I tried watching the new season of “The Shannara Chronicles” recently but quickly tossed in the towel. It’s not that I don’t like sword and sorcery tales. I recall reading Terry Brooks’ original “Sword of Shannara” as a wee lad and even then thought it would make a great movie.
“Shannara” is a long-lived franchise, spanning decades, with many books and now this TV series. It was bound to become entangled in a web of lore. All long-lived franchises do. That may be why the second season of “Chronicles” struggles with explaining that lore in order to motivate its heroes.
It is a valuable lesson in the perils of complex motivation. In a typical cop-show, there is no need to motivate the hero. Finding the criminal is both a detective’s job and their passion. There are no tedious scenes to push them into this endeavor. No time is wasted explaining why they are zealously pursuing the bad guy. It’s the perfect TV genre.
Self-evident motivation is the best kind because it requires no explanation. Matt Damon is driven to survive in “The Martian,” because he’s stranded on Mars. Luke Skywalker is motivated to destroy the Death Star because it threatens the galaxy. Frodo braves great perils to destroy the One Ring because failure would be the end of everything. Justice and survival are very simple motivations.
Fantasy, however, can have a difficult time with simple motivations. Even Gandalf had to do some research on the Ring, and Peter Jackson had to create an entire prologue to explain its history. “Shannara” can’t afford a big CGI prologue and resorts to a lot of dialogue. These are not happening moments. The heroes aren’t really doing anything. They are just talking about the portentous signs that indicate a supernatural something-or-other is about to unfold. Such scenes are especially hard for actors to perform as half the words are made-up fantasy names.
And yet the otherworldliness of a fantasy franchise is what keeps people coming back for more. The detail and unique social and political dynamics are why “Game of Thrones” is HBO’s biggest series. Perhaps the difference between those two franchises is the ability of GoT to create simple motivations even in a fantasy world.