Current Events > Nearly a year removed, did the GoT final season ruin the show for you?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The first four seasons were great television. Seasons five through seven were several steps down. The dialogue became mundane dribble. The writing became lazier just so characters could get from Point A to Point B in the story as fast as possible. This was often achieved by sacrificing other characters and writing them to be completely incompetent idiots in contrast to their earlier portrayals (hello there, Littlefinger).

Yet it could have been salvaged. The only way the show could completely fall is in the wrap up. All the plot lines, the characters, the story and most importantly the execution---it all needed to be a home run to make it work. it needed to be quality equal to the first four seasons. Otherwise, the show would marred forever because it'll be hard to ever think back to those earlier seasons, let alone re-watch them, and not be filled with disappointment in how the plot lines and character arcs would be concluded. It would take careful skill and talent to pull it off to stick the landing.
https://imgur.com/1BTG43V
Here's the result.

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pegusus123456 posted...

The vast majority of people don't have a problem with the way the plot turned out

That wasn't reflected in the comments i was hearing. A lot of furious people, clearly fans of certain characters, raging that their character was wronged because of their outcome specifically.

There may have been others upset at the way it was done, but i wasn't hearing anywhere as much from them until later.


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Mr_Biscuit posted...

Game of Thrones had waaaaay too many brilliant arcs over the years for a few disappointments to tank eight seasons of television outright.

And the last two seasons managed to shit on most of them so what's your point? The conclusion to those arcs were Dexter levels of horrible.

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BettyWhite posted...

It is when the majority of the plotlines formed in the prior seasons ended in that season.

Imagine if your Grandma took years to weave a beautiful blanket(Seasons 1-4) and then you took over and started fucking it up(Seasons 5-7). Only for you to grow tired of even trying anymore, deciding to just grab the ends of the blanket and tie it together in a haphazard knot(season 8).

That blanket is ruined.

this is not a good comparison. a blanket is nothing like a tv show. i can still enjoy the first 4 seasons without even having to engage with any further seasons if i don't want to.

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TwoDoorPC posted...

this is not a good comparison. a blanket is nothing like a tv show. i can still enjoy the first 4 seasons without even having to engage with any further seasons if i don't want to.

Not when it's serialized.

This isn't the Simpsons.

It's a cumulative effect where you're aware Arya is going to go from one of the best developed characters to the biggest Mary Sue ever and the Night King and his long night is a joke that's gonna resolve in a couple episodes.

That as you're watching all this building tension is going to end in a giant shart.

And the weaving of a blanket is not dissimilar to the weaving of a plot. Where GRRM is actually good at it and D&D shouldn't even be making children's books.

You can surely cover yourself up with the good half of the blanket, but it's hard to ignore that the other end barely covers your feet and is prone to falling apart at any moment.

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"Winter is coming" is a giant fucking joke because of those hacks.

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Every character was pretty much ruined. Definitely one of the worst last seasons of any popular show ever.
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Yes it's absolutely awful

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To this day , I still can't get myself to even watch the last episode , let alone rewatch the whole series again .

What a waste of time that was.
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BettyWhite posted...

It's a cumulative effect where you're aware Arya is going to go from one of the best developed characters to the biggest Mary Sue ever and the Night King and his long night is a joke that's gonna resolve in a couple episodes.

That as you're watching all this building tension is going to end in a giant shart.

this might be true if i didn't already know how those stories end and could simply opt to not watch them. still doesn't detract from the quality of the early seasons

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I only watched the final season for the first time quite recently, and I didn't think it was as bad as many made out. Don't get me wrong I wasn't totally satisfied with how it ended, and I still feel they rushed the final 2 seasons got no good reason. But overall I still like the show and plan to re-watch it all at some point.

TwoDoorPC posted...

this might be true if i didn't already know how those stories end and could simply opt to not watch them. still doesn't detract from the quality of the early seasons

Yeah. I know those stories end like shit and I don't see the point in watching half of the show in the same way I don't see a point in playing half of a video game that ends in shit.

I just won't play the video game at all.. And instead talk on message boards about how much of a shame it was that the game started off so well and ended so badly. Lol.

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well it did suck major balls but it didnt ruin the enjoyment i had for the first 4 seasons.

plus seasons 5 and 6 were kinda good.

BettyWhite posted...

"Winter is coming" is a giant fucking joke because of those hacks.

Winter was coming for nearly ten years and it lasted about 40 minutes

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SpaceBear_ posted...

Winter was coming for nearly ten years and it lasted about 40 minutes

Sounds like a December weather report here in Florida.

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Probably the only popular show I heard nothing about the finale once it ended.

Seemed like a weekly hype fest then once it ended everybody didn't care so nobody talked about it.

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I noticed early in season 2 that where the show deviated from the books it was astoundingly bad and showed that they didnt really understand the characters.

I ended up watching till season 5 when I decided to stop until it became apparent that GRRM was never going to finish the series so I caught up for season 8.

But season 8 not only obliterated any care I had for the series, it also made me not care about the story at all. Even if GRRM does finish Winds of Winter or god forbid, A Dream of Spring. I will never buy or read them.

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Perfect time to post this

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IronWolf87 posted...

I mean just knowing what jobbers the NK and his army are alone would make it hard to take anything in the previous seasons seriously since so much of the show was "These assholes are squabbling over pointless shit when the real threat is almost here!"

Im not saying the NK wasnt a letdown, but I thought it was rather transparent that the walkers would not be the final threat and that ultimately the inherent shittiness of people and powerlust would be the enemy. A big team up against the dark lord as climax was like... counter to the whole thesis of the series.

Kinda think wow, they all banded together to subvert the apocalypse, maybe this is what finally brings people to a greater understaaaaaaand theyre already killing each other again was the point. That is not to defend the sloppiness or vagueness in the lore of things like the NK or the Raven, or the asspull Arya anime kill, etc., however.

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Mr_Biscuit posted...

I thought it was rather transparent that the walkers would not be the final threat and that ultimately the inherent shittiness of people and powerlust would be the enemy.

That is exactly the opposite message the series was sending for seven seasons.

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pegusus123456 posted...

That is exactly the opposite message the series was sending for seven seasons.

Having just read the books for the first time (and having seen none of the show), I'd say that is the message the books have been sending so far.

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Jabodie posted...

Having just read the books for the first time (and having seen none of the show), I'd say that is the message the books have been sending so far.

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Im not saying the NK wasnt a letdown, but I thought it was rather transparent that the walkers would not be the final threat and that ultimately the inherent shittiness of people and powerlust would be the enemy. A big team up against the dark lord as climax was like... counter to the whole thesis of the series.

Kinda think wow, they all banded together to subvert the apocalypse, maybe this is what finally brings people to a greater understaaaaaaand theyre already killing each other again was the point. That is not to defend the sloppiness or vagueness in the lore of things like the NK or the Raven, or the asspull Arya anime kill, etc., however.

Eh I never though the NK would win outright or be the final endgame, but I was always under the impression that surviving his onslaught would come at a great cost and fundamentally change Westeros. Instead he's defeated in 1 episode and the only loss is a bunch of Dorthraki NPCs and a few secondary and tertiary characters.

I was ok up until the episode with the night king. It was a really intense episode and I honestly thought even though that plot had ended it destroyed the North's armies leaving them with no way to fight Cersei. They were left with injured dragons and no fighting force.

What I hadn't taken into account was there was a respawning army and they really didnt lose anything. Infact the army got bigger every episode.

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pegusus123456 posted...

Sphyx posted...

The plot outcome didn't bother me. I thought people were expecting a happily-ever-after ending for characters that really didn't deserve it.

The way it was all so rushed was definitely a downer though, and it looked like some of the production values and plot continuity took a big hit.

The vast majority of people don't have a problem with the way the plot turned out, just the way it happened. It's pretty much the universal belief that the books are going to end the same way, they're just not going to skip the 2500 pages that get to that point.

Well, mostly

Jaime's ending is fucking garbage but yeah

Oh, yeah, Jamie ending that way in the books will probably piss people off to.

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pegusus123456 posted...

Oh, yeah, Jamie ending that way in the books will probably piss people off to.

In the books it'll probably get developed better and it won't be a sudden 180 shitshow like in the series.

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Absolutely it did.

I was looking forward to re watching it before that last season but my God just knowing that the early plot lines would lead no where just kills the show.


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always thought it was overrated. from the beginning i rememebered i gave the show a shot a few times before i finally got into it. and that was mainly just because it was the cultural meme at the time.

First few seasons were i guess pretty alright but yeah after the wedding it was like wahtever.

it was literally babies first HBO. like how breaking bad was babies first tv drama

Definitely soured it. Now when I think about GoT, I think about how horrible the last season was, not how good the earlier seasons were.

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My biggest hot take is that I didnt hate Jaimes ending.

He was a complex character with good and bad, not only addicted to an abusive relationship as many people are in real life, but one with a woman who also happens to be his sister, who also happens to be pregnant with his child after the rest of his children have died. I think it was an absurd expectation of him that Jaime would literally kill Cersei himself or stand by while she burned alive, even if he agreed she was out of control, especially given his consistent wrestles with self-loathing and what degree of happiness he feels he deserved. That degree of a face turn is more Hollywood than reality. It does not negate all of Jaimes growth and goodness that he had a crippling, fatal weakness. The tragedy is that Brienne and the Starks were more willing and able to see the goodness in him than he was able to see in himself. Its disappointing I dont think thats the same as bad.

Much was made about his I never really cared about the people line, but it kinda baffles me, as he was pretty obviously being petulant and flip in that conversation before Tyrion was like dude, snap the fuck out of it. He was on some bullshit and in serious denial, not genuinely stating he had never cared about anyone as a character trait.

I do think the whole thing wouldve benefitted greatly from at least another 15 minutes of Jaime footage, though. I think S8 could be made a lot more cohesive with even just seven episodes an extra hour+ spread across the arcs would go a long way.

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Both Season 7 and 8 should have been 10 episodes each and HBO was willing to pay for it. But Dumb & Dumber were in a hurry to get on the Star Wars cash cow and I couldn't be happier that the project was cancelled.

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Honestly, I was okay with most of the last season. the first two episodes were legitimately good, the White Walker episode (I would've preferred if someone related to Jon or Bran's story got to kill the White Walker but whatever.

Episode 4 was not too bad, I got where they were coming from (Dany did her side of the bargain, she just wants to go right now regardless of the wellbeing of her friends and armies, who desperately need rest, and the fact that she pushes forward without proper caution or care cost her one of her dragon children) But the little doc afterwards and the "Dany just kind of forgot" suggests that they had no intention of a logical story. But I don't think anyone would disagree that they completely botched the landing with episode 5 and 6.

But there isn't nearly enough justification for Dany to turn heel in episode 5 (which was the obvious ending looking back, but that doesn't mean you get to skip the step in the middle to cause Dany to turn), and needed significantly more time to flesh out this turn, and episode 6 was just dumb (Really Bran?, and it gets to be decided by the guy being sentenced to death for betraying the queen, and the family who conspired against her?)

Proto_Spark posted...

and episode 6 was just dumb (Really Bran?, and it gets to be decided by the guy being sentenced to death for betraying the queen, and the family who conspired against her?)

Not to mention having the representatives of the Iron Isles and Dorne (you know, THE territories known for their independence from the rest of Westeros) sit quietly while the Starks used the power of Nepotism to make the North an independent kingdom.

The whole thing should have been laughed at by the assembly.

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