GOT Thoughts- Spoilers

[Dazzle1]

Never let is be said that this series is unafraid of killing off characters

Like many others, I think this was a terrible season.
Tyrian loses all common sense
Dany becomes the Mad Queen
Jon become a wimp well until he stabs Dany

Bran is leading the 6 kingdoms. why? Useless character

John is being exiled to satisfy GreyWolf why did Arya just not kill him for her brother?

Sansa who has no empathy for anyone gets to be Queen of the North. Other than Cersi the most hateful woman in the show.
Make Briene Queen of the North.

[Dogfish]

It's like a magic eye picture of millions of piles of poo. The longer you examine it, the more shit you see.

It was crushingly bad. I wasn't a fan of the show by any stretch but I felt bad for how sideways it went. There are some friends of mine who are big fans and I don't even know what to say to them about it. I think they're still in shock.

I feel very confident in my decision to abandon Star Wars after the next movie too because these writers have been hired by Disney for Star Wars and, well, no.

It can be argued, fairly, that the show had been in a steep decline since the end of season six but I don't think anybody could have seen this coming. I don't think any series or show or franchise from the start point that GoT season 8 had has gone to shit as dramatically before. All they had to do was stick the landing and they fucked it up spectacularly.

[tallyho]

It just shows that they were capable of tweaking Martins work (they always fuct up the battle scenes spectacularly in every season though) and doing a decent job, then when on their own they proved they understood absolutely nothing about the characters back story.
To have no final reckoning scene for Cersei was unbelievably stupid last week and only surpassed by having your 'climax' moment 45 mins in to a 1hr 20 piece and then following it with 35 mins of stuff no one gave a shit about this week.
Its a masterclass in how not to end a series.
I was actually bored watching it.

Spoiler

And considering Jaime and Cersei got buried alive they a) somehow managed to be near the top of the pile of bricks not the bottom and b) had not been pulped beyond all recognition

Game of Wank.

[tallyho]

Ps. I'm with you on Star Wars if these Dickheads are writing it

[helstar]

I have never followed GOT but my Facebook wall is full of people ranting and complaining, not even for Lost or Dexter (which I have unfortunately followed year by year) there was so much hate for the final season/ending !

Dodged a bullet there, phew...

[bushwackerbob]

In my opinion season seven was one of the most satisfying of the whole series from episode one's Arya ingeniously getting revenge on the Freys to the Stark family reunions not to mention the first meeting of Jon and Dany. So many characters meeting each other for the first time, real fascinating stuff. Regarding season eight, I think it must be hard figuring out how to end a series considering how many TV shows in the last 30 years have failed to make a really good series finale, with Breaking Bad being the exception rather than the rule. I know that the writers chose to have a shortened season whether for financial reasons or otherwise but I do wonder whether a longer season Eight would have fleshed out these storylines a little bit more and maybe would have made more time for character development and to properly play some storyline and character beats that I think they missed in their race to get to the finale because of the fewer episodes. Another interesting aspect of the final season has been the reaction to Dany's "descent into madness". While I would clearly not characterize the final season as a critical masterpiece it should have been, the social media vitriol I have seen regarding Dany's story arc is way overblown and not justified. I think that a lot of this vitriol is due to the fact that Dany was seen by many today as a symbol of female empowerment, a heroine for our time, a social justice warrior with dragons, and I think that some feminists are angry with her storyline descent because they think this is the patriarchy's way of saying that women cannot handle that kind of power. This is stupid because this is a friggin TV show, not the real world. The problem with Dany's "descent" is that it is not real, this is who she always was, from the beginning of the series. Dany's been killing innocents as well as slave masters since season one. Dany saw ruling the seven kingdoms as her destiny and anybody who did not show complete abeyance to that goal would be destroyed. Anyone who looked at Dany as a role model was not looking at the entire picture to begin with. As someone said on another website, "Dany was a tyrant given a hero's narrative".

[Femina]

In my opinion season seven was one of the most satisfying of the whole series from episode one's Arya ingeniously getting revenge on the Freys to the Stark family reunions not to mention the first meeting of Jon and Dany. So many characters meeting each other for the first time, real fascinating stuff. Regarding season eight, I think it must be hard figuring out how to end a series considering how many TV shows in the last 30 years have failed to make a really good series finale, with Breaking Bad being the exception rather than the rule. I know that the writers chose to have a shortened season whether for financial reasons or otherwise but I do wonder whether a longer season Eight would have fleshed out these storylines a little bit more and maybe would have made more time for character development and to properly play some storyline and character beats that I think they missed in their race to get to the finale because of the fewer episodes. Another interesting aspect of the final season has been the reaction to Dany's "descent into madness". While I would clearly not characterize the final season as a critical masterpiece it should have been, the social media vitriol I have seen regarding Dany's story arc is way overblown and not justified. I think that a lot of this vitriol is due to the fact that Dany was seen by many today as a symbol of female empowerment, a heroine for our time, a social justice warrior with dragons, and I think that some feminists are angry with her storyline descent because they think this is the patriarchy's way of saying that women cannot handle that kind of power. This is stupid because this is a friggin TV show, not the real world. The problem with Dany's "descent" is that it is not real, this is who she always was, from the beginning of the series. Dany's been killing innocents as well as slave masters since season one. Dany saw ruling the seven kingdoms as her destiny and anybody who did not show complete abeyance to that goal would be destroyed. Anyone who looked at Dany as a role model was not looking at the entire picture to begin with. As someone said on another website, "Dany was a tyrant given a hero's narrative".

Dany killed her first innocent person in the second to last episode of the series where she skipped murdering one person and went straight to genocide, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Dany has megalomania to an extent, no one would SERIOUSLY argue she doesn't. Entitlement and grandiosity are traits EXPECTED of rulers. All that 'Jon snow would make a great King because he doesn't want it' is drivel. You have to want it at least a little, and you also have to be smarter than a pair of old used boots (which Jon Snow isn't... but that's an argument for another day.

The issue isn't that the Mad Queen wasn't foreshadowed, it was, the issue is in the assumption that foreshadowing equates to character development, which it DOES NOT.

Foreshadowing is background, it's whispers, to make it work you still have to DEVELOP it. People like to examine Dany solely by measure of the foreshadowing and ignore the things she actually blatantly DOES unless the thing she did somehow can be intertwined with their idea of what the foreshadowing has hinted at. This is why you constantly hear people babbling about how her treatment of the Taryleys is a warning sign (Despite the fact that executions are perfectly normal in this setting. We are introduced to Ned while he beheads a man we've just witnessed going through a trauma, and Jon Snow hangs a little boy at one juncture and never ONCE are either of them considered to be behaving irrationally or with inherent madness) Yet those same people like to conveniently forget things like the time she locked her own children away because she was horrified by the prospect that one of them may have burned a child, or how she was sickened by the Dothraki's behavior toward the people they were attacking and commanded all the women and children be given to her to protect them from being raped and abused.

It's all pick and chose. You take the actions you want to fit the explanation you want because you like or don't like the character... but none of that perspective changes the actual narrative progression of the series, and in THIS series, Dany went from a compassionate woman with some narcissistic traits to full blooded genocidal maniac in precisely TWO episodes.

That's got nothing to do with feminism or social justice, just shit writing.

As purely a thought excercize, lets all think back to the Red Wedding, an episode potentially so upsetting it could have had the power to end a series then and there, but its remembered as glorious television, why? Because we understood why it was happening, it all made sense, and the characters motivations were all sensible from their individual perspectives. It's portrayed, as Game of Thrones usually was, as a grey issue. Danearys holds the honor of being the series first mustashe twirling madman who did something so evil it was entirely unredeamable, an entirely black and white circumstance, while the buildup and execution for said act was SCREAMED at us over the course of two episodes rather than shown to us over an acceptable period of development. Show don't Tell. Game of Thrones used to be television that SHOWED us the story, and has become a show where sometimes you have to watch the making of snippets after the episode just so the writers can tell you why something ridiculous happened.

[Dazzle1]

In my opinion season seven was one of the most satisfying of the whole series from episode one's Arya ingeniously getting revenge on the Freys to the Stark family reunions not to mention the first meeting of Jon and Dany. So many characters meeting each other for the first time, real fascinating stuff. Regarding season eight, I think it must be hard figuring out how to end a series considering how many TV shows in the last 30 years have failed to make a really good series finale, with Breaking Bad being the exception rather than the rule. I know that the writers chose to have a shortened season whether for financial reasons or otherwise but I do wonder whether a longer season Eight would have fleshed out these storylines a little bit more and maybe would have made more time for character development and to properly play some storyline and character beats that I think they missed in their race to get to the finale because of the fewer episodes. Another interesting aspect of the final season has been the reaction to Dany's "descent into madness". While I would clearly not characterize the final season as a critical masterpiece it should have been, the social media vitriol I have seen regarding Dany's story arc is way overblown and not justified. I think that a lot of this vitriol is due to the fact that Dany was seen by many today as a symbol of female empowerment, a heroine for our time, a social justice warrior with dragons, and I think that some feminists are angry with her storyline descent because they think this is the patriarchy's way of saying that women cannot handle that kind of power. This is stupid because this is a friggin TV show, not the real world. The problem with Dany's "descent" is that it is not real, this is who she always was, from the beginning of the series. Dany's been killing innocents as well as slave masters since season one. Dany saw ruling the seven kingdoms as her destiny and anybody who did not show complete abeyance to that goal would be destroyed. Anyone who looked at Dany as a role model was not looking at the entire picture to begin with. As someone said on another website, "Dany was a tyrant given a hero's narrative".

Dany killed her first innocent person in the second to last episode of the series where she skipped murdering one person and went straight to genocide, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Dany has megalomania to an extent, no one would SERIOUSLY argue she doesn't. Entitlement and grandiosity are traits EXPECTED of rulers. All that 'Jon snow would make a great King because he doesn't want it' is drivel. You have to want it at least a little, and you also have to be smarter than a pair of old used boots (which Jon Snow isn't... but that's an argument for another day.

The issue isn't that the Mad Queen wasn't foreshadowed, it was, the issue is in the assumption that foreshadowing equates to character development, which it DOES NOT.

Foreshadowing is background, it's whispers, to make it work you still have to DEVELOP it. People like to examine Dany solely by measure of the foreshadowing and ignore the things she actually blatantly DOES unless the thing she did somehow can be intertwined with their idea of what the foreshadowing has hinted at. This is why you constantly hear people babbling about how her treatment of the Taryleys is a warning sign (Despite the fact that executions are perfectly normal in this setting. We are introduced to Ned while he beheads a man we've just witnessed going through a trauma, and Jon Snow hangs a little boy at one juncture and never ONCE are either of them considered to be behaving irrationally or with inherent madness) Yet those same people like to conveniently forget things like the time she locked her own children away because she was horrified by the prospect that one of them may have burned a child, or how she was sickened by the Dothraki's behavior toward the people they were attacking and commanded all the women and children be given to her to protect them from being raped and abused.

It's all pick and chose. You take the actions you want to fit the explanation you want because you like or don't like the character... but none of that perspective changes the actual narrative progression of the series, and in THIS series, Dany went from a compassionate woman with some narcissistic traits to full blooded genocidal maniac in precisely TWO episodes.

That's got nothing to do with feminism or social justice, just shit writing.

As purely a thought excercize, lets all think back to the Red Wedding, an episode potentially so upsetting it could have had the power to end a series then and there, but its remembered as glorious television, why? Because we understood why it was happening, it all made sense, and the characters motivations were all sensible from their individual perspectives. It's portrayed, as Game of Thrones usually was, as a grey issue. Danearys holds the honor of being the series first mustashe twirling madman who did something so evil it was entirely unredeamable, an entirely black and white circumstance, while the buildup and execution for said act was SCREAMED at us over the course of two episodes rather than shown to us over an acceptable period of development. Show don't Tell. Game of Thrones used to be television that SHOWED us the story, and has become a show where sometimes you have to watch the making of snippets after the episode just so the writers can tell you why something ridiculous happened.

It's not often Femina and I agree, but she is right about it:Shit Writing

[Dogfish]

If I get started talking about GoT I might not stop. It's trolled me very effectively but it isn't worth anyone's time.

Consider how stupid the writing is.

There's Dany, she's the queen. Mother of Dragons. There's Drogon, her 'son', an unstoppable killing machine that just levelled a city of a million people in a single afternoon. And her army too of course, but enough of them can be theoretically spoken to that some form of resolution can be made. You can't negotiate with a dragon.

Now at no point during the discussions of what to do about Dany is Drogon mentioned. That's how stupid the show is. What happens when you orphan a colossal firebreathing monster is not even considered a subject for discussion.

And for that reason, I just refuse to take it seriously. The writers are not worth my time.

[tallyho]

Regarding season eight, I think it must be hard figuring out how to end a series considering how many TV shows in the last 30 years have failed to make a really good series finale, with Breaking Bad being the exception rather than the rule.

The thing is most of the huge TV hits of the last 30 years are comedies - Seinfeld, Big Bang, Friends - you cant have them end in a bloodbath - it has to be a sympathetic ending, coupled with the fact most series are strung along well past their natural end by Yank networks desire to make money regardless of the story

These GoT series were steeped in blood from the off and were always slated to be 8 series- no one would care if there was a murder or a mass murder or a huge war or indeed a more uplifting ending - they had a clean slate to go whichever way they chose - and they chose to end the last 35 minutes with a council meeting deciding something no one cared about any longer. It was incredibly badly written, with masses of mistakes and ill conceived character jumps and wildly implausible scenarios.

I disagree about them needing extra episodes or a lack of time - they had the time they just wasted it with a dire plot finale and don't forget they had 2 YEARS to put this piece of crap together so they have no excuse for it being rushed - unless a dog ate their homework

[Dazzle1]

Regarding season eight, I think it must be hard figuring out how to end a series considering how many TV shows in the last 30 years have failed to make a really good series finale, with Breaking Bad being the exception rather than the rule.

The thing is most of the huge TV hits of the last 30 years are comedies - Seinfeld, Big Bang, Friends - you cant have them end in a bloodbath - it has to be a sympathetic ending, coupled with the fact most series are strung along well past their natural end by Yank networks desire to make money regardless of the story

These GoT series were steeped in blood from the off and were always slated to be 8 series- no one would care if there was a murder or a mass murder or a huge war or indeed a more uplifting ending - they had a clean slate to go whichever way they chose - and they chose to end the last 35 minutes with a council meeting deciding something no one cared about any longer. It was incredibly badly written, with masses of mistakes and ill conceived character jumps and wildly implausible scenarios.

I disagree about them needing extra episodes or a lack of time - they had the time they just wasted it with a dire plot finale and don't forget they had 2 YEARS to put this piece of crap together so they have no excuse for it being rushed - unless a dog ate their homework

If you look at Science Fiction/Fantasy some have had good endings
all the star Treks except Enterprise (TOS which was cancelled so no planned conclusion) Buffy And Angel
Hercuales, Zena and Andromeda not so much


but this GOT was rushed

[Femina]

Just to maintain that facts are all taken into account. HBO was willing to extend TEN seasons worth of support. Wanted seasons 7 and 8 to both be 10 episodes, and was willing to throw as much money at it as it needed.

The decision to cut and run was the writers.

This is one of those rare situations where the production company is little at fault.

[Dogfish]

The odd thing is that it's not just rushed, it's just bad. To call it rushed is an insult to things that are thrown together in five minutes but that are still good. Good writers could have rushed an ending to Game of Thrones that was better than this.

And let's be honest, if they'd given more episodes to these writers it would have been wasted time.