#1 ·
I was rewatching some old fantasy epics last night, and it hit me how much the "shock value" aspect of modern storytelling has completely changed the way we consume high-stakes drama. It feels like we’ve entered this era of what I call "assassination fatigue." You know the feeling—you’re watching a series, and you know there’s a massive political tension building, a character is gaining too much influence, or a certain faction is getting too comfortable. And what happens? Instead of a slow, agonizing burn of political maneuvering or a subtle shift in social power, the story just... snaps. Someone gets taken out. A blade in the dark, a poisoned cup, a sudden ambush.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good twist. I love it when a character I thought was safe suddenly meets a grizzly end because they made a tactical error. That's good writing. But lately, it feels like a lot of prestige television is leaning on sudden, violent removals as a shortcut to progress. It’s like the writers realize they’ve painted themselves into a corner with a complex web of alliances, and rather than untangling the knot, they just grab a pair of scissors and cut the knot out entirely.
When violence becomes the primary mechanism for moving a plot forward, it starts to devalue the stakes. If I know that every time a character reaches a certain level of "threat," they are destined to be eliminated by some shadowy figure or a sudden betrayal, I stop feeling the tension. The tension evaporates because the pattern becomes predictable. You stop rooting for the underdog to survive and start just waiting to see which specific method of execution the writers have chosen for them this week. It turns the drama into a countdown rather than a journey.
I remember reading a critique a few years back about how certain genres use "chaos" as a substitute for "consequence." It’s a huge distinction. True consequence comes from the choices characters make and the ripples those choices send through their world. Chaos is just stuff happening *to* people. When a series leans too hard into the "anyone can die at any second" mentality, it can actually make the world feel smaller and less real. It feels less like a living, breathing society with complex power dynamics and more like a shooting gallery.
I also find myself thinking about the psychological toll this takes on the audience. There’s a certain level of exhaustion that sets in when you’re constantly braced for impact. If a show is constantly punishing its characters with sudden, jarring deaths, it starts to feel nihilistic. It loses that sense of "what if they succeed?" and replaces it with a pervasive sense of "well, they're dead, so why bother caring?" I miss the stories where the threat was the *possibility* of loss, rather than the inevitability of it.
I’m curious to hear what you guys think about the current state of "prestige" genre writing. Do you think we’ve reached a breaking point where sudden violence is becoming a lazy writing tool? Or is this just the natural evolution of storytelling—getting rid of the fluff and getting straight to the high-stakes consequences? Does a high body count actually make a show feel more "adult" or "gritty" to you, or does it just feel like cheap theater after a while?
Don't get me wrong, I love a good twist. I love it when a character I thought was safe suddenly meets a grizzly end because they made a tactical error. That's good writing. But lately, it feels like a lot of prestige television is leaning on sudden, violent removals as a shortcut to progress. It’s like the writers realize they’ve painted themselves into a corner with a complex web of alliances, and rather than untangling the knot, they just grab a pair of scissors and cut the knot out entirely.
When violence becomes the primary mechanism for moving a plot forward, it starts to devalue the stakes. If I know that every time a character reaches a certain level of "threat," they are destined to be eliminated by some shadowy figure or a sudden betrayal, I stop feeling the tension. The tension evaporates because the pattern becomes predictable. You stop rooting for the underdog to survive and start just waiting to see which specific method of execution the writers have chosen for them this week. It turns the drama into a countdown rather than a journey.
I remember reading a critique a few years back about how certain genres use "chaos" as a substitute for "consequence." It’s a huge distinction. True consequence comes from the choices characters make and the ripples those choices send through their world. Chaos is just stuff happening *to* people. When a series leans too hard into the "anyone can die at any second" mentality, it can actually make the world feel smaller and less real. It feels less like a living, breathing society with complex power dynamics and more like a shooting gallery.
I also find myself thinking about the psychological toll this takes on the audience. There’s a certain level of exhaustion that sets in when you’re constantly braced for impact. If a show is constantly punishing its characters with sudden, jarring deaths, it starts to feel nihilistic. It loses that sense of "what if they succeed?" and replaces it with a pervasive sense of "well, they're dead, so why bother caring?" I miss the stories where the threat was the *possibility* of loss, rather than the inevitability of it.
I’m curious to hear what you guys think about the current state of "prestige" genre writing. Do you think we’ve reached a breaking point where sudden violence is becoming a lazy writing tool? Or is this just the natural evolution of storytelling—getting rid of the fluff and getting straight to the high-stakes consequences? Does a high body count actually make a show feel more "adult" or "gritty" to you, or does it just feel like cheap theater after a while?