Has 'Game of Thrones' become too predictable?

***WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW***

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"YES IT HAS"
by Jennifer Fletcher

Game of Thrones had us nervously glued to our television screens when it first aired in 2011 - mainly because it was the first show of its kind to be so unpredictable.

No one could’ve guessed Ned Stark was going to actually get executed by Joffrey in the first season, and who could've foreseen the barbaric Red Wedding?

We were all quivering in our slippers as we tuned in each week, scared of getting too attached to the characters in fear they’d be brutally killed off.

"A writer has an obligation to tell the truth and the truth is, all men must die," author George R.R. Martin famously told Galaxy's Edge Magazine in 2013.

"We’ve all read this story a million times when a bunch of heroes set out on an adventure and they go through amazing hair-raising adventures and none of them die. The only ones who die are extras.

"That’s such a cheat. It doesn’t happen that way. They go into battle and their best friend dies or they get horribly wounded."

Martin's haunting words are what had us so gripped.

But fast-forward to Season Six, and the impulsive, fear-inducing scenarios seem to have fizzled out.

No one could accept that Jon Snow had really died at the end of Season Five, and fans predicted Melisandre would resurrect him….. And she did. Everyone called it.

It was even foreshadowed that Cersei Lannister would end up childless and would also blow up Kings Landing in a bomb of wildfire… Which she did.

Even the long predicted R+L=J (Rhaegar Targaryen + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow) theory turned out to be correct in the season finale yesterday.

Personally, I find the storylines are becoming a bit stagnant on the hit show - Ayra’s awful apprenticeship in Braavos and Daenerys never-ending civil war in Meereen.

Don’t get me wrong, I was on the edge of my seat during the Battle of the Bastards, hoping Jon would win... Which he did. Surely, there can only be a certain amount of times that magic brings back popular characters (Jon, Benjen Stark) before people start switching off?

And it was pretty out of the blue when Ayra slit Walder Frey’s throat in the finale - although it was about time she started crossing off targets from her hit list. But apart from that, I feel GOT is becoming more and more predictable than it used to be, and we've become experts at prophesying the upcoming storylines. (Maybe that’s my own fault for reading the fan theories online.)

And of course we’ve known 'Winter is Coming' for quite a while now. This can only mean that after 'the living' sort out their differences, they will unite to fight off the frozen zombies with the help of Daenerys Targaryen's dragons - yawn. (A Song of Ice and Fire.)

I think Game of Thrones is at its best when it builds up one character or situation and then dramatically tears it all down.

Maybe Cersei could team up with Daenerys Targaryen? Or Sansa Stark could end up betraying her 'brother' Jon Snow by running off with Petyr Baelish?

Even a few more shocking deaths of likeable characters might add some wind back into the sails of the GOT ship.

Or maybe I've missed the point this season. Maybe the Game of Thrones producers have been brilliantly toying with our expectations before throwing all of our theories out of the window. Maybe they will blow our minds again with an epic plot twist in Season Seven.

For the sake of the die hard fans, like me, who desperately want to be caught off guard again, I sincerely hope so."

NO IT'S HASN'T
by Garry Major

"I've got five good reasons why Game of Thrones remains as predictable as ever.

Here goes: It was a wonderfully-paced finale that brought the curtain down on both Season Six and a number of long-running characters in an almighty haze of wildfire. So now is the time to rake over those burning embers and asses the season for signs of life. Amid a growing chorus of claims that the show has become all too predictable, here’s five reasons why the groundbreaking TV epic is as unpredictable as ever.

1. Hodor

Six seasons in the making, the tragic apparent death of the gentle giant and the reveal of the source of his warped mind was both unpredictable and a real game-changer for the rest of the show.

Ever since Hodor was introduced in season one, the enduring question was, "why can he only say 'Hodor'?" Well now we know. Hold the door Hodor, hold the door my friend. Hodor has been key in advancing the 'warg' narrative of the crippled Bran Stark and now we can add time-traveller to Bran’s psychic capabilities. What else has the young Stark been manipulating over the course of the last six seasons?

2. Battle of the Bastards

We all knew the battle was coming but did we think it would be that great?

A masterpiece in cinematography and choreographed chaos, the battle took the viewer into a random frenzy of carnage with our hero Jon Snow a coat-of-arms away from being simultaneously suffocated and crushed to death under the weight of a relentlessly building pile of corpses. The familiar tune of the end of a loved character began, and with it a sense of dread, but the Knights of the Vale spared Jon Snow a most unheroic death. The battle set a new bar for TV, with nods to some of the best that cinema has produced and resulted in the humiliating defeat of the much despised villain Ramsey Bolton, who ultimately ended up as a meal for his starving hounds.

It’s also worth noting that it was during the filming of this climactic scene that a picture of the decidedly not dead Jon Snow was leaked. Many accepted the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch would rise from the dead but his season six journey which concluded with him being proclaimed the King of the North had some brilliant and unpredictable twists.

3. Arya Stark

The girl finally 'has a name' again and another victim was ticked off the kill list when she popped up in an unexpected way. Arya called on her 'many-faced god' training beautifully while serving up some 'dead sons' pie to the vile, remorseless Walder Frey before slashing his throat, finally avenging the Red Wedding massacre from Season Three. Arya Stark’s storyline throughout the season has been one of the hardest to predict. From blinded protege at the House of Black and White, to conquering The Waif and leaving the faceless men and then finally arriving at Riverrun just in time for dinner.

4. The Iron Throne

The Season Six finale saw Cersei Lannister take the Iron Throne with a devastatingly ruthless detonation of magical green wildfire which destroyed the temple, decimated the Faith and reduced her great tormentor, the High Sparrow, to ashes.

Shockingly, and despite the hint of a grand plan, Queen Margaery also couldn’t escape the heat which in turn led the pliable boy-King Tommen to exit the show with a leap through the window from which he had witnessed the spectacular explosion. Even with Tyrion Lannister telegraphing the cache of wildfire in conversation with Daenerys in episode nine, the sequence of events shocked, the plot lines building to a crescendo worthy of an ending of The Godfather. How long will the current occupant enjoy the rather uncomfortable looking seat and who will claim it next?

5. Unpredictable weather

Winter has finally come to Westeros but the unlucky inhabitants have no idea how long the current season will last. A feature of George R.R. Matin’s Seven Kingdoms is extreme seasons of variable length. It’s taken six ‘seasons’ for the long summer to finally draw to a close and with it comes the threat of an equally long, bitter winter which is probably just about prefect for the White Walkers. There’s a few theories around making an attempt at explaining the strange weather patterns including planetary tilt, a strange orbit, pollutants or perhaps a complex Milankovitch cycle. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say it’s unpredictable.

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