Game of Thrones

[lhb412]

I really only started paying attention these last two and a half seasons, which is after the point serious aficionados have been saying it was going downhill. Because of this, I never really took it seriously and just sort of appreciated how pretty it looks.

The final episode sure looked really pretty! Great cinematography, moody...

[Dai]

As with the whole of season 8, there was a bit of a disconnect in the finale. For the most part, it felt like the right things happened, but the way the critical events were conveyed was often too perfunctory and lacking in tension. There was a definite sense this year that George Martin had handed the show-runners a bullet-point list of events that needed to happen, and they ploughed through it in too straightforward a fashion.

While I think a lot of people (including me) will disagree with Tyrion's assessment of who had the best story, on the whole the finale managed to tie off the story's earliest narrative threads tidily. It's a shame that later-established threads were left hanging in places. Perhaps that was inevitable, considering how numerous and messy they had become. So we're left with an ending that's flawed in its execution, but I think it was broadly the right ending in principle, especially in the final directions of most of the surviving characters' lives.

[jellydonut25]

I have a hard time discussing the finale because I think the show was unalterably ruined in episode 3. So, people can talk about the finale doing things "right" or "mostly right" or whatever given where everything was at that point...but in my opinion, the show never should have gotten to that point. Plowing under the Night King not only in an episode, but as a precursor, or a minor event en route to the bigger goal of the throne is the complete and utter opposite of what I thought the entire point of the whole show was. Granted, Game of Thrones has been known for quite often redefining its focus and stakes, but to take the menace that had been built since the opening moments of the show, the impetus for the catch-phrase of the entire show, and turn it into a perfunctory side story that served absolutely no purpose torpedoed the show for me. It never recovered...I'm not sure it even COULD have, and I watched the remaining three episodes with a grim sense of duty, but a complete lack of joy or entertainment.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

This guy is my favorite thing on the internet right now.