The third season of Game of Thrones has now come to an end and after 10 intense and emotional episodes, I will give you my review of the season as a whole. Starting off with the narrative of this season. Of course, it is a television series so the storyline is going to be consistent through each season but there are individual arcs, narratives and journeys going on throughout. I felt that on the whole, this season had to up the ante and increase the stakes coming off the back of the success and in my opinion the strongest of the seasons which was number 2. Even after watching the third season, I remain with the same mind frame but I have to give admiration to the third season and give credit to the writers for really help increase the tension and drama throughout season 3.
A thing that never seems to stop amazing me are the exquisite locations and set designs that are used throughout each series, but there was something in particular about the locations and sets in this season that had me bewildered at how fine of a job had been done. As you know, a mix of exterior scenes filmed in countries such as Norther Ireland, Morocco, Malta and Croatia and interior sets designed, built and filmed in Los Angeles are used and they have a hugely authentic feel to them. You can't but being immersed into the world that is being presented on screen and it is a real credit to everybody involved particularly the location scouts who scour the globe to find the countries that will best match the era that is tried to be captured.
Tied into this is a job well done for the costume designers working on the show because they play a huge part, just like the location scouts, in making this world come to life. The consistency of their jobs is immaculate and pitch perfect on every single scene, of each episode of each season. They constantly are changing the costumes around and spicing things up to never feel like these characters who are perceived as wealthy and higher up in the society are wearing similar or the exact same clothes any time that a day has passed. This is key to really grabbing an audience's attention and focus to be invested in the story as if it simply wasn't depicting the century that it's supposed to be, nobody would have an interest in it whatsoever.
Something that I found could have been a huge problem which is a recurring thought in my head is the introduction of new characters. When all of the footage, trailers, posters etc are released in the build up to each season I have found myself time and time again worrying about the inclusions of all these new characters, how they will manage to fit in, will they have intriguing storylines as well as balancing out the original characters who we love so much. Yet again, my prayers were answered and by the end of this season, I can't wait to delve deeper into these stories once again when season 4 returns. Possibly the strongest example of this was Thomas Brodie-Sangster's character who when first introduced I had no care for in any form. Every time he appeared in a scene I thought it was just bland and couldn't wait for it to cut to another more interesting character. It proved a 'slow burner' as the more it progressed, I became more and more intrigued and invested and by the last couple of episodes was completely hooked on what was going on. This is a huge praise for the writing which I will now talk about.
Where do you start with the writing on Game of Thrones? It is without doubt some of the best screenwriting that I have ever come across. Not only is this for a television show I mean, which much more effort and complexity needs to be put into it but I mean for any format of entertainment. Such well constructed writing has been the format for each season and just seems to be getting better and better. They have that great balance of intense action scenes when required, gruesome encounters between characters and tense dialogue in scenes that are simply just two characters interacting. It has me hooked as soon as the episode begins right to the very end and this is down to the directing and editing of each episode two as all three components come together as one and make each minute precious. I felt that this was probably the most well written season of the three as there is now more characters than ever to counter balance and who are constantly crossing paths which has just put more pressure on the writers to deliver. They have more than taken this job ever so well and helped to deliver some of the most intense scenes of the entire show in this series.
Despite my unfamiliarity with George R. R Martin's work, I've heard countless times that the show does an excellent job of staying true to the books. It can be a huge problem for either TV or film adaptations of books that they stray away too much from the source material. Sometimes this is intentional to try and keep the concept but stamp their own authority and take on the idea. This never really goes down well with fans of the books but Game of Thrones seems to have brought the books to life. Considering that George R. R Martin's work is very highly regarded the writers have done an excellent job to seemingly convert it into a screenplay, having every single detail that makes the books work so well and portraying that on screen. Hats off to them for the fact that an idea so complex has been made very easily understandable and that you can actually keep up with everything taking place. This is an aspect that could easily be the downfall of the show and really makes or breaks whether people will watch it/enjoy it. If the writing isn't quite up to scratch, you can completely lose what is going on and with a narrative that is so layered and contains so much depth, it could be relatively easy to mess up on this part. This isn't the case whatsoever as the work seems to be adapted extremely well and is presented in such a way yet again that you get the gist of everything that is going on.
Speaking of intense episodes/scenes, possibly the greatest episode of the show so far deserves an honorary mention. Of course if you watch the programme you'll know exactly what I mean, 'The Red Wedding'. Absolute mayhem ensued and like I said I am not familiar with the books so this took me completely back. I did not expect such a twist to take place and it was done in such a shocking, brutal manner that even if you were aware of the events of the book, you couldn't help but be impressed and affected. Countless violent scenes in this episode just stepped up anything we'd ever seen before and took every little sequence we might have gotten from one episode and shoved it all into one. Not to mention that while I'm making it sound like one big hour long massacre (which it felt like) there was a great balance yet again or drama and tension throughout. You had the classic dialogue scenes and interactions that was setting the real climax up and I was invested beyond belief with what was going on. The final episode was to be the 'calm after the storm' referencing the events of the previous episode and the news getting out to everyone of what had happened. Honestly, I liked this episode just as much as it ran for over an hour and had me rooted right from the off. When something as dramatic and mind-blowingly insane like The Red Wedding takes place, I was left wanting the conclusions and developments of these stories immediately.
Overall, season 3 of Game of Thrones was yet another excellent, well crafted season that deserves all of the recognition and credit it has been receiving. While not quite having enough to make it my favourite season over number two, it certainly lived up to everything I was expecting it to be and will make this next year of waiting for season 4 feel like absolute hell.
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