Game of Thrones is like an impatient chess player who’s suddenly abandoned the rules

Slate

Jacob Brogan says the show's recent issues — such as the incoherent relationship between time and place — speak to GoT’s larger problem: “its inability to find a balance between its complex political maneuverings and the more familiar framework of heroic fantasy. In its early years, the series used the former to undermine the latter’s familiar progression—as it did when it killed off honorable patriarch Ned Stark—but those same tropes now threaten to overwhelm everything that once made the show compelling.” PLUS: An unauthorized GoT stage musical is coming to NYC, GoT seems to favor young beautiful women while older women don’t stand chance, why Jon Snow is a terrible leader, what the heck happened to Arya Stark?, the HBO hackers have revealed the Season 7 finale, do critics even matter when it comes to Game of Thrones?, Kit Harington looks like a young George R.R. Martin, and the recent complaints make Martin the real winner of Season 7.