were regarded as blatant plotholes). Prime offenders in this regard, at least in parts of the fandom, were Benioff and Weiss themselves.

In the "Inside the Episode" segment for episode 8.04, for example, Benioff stated that Dany "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet", which really didn't make a lot of sense given that the Iron Fleet is explicitly discussed in the episode only around 15 minutes of screentime prior. So that can't be really it.

Said less generous parts of fandom see this as proof that Benioff and Weiss do not know the story they're adapting and that they don't even know what's in their own episodes. But really, that assumption just lacks any justification. Even the accusation that they don't understand ASOIAF is I think wrong; as I've explained at length, they have a different set of limitations and constraints to work with.

But then why do they state such inciting things in the "Inside the Episode" pieces? Some of it can be explained by trolling. People more immersed in the production process than I am have stated that D&D are fed up with those parts of fandom and at this stage are only trolling them. And this may be true in some edge cases, but HBO wouldn't produce these huge segments that are certainly quite costly only to let them troll on an insignificant part of the viewer base.

No, "Inside the Episode" is just a segment directed at a very different target audience than the one getting up in arms about it. And that's why I'm warning to overinterpret these things. They're advertisements. Have you ever watched the bonus material for "The Lord of the Rings", for example? If you believe every one of these actors is just so much in love with the source material that they sleep with a hardcover copy under their pillow, as these materials suggest, then I have a palace in Valyria to sell to you.

Benioff and Weiss explain the plot in the most dumbed down version imaginable because these things are directed at an audience as broad and causal as possible. "Game of Thrones" is quite popular, after all, and not every viewer has more than a passing interest in the characters and lore. Many people do not even know all the names of even the major characters. They largely forgot what happened last season. And that's perfectly alright; a lot of people watch TV that way. I sure as hell know I do lots of times.

So the "Inside the Episode" pieces are directed mostly at those people and those who want to revel in the show, not those who hate-watch it or compare every detail to the books. There are podcasts for that crowd, and good ones, too. These pieces give those people more context, and if it comes at the cost of nuance, then that's a price HBO is more than willing to pay.

So you will hear Emilia Clarke gushing just what an emotional connection she has to a green piece of styrofoam. You will hear Peter Dinklage joke about Tyrion in a Tyrion-y way, because people want to see that. You see Kit Harrington making self-aware jokes about Jon being honorable and stupid, because that's a wide-held assumption and people love to have their assumptions be confirmed. If you believe that the actors share their inner-most thoughts about the material they're working with in these pieces, you're sadly mistaken. There's a reason Stephen Dillane's and Ian McElhinney's  misgivings are brought to us indirectly via people close to them and not voiced in an "Inside the Episode" segment. These are ads, and you should not view them as more than that.

If you want to know the effects of Nutella on your body, listening to a professional athlete gushing over how he starts every day with a slide of bread thick with Nutella on it might not be your best source. You'd need to prod a bit deeper. So, do yourself a favor, ignore practically all speech in those videos and just enjoy the looks beyond the scenes, because everything else just leads to a lot of unhealthy emotions.

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