How dumb was Game of Thrones?! (ALL SPOILERS)

I hated the first season, let it go for years, caught that episode where Nikolaj Coster Waldau looked fine as hell in communal bath years later and decided to head back in.

Part of the reason I hated it is because I could tell in the first season that I could skip to the last season and, despite hundreds of characters and as many subplots, I could follow the story without a problem. It was clear that no character but the Stark siblings, the Lannister siblings and Dany mattered, and I was right.

None the less, it's a fun epic show. Not unlike binging Star Wars or The Lord Of The Rings.

R1 You say it's a fun epic show worth watching...after you say you skipped many seasons because you could tell they were going to be a waste of time...

Oh, another thing: Game of Thrones did that time warp thing qith Hodor that seemed to portend a mind-bending metaphysical aspect to the story arc...and nothing at all came of it. Hodor saw into the future and was traumatized by it and...that's all.

Meanwhile, Bran saw into the future and...that's all.

Meanwhile, Melania the Witch kind of had a full arc, and so I won't complain about that.

Jon Snow was brought back from the dead and waa traumatized by the bleakness of it but nothing really came of that.

Bran did end up becoming king, but as the previous poster stated it was so damn rushed and felt like it just 'happened' instead of being some kind of payoff for what he went through.

The final season should have been fleshed out more, perhaps even another season, but Benioff and Weiss probably wanted out ASAP -- that's where the real drama was.

The only problem I had with the show (I binged it way after it was done) is how rushed the last season was. There was enough left on the cutting room floor to fill in the gaps, but it was all just so rushed. I don't feel like any of it was out of character as some people do (it was clear from day one that Danny would be consumed by power) just a few more details would've helped to make those arcs stronger. There are many, many better shows but I wasn't really disappointed by it.

What the show did good was how silly and trivial all the palace intrigues were. The big threat from the north (ice zombies) was ignored and dismissed for the most part of the series and most of the players' main focus was to acquire more power by, sometimes literally, backstabbing each other.

And at the end they still didn't learn their lesson and went right back to their petty little games.

Well duh OP.

This is what everyone said about the ending of the show. It has all been hashed out ad nauseum.

[quote]ad nauseum

Oh, dear.

Soft-core violent porn for nerds. Hated it.

I enjoyed the first six seasons but the quality dropped off a cliff after that. The final season was indeed awful but it wasn’t out of nowhere: the penultimate one sucked too.

Not a show that would be popular with DLers.

What is surprising (and this too has been said ad nauseum) is that on paper the show should not have succeeded--weird medieval sci fi with a cast on unknown Euros.

It switched from story telling to a visual effects bonanza in the last 2 seasons, so that sucked. Sorry for your experience, but you can’t say you didn’t have ample warning about this disappointment.

[quote] What is surprising (and this too has been said ad nauseum) is that on paper the show should not have succeeded--weird medieval sci fi with a cast on unknown Euros.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings franchise was hugely successful way before that.

The show succeeded, because it looked high quality and expensive. The nerds were the first who came in their crusty pants and word-of-mouth spread. And the Comic-Con mainstream followed.

All true, R13, but LOTR had far more better known cast and the novels were more popular as well.

Plus it was a movie, not a TV series

First four seasons were great. Then the writing went downhill with the characters becoming caricatures of themselves. Story arcs and plot lines went out the window in favor of featured villain of each season. Foretelling clues that were supposed to be significant were ditched because the writers couldn’t tie them into a coherent ending. Also, HBO wanted to keep the bandwagon fans interested with dumbed-down storylines and special effects. So they just had a slapdash ending with main characters meeting for last time or making up before embarking on journey. Will go down as one of the most disappointing, hyped up series after having such a promising 4 seasons.

[Quote]Not a show that would be popular with DLers.

What are you talking about r11? This show was very popular here. I mean the show was popular everywhere, it was hugely popular.

The book series is so much better, and once you've read it you realize the difficulties the show runners faced.

If I had to pinpoint where the show goes wrong, it's the decision to not include Young Griff--a young man who may or may not be Aegon Targaryan (who was believed to have been smashed against a wall by Gregor Cleghane during the sack of King's Landing during Robert's Rebellion). Bits and pieces of his story were transfered to Jon in order to propel the show to a conclusion. However, the books do a good job establishing there is the game of thrones being played by Cersei, Stannis, Littlefinger, Varys, Daenerys, and Young Griff, but also a looming war between the Lord of Light and the Great Other (who the show personifies as the Night King).

The books are setting the stage between Daenerys vs. Young Griff, while Jon is solely focused on the looming threat north of The Wall. The way the show devolved into a cheesy soap opera is a travesty.

[quote] You say it's a fun epic show worth watching...after you say you skipped many seasons because you could tell they were going to be a waste of time...

r2 I said I stopped watching it because I assumed I knew where it was going - and structurally my suspicions were correct - but I dipped back into the show a few years later and overall, found it fun.

I hate that Renaissance Faire shit.

r14. that is besides the point (whether the books are more popular and the cast more known, etc.).

[quote] What is surprising (and this too has been said ad nauseum) is that [bold] on paper the show should not have succeeded [/bold]

What Lord of the Rings had shown was that there is a demand for high quality fantasy entertainment. Comic-Con has become a mainstream event popping up in cities other than San Diego. The demographic is there and it's a visible one. HBO was the only source to make a TV show on such a big scale and it succeeded, because they went full in and spent money.

And that is really the core of it: Buy the rights of a book series, spend money (like, film in "exotic" locations), hire a diverse cast (appeal to several demographics), promote it by getting the nerds on your side by "staying true to the source material / be respectful to the source material", and then let momentum take over. And let's not forget it took SEVERAL seasons for it to become a huge sensational hit. HBO stuck with it and it paid off. Something, say, ABC would never do.

This reminded of the gimmick poster at the old AV Club who went by the "HBO CEO of Tits"....

The two shows I really invested in were Lost and Game of Thrones. And I hated the endings to both.

You are [italic]so[/italic] clever, OP!

I like the Sand Snakes story only because I liked that actress from Whale Rider, Keisha Castle-Hughes

The early seasons didnt have the crazy busget that S4+ did. It's fun to go back and see Jon Snow's fking Ikea fake fur rug thrown over his shoulders. I have the same rug for my cat. Abt $40.

I'll never understand why the main characters didn't just migrate to Essos or one of the islands and leave the Night King and his army marching around Westeros like a roomba. They can't swim!

R9 got it right in one.

I didn't hate the final season but it definitely could've been better. But if the old fat man in the desert could finish the books in a timely fashion, they would've had source material to adapt.

But on the plus side, the music was great all the way to the end.

OP would it have made you feel better if Arya had to jab him twice?

I was so glad the White Walker stuff ended like it did so I applauded when Arya finished him. When I learned something about myths in horror, fantasy or sci-fi it's they never stick to a formula like old fairytales because too many film and TV writers mix it based on sources that weren't intellectual in the first place. I watched GoT for the Lannisters and Snows and wasn't disappointed. A medieval Downton Abbey with more nude scenes.

Seems like fantasy for people who aren't really into the fantasy genre.

It was worth it for the production design. I got interested for that and it delivered. You people expect too much.

Dany torched an entire city cuz her nephew wouldn't fuck her anymore.

Also, thy killed her gal pal, but really.

Zombie dragon was cool, though.

Also, this is funny:

R24 years and years ago, my friend saw Keisha Castle Hughes lined up waiting for income assistance at the local “Work and Income” office here in NZ. He snapped a picture. Wish I still had it. She must be thanking her lucky stars she was able to find work again.

Agree with others that the last season felt rushed, but B&W did a great job on most of the earlier seasons. The episode where Cersei blows up the city is amazing.

The show had its merits.

I loved the show up until the final season. Apart from a few stand out moments, and that one episode where they have the huge siege and the Night King gets killed which was awesome, the final season was a big pile of steaming gash.

I actually didn't get into GoT when it first aired, it was only when the penultimate season was over that I got into it so I watched all the seasons in the gap between that and the last season. If I had been on board it from the very start, and had invested years in it like most people, I would have been even more disappointed in the final season.

The biggest issue they had is down to the structure of the show. Really, the WHOLE show is all build-up to what happens in the final season. It's all just preamble, so the expectations of it delivering something amazing were sky high. People say they never could have met the expectations of the audience, which may have some element of truth in it, but I think is actually bullshit.

The problem was that the pay-offs for the main characters just weren't there, or were nowhere near strong enough. Characters behaved out of character. The demise of Cersei and Jamie was a damp squib when it should have been far more cathartic. Danaerys always had flashes of rage and a dark side, but it was always aimed at the right people and her whole ethos was about being a defender of the innocent and retribution for those who deserved it - her deciding to slaughter the inhabitants of the whole city just didn't fit in with the character that had been shown for years, and if the intention was to show that she'd completely lost it there wasn't enough material to convey that adequately. She didn't even go after Cersei which would have made sense rather than randomly burning down every other building.

Arya was wasted. Her whole arc is also about revenge, she has spent years building up to it, but at the last minute she's like, "oh actually better not, I'm just going to get on a boat instead" which again absolutely missed the build-up of her character and betrayed who she was.

Jon Snow being sent to the Wall made no sense. What's the point in the Wall now anyway if the Night King and his army is defeated? Bran being the king was stupid too - if he was meant to be some kind of seer, why didn't he just skip ahead and tell them what they needed to know?

The writing was sloppy, and it's like they didn't care anymore - demonstrated by the numerous gaffs in the final season like water bottles and Starbucks cups being visible in scenes. It was such a let down that it soured the whole show for me and I would never rewatch it, knowing how it ends.

Sorry -- if you watched something this ridiculous, you deserved whatever you got. I would never have tarnished my beautiful mind.

There’s a reason Martin hasn’t been able to finish the books. He’s written himself into a dead end.

I just watched for the eye candy.

R37, I think many of the problems if the final season would have been forgiven had they chosen anyone but Bran as king. His character was unimportant enough to take a season off (imagine trying that with someone like Arya, the fans would have been livid) and eventually wasn't a character at all. He was a plot device to get information otherwise unavailable to the characters.

Just rewrite Tyrion's big speech to the council at the end so it's something like "One person has proven to be a true leader while earning the trust of the North while surviving the politics of King's Landing. She survived unimaginable torture not through brute strength, but through cunning tempered by compassion. The only choice to rule Westeros is Sansa Stark."

The throne then goes to a character most viewers really cared about (and it didn't need to be Sansa; she was just the easiest example). That's a major difference. It would be impossible to avoid nitpicking even a tighter final season, but I think people would have been a lot more forgiving had the throne gone to a character who forged a connection with viewers.

It introduced many of us to NATALIE DORMER so it’s not all that bad

And it reintroduced others to the fabulous Dame Diana Rigg

Anyway the problem I had is that to undo all of these intrigue knots the writing got SO lazy and they’d move pretty big pieces off the chessboard by killing one or two characters.

- Cersei blows up all adversaries in King’s Landing (uncle, Large Marge, Pope) and no one in the city hates her.

- The Reach? “We aren’t really fighters” says Olenna Tyrell and Highgarden sacked off screen.

- Dorne? Just speed kill the royal family and kidnap Oberyn’s whore.

- Dany captured by the rape party Dothraki? We’ll just burn all the leadership down in a hut.

- They Greyjoy Fleet? Kidnapped and then no more.

It was obscene that at the end of Season 6 Danerys was marching on Westeros with the Dothraki, Unsullied, Reach, Dorne, DRAGONS, and Iron Island fleet against ONLY the Lannisters and the show had to undo this clear power imbalance in the stupidest ways. Tyrion should have been fed to the dragons a million times over for his shit advice.

Dormer was on the recent Penny Dreadful spinoff, and she also wrote and starred in the movie In Darkness. It was a relatively standard thriller, but it was solid and she was pretty good in it, so I count it as a success for her.

R43, this was a problem long before the final season, but it was infuriating how bad Tyrion's advice was in later seasons. The whole point of the character was that he was smarter than everyone else. The show really needed him to do something like contribute one great idea for the battle at Winterfell, like he did at Blackwater.

I watched some older (90s?) movie a couple weeks ago. Anyway, the white walkers were obviously designed from the creatures in this movie. They were nearly identical. So, (that's for the anal "so" person) I guess the special effects/ designer person worked on both.

The number of episodes in the final season was cut down from the usual, which led to the feeling of being rushed (and it was). But the real problem was the writers the moment they ran out of source material. Before that, the show was about CHARACTERS. After that, the show reverted to the TV tropes of being about PLOT, and the characters just became chess pieces that were moved around the board to further the plot. The difference was blatant, and far, far less satisfying. Before that point, there would be scenes that might just be two characters talking or ten minutes... that were riveting. After that, it was just rush, move, blah.

The main conceit was that the threat from the North was essentially "Global Warming", which was a threat so huge that it made all the tussling for the throne seem petty and meaningless.... a threat that would require everyone to unite to fight. It was supposed to be (forgive the expression) a stark contrast between the made-up threats of man, and the very real threat of "global catastrophe". But then the threat was defeated in one instant (yes, at great cost, but still). When they lost all the dragon glass swords that was really annoying... so much build up to figuring out that solution only to lose it? Bleh.

The reason the final season was rushed was ALSO related to the fact the show-runners lost interest. They wanted to get out so they would work on the new Star Wars trilogy... which they actually never did. That whole thing fell through. So their disrespect shown to the final season of the show was for naught.

And all these years later, GRMM's "Winds of Winter" book STILL isn't out and published yet.

Last season. First couple episodes were mostly solid. The night before the battle, knighting Brienne? A+. Having her sleep with Jaime afterwards and next morning he gallops off to Cersei: F. Also, knighting Brienne, a very popular character, was emotionally satisfying but then after the battle, her squire, Podrick (?) gets knighted too. Heigh ho, we’ll just make everyone a knight. Even a guy who’s barely had any scenes except to sleep with Arya. (Might have confused a couple of minor characters here).

Anyway after the massive defining battle of the North, everyone is still alive except for the little girl with eight soldiers.

Arya killing the Night King was the high point and beautifully filmed but it left Jon looking like a mug. All it needed was a nod from him (fighting the ice dragon) as she ran past. Wouldn’t even have to show her, because they were trying to obscure her arrival in the garden. Just him saying, Go on then! to someone off screen so in retrospect you could see he knew what she was planning to do.

Before the battle, someone posted a theory that the Night King would bypass Winterfell and head straight to Cersei. Might have worked, so there would be just one battle. As it was, the battle at Cersei’s city (can’t remember name) was dull and badly directed.

"Danaerys always had flashes of rage and a dark side, but it was always aimed at the right people and her whole ethos was about being a defender of the innocent and retribution for those who deserved it - her deciding to slaughter the inhabitants of the whole city just didn't fit in with the character that had been shown for years, and if the intention was to show that she'd completely lost it there wasn't enough material to convey that adequately. She didn't even go after Cersei which would have made sense rather than randomly burning down every other building."

"Jon Snow being sent to the Wall made no sense. What's the point in the Wall now anyway if the Night King and his army is defeated? Bran being the king was stupid too - if he was meant to be some kind of seer, why didn't he just skip ahead and tell them what they needed to know?"

"The writing was sloppy, and it's like they didn't care anymore - demonstrated by the numerous gaffs in the final season like water bottles and Starbucks cups being visible in scenes. It was such a let down that it soured the whole show for me and I would never rewatch it, knowing how it ends."

UKGuy I agree! Of everything that happened in those last two seasons, Dany's character arc was, IMO the biggest screw up. She should have died at Winterfell if they were going to kill her off. IMO, they sort of explained Arya, by having the Hound tell her not to become like him, filled with revenge and hate. So I was OK with her arc. Bran becoming King was absurd. It was laughable. The whole idea of Jon getting arrested was absurd. Cersei should have faced a trial, and a public execution.

And my own pet peeve? Bronn. Having him survive was just stupid. He should have took the loot and got on a boat heading for Dorne.

It was clear that the showrunners had a talent in editing down Martin's source material, but were terrible at expanding on Martin's cliff notes for his future books of the series.

Never ever adapt a book series that isn't finished or is about to be finished.

If Martin had managed to release a book between the seasons where Jon died and then came back to life it would've been a bigger success than the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potters series combined. People were really starving for more at that point.

Instead of wrapping things up and ending the show, it should have just continued with different showrunners. It could have gone on for years.

Kit Harrington is one of those men who I can see is objectively handsome but does absolutely nothing for me. His abs looked great in the Pompeii film he did though:

Hottest guy from Game of Thrones was obviously Jason Momoa, and then probably Dickon Tarly, played by Tom Hopper when he was the older iteration of the character. Small part though.