I Hated the Final Season of Game of Thrones, But Then…
Was the hate and disappointment justified, or am I being an idiot? One way to find out - it’s time to rewatch the Game of Thrones again!
I loved that show, and I do mean LOVED! I couldn’t finish the books, though. All those names, families, conspiracies, and regions were just too much. I had no idea what I was reading most of the time. When those names got faces, things became easier to follow, if only slightly. At least I could manage without constantly reverting to the map and the family trees.
I stand in awe of someone who could write these books and keep tabs on everyone and the happenings in such a vast world. To claim that the Song of Ice and Fire books are epics is an understatement—hats off to George R. R. Martin.
Last week I was enamored by season two, episode four of House of the Dragon. Damn, that was cinema! I felt inspired to rewatch the last two seasons of the Game of Thrones to ride the high I felt. What else will I do when it’s positively boiling outside?
I was also interested in knowing if our collective hate for the last season was justified. How could it be that bad after seven epic seasons? Love turned to hate quickly, and I still remember how disappointed I was when the show finished. I felt robbed, perhaps even violated in some unexplained way.
Sidenote - I felt the same way, worse actually, after the final season of Lost. How does one fuck up such a good thing? It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, just mentioning the once-beloved show.
What went wrong with season eight of Game of Thrones?
It started okay. The heroes assemble for the final battle, representing the culmination of prophecy, resurrections, mystique, and treachery—all seemingly divine intervention to reach this point. So far, so good. Treachery where it was expected, and a thread to be pulled if the heroes survive the battle ahead.
The Great Wall has fallen
I felt that the function of the impenetrable wall was underutilized. I mean so much talk about that damn wall, and then it was disposed of in mere minutes by one singular undead dragon.
Horrible writing, just awful! I expected a proper battle at the wall and the Night's Watch showing the enemy what they were made of before eventually breaching the breach the wall. At least one episode’s worth. They deserved that, didn’t they? All those abstinent bastards with no life and purpose in any other context.
There are just so many cool shots that could have been made. Strategic fighting on the wall and in the tunnel again. Tactics of the Night’s Watch as they fight the undead. After all, they’ve been preparing for this very moment for generations. Ah, all this wasted potential, never to come back! The precious wall turned out to be nothing more than a melting ice cream. It was all so disappointing.
The great battle for the survival of humanity
Here’s my first problem with the admittedly epic and beautifully shot episode depicting the last battle of the living versus the dead, good versus evil. It was too short. I’ve spent almost a decade following these characters and stories, only to reach a cathartic ending in one single episode! Heresy! Blasphemy! Injustice of biblical proportions! I wanted more. A lot more! We deserved more!
Then, there are the idiotic strategic and tactical decisions made by people who should have been more competent and more combat-experienced:
Only one wall of fire right next to the castle walls? No contingencies, no oil thrown from the walls, no meat grinders, just nothing.
Choosing to fight in the open with an army of running, mindless zombies with far superior numbers. No strategy. No thinking. No planning. No kill zones. Nothing but playing cannon fodder. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, and this is what they came up with?
Sending the Dothraki riders meaninglessly to their deaths for no reason whatsoever instead of using them for flanking maneuvers. I mean, the flaming swords and subsequent extinguishing lights in the distance looked cool but made no sense strategically.
Under utilizing dragons, but okay, the queen bitch does what she wants, I guess. They did do some grilling when they weren’t lost in the clouds.
The King of the North, our biggest hero, Jon Snow, was severely underused in this battle. The one he planned, died, and carried the responsibility for on his shoulder alone. A king should have fought the king, not the little assassin girl, but whatever.
The scene under the tree with the cripple Raven boy was lovely and well done but idiotic and unrealistic in every possible way. It felt like a filler in the story, not the epicenter of the battle of good and evil, deciding the future of humanity.
Everything felt rushed. The ending came about too fast and too easy, and it was like someone had lost the filming material of a few episodes and just threw the knife-wielding girl at the Northern King in order to get it over with. Well done, honestly. All that build-up - for this? No wonder we were pissed off!
It looked like there was no one left, apart from a dozen or so heroes, but the next day, we again saw thousands of warriors ready to attack King’s landing. Did someone resurrect them and forget to mention it? Were they hiding somewhere off-screen? I clearly saw that there was practically no one left at the castle, so what’s up with that?
Having said that, it was glorious, emotional, epic, well-shot, and accompanied by a great musical score. I would love to have seen a whole season dedicated to the final battle on more fronts, not just Winterfell, which would have been mesmerizing television without comparison.
I enjoyed it immensely, apart from the unnerving idiocracies. I was grinding my teeth and internally screaming at the screen, asking, “Why, why, why?!” The shots were epic and well done. The lighting was atmospheric, although this show was always too dark anyway. The character development resolutions amid the final battle were satisfactory.
The battle for the Iron Throne
This battle was inevitable to complete the Dragon Queen’s story arc. It was beautifully shot and terrifying, representing what one dragon could do to a medieval city on a bad day. It's haunting stuff, I must admit.
Epic in every way, and it achieves the intended purpose of illustrating the madness of revenge and all-consuming power. Great stuff. Raw, emotional, and packing a punch!
Strategically, the biggest problem was the first wave of attacks - when Dany, on her fire-breathing dragon, sunk an entire navy that had previously dispensed with her dragon as if it were a joke. I would have expected to see some strategy thrown in the mix, not only “She’s just lucky, and none of the thousands of arrows hit the Dragon,” bullshit!
If I wrote it, I would at the very least teach the dragon to swim and chew the ships from the bottom up, in complete safety from the “Scorpion Dragon killers,” but more likely, it would be better if our beloved mad queen would have had some human help. In the form of a payback from the Iron Islands, perhaps. We do remember their queen with an axe to grind, don’t we? Yeah, my point exactly.
It would also have made more sense for a strategic disabling of the only things that could kill the big bad dragon in King’s landing by sabotage instead of the dragon again simply disposing of the horrible threat by spitting fire on them as if it were nothing. I mean, really? Seems lazy.
The clandestine mission could have been done so beautifully and would have made much more sense if Danny, on her dragon, could only enter the city after the people destroyed the anti-dragon defenses. Don’t let the tank destroy anti-tank missiles by just charging at them, sort of thing. Madness. I have a particular face-swapping spy in mind, but whatever.
The death of Queen Cersei could also have been dragged out in a way that we could taste the sweetness of revenge. Dying under the rabble may be poetic justice, as she has caused the destruction of the city by being a proper cunt, but it’s not satisfying at all. Remember how Joffrey Baratheon died? Yeah, me too. Cersei was a hell of a lot worse than that evil twat, but no one got any pleasure, that tingling sensation of fulfilled revenge in seeing her die. A lost opportunity, if there ever was one.
Cersei took Daenerys Targaryen’s children. An eye for a gruesome eye was called for. Cersei didn’t care about the people Dany burned, so that meant nothing. She cared about her unborn baby, though. Imagine a final showdown where Daenerys cuts out Cersei’s baby from her abdomen and feeds the fetus to her dragon, claiming to be exacting justice while we are clearly observing how the bitch has gone mad. Imagine the crazy eyes of a person the mad dragon queen would have to have become to exact revenge in such a manner. A true mad queen, indeed. Her father would pale in comparison.
Not to mention, Daenerys was robbed of her revenge for the murder of her father. The thing that drove her all her life, but she wasn’t allowed to execute only days earlier. Who would have stopped her now? No one, if the writers could be bothered to give us and their characters proper closure. The Kingslayer having another try at ending the Targaryen dynasty while failing to protect his sister, the evil queen, would be epic, as well. So many missed opportunities.
The plot twist and character assassination
When I first watched the final few episodes of Game of Thrones, I was angry and disappointed at the writers' decision to make Daenerys Targaryen the bad girl in the end. When I saw it this week, it made perfect sense.
We all wanted her to win, cheered for her, and accepted her as our moral compass. As she is pushed over the edge and gives into her murderous rage, she becomes the perfect example of what trauma does to people, not to mention it completes the Targaryen curse and her advisor’s warning.
It was a good call, in retrospect. Underutilized, but in line with the usual, heroes don’t survive theme of Game of Thrones.
The decision to burn the city, despite its surrender, was poorly executed and forced but probably necessary. Still, I think an emotional trigger was missing in the final decision.
Not for Grey Worm, whose lover was executed out of spite, but for Daenerys. Something was lacking in her transformation from a rational woman with good morals to a murderous ball of fire with wings. A small victory from Cersei, combined with additional taunting, could have been enough to turn her mad. The death of her friends didn’t seem powerful enough for the evils she unleashed the next day.
I also loved the image near the end of foreign invaders, former slaves turned murder machines, and Dothraki savages celebrating the destruction of the city they knew nothing about nor had any attachment toward, apart from knowing the queen wanted it destroyed. It was perfect - “you won, but at what price,” combined with a “what now?” moment. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Epic stuff.
The show's good guys' realization that they were backing the wrong leader was also beautifully done. The terror in their eyes, pain in their hearts, and a sense of regret—“What have we done?”—were deep, poetic, and perfect.
I remember wanting the love between our two protagonists to survive against all odds, and when it became incest, it was the perfect emotional smack in the face that George R. R. Martin does so well, and it was as effective as ever.
I would say that additional hints regarding Jon Snow’s Targaryen blood would have been great. Him somehow surviving a fire and not understanding why, perhaps. But alright, the man has suffered enough, as it is. I’ll let that one slip.
As for the death of Daenerys Targaryen, while poetically executed by her lover, slash nephew, slash replacement, I would love to have explored the depths of her madness some more. Give her time to show us the real meaning of terror, inviting us along for the ride through the gates of hell, into the mind of a crazed Targaryen, and then put up a fight as her followers finally decide it’s time to end the face-melting bitch. Also, one more fight to kill the dragon protecting her would complete a sad, powerful, and emotional journey.
Moral of the story
I suppose the ending, the final episode of the season, was supposed to make sense by reminding us that monarchies are bad and why elections are the way forward. It’s an okay message, I guess. I just don’t care for it all that much. One could argue the whole story was about power, bloodlines, and politics, but I would disagree. I felt it was more about revenge, personal growth, and the merciless unfairness of life.
We saw our favorite characters rise to their greatness, showing potential, only to be cut down mercilessly as if they never mattered at all. This was a proper shock with this series, one that caught me off guard with the beheading of Ned Stark, whom I loved instantly, and the infamous Red Wedding. I remember the shock and silence after that affair. I just couldn’t believe what I’d seen.
Expect the unexpected may have been the theme of this series, but the ending, while surprising, didn’t quite live up to the legend. It felt flaccid, mellow, and castrated somehow. Like a politically correct comedian terrified of being canceled. It just didn’t work. It’s like a revigorating shag with a mesmerizing lover, but then you don’t reach the final destination in the end. It’s okay and good fun, better than digging ditches, but slightly anti-climatic, if you know what I mean.
Final thoughts
I guess what I’m saying is that the final season of Game of Thrones felt rushed. It was obvious that it was not written by the same people and that there were time constraints involved, which is a crying shame. The final run time and number of episodes could easily double, and there would still be so much to explore.
I liked the season eight this time around and enjoyed every minute of it! More than the first time, for some odd reason. I guess I wasn’t emotionally involved in the story anymore, demanding closure that I didn’t get with this ending. It’s not perfect, and I would sign a petition again (I think I did something of the sort back then) to completely rewrite and reshoot the final season.
It might be best to leave it alone while we’re waiting for George to finish the damn book. As we could blatantly see, no one can replace him and give the story justice. I think I have the perfect analogy for the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones and then the last one.
Have you ever seen The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, otherwise known as Sagrada Família? It’s a magnificent church in Barcelona, and if you can only ever visit one church, see this one! It’s breathtaking, and that’s coming from someone who hates churches and what they represent with a vengeance!
Long story short, this particular church has been under construction for over one hundred and seventy years, and it’s not finished yet! True masters of the art constructed the first part of the church. It’s mesmerizingly beautiful and full of details—a masterpiece without comparison—one of the true wonders of human art. The second part is modern and just about as soulless as you can imagine while still being magnificent.
The original idea:
The modern addition:
This is how I feel about the Game of Thrones series. The first seven seasons were perfection, while the eighth, final one, was rushed, with a new dynamic and creators, lacking the same pace, emotional impact, storytelling, and perfection of the earlier seasons. It’s still one of the best seasons of any TV show in the history of television, don’t get me wrong, but it feels out of place compared to previous seasons.
That’s the problem with reaching such immense heights of quality. Staying at the top of your game is nearly impossible.
Maybe give it another shot, like I did. This time around, you might be less emotionally attached and enjoy yourself more than the first time around. Season eight of the Game of Throneis good TV, but it’s not perfect.
Can you think of any other TV show season with more epic shots, storytelling, character exploration, and emotional punch? Do tell me in the comments.