This past May saw the end of HBO's massively popular Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin's best selling series of novels A Song of Fire and Ice. The show encompassed 8 seasons, with the first several seasons attempting to carefully follow the story as written in Martin's novels. By the fifth season, the television series had run out of source material available from the existing novels and the show writers took the story in a different direction than Martin's novels. However, this did not cause any problems. The story of Game of Thrones began very well, and the story continued in excellent fashion, until the final 2 seasons. The ending is where Game of Thrones stumbled, as have many book series, movies, and television programs.
In traditional story telling, going as far back as the Ancient Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh 4000 years ago, any story whether an epic poem, mythology, or theater performance, fell into two categories: drama or comedy. Stories based on the deeds of some great hero, power-hungry king, or star crossed lovers, were generally dramas: serious stories with sad endings. Satirical, or works designed purely for entertainment were normally comedies: stories with lots of laughs and happy endings. Shakespeare's greatest plays were dramas, with a few comedies thrown in for good measure. The Italian Opera attempted to duplicate the success of the Greek Theater, and most Operas are dramas based on failed romances and jilted lovers. The ancient stories of legendary heroes such as: Hercules, Gilgamesh, Beowulf are written as dramas, with the great hero sacrificing his life at the end of the story.
In traditional storytelling, heroes were described as people of great courage, moral conviction, or sense of duty that wanted to do the right thing, while villains were beings of total evil More recent authors and writers have gotten away from the traditional manner of storytelling. Modern heroes are filled with angst, self-doubt, and perhaps a few dark secrets related to some sort of misdeeds. Villains are not beings of total evil, but rather folk that have made the wrong choices in life, and are perhaps redeemable with a certain amount of psycho-therapy.
J.R.R Tolkien wrote his great story "The Lord of the Rings", based upon his experiences in the First World War and the many disastrous events that led to the Second World War and it's aftermath. His story was truly groundbreaking, it led to the development of the modern Fantasy genre which encompasses novels, games such as "Dungeons and Dragons" which is based on characters from Tolkien's great adventure, and a plethora of other products. Tolkien wrote his story in three novels, and ended his story in a complete and reasonable manner. All the characters within the story acted according to the personality which the author had developed for them, there was no strange or out of character behavior. There was no guess work needed to figure what happened, nor did the story include any strange plot twists at the end. Other writers, such as my personal favorite the late David Eddings, followed in Tolkien's footsteps and created worlds of their own
What happened to our understanding of good story writing over the past few decades? The protagonist in most books, movies, and theater performances, has become a person of ambiguous morals, self-doubt, self-loathing, foolhardiness, and often of limited wisdom. One such character known as "Rambo", was originally written as a portrayal of veterans of the Vietnam War who found it very difficult to return to civilian life. The original movie, based upon a novel with the same name, did a fine job of portraying Rambo as a highly decorated former Green Beret suffering from extreme PTSD, that makes him unable to adjust to civilian life. The Rambo series includes five films, the first one hit theaters in 1982, and last one arrived in theaters in 2019. The story arc began well in the first and second movies, but as it progressed the Rambo persona became a twisted caricature of the original character. The fourth film in the series saw the return of Rambo to the theater after a twenty year hiatus. Rambo, again being played by Sylvester Stallone, has obviously aged and looks ready to retire from a life of adventure. Movie viewers saw the aged Rambo return home to the family farm, after being away for almost five decades. Hollywood could have ended the series with the fourth film, and it would have been a fine ending to the story; however, common sense and good taste were overruled by greed and arrogance, and another film was produced. The last film was rather awful to say the least, with an elderly Rambo making amateurish tactical errors when confronted by opponents, and then miraculously recovering from a terrible beating to single-handedly wipe out an army of Mexican criminals while displaying agility and athletic ability that are impossible for a person of that age. While facing off against the boss of the criminal organization, Rambo begins to resemble a blood covered killer from a 1980's slasher film. Gone is the highly disciplined and strategically minded Rambo of previous films, he has been replaced by a cheap mockery.
An entire book can be written on the failures of Disney's foray into the Star Wars universe, and it was never my intention to dwell on it; however, it deserves a mention. The entire trilogy appears to be written by people with no understanding of science fiction or the Star Wars franchise. Science fiction is obviously a work of fantasy; but at the very least it must follow certain guidelines in order to retain some level rationality and believability. First, any magical or fantastic abilities must have limits. Within the Star Wars universe, certain characters can do miraculous things through their manipulation of the "Force". When George Lucas created the original story in the 1970's, very few individuals could use the Force, and there were obvious limits as to how it could be used. In Disney's recent movie sequence, all limits to Force usage were removed and the Force became a magical mulligan that allowed characters to project images of themselves across the vastness of space, resurrect the recently deceased, and the main antagonist Darth Sidious to attack an entire fleet of space vessels. Second, amazing futuristic technology should have some scientific explanation that is logical enough to make sense. Apparently, the Disney writers do not understand this concept. In the original film trilogy, George Lucas created moon sized battle stations called "Death Stars" that could emit an energy beam powerful enough to destroy planets. The Death Star in Lucas's films had to be within close proximity to the targeted planet in order to fire their weapon, and the Death Stars themselves functioned in a similar manner to any other large space vessel. Disney took the idea of a Death Star and made it far more grandiose: the Death Star was planet sized, it could drain the energy of a nearby star, and it could target multiple planets from across the entire galaxy. The third film in Disney's Star Wars trilogy was the worst offender, it ended the series on a very bad note. Clearly, Disney could have done a much better job, if the writers had some familiarity with the fantasy genre.
The authors of fantasy novels are not exempt, they can also write bad endings to excellent stories. One such author is Luke Scull. His "Grim Company" trilogy could have been a tremendous success, it began very well with the first book, the second book did a marvelous job of continuing the story, but sadly the third book was a resounding failure. Much like Disney's foray into the world of Star Wars, the author could not abide by the tenets of good story writing. He introduced concepts and antagonists to the third novel that were not necessary, and as a consequence the story took several strange turns. In the end, the author seemed determined to undermine his own work.
Writing is difficult, writing a good story can be very difficult. However, if the writer sticks to the basics of good writing that are taught in most high schools and universities across the world, the story will remain logical and pleasing to the reader. Great writers are few, only a handful every century, but someone does not need to write something comparable Homer's "Iliad" or Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in order to create a good story.