Authorial Prerogative and the Truncation of Story Arcs

Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 9 of Game of Thrones below the jump.

Or in other words, who the **** does G. R. R. Martin think he is?

So. On Sunday night TV-watching but non-book-reading Game of Thrones fans discovered what their literary brethren had known since the year 2000 when A Storm of Swords came out. Namely, that twinkly-eyed hero Robb Stark, his mother Cat and pregnant wife Talisa don’t make it to the end of the story. Instead they’re shockingly, brutally butchered at the wedding of Cat’s brother Edmure to one of the daughters of Walder Frey.

The face of evil.

(Robb had promised Frey he’d be the one at the altar. Married Talisa instead. Thought all was forgiven. It wasn’t.)

Following the episode’s stunning conclusion, the interwebs were overwhelmed by a tsunami of outrage, indignation and even grief–which has always seemed to me like a strange reaction to the death of a fictional character, but each to their own. Twitter being Twitter, an account was quickly created to capture the best reactions: https://twitter.com/RedWeddingTears. They’re mostly fantastic.

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 3 EPISODE 9 SUCKS AND THERE IS ACTUAL ANGER BUILDING UP IN MY BODY DONT WATCH IT.

I’m clinically depressed after watching that Game of Thrones episode #wtf

if I develop separation anxiety its because of Game of Thrones. WHY DOES EVERYTHING I LOVE HAVE TO DIE?

And my personal favourite, and the point of this ramble:

@GameOfThrones HBO should cancel this show as a lesson to deter treacherous writing and i don’t care if its in the original book

Wow. I’m sorry, but who the hell do you think you are? You seem to think that because you watched twenty-eight episodes of a TV show and came to like some of the characters, that the writers have no right to bring those characters’ lives–and story arcs, from the writerly point of view–to what you consider a premature end.

Tough.

(I’m not even going to touch ‘I don’t care if it’s in the original book’ other than to say changing one of the key events in the source material would be ‘treacherous writing’.)

You don’t like the way the story has gone? Then exercise your own prerogative, and stop watching. Or put the book down. No-one’s making you keep going. But don’t for a second think that when you paid for that book–or HBO cable subscription–that you were entering some kind of contract where the content provided would satisfy you exactly.

You pays your money, and you takes your chance. It’s G. R. R. Martin’s world, not yours, and he can do what he likes with it. That’s his prerogative.

(But having said that, if Tyrion dies, I’m going to cry.)

Tyrion. Presumably checking for the Grim Reaper creeping up on him.