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The more I think about it, the more similarities I see between B5 and Game of Thrones, both in terms of its narrative structure and its plot lines. This is a somewhat long, meandering and rambling post that’s not much more than a stream of consciousness, so I apologise now!
(Don’t read if you’ve not seen the final episode of GoT season 5!)
Narrative structure: Both are novels for TV – well okay, A Song Of Ice and Fire are real novels whereas B5 wasn’t – but the point is they both follow the structure of novels, introduction, rising action, complications, conclusion and denouement, as JMS was fond of pointing out. We know which parts of B5 fit this structure, and in Game of Thrones we’re in the ‘complications’ stage, the Hour of the Wolf, where everything goes wrong, the good guys are falling like skittles and the idiots seem to be in charge. GoT has opted to go really dark for this stage, which I think will make it that much more joyous when our heroes turn things around. I think one of the things that has hampered this is on GoT is that our heroes are spread all over Westeros and Essos and are not able to unite yet, whereas on B5 they were all in one place. But I do have to smile at a lot of the hysteria on the Internet with viewers saying the plot is just dark for the sake of it, and that GRRM and the TV show writers want to write a story with no hope. Yeah it’s darker than almost anything else on TV because it likes pushing the boundaries, but it’s part of the narrative structure. I think we’ve reached rock bottom now, and the only way is up - though of course it may be a slow, gradual fight back against the forces of evil.
Plot lines: If I didn’t know better I’d say that GoT was a medieval retelling of B5! We’ve got a fractured kingdom where all the houses are going to war with each other, but an ancient enemy lurks in the ‘shadows’ waiting to strike when everyone is at their weakest. Meanwhile, a ‘Lord of Light’ (Vorlons) seems to want to oppose the ancient enemy, but takes its own rather dubious actions and uses others (the Red Priests) as proxies. And trapped in the middle, are the people of Westeros. The Iron Throne is a poisoned chalice, everyone is fighting for it but to what end? But when faced with a common enemy it will take someone to unite the warring factions and fight back and then create a new peace. Much like Sheridan had to die to have his epiphany and be reborn as a person who could bring about this new peace with a new Alliance, I’m not surprised at all that Jon Snow also has to die – the story pretty much demands it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he has an epiphany as to what it’s all about and what his role is while he’s in purgatory. When Sheridan came back there was a cost; I wonder what the cost to bring Jon back will be (unless it has already been paid with the death of Shireen, but I think there has to be a personal cost to Jon otherwise it will feel too easy). And like in B5 Sheridan was only one third of ‘The One’, in GoT Dany is the other part of the equation, particularly given L+R = J.
(By the way, there are some people that grumble Jon Snow is a boring character, but I think his apparent death and having to wait 10 months to see if he really is dead has really made his character now – I can’t remember, was there ever any doubt as to whether Sheridan might be dead after Z’Ha’Dum?)
Interestingly, I also don’t think that all the conflict in Westeros at the exact time the Others have come back is a coincidence. I’m calling it now: Littlefinger, who seems to be the source of much of the chaos, is GoT’s Morden, and is working with the Others.
So I predict that at the end of it all, a new alliance will be forged across Westeros, a new democracy with an elected president (Tyrion?) and a council with members from each of the great houses, much like how B5’s story ended with the forging of the Interstellar Alliance. B5’s story was ultimately about creating that new empire, and I think GoT will be too.
There’s even similarities between both JMS and GRRM. Both had similar backgrounds, I guess, both studied journalism, both worked on The Twilight Zone (did they work on it at the same time - presumably they know each other?), both got fed up with not being able to write exactly what they wanted for TV (GRRM’s solution was to go back to writing novels, JMS’ solution was to become a show-runner so he could do what he wanted), and A Game of Thrones debuted around the same time as B5. I’m not saying there was any kind of plagiarism involved or anything, I just find it interesting that apparently similar stories came from similar backgrounds at around the same time – must have been the zeitgeist at the time.
And then that brings me to the proposed B5 remake – oh for B5 to have had the budget of GoT! From that point of view I can definitely understand why JMS wants another crack at B5. Would you want a new B5 to be as dark or extreme as GoT can be? The only thing I can think of in B5 that comes close to the horrible things that happens on GoT is G’Kar’s treatment under Cartagia.
I’m not sure what my ramble has accomplished, but hopefully there’s a few discussion points about both B5 and GoT in there somewhere!
(Don’t read if you’ve not seen the final episode of GoT season 5!)
Narrative structure: Both are novels for TV – well okay, A Song Of Ice and Fire are real novels whereas B5 wasn’t – but the point is they both follow the structure of novels, introduction, rising action, complications, conclusion and denouement, as JMS was fond of pointing out. We know which parts of B5 fit this structure, and in Game of Thrones we’re in the ‘complications’ stage, the Hour of the Wolf, where everything goes wrong, the good guys are falling like skittles and the idiots seem to be in charge. GoT has opted to go really dark for this stage, which I think will make it that much more joyous when our heroes turn things around. I think one of the things that has hampered this is on GoT is that our heroes are spread all over Westeros and Essos and are not able to unite yet, whereas on B5 they were all in one place. But I do have to smile at a lot of the hysteria on the Internet with viewers saying the plot is just dark for the sake of it, and that GRRM and the TV show writers want to write a story with no hope. Yeah it’s darker than almost anything else on TV because it likes pushing the boundaries, but it’s part of the narrative structure. I think we’ve reached rock bottom now, and the only way is up - though of course it may be a slow, gradual fight back against the forces of evil.
Plot lines: If I didn’t know better I’d say that GoT was a medieval retelling of B5! We’ve got a fractured kingdom where all the houses are going to war with each other, but an ancient enemy lurks in the ‘shadows’ waiting to strike when everyone is at their weakest. Meanwhile, a ‘Lord of Light’ (Vorlons) seems to want to oppose the ancient enemy, but takes its own rather dubious actions and uses others (the Red Priests) as proxies. And trapped in the middle, are the people of Westeros. The Iron Throne is a poisoned chalice, everyone is fighting for it but to what end? But when faced with a common enemy it will take someone to unite the warring factions and fight back and then create a new peace. Much like Sheridan had to die to have his epiphany and be reborn as a person who could bring about this new peace with a new Alliance, I’m not surprised at all that Jon Snow also has to die – the story pretty much demands it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he has an epiphany as to what it’s all about and what his role is while he’s in purgatory. When Sheridan came back there was a cost; I wonder what the cost to bring Jon back will be (unless it has already been paid with the death of Shireen, but I think there has to be a personal cost to Jon otherwise it will feel too easy). And like in B5 Sheridan was only one third of ‘The One’, in GoT Dany is the other part of the equation, particularly given L+R = J.
(By the way, there are some people that grumble Jon Snow is a boring character, but I think his apparent death and having to wait 10 months to see if he really is dead has really made his character now – I can’t remember, was there ever any doubt as to whether Sheridan might be dead after Z’Ha’Dum?)
Interestingly, I also don’t think that all the conflict in Westeros at the exact time the Others have come back is a coincidence. I’m calling it now: Littlefinger, who seems to be the source of much of the chaos, is GoT’s Morden, and is working with the Others.
So I predict that at the end of it all, a new alliance will be forged across Westeros, a new democracy with an elected president (Tyrion?) and a council with members from each of the great houses, much like how B5’s story ended with the forging of the Interstellar Alliance. B5’s story was ultimately about creating that new empire, and I think GoT will be too.
There’s even similarities between both JMS and GRRM. Both had similar backgrounds, I guess, both studied journalism, both worked on The Twilight Zone (did they work on it at the same time - presumably they know each other?), both got fed up with not being able to write exactly what they wanted for TV (GRRM’s solution was to go back to writing novels, JMS’ solution was to become a show-runner so he could do what he wanted), and A Game of Thrones debuted around the same time as B5. I’m not saying there was any kind of plagiarism involved or anything, I just find it interesting that apparently similar stories came from similar backgrounds at around the same time – must have been the zeitgeist at the time.
And then that brings me to the proposed B5 remake – oh for B5 to have had the budget of GoT! From that point of view I can definitely understand why JMS wants another crack at B5. Would you want a new B5 to be as dark or extreme as GoT can be? The only thing I can think of in B5 that comes close to the horrible things that happens on GoT is G’Kar’s treatment under Cartagia.
I’m not sure what my ramble has accomplished, but hopefully there’s a few discussion points about both B5 and GoT in there somewhere!
