Internal

John August says something interesting regarding the difference between soap operas and... not soap operas.

I wish they’d gone a little more HBO, with internal rather than external forces pushing characters into choices and consequences.

It's interesting to think that's an HBO-ish thing. And, in a way, ironic because HBO has all of these genre larger-than-life (or in the case of the Imp, smaller-than-life) elements. Gangsters, dragons, what-have-you.
But the conflicts are internal. Right?
That's a very interesting way to think about it.
I mean, that's ironic -- the conflicts are internal when the characters are so freaking huge.
From.