Where My Game of Thrones Gone?

I have been somewhat vocal in my opinion that, despite liking Game of Thrones, there has been a problem with it maintaining a consistent quality (especially since overtaking George R.R. Martin's material). In particular, I found the end of season 7, though not the low point of the series (Dorne and the death of Meryn Trant stand out to me), to be disappointing. I haven't wanted to explain why on a different platform to avoid spoilers, but I guess that's the joy of this blog: no one reads it anyway, so why not spoil it here?

To understand why the end of season 7 was bad, let's look at a major theme of A Song of Ice and Fire: duty vs. emotion. The series begins with a man being executed for abandoning his duty and with Bran being taught an important lesson about how important doing one's duty is. In fact, there's a strong case that Ned Starks death is a parallel to this deserter: upon arriving home from the execution (in the book at least), Ned tells Catelyn that he needs to raise his banners and ride north, beyond The Wall, to deal with Mance Rayder and restore the peace. Instead, he abandons his duty out of love for Robert and Jon Arryn, and the armies of the North are squandered in the War of the Five Kings (a war started by Catelyn's love for her son and lost Robb's love for his new bride). Ned's neglect of duty may have doomed the world.

Then you look at the Night's Watch. Originally an army supported by all the Seven Kingdoms, a force of 10,000 knights from noble houses that could man The Wall, range effectively to the north, and provide for itself by working lands to the south, the Watch has been reduced to less than a tenth its size, and those who remain are mostly conscripted criminals. Only the North and a few houses in the Vale send any knights or nobles at all of their own will: every southron knight of the Watch was forced into service, mostly because they fought on the losing side of a war (for instance, Ser Alliser Thorne was a Targaryan loyalist). The Seven Kingdoms have neglected their duty to support the Night's Watch out of greed: why waste their best men and resources to fight snarks and grumpkins when they can be better used in the game of thrones?

So, to the final scene of season 7: whose fault is it that the Wall falls? It's not Jon Snow's: as Lord Commander he made unpopular decisions that put the duty of the Night's Watch over prejudice, and as King of the North he puts the Long Night ahead of all other priorities. It's not Daenarys: she flew north not because she loved Jon (in fact, she ends up abandoning him), but to save the mission in order to convince Cersei to join the real fight. It's not even Cersei's: she may be planning betrayal, but she hasn't pulled the trigger on that yet.

So whose fault is it? What grave mistake lead to the Wall falling, the the realms of men being vulnerable for the first time in millenia? What betrayal may have cost the world? It's no one's, really. Who could have predicted the Night King had magical dragon insta-kill spears? Who knew that creatures of fire could be resurrected by magic of the ice-infused Others? Nobody. Nobody knew that by riding north, Daenerys would inadvertently give the White Walkers the tool they needed to bring down the Wall (which, speaking of, does the Night King have pre-cognition? What was his plan before a dragon fell into his lap?).

There was no hamartia, no fatal flaw in the rulers of Westeros that allows you to point a finger and say "This person/these people! They abandoned their duty, they knowingly made a choice and the Wall fell because of it." The dead did not attack a portion of the Wall that was under-manned due to the neglect of the lords of Westeros, they hit it at a point reinforced by wildlings, the Brothers Without Banners, and presumably Northern soldiers and soldiers from the Vale, since they aren't currently engaged militarily with Cersei (who, by the way, is suddenly competent). No one has blown the Horn of Winter for short-term military gain. No one allowed a dark sorcerer promising power to be their confidant despite everyone's pleas to the contrary, leading to dark sorcery that compromised the Wall.

Nope. None of the long running themes or ideas of the show mattered: Daenerys just rode in her dragons, and  it turns out that it's super easy for White Walkers to kill and resurrect dragons (despite fire being their greatest weakness and dragons literally being described as "fire made flesh"). A character actively trying to do their duty and save the world ends up being the catalyst for its destruction.

The show became famous for its spectacle, but I think the writers have forgotten that spectacle isn't what kept people watching. Ned Stark's death made sense. The Red Wedding made sense. Oberyn and Tywin's deaths made sense. They were the focus of elaborate paintings, paintings with richly detailed and expertly crafted backgrounds. The more recent spectacles seem more like a cheap comic book panel: an awesome dragon breathing fire with a solid red background behind it. I can get that lots of places other than Game of Thrones.

Tokyo Drift: The First Fast and Furious Movie with a Plot

I am currently on day 3 of Furious Week: I've never seen a Fast and Furious movie, so I'm watching the first seven, one a day, from Sunday to Saturday. Now, when I first announced Furious Week, a lot of people told me to skip to Tokyo Drift or watch Tokyo Drift then hop to 5. The consensus is Tokyo Drift isn't a higher quality movie than The Fast and the Furious or even 2 Fast 2 Furious (by consensus the low point of the franchise), but it's more entertaining somehow. Now that I've finished it, it's obvious to see why.
In The Fast and The Furious, the story is told wrong. People seem to pick up on this intuitively: in the Wikipedia plot summary the fact that Brian is an undercover cop is explained right away. In the actual movie you don't find out until after the first race, which makes the race pointless as far as the plot is concerned. What's at stake? A dude we just met and know nothing about might lose a car. We have no idea how much, or even if, that matters.
This problem extends to all the racing in the film: was it a big deal that mechanic kid lost his dad's Jetta to Tran? They tell us that, but I don't think it came up earlier, so why should we care? Why did anything that happened at Race Wars (which is probably the worst name for a racing event ever) matter? The racing was a flashy distraction from the real plot, a paint by numbers undercover cop story with an interesting antagonist (Dominic) and a boring protagonist (Brian).

2 Fast 2 Furious is even worse. The racing matters even less: there literally is no reason for the first race (it's not like Brian is forced to race and him sticking his head out gets him caught, and him being picked up by the police could have happened before the race with as much impact to the rest of the plot as after). The race to the impound lot matters a little for the sake of the plot, but it doesn't tell us anything about Brian and Roman other than they drive well (something we already know), and the race to get those two cars doesn't matter because Roman and Brian have already beat those guys before. Remove the racing, which is pointless, and we've got a hackneyed drug movie that brings us OBVIOUS BAD GUY for boring Brian to bounce off of (but hey, they make up for it with some comic relief black guy!).
So we have two racing movies with pointless races. Now, let's look at the big 3 races in Tokyo Drift. Race one has small stakes: Movie Jock has smashed in Sean's window with a rock. We don't like Movie Jock, we want Sean to beat him.* So, small stakes, but it engages us enough to watch the race, in which we learn a lot about Sean. Sean doesn't care about how much damage he sustains, as long as he sticks it in Movie Jock's face that he won. He even plays just as dirty as Movie Jock, cheating by going off the course and ramming Movie Jock back when Movie Jock rams him. Sean wins, then runs away from the larger consequences of the race.
Race 2, Sean races DK. We care because we know Sean is a good racer, but he's drift racing for the very first time in a very expensive car owned by an associate of the Yakuza. We're curious to see if Brian will do well, and every collision matters because we know the consequences: he's going to owe a lot of money to a criminal. We also see that Brian's recklessness isn't going to work in drift racing like it did racing back home. His world is thrown out of balance because the one thing that gave him worth, winning races by being reckless, won't work. Additionally, both Han and his father make it very clear that, for once in his life, Sean can't run away. For the first time, he has to face the consequences of his recklessness.
Now, the final race between Sean and DK. Sean has changed as a person before our eyes**: he used to run away away from his problems, now he's racing to stay and fix them. We want Sean to win because if he doesn't, everything he's worked for will be undone. Then the race itself is symbolically rich. Sean is driving in an American car, from his father, with a Japanese engine, from his mentor. When Takashi loses his temper and starts trying to drive Sean off the road, Sean doesn't engage with him like he did with Movie Jock, he stays cool and focuses on the race. Sean doesn't just beat Takashi, he beats his old self.
Now, is Tokyo Drift a cinematic masterpiece? Good heavens no. What I've described up above isn't masterful storytelling, it's the first step of good storytelling. To make a food analogy, 2 Fast 2 Furious is a fountain drink: empty calories that could never be mistaken for a meal. The Fast and the Furious is fries and a drink: it almost looks like a meal, but it's missing the meat. Tokyo Drift is a #1 with all the fixin's: it's a full meal. You wouldn't eat it for special occasions, and it's not an example of craftsmanship like a crown roast, but it wouldn't be disappointing if you were hungry and just looking for something simple to eat.

*For those of you crying foul on me since Brian fought with Dominic in The Fast and the Furious, no, Brian fought with Vince and Dominic broke it up; the first race should have been between Brian and Vince. **Compare the intro scene, where he lets the bullies spray paint that kid, to the rooftop scene where he protects Twinkie.