Is Game of Thrones Season 6 going to be overstuffed?

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON 6

In a recent entry of WiC’s Small Council, we discussed our favorite plotlines from Game of Thrones Season 5, and we asked you guys to weight in with your pics. Here are the results of our poll.

[polldaddy poll=9104039]

Unsurprisingly, the storyline that included the show-stopping Massacre at Hardhome won the day, while Bronn and Jaime fumbling about in Dorne brought up the rear. Apart from what this poll says about the quality of these plotlines, constructing it forced me think about which plotlines had enough meat of them to be included in the first place, and not everything made the cut. You’ll notice, for example, that the adventures of Brienne and Podrick don’t appear on the poll, mainly because the characters didn’t get a lot of screentime, and what time they had was closely tied to the Sansa and Stannis storylines. There’s room for argument, but I think the eight threads listed above provide a more-or-less accurate picture of the various story strands that made up Season 5.

Eight story strands—that’s quite a lot to cover, even with 10 one-hour episodes to work with. In my opinion, that time shortage resulted in some plotlines not receiving the attention they deserved. Take Stannis’ march on Winterfell. For most of the season, it was gripping television, as the would-be king walked a slow road to hell that climaxed with the ritual sacrifice of his daughter in “The Dance of Dragons.” But in the season finale, his wife committed suicide, he was abandoned by his army (and Melisandre), he was defeated on the field of battle, and he was executed by Brienne, all in extremely short order. Stannis’ downfall still worked dramatically, but it could have been a lot more effective if the show had spared the time to let it sink in.*

Stannis’ storyline wasn’t the only one that suffered because of a lack of time. In King’s Landing, Cersei faced a new enemy in the sparrows, but we learned so little of their motivations that it was hard to take them seriously. At Winterfell, book-readers mourned the absence of characters like Wyman Manderly, who could have added dimension to Sansa’s struggle to survive in a familiar environment where she was nonetheless surrounded by enemies. In Dorne…actually, I’m not sure more screentime could have fixed the problems in Dorne. That’s a topic for a whole other article.

Why do I bring this all up? Because if we thought Season 5 was stuffed to the brim with plotlines, Season 6 promises to be even more crowded. Granted, we don’t know exactly how things will shake down, but we can make educated guesses based on the reports we’ve received during the off-season, our knowledge of the books, and common sense. As far as we can tell, here’s what the slate of plotlines for next year looks like (If you don’t want to be spoiled, this is your last chance to bail):

1. The sparrows continue to exert their influence in King’s Landing.
2. Bran Stark, returning after a year-long absence, trains with the Three-Eyed Raven.
3. Jaime besieges Riverrun at the head of a Lannister army.
4. Arya continues her training as a Faceless Man.
5. Tyrion and Varys struggle to rule Meereen.
6. Daenerys travels with the khalasar that picked her up at the end of Season 5.
7. The Iron Islanders return to the scene, with newcomer Euron Grejoy likely being elected their leader.
8. Sam will travel to Oldtown, meeting his family along the way.
9. Jon Snow will be resurrected somehow and eventually face off against the Boltons and their allies.
10. Sansa goes somewhere, possibly to look for her brother Rickon, who will return. She’ll be present, one way or another, at that Jon Snow-Bolton face-off late in the season.
11. The Dornish will do…something. We don’t know exactly what, but they’ll be around.

That’s 11 story strands, and keep in mind that I’m not including everything. Remember that Jorah and Daario will be searching for Daenerys, that Walder Frey looks like he’ll make an appearance, and that there’s a band of outlaws roaming the Riverlands, based on what we can surmise from the pre-season casting calls. All this and a probable visit from Septon Meribald, too. If Season 5 felt stretched too thin with eight main plotlines, how can Season 6 possibly manage all this?

Executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, not panicking.

First of all, listing all the plotlines one after the other like that makes them look more intimidating than they are. Yes, we’re going to Dorne, but reports suggest that we won’t be spending much time there. Similarly, we haven’t heard much about Sam, Sansa, or Bran during the off-season, so maybe their parts are relatively small. Also, I imagine that Jorah and Daario’s plotline will attach itself to Daenerys’ much like Brienne and Pod’s storyline glommed on to Sansa’s early in Season 5. Finally, the appearances by Walder Frey, Septon Meribald, and the outlaw band will likely be part of a general Riverlands story that will also encompass Jaime’s siege of Riverrun.

Still, even having made those allowances, Season 6 has a bewildering amount of material to get through, and I fear that more storylines are going to be shortchanged. You might think that killing off Stannis Baratheon in Season 5 would have freed up some time, but the returning characters have replaced him and then some, so there are now more characters fighting for space than ever.

How will the show handle this situation? Can the show handle this situation? Maybe.

For one thing, let’s recall that not all of the show’s attempts at story compression in Season 5 turned out badly. Tyrion’s trip to Meereen, for example, goes on for a lot longer in the books than it does on the show, and the produces were smart to shave off some of the fat. Also consider Arya’s story: we may not have seen as much of Braavos in Season 5 as we did in A Feast for Crows, but the production team still managed to communicate the richness of the city in a relatively short amount of time. If the producers can trim exactly the right bits from exactly the right storylines, maybe they can manage the press of plot in Season 6.

There’s also this interesting quote from Emilia Clarke, which she dropped after having read the scripts from Season 6, to consider:

I’ve said this before, but there’s a lot of season where you need to (rightly so) kind of need to set the scene. And you have a couple of episodes where you’re like, “OK, feeding information, I get it. We’re finding out about this person. And we know about that person. And oh, there’s that person.” But this season coming up, that we’re about to film, there’s none of that. It’s just go, go, go, go. Shocking moment to shocking moment. Epic moment to epic moment. It’s mental; it’s epic.

Most every season of Game of Thrones has started with a slow build that eventually leads to a climax, or series of climaxes, toward the end of the year (the exception was Season 4, which began with a bang by killing Joffrey in Episode 2). Storylines that are being set up require more room than storylines that are barreling ahead, since the audience needs to become familiar with the pieces on the board so its invested when those pieces change places, or fall down, or explode, or whatever. Season 5 did a lot of setup work in its first half, so maybe Season 6 can afford to to scrimp on setup and capitalize on momentum. That could free up enough time for all these plotlines to coexist.

Either that, or the lack of setup will hurt the season, as the show tries to pay things off without first earning our investment. Is Game of Thrones Season 6 going to be overstuffed? It’s still too early to tell, but we’ll be watching, and waiting, and hoping for the best.

• Published on 10/30/2015 at 9:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/30/2015 at 9:13 AM CDT