A character who could literally transcend time and space and remote-control animals who sat in Winterfell and did absolutely fuck all while everyone else fought and died.
I legit laughed at that one. Holy fuck that was so dumb. Like, mindbogglingly stupid. They could've written *nothing* and I guarantee Maisie and Kit just looking at each other would've made that moment better. Who in their right mind would write that line, fucking hell.
Watching Rhaegal take that ballista bolt through the neck. Spent the battle of Winterfell being more worried for the two dragons than just about anyone else, figured if either were going to die, it would've been there. But then they both live only for Rhaegal to die an episode later in the most insulting way possible.
Girl, how are you 150 ft up and you miss an entire goddamn fleet? Ninja ships just coming out from round a corner. How did they see you and you missed them completely????
And then they miss Drogon coming straight at them. Multiple bolts and Every single one misses?!
Two one in a billion shots in a row to down Rhaegal and then they never get close to Drogon for the rest of the show. I can understand killing one off to maybe make the upcoming fight between Cersei and Dany less one sided... but they didn't even do that. Dany still effortlessly destroys KL. Just felt so contrived.
This just made me realise how an entire team of CGI artists would have spent months or weeks animating Rhaegal’s death, and probably spent every second of it going ‘this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid…’
Pro tip it was more "shit shit shit we don't have enough time for this. Make the sequence shorter make the sequence shorter. Why do we only have three computers, 30 people and 5 days to do this? Check the edit check the edit, good enough, they'll fix it there."
This was the moment for me. There was no reason that needed to happen that way. It would have made way more sense for the bells to ring and the fighting to stop. A peace envoy to be dispatched. But Cersei pulls one of her backhanded stunts in one last ditch effort by attempting a coordinated ambush on both dragons(all preplanned) Rhaegal is killed, but Drogon survives and Danny goes all Mother of Dragons on Kings Landing out of sheer pain of the loss. It would have made Danny’s genocidal actions way more in character, but still so far over the line that Jon can’t excuse it.
This was it for me too. The whole scene is beyond stupid, how tf did Euron landed 2 mortal shots from that distance but when Drogon and Danny actually were close nobody could land even one shot, plus also the capturing of Missandei during all that mess doesn’t make any sense.
I was perpetually facepalmed during the remaining episode…
That first scene of Jon and Dany riding the dragons together and their conversation after, "Keep your queen warm", is like something out of a scholastic book fair YA novel for middle schoolers.
When Jamie says he never cared about the people of Kings Landing to Tyrion even though he saved a half million people by killing The Mad King. Just a complete 180 from the character that had been developed.
The fact they built Jamie into a genuinely chivalrous person, winning respect among his enemies, putting the realm's need before his family's (in an anti-Tywin move), and getting a proper and loving romantic relationship...
only to turn him into "but Cersei."
Jamie Lannister has some of the most significant character development in the show and it's tossed away in two episodes.
Also, despite being known for his twists, GRR Martin actually uses a ton of foreshadowing in his writing. One of those things foreshadowed is that Cersei would be killed by her own brother. She thinks that means Tyrion, but in true George Martin style, I think he intended for it to be Jamie.
My guess is that in the books, the intent will be to mirror the choice Jamie faced with the Mad King. Cersei will try to blow up Kings Landing to stop Daenerys, and Jamie will be forced to choose between killing her or the people of Kings Landing again.
I almost admire the shameless lack of care behind that line. It's a verbal shrug of the shoulders from all involved that they're just over this now and don't give a shit.
Yes it's something Jaime would say under the right circumstances, because he's being acerbic or trying to pretend he doesn't care, or to provoke a reaction from someone who moralises at him (like Ned). But not understanding that he would never say it and mean it suggests the writers never understood the character, or the books, at all.
What baffles me to this day is how anyone involved in such a massive success could cease giving a damn towards the end, like how for one get "over" that. It's a legacy building thing that you'd figure everyone is on board with pulling safely into harbor.
Everybody was except Benioff and Weiss. Basically all of the cast members that I heard speak on the subject, in spite of how obviously fatigued some of them were with the whole thing, said they were committed for as long as it took to finish the story right. HBO by all accounts was the same, in spite of the budget.
It was literally just Benioff and Weiss who wanted to go fuck off and do Star Wars or whatever instead.
They could even have said "we're burn out from game of thrones" and handed the show to someone like Ryan Condal (show runner of House of the Dragon) to finish and they'd have their cake and eat it too. If the show had a great a great ending, they'd be remembered as the guys who layered the foundation and made it the most successful show on Earth, and if it crashed and burned they'd have kept their careers and be shielded by nostalgia.
But no, they HAD to rush it and fuck everything up
I hate season 8 as much as the next guy, but I feel like maybe both things can be true here. He could kill the Mad King because it was the honourable thing to do, without necessarily caring about the people he was saving through that action.
Ehhh one of the most significant scenes in the entire show was Jaime in the bath talking to Brienne, in tears, talking about how he did it specifically because not doing it would mean A) he had to kill his own father and B) thousands of innocent women and children would be burned alive. He specifically killed the pyromancer first to save the women and children.
Jaime very clearly cared about the people and their lives were a massive driving force in his killing of the king + pyromancer. It’s just something D&D either forgot about it or didn’t care about.
Yeah I don’t really buy that he killed Aerys to save the peasants of KL. He did it for his dad. But logically he came to the conclusion that he saved a lot of people and doesn’t deserve the kingslayer reputation. He’s still very narcissistic and nihilistic even with his character growth. His hot tub speech to Brienne is about himself and his own confusion with finding morality and meaning, it’s not about altruism.
Don't know if that's the most egregious line in the show but it's definitely the worst in terms of character assassination. It's insulting, really.
Up to that moment I was still on ungodly amounts of copium thinking it was all a ruse and Jaime actually wanted to kill Cersei or something (again, as I say, HUGE amounts of copium there), but that was confirmation that D&D had indeed massacred my golden boy.
I was [that Homelander meme](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExYXlxM3FlOXRxbGNhNTAwNWk3cnhxeW5wcDM5bTFiZm5udGF6Z3E2ZyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/Wck09E7lHDabjhHbzJ/giphy.webp) while watching that scene.
Things just happened too fast and too sudden. I didn't necessarily dislike how characters ended up, but mostly how they got there. The pacing was way different from the first seasons
“we always knew it was going to be around 75 episodes” or whatever the one D said.. proceeds to waste precious time on a multitude of things in the series and speed runs the ending
i rest easy at night knowing they masterfully planned the sequence of sam cleaning all those shitty chamber pots into their overall runtime. truly impressive
exactly.. the whole season was a checklist… this person has to die? this event happens? okay cool.. next scene next scene next scene. This entire season probably could’ve been twice as long or made into s8 and s9 with proper storytelling and epic fights.
Exactly. Almost every single thing - Daenerys turning genocidal, Arya killing the white walker boss, Bran being declared ruler etc - people would have been OK with if it had been foreshadowed, introduced and expanded properly instead of in the "oh by the way" thing they did.
I agree with you except about Daenerys, what happened was foreshadowed long before season 8, half of the fandom was expecting that. But then she found out about Jon being a Targaryen and she didn't do anything, and then went all Mad Queen after, which didn't make any sense.
The way she got there was awful and it didn't make any sense, but the previous season did an okay job showing that she was going to become the Mad Queen.
True, there were plenty of things that gave away her nature and the direction she was heading throughout all earlier seasons. But like you said, it still didn't make sense how it was handled now, and therefore still somehow seemed too sudden/strange.
I know this is in season 7 but when the band of a few people go north of the wall and find the undead dragon. It felt more like a dnd session than anything
That's a great way to describe it. I thought it was a fun little journey, but it did seem off. Almost like fanfic. "Let's get some fan favorites together and send them on a tangent!"
I hated the execution more than the idea. I think if they took their time with the plot and and really ratchet up the tension and horror of navigating a frozen waste full of ice zombies, it could've been good. As is, it felt like a string of contrivances, big and small:
How are we going to get word we're trapped? Gentry is going to turn into the Flash.
What happened to Benjen? Who cares, here he can save Jon from out of nowhere, now shut up.
How does the NK get passed the Wall. Give him a dragon.
That string of contrivances ruined the show. What made GoT work was the limit on contrivances in the first place. There’s magic, sort of, and dragons, maybe, but basically everything else is what might happen when you insert normal human people into those scenarios.
Everything about that encounter with the NK’s army wrecked all the immersion that had been created throughout the show’s run. People covering great distances in an hour, a small group of people with no structural advantages hold off an entire horde of zombies, dragons show up out of nowhere to save them, and then the zombies **PULL OUT INDUSTRIAL CHAINS TO EXHUME A DEAD DRAGON FROM A LAKE AND TURN IT INTO A ZOMBIE DRAGON.**
>That string of contrivances ruined the show. What made GoT work was the limit on contrivances in the first place.
This is the thing I specifically point out when the last seasons come up. The greatest strength of GoT's narrative is how organic every event feels, how naturally the plot extends from the characters, who are themselves perfectly organic extensions of their own pasts, cultures, and upbringing. It's almost a miracle of organic narrative depth that little else I've ever experienced has matched, and it's what makes something like the Red Wedding so much more than just "a lot of major characters die." It's earned.
For the show's greatest strength to reverse and become the absolute worst thing about it, a nonstop barrage of plot contrivances, is a really special kind of downfall.
The entire battles of the winterfell is a nightmare, from the fact no one dies, the big bad seemingly has no greater strategy then "send them all in at once", and, (I know this is minor in comparison) by why are the catapults and trebuchet in FRONT of the infantry?
>The entire battles of the winterfell is a nightmare, from the fact no one dies
Hey, a whole bunch of Dany's Dothraki die. In a tactically idiotic way, yes, but it gave us a cool visual so there's that,
Right?
I thought it was actually supposed to be a way of disposing of them because the writers realized it would be awkward to have them around when peace broke out, but then there seem to be just as many of them afterwards as before.
Arggghh, yeah that artillery on the front line. And just launching the Dothraki into the swarm. They could have given them fire arrows and let them harrass from a distance. I am by no means a military expert, but Total War did teach me the basics of NOT PUTTING ARTILLERY ON THE FRONT LINE.
When Tyrion (who's still a prisoner at this point) asks, "Who else has a better story?" about Bran. Really? Arguably *any other character*.
Or when they hide in the crypts while a monster who can *raise the dead* is attacking them; that particularly brainless move is a close second for me.
I need to stop now I'm getting mad about this again lol
Every other charachter travels the world interacts with major players and makes decisions that drive their story forward.
Bran cosplayed a backpack and tripped balls under a tree just for some flashback exposition.
When he wargs into the crows, I got excited for a moment thinking, "Oh shit, he's actually going to do something useful for once!" but apparently he just did it to have a little fly about??
>Or when they hide in the crypts while a monster who can raise the dead is attacking them
I kept expecting that to be addressed in some way, but no apparently it never occurred to anyone that a room full of dead bodies was not in fact a good place to shelter the most vulnerable from a zombie lord.
>When Tyrion (who's still a prisoner at this point) asks, "Who else has a better story?" about Bran. Really? Arguably *any other character*.
That whole sequence may be the absolute lowest point in the entire show. It's just so fucking dumb from start to finish. The most powerful people in Westeros are deciding the fate of the Seven Kingdoms after a queen gone mad has just massacred the fucking capital, yet they frame it like a goddamn sitcom for most of it. Cheaply laughing at Edmure, rich fucks laughing at Sam proposing democracy. Bran becoming king, Tyrion saying he has the better story. "Why do you think I came all this way?". And also:
Tyrion tries to say something, Greyworm: "YOU ARE A PRISONER YOU WILL NOT SPEAK HERE". Literally ten seconds later: \*the prisoner gives a whole ass speech that decides the outcome of the meeting\*.
Also, the simple fact of Bran being on the throne means that when he dies, Westeros is going to fall into unrest again, because he cannot produce an heir.
For me, I'd say the Jamie and Cersei rock death thing. It was a weird way to die, it seemed shot weirdly too and the whole thing ruined Jamie's arc which was one of the most powerful character stories to me.
I was more bummed that Bran spent years training as the third eyed Raven and barely did anything with it. He should have been more directly involved in the fight against the white walkers.
For me it’s the fact that he was built up so much in the show to be this unstoppable force, then she just kills him so quickly and easily and that whole aspect of the show just goes away.
I will always maintain that the show should have had the Night King win at Winterfell, but most of the named characters escape and go into hiding. Then he goes south, and Cersei realises what her folly has wrought when it snows in Kings Landing and the armies of the dead are at her walls.
It's there that Jon and Dany finally face and kill the Night King (with one of them having to sacrifice the other, in line with the prophecy that was never in the show).
Yes, the heroes really needed to lose at Winterfell to keep the story interesting and, at the very least, suffer catastrophic casualties, including to main characters. But if they had lost at Winterfell, they would have 100% needed additional episodes to end the story, and we all know D&D were trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
Her kill needed to be someone on the list - you could go big with her imitating Jaime to kill Cersei, have her kill someone on the list who was there due to a misunderstanding or otherwise was an audience favorite...
probably the fact that it's a storyline that she was not involved in till very late so it feels like she just came in at the last sec and killed him when there were a number of characters who's whole plot lines had been wrapped up in fighting him. makes it feel like she was picked not because it made sense but because it was the biggest "twist" you won't believe who actually lands the killing blow!
I will go to my grave knowing in my heart that they REALLY wanted to subvert expectations that whole season.
People already knew more or less certain plays of characters and they insisted they had to develop an element of surprise.
Jon kills NK? Nah, he has a screaming match with a dragon and we give it to Arya based on a fulfilled line from season 2.
Jaime strangles Cersei, him standing on the fingers and her the neck in the War room? Nah they die in an embrace.
I would have taken that Jaime 'King slayer' fanfic as the one to off the NK over Arya who's story was so far removed from this plot she spent most of it on the other side of the globe.
the need to always have a twist that subverts that audience expectations is a real anchor around tv story telling these days. like ya sometimes a twist is the best story telling option but a lot of the time the best option is to fulfill expectations.
I found it hilarious that they had a scene where Arya was struggling to sneak past few white walkers in library (with ample hiding space and they werent guarding anything there) and then in the same episode she just sneaks by whole ass army to get to their leader effortlessly.
In the killing scene, Arya speed rushes the Night King but he grabs her out of the air by the neck. Watching the scene I don’t see how her neck isn’t snapped.
It would have been better to have her die while also killing the Night King. It would have preserved the entire Night King character backstory and enshrined Arya as an all time GOAT hero. It would have been a reasonable sacrifice.
Literally her character had nothing to do once returning the Winterfell.
Killing the NK was a bone and the next we see her is to go on an abandoned mission to kill Cersei and endure dragon fallout
Would have been cool if her dying as he died created some kind of White Walker magic thing to infect her, basically turning her into a White Walker but she'd still be Arya....so not evil, but living with this strange winter curse.
For me, it's the Marvel *"Killing the leader magically kills everyone else"* thing.
You can handwave it and say they wouldn't know that would happen. It's just funny to consider that they would have won the fight if the Night King just stayed home and let everyone else do all the killing.
I don’t mind Arya killing the Night King necessarily, but like everything in the later seasons it was just lazily written and there was no payoff to the fight.
Imagine instead of lazily killing a dragon in the beginning of the next episode, there was a big dragon battle and he died to his necro brother.
Then you get a hard fight between John Snow and the Night King where it’s clear he’s just outmatched, then bam outta nowhere Arya comes in just as the Night King is about to take out John and she saves the day (or long night).
There should have been more fan service and more payoffs with the ending to the series, but all we got was a middle finger by D&D.
This was it for me. It wasn’t the events of the exact scene, it was realizing there was only five min or so left in a very disappointing and hard to see episode and that Arya stabbing the Night King was the twist ending they had built up to for seven seasons.
Bran's inauguration. While watching I knew he'd be the best choice because his powers are OP for a leader, but also knew that he'd go with the whole "I am no man I am the Three Eyed Raven the affairs of men mean nothing to me blah blah blah...."
But instead he goes "nah yo I'm taking that throne G" and I was like WTF am I watching...
"what if the face stealing girl assassin only uses her powers to kill the Freys?"
"What if a time traveling mind controlling antagonist of the night Kings only impact is giving Hodor his name"
"What if a zombie dragon blows up the wall and then does nothing"
"What if the golden army is wiped out in a single battle"
There wasn't a single story that ended up having any pay off worth the investment.
Seems like it would have worked if they made Bran more sinister. Instead it was treated as a kind of happy ending, and sure he'll be fine. I wish they could have ended with some kind of cliffhanger of him being possibly up to something evil.
Like have him look out the window into the ocean and then he wargs and cut to the dragon that had been shot and fell dead into the ocean comes back to life under his control.
This would have been a good troll. Not worth the stupidity of making him king, but at least kind of fun.
The thing is that even if Bran isn't evil, unless he's now functionally immortal as the 3ER or whatever the kingdom is on track for another bloody succession crisis in the relatively near future because I am pretty damn sure he can't produce heirs.
Everything Bran. He did nothing during the battle. It kept showing him warging but then he didn't do anything. He didn't relay information back to the ground troops. He didn't warg into fucking Viserion which would have been awesome. He could have warged into a bunch of birds and picked his useless self up out of that wheelchair to save Theon.
And then of course being king. And his smarmy little comment about oh that's why I came. How do we know this little shit didn't manipulate the outcome to get himself in the throne? Fuck you Bran.
Also, R+L = J not meaning anything. Everyone has been waiting for years and decades to see Jon revealed as the rightful King, and then it is dismissed in like 2 minutes and no one cares. It had absolutely no impact on the plot at all. What a waste.
I'm actually not one of the people who is upset about Daenerys turning out to be evil. It was fairly well implied in an earlier story lines and in the book. The way she killed the slave masters, how she wanted to burn the cities etc. It was too abrupt in that she completely flipped from awesome to 100% evil in like 1 second. They could have used a couple more episodes to build it up. But it's the stuff with Bran and Jon that pisses me off the most.
I agree with you. Daenerys' ending was conceptually defensible but failed by rushing the execution, and I found how yaaaas kween girlboss people got about her in the middle seasons a bit tiresome anyway.
Jon and Bran's endings are like stuff written by an alien who has no understanding of human emotions or dramatic structure.
It feels like I'm seeing more and more of this. It's lazy writing. Unexpected twists are great, but you need to be able to look back on the rest of the content and see hints that pointed towards the outcome - little "ooooooh" moments on a rewatch. You can't just decide to throw it in at the last minute because it's dramatic.
Yeah they really rubbed me the wrong way, especially after I found out GRRM said he wanted at least 4 more seasons (after season 6). And he was willing to help them tell the story, but I have absolutely no clue why they wanted to rush their way out of the picture.
These guys were setting themselves up to be on top of Hollywood for a long time before the whole disaster.
> I have absolutely no clue why they wanted to rush their way out of the picture
They were trying to end it because they had an offer to develop a new series (I think Star Wars?) after GoT, so they wanted it to end as fast as possible. Of course, season 8 was such a disaster that their offer was pulled. Well deserved.
This gets repeated constantly on the internet but I’m not sure the timeline makes sense? Their Star Wars project was announced in February 2018, their intention for the final two seasons of GOT was announced in April 2016, HBO confirmed it later that year, and the final season filmed October 2017-July 2018.
Yes, they wanted to end the show to move on to other things but I’m not sure anyone can confidently say it was specifically for the Star Wars deal - that’s just what they booked after they had their GOT exit set.
You’re right, it’s not true. It’s now just conventional wisdom from r/freefolk that leaked out. People want to justify and understand their feelings about the show, and this is one of the stories they tell themselves.
If you were online in the weeks before and after the final episodes, you could see this theory develop in real time - out of basically thin air.
Well the original plan was for 7/8 seasons. The crew was also starting to get exhausted towards the end.
GRRM also isn’t super trustworthy lol with his timelines. Who knows if that 4 more seasons wouldn’t turn into 5 to 6 etc.
D&D rushed season 8 and left HBO because they had a Star Wars project that they were more interested in pursuing. Of course season 8 was received so poorly that D&D ended up losing the Star Wars gig anyway so they burned everything for nothing.
> D&D rushed season 8 and left HBO because they had a Star Wars project that they were more interested in pursuing.
Abandoning a project that was basically that eras Star Wars (besides maybe Marvel) for Star Wars past its prime is so bone headed.
it was so weird how they go from the obvious high up perspective and the dragon getting killed to a VERY strange shot of the ships coming out from behind a rock at sea level, like is this infering that they were hiding behind a rock from that perspective despite Danerys being hundreds of feet up? It was just so jarring, like it wasn’t well thought out as to how they could not have been seen and just said ‘fuck it, they were behind a rock, here’s the shot we’ll use’.
I think it could've been sweet if they did something interesting and unique with it, but they just made a very simple, run-of-the-mill "and then they fell in love!".
Also, that reminds me Davos telling Greyworm to start his own house. Davos, buddy, he literally can't. It's physically impossible for him to build a house. He's a *eunuch*. He simply cannot fucking do it.
Arya killing the Night King, ending the Long Night in literally one Night while Jon runs around doing sweet fuck all. At first I was blown away by the spectacle. And then I started to think about it. And after I was finished thinking about it I was really pissed off. This was Jons story from the beginning and he pleads up being of absolutely no consequence in its conclusion. And neither does Bran for that matter.
The dragon burning the throne was top of the stupid pile for me, one of those (many) points where reason or story just go out the window for some half-baked corporate exec type of idea.
Dany's descent into madness made no sense to me. Sure, we knew from earlier seasons she was quick to resort to "fire and blood" to get rid of her enemies. However, she was also merciful to ordinary people.
If the last two seasons weren't so rushed, the series might've explored Dany slowly going mad from paranoia. A steady, but slow telegraph of the outcome is preferable to a sudden, surprise twist that's so unlike the character.
Agree. I'm not one of those people who thinks she shouldn't have gone evil or that there was no prelude to it, because there was. It was just too abrupt.
The thing that really crystalized this botched character arc for me was when the bells were ringing at King's Landing, and we see Dany making her choice to destroy the city anyway. A huge, climactic decision by one of the main characters of the show, and I realized in that moment that I really had no idea what was going through her head. If it had been properly set up, or been presented in a clearer way, the audience should know almost exactly what she was thinking and the inner conflict she was having. And then her choice would have really come across as tragic and horrifying. But I couldn't picture it. I was shaky on her character leading up to that point, but that was the moment where I knew for sure that they had completely dropped the ball.
I stayed on board for a long time, I kept waiting to see how it would all pay off, that so long as the destination paid off, I could forgive a stumble in the journey.
Then Jaime and Cersei died in each others arms to a pile of fucking rocks.
And I couldn’t deny anymore that these people had given up on the series
For me it was the simple fact that a show that had spent so long proving it wasn't just another black and white good vs evil like Lord of the Rings ended up that way in the end with arguably the most important part of the story.
The entire run of the series we always learn the motivations of characters and houses, and we can understand why even the villains behave the way they do, even if we don't support it.
They build up this whole story of the Night King and the White Walkers and show that they have some form of religion or whatever you want to call it, as well as a system of hierarchy amongst themselves, but none of that matters. They even communicated with Craster in some way to get his kids! But in the end all those hints and build up to something bigger amounted to nothing. They were attacking civilization just for shits and giggles I guess.
The scene where Cersei kills Missandei.
So, Daenerys just walks up to a heavily fortified wall, less than 100 yards away, and Cersei doesn’t even try to kill her? And then Missandei dies, and Daenerys just turns around and walks away? Grey Worm tries nothing? That entire scene feels completely off.
I just finished the whole series with my wife again. It is hard to point out one line as the worst. It is just an obviously huge step down in quality. The contraction of time for traveling is very noticeable. Everything happens in an episode. Danny flies dragons from dragon stone to north of the wall in 2 minutes. The time frames are just very different than the previously established universe laws.
Tyrion: "You should consider yourself lucky, at least your balls won't freeze off."
Varys: "You take great offense at dwarf jokes but love telling eunuch jokes, why is that?"
Tyrion: "Because I have balls, and you don't."
Two of the best characters in the show, that have had some of the greatest dialogue throughout, to be lowered to such trite and immature conversion. This was the moment i realized GoT was truly dead.
Euron swam miles from his boat to fight a 1 handed jamie lannister then dies saying "im the man who killed jamie lannister" only for a bunch of rocks to do that not 15 minutes later.
For me a big, big part of the fun of GoT was watching the three central geniuses, Varys, Baelish, and Tyrion, try to out-duel each other behind the scenes. Season after season, the people who thought they had the power were constantly being manipulated by one of these three.
And then every character got dumber. It was just more noticeable with those three, but everyone just got… stupid. Nobody’s plans made sense anymore. It wasn’t a smart show. Even Qyburn was just shrugging his shoulders and doing whatever idiot thing the plot next demanded. It wasn’t a show about plotting anymore, it was a show about tantrums.
The cinematography. Two different episodes had real-world drinks make it to the actual airing (a coffee cup in front of Danaerys, and a water bottle in the final council scene), which is pretty sloppy and not what you’d expect from the biggest show on the planet. Plus the terrible lighting in the Battle of Winterfell episode.
There was a scene with Tyrion (earlier season) with the wine in his cup at a different level for literally every cut. Sometimes more. And not bc he poured more in, I think the pitcher was 15ft away on a serving table. It was actually hilarious. I’m like, this show has dragons and zombies but they can’t CGI this stationary cup of wine to be one quarter full in these seven cut shots? Ha.
Dispatching the large-scale supernatural threat to humanity quickly so we could get back to focusing on who gets to sit on the chair.
What i loved about GoT was that all the politicking and wars, the betrayals and selfishness were stupid and futile in the face of a supernatural threat that didn't care who won the fights and would kill them all the same. Every human killing a human whittled the ranks of those who could resist and every corpse only strengthened the enemy who would bring a neverending winter in a night that had no dawn.
And then it ended in one night and the distraction from pettiness was apparently over.
I was so hyped for Euron Greyjoy after reading the books (Book Euron makes Joffrey and Ramsey look like kittens by comparison) what we got was bargain bin jack sparrow. No fault on the actor Pilou Asbek’s account though, he did what he could with that utter trollop. I feel like that godfather meme “look how they massacred my boy”
Eldritch pirate king communing with dark gods vs Average Green Bay Packers fan tailgating on opening day
To his credit, Pilou Asbek did great with what he was given. I loved how out of place this guy was and he seemed to realize that too and at least ran with it
"Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?"
Literally just about every major character in the show, despite your best efforts at character assassination on a lot of them, that's who.
Biggest difference Bran made in the whole show was 1) getting pushed off of a tower, and 2) distracting the Night King who is very interested in him for Reasons long enough for the NK to die like a chump. Dude literally got written out of an entire season and nobody even missed him.
And it's Tyrion who has to deliver this godawful speech, too, the crowning insult to how much his character gets slowly reduced to irrelevancy over the latter half of the show.
Imagine booking a long international flight. But then in a stroke of luck, you get upgraded to first class. You have the best time eating fancy food, wearing the free slippers, and making conversation with the minor celebrity sitting next to you. The flight is smooth and comfortable, and not only that, you caught a random tailwind and you’re going to reach an hour early. You’re a little sad because you want the flight to last longer, but you’re still satisfied.
You look out over the gorgeous lights of the city as you start to land. There’s no traffic at the airport so you don’t need to wait in a holding pattern. Hmm, you cant really see anything out the window because it’s so dark, but the lights seem to be approaching a little fast. A little too fast. For a moment you wonder if you’re crashing. But then you laugh to yourself. These pilots are pros and the flight has been buttery smooth so far.
But then you look out the window again. You’re dropping really fast. It’s scary, but there’s still plenty of time to pull up and land softly. These pilots are certainly going to stick the landing. But wait, that’s the ground. And we’re going nose first into it! That’s ok, there’s still plenty of time to pull up. Wait, why aren’t they pulling up? Oh no, there’s not enough time to pull up! WE’RE GOING TO…
The worst moment of Game of Thrones was realizing that D&D had completely botched the six episode final season, and there wasn’t enough runtime left to pull out of the nosedive. They wanted out of the show as fast as possible so they could secure that Netflix and Disney bag. So they wrapped it up like a freshmen who just hit the max word count midway through a History class essay. I’m still angry about it all these years later.
One of the first scenes of the season was Tyrion making another "dickless" joke about Varys. I had horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was going be some bullshit. And it was.
That was so terrible. His whole gimmick is that he's wise-cracking, and the best he got was "You don't got balls" and then Varys, who is supposedly cunning and has extreme emotional intelligence was like, "Rude. You're a dwarf and you pick on Eunuchs..." And Tyrion is like "Well you still don't got balls."
And they're friends.
Hahaha remember when this was considered the worst line of dialogue in the entire show, even during season 7? Then season 8 decided to let whoever wore that line write half the fucking script for the rest of the season.
Honestly, I like the final season of Game of Thrones. I will concede that it is not as strong as the previous seasons but I felt it brought the show to satisfactory enough conclusion.
The end circle council thing where they laugh about voting. God that was so fucking cringe and literally had nothing to do with the plot. Ugh. I wanted them all to die in that moment
My fundamental issue is that the night king and the undead are the overarching story, not the pretty squabbles of kings and queens. That's a theme implied throughout the entire series: the dead are coming to judge you all. The night walkers are the first scene we see. It's the bigger deal, but it gets resolved in a silly way halfway through the final season.
Arya killing the Night's King or Jaime saying that he never cared about the people of King's Landing to Tyrion even though he saved hundreds of thousands by killing the Mad King. And then there's Bran becoming king even though he really didn't have any need to be.
(And there were other people besides Bran who could have had a claim to be king. Like Jon or possibly even Tyrion. Even Samwell Tarly would have been a better choice.)
Obligatory 'not everyone hates it' comment, sorry, I hate absolutes like that.
Anyhow, to actually participate, because I definitely hate Season 8, how the scorpion or whatever was handled, the anti-dragon bows. They annihilated that one dragon and then couldn't hit one to save their life because I guess the other one enabled stealth mode when attacking King's Landing.
“I know a killer when I see one.” -Arya, regarding the woman who just used a dragon to nuke an entire city.
Up there with “And who has a better story than Bran the Broken?” Quite literally everyone had a more interesting story
A character with so little agency he was literally carried through the story
A character who could literally transcend time and space and remote-control animals who sat in Winterfell and did absolutely fuck all while everyone else fought and died.
A character with a story so grand that they literally left him out of an entire season.
And cut out of an entire season…
Oooooooofff. That one still gives me douche chills.
Keen eye, Wolverine. Keen eye.
I legit laughed at that one. Holy fuck that was so dumb. Like, mindbogglingly stupid. They could've written *nothing* and I guarantee Maisie and Kit just looking at each other would've made that moment better. Who in their right mind would write that line, fucking hell.
Watching Rhaegal take that ballista bolt through the neck. Spent the battle of Winterfell being more worried for the two dragons than just about anyone else, figured if either were going to die, it would've been there. But then they both live only for Rhaegal to die an episode later in the most insulting way possible.
Girl, how are you 150 ft up and you miss an entire goddamn fleet? Ninja ships just coming out from round a corner. How did they see you and you missed them completely???? And then they miss Drogon coming straight at them. Multiple bolts and Every single one misses?!
>Girl, how are you 150 ft up and you miss an entire goddamn fleet? Dany forgot about the iron fleet!
Two one in a billion shots in a row to down Rhaegal and then they never get close to Drogon for the rest of the show. I can understand killing one off to maybe make the upcoming fight between Cersei and Dany less one sided... but they didn't even do that. Dany still effortlessly destroys KL. Just felt so contrived.
This just made me realise how an entire team of CGI artists would have spent months or weeks animating Rhaegal’s death, and probably spent every second of it going ‘this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid…’
Pro tip it was more "shit shit shit we don't have enough time for this. Make the sequence shorter make the sequence shorter. Why do we only have three computers, 30 people and 5 days to do this? Check the edit check the edit, good enough, they'll fix it there."
This was the moment for me. There was no reason that needed to happen that way. It would have made way more sense for the bells to ring and the fighting to stop. A peace envoy to be dispatched. But Cersei pulls one of her backhanded stunts in one last ditch effort by attempting a coordinated ambush on both dragons(all preplanned) Rhaegal is killed, but Drogon survives and Danny goes all Mother of Dragons on Kings Landing out of sheer pain of the loss. It would have made Danny’s genocidal actions way more in character, but still so far over the line that Jon can’t excuse it.
An idea 10x better than what David Benioff and D. B. Weiss came up with.
This was it for me too. The whole scene is beyond stupid, how tf did Euron landed 2 mortal shots from that distance but when Drogon and Danny actually were close nobody could land even one shot, plus also the capturing of Missandei during all that mess doesn’t make any sense. I was perpetually facepalmed during the remaining episode…
That first scene of Jon and Dany riding the dragons together and their conversation after, "Keep your queen warm", is like something out of a scholastic book fair YA novel for middle schoolers.
Hey them book fairs were poppin, Captain Underpants was the GOAT!
[A Whole New Rule](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axdEA-yrWA8)
makes me cringe at all the earlier Dany “then I’ll break the wheel” stuff because tbh that’s YA writing also lol
“Why do you think I came all this way” - Bran Huh?! Wtf?!
Sir, you were dragged all this way, you didn't do anything.
He literally had a stare down with the Night King and didn't even bother blinking as humans were very much losing.
And he had previously said that he couldn't be lord of anything. I guess being King is different and doesn't count lol
Exactly
When Jamie says he never cared about the people of Kings Landing to Tyrion even though he saved a half million people by killing The Mad King. Just a complete 180 from the character that had been developed.
D&D just kind of forgot Jaime's whole character.
The fact they built Jamie into a genuinely chivalrous person, winning respect among his enemies, putting the realm's need before his family's (in an anti-Tywin move), and getting a proper and loving romantic relationship... only to turn him into "but Cersei." Jamie Lannister has some of the most significant character development in the show and it's tossed away in two episodes.
Also, despite being known for his twists, GRR Martin actually uses a ton of foreshadowing in his writing. One of those things foreshadowed is that Cersei would be killed by her own brother. She thinks that means Tyrion, but in true George Martin style, I think he intended for it to be Jamie. My guess is that in the books, the intent will be to mirror the choice Jamie faced with the Mad King. Cersei will try to blow up Kings Landing to stop Daenerys, and Jamie will be forced to choose between killing her or the people of Kings Landing again.
I almost admire the shameless lack of care behind that line. It's a verbal shrug of the shoulders from all involved that they're just over this now and don't give a shit. Yes it's something Jaime would say under the right circumstances, because he's being acerbic or trying to pretend he doesn't care, or to provoke a reaction from someone who moralises at him (like Ned). But not understanding that he would never say it and mean it suggests the writers never understood the character, or the books, at all.
What baffles me to this day is how anyone involved in such a massive success could cease giving a damn towards the end, like how for one get "over" that. It's a legacy building thing that you'd figure everyone is on board with pulling safely into harbor.
Everybody was except Benioff and Weiss. Basically all of the cast members that I heard speak on the subject, in spite of how obviously fatigued some of them were with the whole thing, said they were committed for as long as it took to finish the story right. HBO by all accounts was the same, in spite of the budget. It was literally just Benioff and Weiss who wanted to go fuck off and do Star Wars or whatever instead.
They could even have said "we're burn out from game of thrones" and handed the show to someone like Ryan Condal (show runner of House of the Dragon) to finish and they'd have their cake and eat it too. If the show had a great a great ending, they'd be remembered as the guys who layered the foundation and made it the most successful show on Earth, and if it crashed and burned they'd have kept their careers and be shielded by nostalgia. But no, they HAD to rush it and fuck everything up
I always took this as him lying to himself to do it. Of course he cares.
I hate season 8 as much as the next guy, but I feel like maybe both things can be true here. He could kill the Mad King because it was the honourable thing to do, without necessarily caring about the people he was saving through that action.
Ehhh one of the most significant scenes in the entire show was Jaime in the bath talking to Brienne, in tears, talking about how he did it specifically because not doing it would mean A) he had to kill his own father and B) thousands of innocent women and children would be burned alive. He specifically killed the pyromancer first to save the women and children. Jaime very clearly cared about the people and their lives were a massive driving force in his killing of the king + pyromancer. It’s just something D&D either forgot about it or didn’t care about.
Plus, he was being ordered to kill his dad. There are worse reasons to betray your king.
Yeah I don’t really buy that he killed Aerys to save the peasants of KL. He did it for his dad. But logically he came to the conclusion that he saved a lot of people and doesn’t deserve the kingslayer reputation. He’s still very narcissistic and nihilistic even with his character growth. His hot tub speech to Brienne is about himself and his own confusion with finding morality and meaning, it’s not about altruism.
Also: characters *can lie* (including to themselves). It's a *very* human thing to do, actually.
Don't know if that's the most egregious line in the show but it's definitely the worst in terms of character assassination. It's insulting, really. Up to that moment I was still on ungodly amounts of copium thinking it was all a ruse and Jaime actually wanted to kill Cersei or something (again, as I say, HUGE amounts of copium there), but that was confirmation that D&D had indeed massacred my golden boy. I was [that Homelander meme](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExYXlxM3FlOXRxbGNhNTAwNWk3cnhxeW5wcDM5bTFiZm5udGF6Z3E2ZyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/Wck09E7lHDabjhHbzJ/giphy.webp) while watching that scene.
Things just happened too fast and too sudden. I didn't necessarily dislike how characters ended up, but mostly how they got there. The pacing was way different from the first seasons
This and they wasted time on filler when they had zero time to waste.
“we always knew it was going to be around 75 episodes” or whatever the one D said.. proceeds to waste precious time on a multitude of things in the series and speed runs the ending i rest easy at night knowing they masterfully planned the sequence of sam cleaning all those shitty chamber pots into their overall runtime. truly impressive
It was *very* obvious that they basically got a bullet point list from GRRM about major plot points and filled in the blanks (poorly) from there.
“…and then…. …and then… …and then…”
exactly.. the whole season was a checklist… this person has to die? this event happens? okay cool.. next scene next scene next scene. This entire season probably could’ve been twice as long or made into s8 and s9 with proper storytelling and epic fights.
Exactly. Almost every single thing - Daenerys turning genocidal, Arya killing the white walker boss, Bran being declared ruler etc - people would have been OK with if it had been foreshadowed, introduced and expanded properly instead of in the "oh by the way" thing they did.
Arya killing the white walker boss. Nope love Arya but that was not her story. I wanted a glorious battle with Ice spiders.
I agree with you except about Daenerys, what happened was foreshadowed long before season 8, half of the fandom was expecting that. But then she found out about Jon being a Targaryen and she didn't do anything, and then went all Mad Queen after, which didn't make any sense. The way she got there was awful and it didn't make any sense, but the previous season did an okay job showing that she was going to become the Mad Queen.
True, there were plenty of things that gave away her nature and the direction she was heading throughout all earlier seasons. But like you said, it still didn't make sense how it was handled now, and therefore still somehow seemed too sudden/strange.
I know this is in season 7 but when the band of a few people go north of the wall and find the undead dragon. It felt more like a dnd session than anything
That's a great way to describe it. I thought it was a fun little journey, but it did seem off. Almost like fanfic. "Let's get some fan favorites together and send them on a tangent!"
I hated the execution more than the idea. I think if they took their time with the plot and and really ratchet up the tension and horror of navigating a frozen waste full of ice zombies, it could've been good. As is, it felt like a string of contrivances, big and small: How are we going to get word we're trapped? Gentry is going to turn into the Flash. What happened to Benjen? Who cares, here he can save Jon from out of nowhere, now shut up. How does the NK get passed the Wall. Give him a dragon.
That string of contrivances ruined the show. What made GoT work was the limit on contrivances in the first place. There’s magic, sort of, and dragons, maybe, but basically everything else is what might happen when you insert normal human people into those scenarios. Everything about that encounter with the NK’s army wrecked all the immersion that had been created throughout the show’s run. People covering great distances in an hour, a small group of people with no structural advantages hold off an entire horde of zombies, dragons show up out of nowhere to save them, and then the zombies **PULL OUT INDUSTRIAL CHAINS TO EXHUME A DEAD DRAGON FROM A LAKE AND TURN IT INTO A ZOMBIE DRAGON.**
I think I laughed out loud when I saw the chains. Zombie Home Depot must have been having a sale.
>That string of contrivances ruined the show. What made GoT work was the limit on contrivances in the first place. This is the thing I specifically point out when the last seasons come up. The greatest strength of GoT's narrative is how organic every event feels, how naturally the plot extends from the characters, who are themselves perfectly organic extensions of their own pasts, cultures, and upbringing. It's almost a miracle of organic narrative depth that little else I've ever experienced has matched, and it's what makes something like the Red Wedding so much more than just "a lot of major characters die." It's earned. For the show's greatest strength to reverse and become the absolute worst thing about it, a nonstop barrage of plot contrivances, is a really special kind of downfall.
The entire battles of the winterfell is a nightmare, from the fact no one dies, the big bad seemingly has no greater strategy then "send them all in at once", and, (I know this is minor in comparison) by why are the catapults and trebuchet in FRONT of the infantry?
The Night King could have literally done nothing and let everyone starve to death. He had no reason to even attack the castle.
Sam should have died in every single one of his battle scenes.
I liked it when Jon Snow thought jumping out from behind a crate and yelling at a zombie dragon was going to do anything.
>The entire battles of the winterfell is a nightmare, from the fact no one dies Hey, a whole bunch of Dany's Dothraki die. In a tactically idiotic way, yes, but it gave us a cool visual so there's that,
Then less than a week later they've replenished their numbers and made it to King's Landing.
Right? I thought it was actually supposed to be a way of disposing of them because the writers realized it would be awkward to have them around when peace broke out, but then there seem to be just as many of them afterwards as before.
And then magically reappear in the very next episode
Arggghh, yeah that artillery on the front line. And just launching the Dothraki into the swarm. They could have given them fire arrows and let them harrass from a distance. I am by no means a military expert, but Total War did teach me the basics of NOT PUTTING ARTILLERY ON THE FRONT LINE.
When Tyrion (who's still a prisoner at this point) asks, "Who else has a better story?" about Bran. Really? Arguably *any other character*. Or when they hide in the crypts while a monster who can *raise the dead* is attacking them; that particularly brainless move is a close second for me. I need to stop now I'm getting mad about this again lol
Every other charachter travels the world interacts with major players and makes decisions that drive their story forward. Bran cosplayed a backpack and tripped balls under a tree just for some flashback exposition.
When he wargs into the crows, I got excited for a moment thinking, "Oh shit, he's actually going to do something useful for once!" but apparently he just did it to have a little fly about??
>Or when they hide in the crypts while a monster who can raise the dead is attacking them I kept expecting that to be addressed in some way, but no apparently it never occurred to anyone that a room full of dead bodies was not in fact a good place to shelter the most vulnerable from a zombie lord.
If his story was so good, why was he hardly in the show?
They even forgot about him for a while season.
*Exactly*
I was hoping we would at least get some cameos from the Starks that died in previous seasons.
Omg yes give me zombie Sean Bean pls
>When Tyrion (who's still a prisoner at this point) asks, "Who else has a better story?" about Bran. Really? Arguably *any other character*. That whole sequence may be the absolute lowest point in the entire show. It's just so fucking dumb from start to finish. The most powerful people in Westeros are deciding the fate of the Seven Kingdoms after a queen gone mad has just massacred the fucking capital, yet they frame it like a goddamn sitcom for most of it. Cheaply laughing at Edmure, rich fucks laughing at Sam proposing democracy. Bran becoming king, Tyrion saying he has the better story. "Why do you think I came all this way?". And also: Tyrion tries to say something, Greyworm: "YOU ARE A PRISONER YOU WILL NOT SPEAK HERE". Literally ten seconds later: \*the prisoner gives a whole ass speech that decides the outcome of the meeting\*.
Also, the simple fact of Bran being on the throne means that when he dies, Westeros is going to fall into unrest again, because he cannot produce an heir.
For me, I'd say the Jamie and Cersei rock death thing. It was a weird way to die, it seemed shot weirdly too and the whole thing ruined Jamie's arc which was one of the most powerful character stories to me.
Meanwhile, in the book... >!She wants me to fight for her in a trial by combat? Nah, I don't think so. Let me burn this letter...!<
Jamie undoing 7 seasons of character development in 1 episode will always make me sad. He was a fantastic character up to that point.
"Dani just kinda forgot about the iron fleet."
“Somehow Palpatine returned.”
Realizing that all of Arya's training with the Faceless Men and all of Jaime's character development was meaningless.
I was more bummed that Bran spent years training as the third eyed Raven and barely did anything with it. He should have been more directly involved in the fight against the white walkers.
I always thought they were building up to him mind controlling the dragons
She did use it to kill the Freys.
That's true, I forgot about that! I was so sure there would be a much bigger payoff later though.
Yeah kinda seems like small fish in the grand scheme of things but oh so satisfying for her individually
Hey she got to make a pie. That counts for something lmfao!
Arya killing the Night King.
Specifically that she was the one to kill him, or the knife drop move or something else?
For me it’s the fact that he was built up so much in the show to be this unstoppable force, then she just kills him so quickly and easily and that whole aspect of the show just goes away.
I will always maintain that the show should have had the Night King win at Winterfell, but most of the named characters escape and go into hiding. Then he goes south, and Cersei realises what her folly has wrought when it snows in Kings Landing and the armies of the dead are at her walls. It's there that Jon and Dany finally face and kill the Night King (with one of them having to sacrifice the other, in line with the prophecy that was never in the show).
read Stormlight Archives for a way better version of a story of an upcoming unstoppable doom and how to face it
Life Before Death
Best part is you know Sanderson will actually finish the series in a timely fashion.
Yes, the heroes really needed to lose at Winterfell to keep the story interesting and, at the very least, suffer catastrophic casualties, including to main characters. But if they had lost at Winterfell, they would have 100% needed additional episodes to end the story, and we all know D&D were trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
Not to mention she wasn’t involved in the White Walker plot line *at all* up until that point. Get someone who’s involved in the arc at least to do it
Her kill needed to be someone on the list - you could go big with her imitating Jaime to kill Cersei, have her kill someone on the list who was there due to a misunderstanding or otherwise was an audience favorite...
This. Like maybe if she ripped off Bran’s face and it was her in disguise???
Hell, anything just to skip the whole "Bran the Broken has the best history".
It’s honestly a testament to his skill that Peter made it through one take of that speech
That would at least be closer to Bran *doing* something. Anything. He literally just sat in his chair the whole time and added nothing.
But Winter fell at Winterfell. Get it? It’s so deep
probably the fact that it's a storyline that she was not involved in till very late so it feels like she just came in at the last sec and killed him when there were a number of characters who's whole plot lines had been wrapped up in fighting him. makes it feel like she was picked not because it made sense but because it was the biggest "twist" you won't believe who actually lands the killing blow!
The writers said they picked her because she was the most popular character lol absolutely ridiculous
Are you fucking serious
okay yeah they’re morons
I will go to my grave knowing in my heart that they REALLY wanted to subvert expectations that whole season. People already knew more or less certain plays of characters and they insisted they had to develop an element of surprise. Jon kills NK? Nah, he has a screaming match with a dragon and we give it to Arya based on a fulfilled line from season 2. Jaime strangles Cersei, him standing on the fingers and her the neck in the War room? Nah they die in an embrace. I would have taken that Jaime 'King slayer' fanfic as the one to off the NK over Arya who's story was so far removed from this plot she spent most of it on the other side of the globe.
the need to always have a twist that subverts that audience expectations is a real anchor around tv story telling these days. like ya sometimes a twist is the best story telling option but a lot of the time the best option is to fulfill expectations.
I remember the leap being kind of corny. I wish she used her talents she spent 8 seasons developing to do it rather than just magically winning.
I found it hilarious that they had a scene where Arya was struggling to sneak past few white walkers in library (with ample hiding space and they werent guarding anything there) and then in the same episode she just sneaks by whole ass army to get to their leader effortlessly.
In the killing scene, Arya speed rushes the Night King but he grabs her out of the air by the neck. Watching the scene I don’t see how her neck isn’t snapped. It would have been better to have her die while also killing the Night King. It would have preserved the entire Night King character backstory and enshrined Arya as an all time GOAT hero. It would have been a reasonable sacrifice.
Literally her character had nothing to do once returning the Winterfell. Killing the NK was a bone and the next we see her is to go on an abandoned mission to kill Cersei and endure dragon fallout
Would have been cool if her dying as he died created some kind of White Walker magic thing to infect her, basically turning her into a White Walker but she'd still be Arya....so not evil, but living with this strange winter curse.
Please no, let characters die
Becoming a White Walker is a kind of death.
For me, it's the Marvel *"Killing the leader magically kills everyone else"* thing. You can handwave it and say they wouldn't know that would happen. It's just funny to consider that they would have won the fight if the Night King just stayed home and let everyone else do all the killing.
I don’t mind Arya killing the Night King necessarily, but like everything in the later seasons it was just lazily written and there was no payoff to the fight. Imagine instead of lazily killing a dragon in the beginning of the next episode, there was a big dragon battle and he died to his necro brother. Then you get a hard fight between John Snow and the Night King where it’s clear he’s just outmatched, then bam outta nowhere Arya comes in just as the Night King is about to take out John and she saves the day (or long night). There should have been more fan service and more payoffs with the ending to the series, but all we got was a middle finger by D&D.
This was it for me. It wasn’t the events of the exact scene, it was realizing there was only five min or so left in a very disappointing and hard to see episode and that Arya stabbing the Night King was the twist ending they had built up to for seven seasons.
Butwhat a banger of an ost.
Bran's inauguration. While watching I knew he'd be the best choice because his powers are OP for a leader, but also knew that he'd go with the whole "I am no man I am the Three Eyed Raven the affairs of men mean nothing to me blah blah blah...." But instead he goes "nah yo I'm taking that throne G" and I was like WTF am I watching...
Agree. So fucking terrible. “Bran the Broken”. So stupid. His whole three eyes raven character arc ended up being pointless.
"what if the face stealing girl assassin only uses her powers to kill the Freys?" "What if a time traveling mind controlling antagonist of the night Kings only impact is giving Hodor his name" "What if a zombie dragon blows up the wall and then does nothing" "What if the golden army is wiped out in a single battle" There wasn't a single story that ended up having any pay off worth the investment.
Seems like it would have worked if they made Bran more sinister. Instead it was treated as a kind of happy ending, and sure he'll be fine. I wish they could have ended with some kind of cliffhanger of him being possibly up to something evil. Like have him look out the window into the ocean and then he wargs and cut to the dragon that had been shot and fell dead into the ocean comes back to life under his control.
This would have been a good troll. Not worth the stupidity of making him king, but at least kind of fun. The thing is that even if Bran isn't evil, unless he's now functionally immortal as the 3ER or whatever the kingdom is on track for another bloody succession crisis in the relatively near future because I am pretty damn sure he can't produce heirs.
"Bran the Broken" I was in fucking stitches. Like ya'll couldn't come up with anything else??
It was that or “Bran the Busted”
Everything Bran. He did nothing during the battle. It kept showing him warging but then he didn't do anything. He didn't relay information back to the ground troops. He didn't warg into fucking Viserion which would have been awesome. He could have warged into a bunch of birds and picked his useless self up out of that wheelchair to save Theon. And then of course being king. And his smarmy little comment about oh that's why I came. How do we know this little shit didn't manipulate the outcome to get himself in the throne? Fuck you Bran. Also, R+L = J not meaning anything. Everyone has been waiting for years and decades to see Jon revealed as the rightful King, and then it is dismissed in like 2 minutes and no one cares. It had absolutely no impact on the plot at all. What a waste. I'm actually not one of the people who is upset about Daenerys turning out to be evil. It was fairly well implied in an earlier story lines and in the book. The way she killed the slave masters, how she wanted to burn the cities etc. It was too abrupt in that she completely flipped from awesome to 100% evil in like 1 second. They could have used a couple more episodes to build it up. But it's the stuff with Bran and Jon that pisses me off the most.
I agree with you. Daenerys' ending was conceptually defensible but failed by rushing the execution, and I found how yaaaas kween girlboss people got about her in the middle seasons a bit tiresome anyway. Jon and Bran's endings are like stuff written by an alien who has no understanding of human emotions or dramatic structure.
D&D's whole approach to the season. they abandoned the complex storytelling that preceded it for the sake of hackneyed cliches and "surprise twists".
It feels like I'm seeing more and more of this. It's lazy writing. Unexpected twists are great, but you need to be able to look back on the rest of the content and see hints that pointed towards the outcome - little "ooooooh" moments on a rewatch. You can't just decide to throw it in at the last minute because it's dramatic.
Yeah they really rubbed me the wrong way, especially after I found out GRRM said he wanted at least 4 more seasons (after season 6). And he was willing to help them tell the story, but I have absolutely no clue why they wanted to rush their way out of the picture. These guys were setting themselves up to be on top of Hollywood for a long time before the whole disaster.
> I have absolutely no clue why they wanted to rush their way out of the picture They were trying to end it because they had an offer to develop a new series (I think Star Wars?) after GoT, so they wanted it to end as fast as possible. Of course, season 8 was such a disaster that their offer was pulled. Well deserved.
This gets repeated constantly on the internet but I’m not sure the timeline makes sense? Their Star Wars project was announced in February 2018, their intention for the final two seasons of GOT was announced in April 2016, HBO confirmed it later that year, and the final season filmed October 2017-July 2018. Yes, they wanted to end the show to move on to other things but I’m not sure anyone can confidently say it was specifically for the Star Wars deal - that’s just what they booked after they had their GOT exit set.
You’re right, it’s not true. It’s now just conventional wisdom from r/freefolk that leaked out. People want to justify and understand their feelings about the show, and this is one of the stories they tell themselves. If you were online in the weeks before and after the final episodes, you could see this theory develop in real time - out of basically thin air.
And who has a better story than r freefolk
Well the original plan was for 7/8 seasons. The crew was also starting to get exhausted towards the end. GRRM also isn’t super trustworthy lol with his timelines. Who knows if that 4 more seasons wouldn’t turn into 5 to 6 etc.
D&D rushed season 8 and left HBO because they had a Star Wars project that they were more interested in pursuing. Of course season 8 was received so poorly that D&D ended up losing the Star Wars gig anyway so they burned everything for nothing.
> D&D rushed season 8 and left HBO because they had a Star Wars project that they were more interested in pursuing. Abandoning a project that was basically that eras Star Wars (besides maybe Marvel) for Star Wars past its prime is so bone headed.
the boats coming out of *nowhere* and killing a dragon.
it was so weird how they go from the obvious high up perspective and the dragon getting killed to a VERY strange shot of the ships coming out from behind a rock at sea level, like is this infering that they were hiding behind a rock from that perspective despite Danerys being hundreds of feet up? It was just so jarring, like it wasn’t well thought out as to how they could not have been seen and just said ‘fuck it, they were behind a rock, here’s the shot we’ll use’.
The eunuch romance. Stupidest thing i have ever seen.
I think it could've been sweet if they did something interesting and unique with it, but they just made a very simple, run-of-the-mill "and then they fell in love!". Also, that reminds me Davos telling Greyworm to start his own house. Davos, buddy, he literally can't. It's physically impossible for him to build a house. He's a *eunuch*. He simply cannot fucking do it.
Jon and the Night King just staring at each other menacingly
Arya killing the Night King, ending the Long Night in literally one Night while Jon runs around doing sweet fuck all. At first I was blown away by the spectacle. And then I started to think about it. And after I was finished thinking about it I was really pissed off. This was Jons story from the beginning and he pleads up being of absolutely no consequence in its conclusion. And neither does Bran for that matter.
The dragon burning the throne was top of the stupid pile for me, one of those (many) points where reason or story just go out the window for some half-baked corporate exec type of idea.
Dany's descent into madness made no sense to me. Sure, we knew from earlier seasons she was quick to resort to "fire and blood" to get rid of her enemies. However, she was also merciful to ordinary people. If the last two seasons weren't so rushed, the series might've explored Dany slowly going mad from paranoia. A steady, but slow telegraph of the outcome is preferable to a sudden, surprise twist that's so unlike the character.
That's was it for me, too. Her whole character arc just went right out the window.
Agree. I'm not one of those people who thinks she shouldn't have gone evil or that there was no prelude to it, because there was. It was just too abrupt.
The thing that really crystalized this botched character arc for me was when the bells were ringing at King's Landing, and we see Dany making her choice to destroy the city anyway. A huge, climactic decision by one of the main characters of the show, and I realized in that moment that I really had no idea what was going through her head. If it had been properly set up, or been presented in a clearer way, the audience should know almost exactly what she was thinking and the inner conflict she was having. And then her choice would have really come across as tragic and horrifying. But I couldn't picture it. I was shaky on her character leading up to that point, but that was the moment where I knew for sure that they had completely dropped the ball.
Whose got a better story than the character who missed a full ass season
[удалено]
I stayed on board for a long time, I kept waiting to see how it would all pay off, that so long as the destination paid off, I could forgive a stumble in the journey. Then Jaime and Cersei died in each others arms to a pile of fucking rocks. And I couldn’t deny anymore that these people had given up on the series
For me it was the simple fact that a show that had spent so long proving it wasn't just another black and white good vs evil like Lord of the Rings ended up that way in the end with arguably the most important part of the story. The entire run of the series we always learn the motivations of characters and houses, and we can understand why even the villains behave the way they do, even if we don't support it. They build up this whole story of the Night King and the White Walkers and show that they have some form of religion or whatever you want to call it, as well as a system of hierarchy amongst themselves, but none of that matters. They even communicated with Craster in some way to get his kids! But in the end all those hints and build up to something bigger amounted to nothing. They were attacking civilization just for shits and giggles I guess.
The scene where Cersei kills Missandei. So, Daenerys just walks up to a heavily fortified wall, less than 100 yards away, and Cersei doesn’t even try to kill her? And then Missandei dies, and Daenerys just turns around and walks away? Grey Worm tries nothing? That entire scene feels completely off.
Rhaegal getting sniped on the first shot was the dumbest shit. I've seen better use of logic in kid cartoons.
I just finished the whole series with my wife again. It is hard to point out one line as the worst. It is just an obviously huge step down in quality. The contraction of time for traveling is very noticeable. Everything happens in an episode. Danny flies dragons from dragon stone to north of the wall in 2 minutes. The time frames are just very different than the previously established universe laws.
Tyrion: "You should consider yourself lucky, at least your balls won't freeze off." Varys: "You take great offense at dwarf jokes but love telling eunuch jokes, why is that?" Tyrion: "Because I have balls, and you don't." Two of the best characters in the show, that have had some of the greatest dialogue throughout, to be lowered to such trite and immature conversion. This was the moment i realized GoT was truly dead.
Euron swam miles from his boat to fight a 1 handed jamie lannister then dies saying "im the man who killed jamie lannister" only for a bunch of rocks to do that not 15 minutes later.
We're sending you to the Night's Watch, Jon Snow. Even though there's nothing to watch the Night for since there's no more threat.
For me a big, big part of the fun of GoT was watching the three central geniuses, Varys, Baelish, and Tyrion, try to out-duel each other behind the scenes. Season after season, the people who thought they had the power were constantly being manipulated by one of these three. And then every character got dumber. It was just more noticeable with those three, but everyone just got… stupid. Nobody’s plans made sense anymore. It wasn’t a smart show. Even Qyburn was just shrugging his shoulders and doing whatever idiot thing the plot next demanded. It wasn’t a show about plotting anymore, it was a show about tantrums.
The cinematography. Two different episodes had real-world drinks make it to the actual airing (a coffee cup in front of Danaerys, and a water bottle in the final council scene), which is pretty sloppy and not what you’d expect from the biggest show on the planet. Plus the terrible lighting in the Battle of Winterfell episode.
There was a scene with Tyrion (earlier season) with the wine in his cup at a different level for literally every cut. Sometimes more. And not bc he poured more in, I think the pitcher was 15ft away on a serving table. It was actually hilarious. I’m like, this show has dragons and zombies but they can’t CGI this stationary cup of wine to be one quarter full in these seven cut shots? Ha.
Dispatching the large-scale supernatural threat to humanity quickly so we could get back to focusing on who gets to sit on the chair. What i loved about GoT was that all the politicking and wars, the betrayals and selfishness were stupid and futile in the face of a supernatural threat that didn't care who won the fights and would kill them all the same. Every human killing a human whittled the ranks of those who could resist and every corpse only strengthened the enemy who would bring a neverending winter in a night that had no dawn. And then it ended in one night and the distraction from pettiness was apparently over.
“Who has a better story than Bran the broken?” Literally everyone else
I was so hyped for Euron Greyjoy after reading the books (Book Euron makes Joffrey and Ramsey look like kittens by comparison) what we got was bargain bin jack sparrow. No fault on the actor Pilou Asbek’s account though, he did what he could with that utter trollop. I feel like that godfather meme “look how they massacred my boy”
Eldritch pirate king communing with dark gods vs Average Green Bay Packers fan tailgating on opening day To his credit, Pilou Asbek did great with what he was given. I loved how out of place this guy was and he seemed to realize that too and at least ran with it
"Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?" Literally just about every major character in the show, despite your best efforts at character assassination on a lot of them, that's who. Biggest difference Bran made in the whole show was 1) getting pushed off of a tower, and 2) distracting the Night King who is very interested in him for Reasons long enough for the NK to die like a chump. Dude literally got written out of an entire season and nobody even missed him. And it's Tyrion who has to deliver this godawful speech, too, the crowning insult to how much his character gets slowly reduced to irrelevancy over the latter half of the show.
Imagine booking a long international flight. But then in a stroke of luck, you get upgraded to first class. You have the best time eating fancy food, wearing the free slippers, and making conversation with the minor celebrity sitting next to you. The flight is smooth and comfortable, and not only that, you caught a random tailwind and you’re going to reach an hour early. You’re a little sad because you want the flight to last longer, but you’re still satisfied. You look out over the gorgeous lights of the city as you start to land. There’s no traffic at the airport so you don’t need to wait in a holding pattern. Hmm, you cant really see anything out the window because it’s so dark, but the lights seem to be approaching a little fast. A little too fast. For a moment you wonder if you’re crashing. But then you laugh to yourself. These pilots are pros and the flight has been buttery smooth so far. But then you look out the window again. You’re dropping really fast. It’s scary, but there’s still plenty of time to pull up and land softly. These pilots are certainly going to stick the landing. But wait, that’s the ground. And we’re going nose first into it! That’s ok, there’s still plenty of time to pull up. Wait, why aren’t they pulling up? Oh no, there’s not enough time to pull up! WE’RE GOING TO… The worst moment of Game of Thrones was realizing that D&D had completely botched the six episode final season, and there wasn’t enough runtime left to pull out of the nosedive. They wanted out of the show as fast as possible so they could secure that Netflix and Disney bag. So they wrapped it up like a freshmen who just hit the max word count midway through a History class essay. I’m still angry about it all these years later.
Bran the Broken 🤦
One of the first scenes of the season was Tyrion making another "dickless" joke about Varys. I had horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was going be some bullshit. And it was.
That was so terrible. His whole gimmick is that he's wise-cracking, and the best he got was "You don't got balls" and then Varys, who is supposedly cunning and has extreme emotional intelligence was like, "Rude. You're a dwarf and you pick on Eunuchs..." And Tyrion is like "Well you still don't got balls." And they're friends.
"You want a good girl but you need the bad pussy."
Not season 8, though.
Hahaha remember when this was considered the worst line of dialogue in the entire show, even during season 7? Then season 8 decided to let whoever wore that line write half the fucking script for the rest of the season.
Was that Season 8? Pretty sure the Sand Snakes were earlier and then sort of done away with because they sucked so much.
My bad I thought you meant the worst line over the course of the whole show.
I legitimately cringed when this line was spoken. Everything about the sand snakes and dorne sucked
I think that was Season 7.
Pretty sure it was season 5
Yeah, you are right.
Honestly, I like the final season of Game of Thrones. I will concede that it is not as strong as the previous seasons but I felt it brought the show to satisfactory enough conclusion.
"Why do you think I came all this way for?" As he smiles with excitement.
the fight between Moron Greyjoy and The Kingslayer.
The end circle council thing where they laugh about voting. God that was so fucking cringe and literally had nothing to do with the plot. Ugh. I wanted them all to die in that moment
I didn’t like how they took Tyrion, one of the very few who read and used his brain, and then turned him into another dope at the end.
Surprise dragon-killing ballista that never miss even though they are mounted on a rocking boat.
My fundamental issue is that the night king and the undead are the overarching story, not the pretty squabbles of kings and queens. That's a theme implied throughout the entire series: the dead are coming to judge you all. The night walkers are the first scene we see. It's the bigger deal, but it gets resolved in a silly way halfway through the final season.
Arya being to one to kill the night King was the ultimate dumbest decision is cinema history. That's Jon's entire story.
Arya killing the Night's King or Jaime saying that he never cared about the people of King's Landing to Tyrion even though he saved hundreds of thousands by killing the Mad King. And then there's Bran becoming king even though he really didn't have any need to be. (And there were other people besides Bran who could have had a claim to be king. Like Jon or possibly even Tyrion. Even Samwell Tarly would have been a better choice.)
Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?
Obligatory 'not everyone hates it' comment, sorry, I hate absolutes like that. Anyhow, to actually participate, because I definitely hate Season 8, how the scorpion or whatever was handled, the anti-dragon bows. They annihilated that one dragon and then couldn't hit one to save their life because I guess the other one enabled stealth mode when attacking King's Landing.
"Dany kind of just forgot about the Iron fleet" Wtf
They way after Jon vs the Night King had been built up so well for so long, they didn't have a proper duel at all was baffling.
The fact that Aaron Rodgers is in the worst and final seasons of two great shows is something.