Hmmm … Jon and Daenerys on the same side….

This post will contain spoilers for the Game of Thrones episode “The Mountain and the Viper” and for the season one finale of Agents of SHIELD. If either of these would bother you, then you should probably stop reading. But come back after you’ve seen what you need to see. I think the post will be worth it.

Of course, I would say that, so there you go.

Okay, that’s as much spoiler space as I’m going to worry about.

I read the first four books of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire about a decade ago, and quickly, so some things I remember very well and some things not as well. That puts me in the perfect position to enjoy the show, because much is familiar but the details are often missing.

For example, I’ve been looking forward to the duel between Oberyn Martell and Gregor Clegane since the Martell prince first appeared in the show. But I didn’t remember how it went. Honestly, though, that was mostly because the Martells seemed at the time to be just another plotline taking me away from the characters I wanted to read about.

But this time, watching the show, I wanted to see the Lannisters taken down a peg and Oberyn seemed like the perfect person to do it. In fact, as the season wore on, he began to look almost heroic, there in a place he hated among people he despised to seek justice for his sister and her children.

That was when my stomach began to sink. They were definitely setting him up to look like a hero.

So, naturally, I knew he was going to fail. And die. Probably horribly.

Traditional western fantasy has a characteristic that could be considered a rule or a trope, depending on how you like your definitions. While that statement could apply several ways, the characteristic I have in mind is this one: heroes win, bad guys lose and good triumphs over evil.

Now it’s true that this only applies to the end of the story. It’s also true there’s a countercurrent these days in fantasy referred to in its gentle form as “gray” fantasy and in its harsher form as “grimdark” fantasy.

But whatever flavor of fantasy a story is, a hero cannot triumph at the end if he dies in chapter three.

So when Oberyn Martell dies in his duel with the Mountain That Rides, I should be surprised. His cause is righteous. His skill matchless. Traditional narrative says he should win.

But this is season four, and Game of Thrones has long since established that “all men must die,” especially heroes. I could run the list for you, but it would just get depressing. (I like the Starks, darn it.)

So by the time we actually reached the duel I had no doubts about its outcome. And as a viewer I probably should have. Which on the one hand makes me wonder if they tried too hard to set him up as a hero when he’d only walked onstage this season just so they could flip the trope

On the other, it reminded me of the season finale of Agents of SHIELD.

I enjoyed the season finale. I thought it worked well, accomplished everything it needed to, and gave me a fun ride in the process.

And then we get to a little bit at the ending. Everyone thinks the Big Bad (if you’ll forgive me for cribbing a term from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is dead, and after they leave the Big Bad stands up and begins a process that will make him even tougher. This is a classic trope – the villain, apparently defeated, rises again stronger.

And I didn’t buy it for a second.

While I wouldn’t describe myself as a Joss Whedon fantatic – I enjoy his work, but to a lesser degree than many, many others – I’ve been watching his shows and movies for a long time now. I remember, for example, the end of a Buffy season four episode when Spike returns to the show and is mid-villainous monolog when he’s taken by the Initiative. I remember the season five episode of the same show when Buffy faced Dracula and staked him. Then, just as he is reforming, there she is, staking him again.

So of course Agent Coulson is waiting off-camera with the disintegration ray. Of course he gives the Big Bad a moment to think his triumph is coming before pulling the trigger. It’s practically a Joss Whedon signature.

And as a viewer, it made me happy.

Now on the one hand we have a show predictably flipping the traditional expectation and I feel disappointed in my lack of surprise. On the other we have a show flipping a traditional expectation and it pleases me.

Why is that? Am I just nuts?

Well, maybe. Let’s be honest here.

But if I’m not, then there must be a reason, and I think I know what it is.

On Agents of SHIELD the bad guy had already been defeated. Adding the trope flip does not change anything in the story. It merely winks at the audience and confirms the ending we’ve already seen.

But on Game of Thrones, multiple plotlines hang in the balance. If Oberyn wins his duel, Tyrion is set free, Tywin’s aura of invincibility is cracked, and the Martells gain at least a step on their path of vengeance. It changes the tenor of everything in King’s Landing. Oberyn’s loss merely confirms the status quo. It’s hardly worth noticing. The show had to build the duel up for episodes just to make Tyrion’s conviction something more than a clerical matter.

And that’s important. But by trying to play up Oberyn – showing his sympathy for Tyrion when he was a baby, emphasizing the horror of the crimes he has come to avenge, his fury at the Lannisters (and the viewers have had three-and-a-half seasons to find out how bad the Lannisters are) – the viewer is supposed to expect more out of the duel. To believe that more is on the line here than Tyrion’s guilt or innocence. To believe that this could be a turning point in the story.

Except that it won’t be. And we know it won’t be for the very same reason we were supposed to think it could be. The show worked to build up Oberyn Martell as a hero.

And on Game of Thrones, heroes die. Badly.

That’s what I think, anyway. What do you think? Tell me about it below.

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