GRRM goes to finish A Song of Ice and Fire
LIFE UPDATE: We negotiated the house and are currently waiting to close, which may be as soon as the end of this week. I am going to be spending a lot of time packing/cleaning/adulting for the next few weeks, so expect a lot of checkdowns at best.
I might fill this space with Game of Thrones opinions in detail later, I’m going to bed late now. the TL;DR – I think they rushed the final seasons and took away a lot of what made the show work, but they could have messed it up far worse and ultimately the end wasn’t that awful. If you think this is one of the worst endings to a TV show ever you must not watch a lot of TV. It was okay for the corner they painted themselves into.
This is a safe space for GoT opinions, feel free to discuss your thoughts here. If you hate or don’t care about the show, let the nerds have their fun and don’t be that “I DONT CARE ABOUT THIS” guy. Nobody likes that guy.
EDIT: Longer thoughts-, and spoilers, but if you still care about that after the biggest TV show in history ended I don’t know what to tell you.
I think pretty much every problem with the final 2 seasons had to do with the speed in which they wrapped it up. GoT was a show that thrived on slowness, where you could take time to appreciate each move and change and how it affected all characters. It felt like we had zero time to breathe, and every scene felt like it had to advance the plot significantly. We didn’t get the small moments, outside episode 2, which was coincidentally my favorite of the last season.
I would have preferred two full seasons. I wish season 7 had focused very much on the white walkers and resolved that plotline with the long night at the end. The white walkers are kind of boring and a bit too fantasy for this story. Finishing them off then and then spending season 8 being devoted to Cersei’s undoing and Dany’s descent into tyrant would have given each plot a more satisfying amount of time to conclude. As it stands Cersei did absolutely nothing for two seasons because she already had her climax in S6 and was waiting around to die. But seeing her slowly lose control would have been nice instead of one moment at the end. Dany’s descent was probably my favorite part and to me made total sense, but it was still so fast that she went from savior to dragon hitler in the span of maybe 1 episode. Some more time devoted to seeing her suffer more and more isolation to make her heel turn feel earned would have been appreciated.
I hated Ayra this season. It felt like her arc was over when she gave up being a faceless man and rejoined her family. When she decided to fight for the living, that felt like the end of her story. Having her kill the Night King was the most irritated I’ve been at the show. It might be symbolically her really turning away from death by killing the leader of the dead, but she didn’t deserve that moment. Jon or Dany did. Jon’s entire fucking story was about the wall, the walkers, and the true threat to Westeros while everyone else prattled about in King’s Landing. His entire arc was leading to that night, and he spends most of it being useless. Arya didn’t even know the white walkers existed until like, last season, why does she get the final blow? That’s a bad subversion of expectations. Even Dany getting the killing strike made way more sense narratively. Dany killing the night king then falling from grace would have made her even more tragic. If Ayra killing the night’s king was one of the plot points GRRM told the producers had to happen, they did a poor job setting it up imo.
Bran being king is fine, but would have been great if he was like, at all useful. He’s been fucking weird and useless with no insight into his character. He just sits around doing jack shit. What’s he seeing? What’s he thinkin bout? No clue. At least now Westeros will be wheelchair accessible. In fact, it’ll be easy to add ramps as they rebuild everything. Huh, maybe Bran knew this was the only way. HE PLAYED US ALL.
I love Davos and I am happy he lived. He was my favorite character in the books and while his show character was a bit different, I loved him just as much. I want a show of Grumpy Grandpa Davos.
Drogon melting the throne ruled. I also liked Jon’s ending. He belongs beyond the wall. He found himself there and now he’s free. I wish he had chosen that route himself instead of being banished there, but I’ll take it. Putting Jon on the throne would have been to fanservicey. Jon deserves to do the Westeros equivalent of going into the west. Why did Ayra do that? Why is she suddenly interested in exploring the sunset sea? Ayra was not well executed this season. Also Euron sucked.
Overall, it was a mediocre end to an outstanding show. The production values, acting, music, all of it remained top notch. I think once the dust settles a bit and we can look back on things more critically instead of with HYPERBOLE OMG WORST ENDING EVER, time will be relatively kind to it and the impact it’s made cannot be overstated. Most people seem to agree the plot and story wasn’t a huge problem, just the pace in which it was executed ruining a lot of the impact. That’s on the producers, who turned down full seasons from HBO to finish it fast.
I find it ironic that GRRM gets a ton of flack for not writing fast enough (He doesn’t owe you shit) and the showrunners are now getting flack for finishing too quickly. Neither version of this story is perfect, nor will it be. I think people holding onto hope that the books will magically fix these issues are setting themselves up for a different disappointment. The books aren’t perfect. They will make some aspects better, but I doubt GRRM will magically wrap things up right compared to the show. I think GRRM is more in love with the world he has created than the story within it he was telling, and I don’t actually want him to finish the books that much. I think years of angry nerds yelling at him to has probably ruined his desire to finish them, and I wouldn’t want him to force it because that won’t be as good. Stephen King forced the end of the Dark Tower series when he got panicked about his mortality and that series ended pretty poorly. If all GRRM wants to do now is side stories or spin offs, I’d be okay with that, because his world is very interesting. At least I got some sort of ending thanks to HBO, and the journey is the fun part.
I’d also be okay if he just shitposts about football for the rest of his life and the entitled nerds never get what they want.
Falcons super bowl chances
Congrats on the house Dave
Here’s the thing. This was well beyond one of the worst. It is *THE* worst ending of a tv show, EVER. And I say that not having watched it, or any single episode since Season 5.
“How can this be?” you might ask. Because context. This was about more than just the show. In order to make it, GRRM made a sacrifice to the blood gods and stopped writing ASOIAF (aka “Game of Thrones: The Books”) which were already in danger of never being finished because he writes with all the speed of Ron Dayne. Nerds like me who had been reading these things since the 90s were now thrown into bitter depression as the people who used to make fun of us were now romping around trying to “share” this cool new tv series.
And it’s fine, that is all fine, I SWEAR TO GOD IT’S FINE… *IF* the tv show carried its weight and earned the iron price. But it didn’t. After a few seasons of glory it spun into a death spiral that it seemed to never even care about pulling out of. Book readers like me who don’t want the eventual ending (to be written by a ghost writer after GRRM dies) ruined by some half-assed tv show basically have to hide in the farthest corners of the internet for the next few years to avoid spoilers.
No ending in any other TV show could *EVER* have wrought a swath of destruction this wide and far reaching. THERE IS NOTHING WORSE THAN THIS. NOTHING. Watching Tom Brady win every Super Bowl until he’s 86 and in a wheelchair is better than this.
THIS IS THE WORST ENDING TO ANYTHING EVER AND I HAVENT EVEN WATCHED IT might be the worst take I’ve seen
I’m also a book reader and I liked the way it wrapped up, and all the plot points could have actually been great if they had the time to properly breathe and develop. We aren’t getting the actual ending books and I’ve made my peace with that, so this is the end, and I’m mostly fine with it.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough – I’m not really talking about the episode itself. That every GoT-loving friend I have despised this season certainly makes me think it was a rushed hot mess. The coffee cup certainly attests to a lack of time to nail the most basic of details… like ensuring a cardboard coffee cup isn’t openly sitting in front of one on the principal actors.
In its full context, I stand by my take. Has a situation like this ever come up before? When a tv show single-handedly ruins the experience of a large group of people, even if they aren’t partaking in it? I’m happy that you’ve made your peace with never getting the books, but for anyone who was patiently waiting for him to finish the books, the tv show blowing it all to the way side only to fall on its face at the end? It’s hard to see that as anything other than the Ragnarok of tv finales.
I think people are just overreacting to the last season, this is the biggest TV show in history so there is bound to be too much hyperbole. I’m not that happy with it, but it’s mostly because it was rushed. The way the story played out to me was fine, and in a few years after the dust settles I think people will be more kind to it for what it still managed to get right. Disappointing adaptations are a dime a dozen and anyone this upset that it ruined the story or whatever need to step back a bit and chill. The books still exist, your imagination of the story still exists, this version might not be perfect but I’m still happy we got it.
I would 1000% agree with everything you just said if the books weren’t inexorably derailed directly on account of the show. I would love to just let the show be, and be its own little happy tree. But I’m not going to get the complete book story before I’m dead because of that show, and it just makes the whole thing that much more miserable. =(
Anyway, hopefully your house closing goes smoothly, and I look forward to the day when I, too, have given up all hope on the books. But today is not that day! 😉
I mean the books are already different from the show and we don’t know how much information GRRM gave to the producers to finish the tale. There’s also no telling how much his thoughts have changed since he gave them that info. If GRRM returns to the books, which I wouldn’t anticipate for a while since he’s probably burned out on the hype and the angry nerds demanding he finish them, he’s probably going to have a different ideas to how to get there.
I always try to differentiate between adaptation and book, because they work in different mediums and have to operate in different ways. Tying them together so tightly instead of viewing them as separate works of art about the same subject seems like a great way to prevent yourself from appreciating the differences and successes of each.
GoT ended in disappointing fashion in many ways, but I absolutely do not regret my time with it
I liked it alright. I just wish the North hadn’t succeeded from the 7 Kingdoms. C’mon Sansa, did you forgot that the loan wolf dies but the pack survives? Also it kind of sets of precedent for every other of the kingdoms to leave. It was still a fun sit though.
That was probably the thing that irked me most. Like Sansa can just up and leave because she wants to?
GRRM better explain this stuff properly in the books.
The North randomly succeeding while Yara just sat quietly was baffling.
Hasn’t she been on the whole Iron Islands independence train for years now?
People comparing it to Dexter must have skipped Deb crying for 3 straight seasons, the inexplicable computer guy, and all the garbage storylines they abandoned because they didn’t know where to go next.
Out of every show I’ve ever watched only Breaking Bad and Sapranos had an ending worthy of the show, and BB had the ending planned for a long time.
The ending wasn’t that bad, in terms of the major plot points, but how they got there was rushed. Perhaps that’s the most disappointing part of all, with maybe 10 more episodes the ending could’ve made more sense. Then again – gotta leave some questions unanswered for the spinoffs.
Yeah I don’t know how anyone thinks this is one of the worst endings of all time when Battlestar Galactica exists
Or LOST
The problem was the pacing. The events themselves were pretty cool.
The final season was disappointing enough to move GoT out of the pantheon of greatest TV shows.
HE THICC
HE LIKE MAGICC
but most importantly
HE NO WRITE QUICC
I’m pissed mostly because of the amount of story telling that got thrown away. Jon has been foreshadowed as someone great and who is learning how to lead, even if he doesn’t want the job. So instead of getting the massive leadership role that would fulfil his arc as the Song of Ice and Fire (The son of a Stark, aka Ice, and A Targaryen, aka Fire) and the Prince who was Promised, He is sent North of the Wall to be a freefolk, while it may be an Ending Jon secretly hoped for, it is not something that satisfies his arc.
Dany, Actually her arc finished well and made complete sense.
Bran? No foreshadowing, no clues that he should or would become king, hell it’s the most out of left field thing ever and seems like Trope Subversion for the Sake of Trope Subversion.
Tyrion as hand; if he was King with Sansa as his queen that would fit in nicely with the Historical inspiration, the War of the Roses as in that a Lancashire supporter, Henry Tudor (Henry VII) wound up on the Throne and married a York to solidify power (The Lannisters are very similar to the Lancashires, and the Yorks and Starks are roughly Analogous.) I’ll give half credit for this one.
Electing a King, while it sounds all great and good in our age of Democracy and Republic (GOT and the USA being a Republic) I don’t think it is something that would be done, they’d look for whoever had the best claim to the Throne, which would be Jon. Gendry would have a good claim as well, especially now he has been legitimized, however after Dany conquered the Throne it would be House Targaryen Proper so back to Jon. Kind of a fan service way to end the story the way they did it, but then again Jon would have been seen as Fan Service, so who knows.
Overall I thought this episode threw away more and ruined the story more than the time warping, the terrible dialogue since season 5, and the horrible storytelling since Season 5 as well. I could put up with that as for the most part everything made sense based on the Source Material, but this last episode seemed to be like an M Knight Shamalan Film with Trope Subversion and Plot Twists for the Sake of Trope Subversion and Plot Twists.
The very first chapter in the very first book (not the foreward) was Eddard Stark telling Bran about how to be a good leader and to help Robb be the King by bringing justice where it was due. The other stark kids all ran off to play with dogs and the like while Bran sat and listened to Eddard. When he was later injured by people who attempted to murder him, it was Cersei and Jamie who did it. Their literal first victim in the whole thing was Bran. The protagonist of the whole thing was Bran from the very start.
Now did GRRM forget that on his winding journey? Probably.
But the foreshadowing was all over the first book how this ended, back when he thought this thing would only have 3 or 4 books.
To me the story was fine in terms of what actually happened. In early seasons the flow went develop, develop, plot point, fallout. and with it following so many different characters at a time every episode packed a punch and developed other characters. once all the characters where in the same place it makes sense that they had to condense the storyline because watching every main character travel from KL to Winterfell and back would not make for good episodes. However what this season (and last) was missing is that instead of development leading to the plot points we got a little hit you in the face “Foreshadowing” and callbacks by repeating old lines from previous episodes and they removed any fallout and reactions from characters. Characters also stopped learning from mistakes which was a major reason the characters were so interesting in the first place.
TL;DR The plot points and actions in the show were fine it was the before and after the plot points that were mishandled
Why Bran though? Stupid smug little prick. I was fine with the season and then they go and rush that last episode like crazy. It should have been two episodes. Jon Snow should be sitting on the iron throne or at least be king in the north. Bran needs to go away.
The only thing I could think when they were kinging Bran was, “How do they know he can’t father children…?”
I appreciate your take on the speed of the show and the speed of the books. I do not disagree.
Also, GRRM don’t care what people think. ;D
I think the kinging of Bran may be the one thing that I was happiest had happened out of the blue. The way it went down leaves it open to fun fan theories, such as that Bran was responsible for all of the Targaryean downfall. Using his time bending mental powers; he was the voice that drove them all mad in the past, and continued to work his tricks on Jon and Dany. All of those insane choices they made in S7 and S8? Bran whispering in the back of their mind. Tyrion’s decision to boost Bran as a king? More of the same.
Bran is the one person in all the land who knows how to live essentially forever (as the last 3 Eyed Raven had) and has managed to make himself the most powerful ruler in the world. Give him a few days of mind control, and he’ll even have Drogon on his side.
That’s my theory, and thankfully nothing in the show was well enough explained to be able to convince me otherwise.
One of the more frustrating parts for me is that the ending *should* be setting up more conflict and civil war, if the characters/factions acted consistently. But instead, we get an unrealistic storybook wrap-up for all of the Starks.
King Bran is weak – with the North seceding, Bran has no one actually in the kingdom that would owe him personal allegiance. Throughout the show, power has been exercised mostly through House allegiances (consider the role of Lannister troops in King’s Landing throughout Joffrey/Tommen/Cersei’s rule), but Bran has none, and there is no royal army.
The North’s secession should immediately trigger the secession of Dorne and the Iron Islands. Dorne has a much stronger claim to independence than the North, as they were never conquered, but instead married into the seven kingdoms on a co-equal standing with the ruling Targaryans. The Iron Islands have already tried to secede two or three times, and with a weak king, every other great house in ruins, and possessing the only functional Westerosi navy (while living on islands), the time has never been better. And neither Yara Greyjoy or Thenew Martell have any reason to like/respect Bran Stark.
With the Iron Islands pursuing independence, they probably return to raiding the Riverlands, which has had a really rough go of things.
There should be internal conflict in both the Reach and the Stormlands, which are being governed by novices. The Lord of the Stormlands (Gendry, a Baratheon bastard) was legitimized and installed by Danaerys; why would that be acceptable to the other Lords of the Stormlands? They never pledged fealty to her. And Bronn was installed as Lord of the Reach by the hand of the king. I wonder how characters like Lord Hightower feel about having a peasant in charge of them?
I can buy that Grey Worm has enough control over the Unsullied to get them onto boats and headed to Naath, but what about the Dothraki horde? Everything we’ve seen about the Dothraki suggests that they’re extremely difficult to control, and with Danaerys dead, that they would return to raiding and pillaging the countryside.
Other miscellaneous stuff (just from the last 30 minutes of this one episode):
Why is Brienne at the council? Why does she get a vote?
Why is Tyrion’s story thing convincing to characters like Yara, Thenew Martell, Edmure, or that guy next to Edmure? They don’t know what a three-eyed raven is.
Why does Yara back down over a personal threat, and then seem to totally get over it right away?
Why was Jon arrested instead of killed by the Unsullied?
Why does Sansa think that embarrassing and alienating a powerful ally (Edmure) for no reason is a good idea?
How are they gonna exile Jon to the Night’s Watch, when that’s no longer in the Six Kingdoms? That’s not in your jurisdiction, King Bran. Jon can just stop walking as soon as he’s north of the Neck.
What is the purpose of the Night’s Watch now anyways? Just keep picking on the Wildings? Jon already settled a bunch of them south of the wall, and the wall also has a giant hole in it now.
Bran saying “why do you think I came all this way” pretty much confirms that he engineered this whole thing, right? If he has that level of foresight, he could’ve avoided this all, including the burning of King’s Landing. Let’s say Bran doesn’t force Sam to tell Jon about his heritage. This erases the weird conflict between Jon and Dany, and if he just dicks her down like she wanted in ep. 4, there’s no “let it be fear” line. And if Bran warned Danaerys about Euron’s ambush, which led to the deaths of both Rhaegal and Missandei (and hanging Dany’s turn on such a dumb plot point – the naval ambush of flying dragons – is annoying as hell), she might’ve never made that turn. Having Missandei and Jon faithfully with her could have kept her from being as alone as she was before she lost it. Varys also might make it through. But Bran didn’t do any of that; he set things on the path to a burninated King’s Landing and himself on the throne.
What was in Robin Arryn’s tiddy milk? Because damn.
I have a theory that Bran just goes to Sansa’s wedding night on repeat. “You were beautiful on your wedding night”
Also Aaron Rodgers had a GoT cameo. Wth.
The ending was foreshadowed when Drogon turned the Iron Throne into the Iron Ramp.