A lame, lazy ending that betrays what made the show worthwhile (and will clobber residuals). To cap it all my brother-in-law won a $100 bet on Bran with someone, and I hate it when that happens.
I enjoyed some seasons better than others, and within those, some episodes better than others. I found it hard to maintain interest during the long intervals between seasons, and found the pace to be plodding at times, though there were good dramatic moments and humor. I think the pacing picked up after the show got past the published books, which had a lot of filler- book 4 in particular (which I read quite a while ago- the one with all the collateral story lines?) didn't advance the main story themes much at all. And certain story lines seemed to have gotten dropped from the show altogether. I found the last season to be very slow during the first two episodes, the big battle with the nightwalkers difficult to follow and frankly, boring at a certain point. The 4th and 5th episodes picked the story back up quite well; the ending- well, I'm never sure anybody is happy with how these long running series finally end. There were moments of brilliance in this show, some great acting, particularly in the earlier seasons and I didn't think it was a time waste. I do suffer from fatigue from long running franchises- I totally lost interest in Star Wars before the third movie was made and never really got back into it with the prequels or newer stories. For deep fans of the author's work, I suppose there will be some legitimate criticism, but, having read the books and hung in there, it's done. I will retain some memories of some of the better scenes- the first season was absolutely powerful, and Peter Dinklage, who I met before this whole thing started (and really had no idea who he was other than that he was a nice funny guy), was central to this whole thing.
Well of all shows HBO had to screw it up. I’m watching this through crave Canada and right when Jon snow looks back at the gate and rides with the wildings beyond the wall, it cuts out just like that so my wife and I missed the last few minutes. Bummer. My wife and I found the final episode suitable. There were some illogical questions. Why take the black. The unsullied are gone and there’s no more night king left. What’s there to defend. The Dothraki are left roaming around kings landing with no purpose. And Bran as king. I just feel they whipped something up without really thinking some of the logic through. Aria’s story was wrapped up nicely, Jon killing Dani was predicted and suitable. Sansa becoming queen of the North, meh. Dani made no sense telling Jon why she slaughtered everyone, and her idea in killing men, women, children all over Westeros made no sense. Did she honestly think people would buy that. I also wanted greyworm dead. After Dani died he served no purpose, in fact he had no voice at all, so I don’t know why people just gave into him. Regardless of the budget this season they should never ever ever have decided to do this in 6 episodes. It was an almost perfect show, and the corporate suits screwed it all up. They’ll never be able to live this down. Major fiasco.
I ended up being entirely satisfied how and where every last character ended up in the very end but I cringe at what I saw was the lazy writing and missed opportunities along the way there. Some of the decisions about where the characters ended actually seem near brilliant to me, so it's so odd that they got there in such a clumsy way. For example, I'm glad Greyworm and the Unsullied end up shipping out of town for some new turf. But yeah, the idea that they wouldn't have immediately skewered Jon Snow like a hot dog after finding out that he's just murdered the queen that they've been more loyal to than any army in television history? Doesn't make any sense. "Hey, we just got done slicing every one of our defeated enemies' throats....oh, somebody just put a knife in the queen's heart? Stick him in a cell for a few weeks until every other important person in the series gets here..." I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride there when Tyrion somehow seemed to go straight to where his brother and sister were, even though a) he had no idea where either of them were b) he had a left a boat for them to escape and didn't know if they had or hadn't done so. Jaime's golden hand sticking out just enough to be seen; this is what I mean by classic, late-in-a-series lazy writing. I was so disappointed in Jon Snow this past season that if he were to end up king I would have revolted. I'm glad he went up north, which is where he seemed most comfortable. It made sense. Even after the reveal of his parentage, he could never shake that sense of being an outsider. Bran is a fine king for the end but man I do wish he had actually done something else interesting this season. Maybe he was doing magical stuff and we didn't see, like just sort of poofing an entire army of angry Dothraki out of existence.
So the entire city is destroyed by a dragon and it just flies away and no one thinks maybe they ought to find out what happened to it? Jon explained Daenerys disappearance how? The episode should have ended with Drogon's departure, with another episode typing up the plot threads. So many of the last two season's issues could have been fixed by doing full ten episode seasons.
Knowing Jon, he confessed to the first Unsullied on the scene. It could have been a perfect crime - "our queen has decided to fly away for a long break in Majorca, she left me in charge".
I have mixed emotions about the finale. Jon ended up where I thought he'd be but not in the way I thought it would go. I thought Jon would voluntarily head north of the wall to live with the free folk. It's possible that Grey Worm was somewhat tricked into believing sending Jon to the wall was a punishment knowing he wanted to be there anyway. I expected more tension, drama and action then what we got, and I thought Daenerys was killed too early in the episode. Her whole story arc did feel rushed in the last three shows. The turn to mad queen was a believable idea but we didn't see it build a bit more. For a while it looked like we might get a fight between Jon and Grey Worm but not to be. Positive: Bron got his castle. I liked the shot of Daenerys walking away from Drogon and the dragon's wings opened up behind her making her look like a more literal dragon queen. That was a nice effect.
There were some stunning shots in the first half of the episode; Daenerys with dragon wings, Drogon waking up in the ashes, Drogon nuzzling Daenerys body, the iron throne in the destroyed throne room.
I haven't seen either of the last two seasons (basically because I can't see it with my wife while she's both teaching and working on a degree), but I've been following the spoilers, and this seems to me to be the predictable consequence of finishing the series before the books were written. Basically everything that's happened since the series went beyond the published books has been a nigh complete cock-up. And as far as I'm concerned, the fault lies with G.R.R. Martin. He should have finished the book series while the series was filming, or waited until it was published before even allowing the series to be made. I predict that there's no damn way that his book series is going to wrap up as disappointing as this series seems to have done. Perhaps it'll be pretty sweet for him when he publishes the last couple of novels and can say, "Yeah, they really screwed up my story. Silly HBO."
I dunno about "the best it could've been" but certainly "as well as could be expected". It was all a bit perfunctory really. They did what had to be done. They sure cleaned up the Small Council quickly.
I only just started watching the thing a few weeks ago, and it's good if you have all the episodes ready to go. I can see where it would lose a lot of momentum having long waits between seasons. I'm about to finish Season 3 tonight, and it's an enjoyable show. BTW, people: remember there is a separate SPOILER THREAD elsewhere, so if you're going to talk about specifics in tonight's finale, those messages belong over there. Don't reveal any surprises here.
I think it's a little late to say no spoilers, there has been nothing but spoilers especially if you are only on season 3.
This is pretty funny... ‘Game Of Thrones’ Viewers Reeling After Finale Unexpectedly Kills Off Fan 7 Things You Can Do After Game Of Thrones Ends On Sunday Meanwhile, some fans are displeased...
Caught a scene of it earlier and wondered how Mr. curly hair did not melt along with the sword chair when the dragon was pissed off fire spitting. Seemed logical. But, I KNOW, it's just a show.
In the grand tradition of popular, long-running series' finales, that one was a whole lotta meh. Unlike many fans, I enjoyed this last season, but I expected something grander from the finale. The episode peaked with Daenerys's demise, but I didn't expect it to. I thought that that was just the beginning. I fully expected the episode to take off from there, and it could have gone any number of ways. I predicted that Grey Worm, the Unsullied and the Dothraki would not stand for Daenerys's execution. Not exactly a bold prediction. It was a foregone conclusion. So when Jon killed her, I wondered how the hell he was going to get himself out of that situation. I thought it possible that Drogon would be loyal to Jon. He is a Targaryen, after all. And that beautiful shot of Drogon letting Jon into the Red Keep to see Daenerys could have foreshadowed Drogon's eventual loyalty to Jon. I thought it possible that Arya would use her face-wearing abilities to assume Daenerys's image. I don't know how Grey Worm knew that Daenerys had died. Couldn't Jon simply have told him that Daenerys took off with Drogon? Did Jon confess to killing Daenerys? Anyway, it wasn't a grand finale, but it was a finale, like most finales. It didn't go out on a high note, but so few do.
The final season was rushed and the writing is just plain bad. Fans deserved better after supporting the series for many years.
