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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18106
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18106
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When hope that the protagonist(s) will win is snuffed out.

I came very close to this with _Person of Interest_ in the middle of the most recent season. There are a number of Good Folks and several groups of Bad Folks. About mid-season the Bad Folks had racked up so many successes and the Good Folks were getting boxed into such a corner that I was struggling to see how the writers were going get the Good Folks past the obstacles.

The story, particularly a long-running serialized TV show, doesn't have to have a happy ending for every episode, or even every season, but the audience needs to have _some_ hope that the protagonist(s) for whom we are rooting will have some measure of success at the end. If every protagonist is killed off or removed from play by the antagonist, what the hell are we still watching for?

Ultimately the Good Folks were able to score some wins on the Bad Folks, and while they didn't defeat the Bad Folks overall, they are in a better place than they were mid-season. That's all I ask for: some hope.

In the case of _Game of Thrones,_ it depends on whether you hope that any of the surviving characters will eventually defeat their adversaries, or at least will live long enough to team up against the White Walkers and the wights. Separately, if there are so many rapes and humiliations that you give up hope that the women will ever have agency in their own lives or will ever defeat their personal nemeses, that might be enough to tip the scales.

Original score: 2