Game of Thrones final season: Unwarranted Hate

I imagine yall are tired of hearing me talk about Game of Thrones, but it’s consumed my life for the past four months and it’s the only thing I want to talk about. In my last post, I talked about the first six seasons of Game of Thrones and how great of a television show it is. I ended it by talking about how the fans were really dissatisfied with the final season, especially the eighth and final one.  The consensus is that it felt very rushed, some characters stopped acting like themselves, and the way the story ended wasn’t very satisfying. While I have my own complaints about the final season and believe it could have ended better, I personally don’t understand the pure hatred for the finale. So I wanted to go back to some of the things I emphasized in my last post, like the world-building, characters, and finales, and talk about how I felt the finale handled these parts of the show that I think are its best attributes.

The Worldbuilding

I talked last time about the world-building in Game of Thrones. The show has a wide range of characters all living in different regions of the Seven Kindoms, allowing for the viewer to see how the world of Westeros operates. With so many character’s storielines to follow, the show is usually juggling 9 or 10 plot lines per seaons, jumping between them giving every character time to shine and develop. With all these stroylines, it allows for slow progression of development among the characters, however during the final two seasons plotlines begin tomerge and the story comes to a conlcusons, leaving the last season with two or three plot lines for the show to cover.

This gives the show less to go over, requiring character and storylines to develop quicker than they did in previous seasons, making the last seasons feel very rushed. While this is a one of the big criticisms the fans had about the finale, I cant blame the show for rushing development since they dont have as many characters and storylines to cover, since most of the characters have either died or teamed up and most sortliens have concluded and a mority of the characters are working towards the same goal.

The Characters

The characters of Game of Thrones carry the show. There are so many great and interesting characters for the fans to fall in love with, and I think it’s because of how consistently the characters are written. You have your morally righteous character who will always do the right thing, the diabolical and heatless villains that put themselves before anyone, and the morally grey characters that the viewers have a hard time reading. Either way, whenever these characters are thrown into a situation, their decision-making and reactions always match their character, making the characters not predictable, but consistent. And that’s one of my favorite parts of the show, how well the characters are written, but sadly, I feel like that’s where the writers dropped the ball during the last season when it comes to character development. Some of the best-written and most complex characters make completely irrational decisions that in earlier seasons they would never make.

Take John Snow for example, in a world full of crooks and liars, John Snow consistently is the most righteous character in the show, giving the viewers someone to root for. He’s willing to die for what he believes in and in very dedicated to his roots in the North. However, in the final season, John Snow goes from learning that he has to put aside his pride for the greater good, to immediately not being able to align himself with another house because of his pride. He spent the entire sixth season fighting for his house in the North, just to forget about them and shrill out to his new love interest in the last season. It’s hard to root for the good guy when his character gets completely turned upside down.

The Finales

My favorite episodes of the show have always been the finale of each season.  They really break the status quo and the way the show is heading every season whether that’s with a world-defining battle or a big character death. Then having to watch the rest of the characters deal with the effects of the finale is always interesting to watch. But sadly I knew the show’s finale was going to miss the mark of quality that the other seasons had. However, after watching it, I’m satisfied with the way it ended.  The final episodes end in a lot of battling and bloodshed, leaving a lot of the main characters dead and the rest very emotionally wounded.

So the conclusion of the show was very bittersweet, and not the epic ending the rest of the season had however I can’t think of a better ending. I wasn’t a fan of the show during its prime when all the episodes were released weekly, but I can imagine the finale had a lot of hype behind it. So ending it bittersweet like that most likely left a lot of fans upset that it wasn’t as grand as they were expecting. While I do have many criticisms about how it ended, they feel very biased and personal and I don’t want to spoil how it ends.

It’s hard not to talk about the final season without coming across spoilers, but I tried my best not to talk about them because I’ve enjoyed my time watching Game of Thrones and I still believe this show is worth watching all the way through, even with the lackluster ending. I hope I was able to still get my points across.  Regardless of the fan’s reaction, I encourage you to watch Game of Thrones and make your own opinion about the ending because, before the final seasons, the majority of the show is still a masterpiece and stays as one of my favorite shows I’ve seen.