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Pretty much everybody I've talked to has hated the ending and this season generally.

The petition reaching 1 million signatures is certainly interesting, it's not going to achieve anything but it really shows how many people had a visceral ticked off reaction to it.

Ultimately the writing has been on a doggak path for a while, if they didn't engage in pandering to the audience by inserting modern values into what is essentially a medieval society I think they might have been able to tell the story a bit more coherently and get to this ending in a satisfying way.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I really don't think this is a vocal minority situation. What metric indicates most people loved this season? Reviewers? Public comments? Tweets? Fan pages? This page?

Cmon. I don't begrudge anyone who enjoyed it. I really don't. If anything, I envy them.

But pretending there is no problem, that it is merely a few industrious malcontents is the entertainment equivalent of '5 million illegal votes for Hillary by busses full of travelling democrats'. A baseless assertion with no evidence to back it up concocted to excuse the facts in front of us.

Easy.

Viewing figures.

Season 8 reached the largest audience for the whole series, and bizarrely, grew that week on week.

Given that’s what shows are made for, whether we like it or not, I doubt anyone involved gives much of a hoot about ratings.

https://tvline.com/2019/05/20/game-of-thrones-finale-ratings-season-8-iron-throne/

I mean, compare to Friends. 10 seasons of trite nonsense, with a live audience so astounded by the human ability to like, walk through a door, would whoop and cheer at every such instance. It was crap. Crap of the highest order. Compare to its British contemporaries of the time. Spaced. Black Books. Father Ted. All works of genius. All ridiculously, and deeply funny. Yet Friends stomped them in the ratings, and made the money. It was widely syndicate outside its native land, and is still (inexplicably if you ask me) enjoyed to this day.

How do I feel about such obvious dross being that successful?



Quantity. That’s what the show makers are interested in. If you happen to get quality in there, great. But it’s not an essential ingredient for a successful show. If you’ve got high viewership, you can charge more for the ad slots, and flog the resultant show to more networks.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
FWIW I think that pretty much everyone got an ending that they had earned/deserved/was appropriate and I look forward to the spin off show Voyage Of The Dawn Arya replete with talking gerbil.

I prefer "West of Westeros: The Voyages of Arrrrrya Stark".

I think I'd rather have "Westward Ho! Arya there yet?"

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
FWIW I think that pretty much everyone got an ending that they had earned/deserved/was appropriate and I look forward to the spin off show Voyage Of The Dawn Arya replete with talking gerbil.

I prefer "West of Westeros: The Voyages of Arrrrrya Stark".

I think I'd rather have "Westward Ho! Arya there yet?"

Cheers

Andrew

 Galas wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
When a show which Rotten Tomatoes audience rating has been hovering around 90% for seven seasons suddenly drops below 40% then I don't think that it is unreasonable to surmise that something might have gone a tad wrong in the show making department...

No, is just manchildren being mad. Like The new Star Wars trilogy. They are hating it because potatoes, theres NO VALID criticism whatsoever.

.

There are plenty of valid criitiscms of TLJ - I don't think you get to decide what is and is not a valid reason why that film is bad.

I am disapointed by the end - in fact much of Season 7 and 8 but its done, I will remember the good stuff and think about how I would have liked it to end - it would not take that much to make it an ending I would have enjoyed.....

Purchased the season today and watched it.

Meh.

I've enjoyed the other seasons quite thoroughly. This was a hugely underwhelming and terribly paced (and actually rather boring) conclusion. I suppose it's better that it's at least done with.

...Big selling point for Bran was he comes with his own chair already so no need to forge a new throne.

I didn't enjoy it.

It was a struggle to watch it really and I felt it was extremely cheesy for what it was.

Bran doesn't want to be Lord of Winterfell but is quite happy to be king? Okay.

The book at the end felt very Lord of The Rings but where LoTR worked, this didn't.

This scene is just so awful. Jon has effectively been used & discarded by everyone. Bran-thing isn't even pretending to have a shred of emotion, admits Jon was essential just a pawn in some grand scheme with a half smirk. The Bran arc ending like this is just ominous. At least he didn't say he forgave Sansa.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Easy.

Viewing figures.

Season 8 reached the largest audience for the whole series, and bizarrely, grew that week on week.

Given that’s what shows are made for, whether we like it or not, I doubt anyone involved gives much of a hoot about ratings.

https://tvline.com/2019/05/20/game-of-thrones-finale-ratings-season-8-iron-throne/

I mean, compare to Friends. 10 seasons of trite nonsense, with a live audience so astounded by the human ability to like, walk through a door, would whoop and cheer at every such instance. It was crap. Crap of the highest order. Compare to its British contemporaries of the time. Spaced. Black Books. Father Ted. All works of genius. All ridiculously, and deeply funny. Yet Friends stomped them in the ratings, and made the money. It was widely syndicate outside its native land, and is still (inexplicably if you ask me) enjoyed to this day.

Commercial success =\= acclaim. When the question being posed is "did the viewers actually think the show was good", the number of people watching it doesn't matter, as there's plenty of reasons for why a person would continue to tune in for something they no longer like or care about. As an example, I loved episodes 4-6 and had an amazing time watching all three of them, doesn't change the fact that they were complete gutter trash with terrible writing and characterization. Schlock can still be entertaining, or feel mandatory to watch if you've invested 8 years into it already or if you're the type of person who cares about being current with the big social events, etc.

If you're interested in the critical reception of a movie or show, that's basically what review aggregate sites were designed for.

 reds8n wrote:
...Big selling point for Bran was he comes with his own chair already so no need to forge a new throne.

It is super convenient. I mean, think of the savings! And he can take it with him...he can do so many activities!

 Galas wrote:
No, is just manchildren being mad.

I think this is a bad take for sure. It was a very divisive season and I think a lot of people were very unhappy with it.

I personally didn't hate it... or love it. I was disappointed that I didn't get the exact ending I was hoping for, but as Thanos said, reality is often disappointing. They had so many disparate threads to try together it wasn't really possible to do so in a way that would have made everyone happy, and I think they also handicapped themselves right off the bat by reducing the episode count starting with Season 7.

Also, I don't see what happened to Tyrion as much of a punishment at all, really. Someone ITT said that his life is pretty much over and his only choice is to serve, but that has never been true for the Hand of the King. All of the previous hands had families and houses. Tyrion is free to start a family if he is so inclined and any heirs he produces would inherit (a somewhat diminished) Casterly Rock.

Yeah, Tyrion's fine and content. He's hanging out with Davos, as well as Bronn again, doing useful work and telling stories. He's content.

As much as I've been annoyed with the series, I for example, don't think it would end up on a Channel 4 "20 worst TV show endings" list show. But it MIGHT end up on the "20 MOST DISAPPOINTING TV show Endings" programme.

And I think that's the rub, even for the general public. Sure, it's not the OMG worst plot twist awfulness that some really passionate fans express.

But I do think that the vast majority of people, even casual viewers are disappointed by it. And it definitely won't be a thing of, "FROM THE CREATORS OF GAME OF THRONES" will end up being a big selling thing going forward. (Though they'll try, maybe?) but, yeah...

There was an article I saw that did well at summing up my own feelings I think. Meh or Eh

 Compel wrote:

But I do think that the vast majority of people, even casual viewers are disappointed by it. And it definitely won't be a thing of, "FROM THE CREATORS OF GAME OF THRONES" will end up being a big selling thing going forward. (Though they'll try, maybe?) but, yeah...

I dunno. The final season in totality seems to have been received roughly 50/50 between fine/disappointing, anecdotally. I've seen a lot of gushing reviews of individual episodes, and some (but fewer) extremely-critical ones. The actual finale seems to have been enjoyed by more people than hated it, again anecdotally.

David Chase is still always 'creator of The Sopranos', and that final season's three-episode dream sequence and cut-off finale got far more consistent vitriol at the time from fans than GoT has.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yep. GoT isn't unique in this regard.
-Show/Franchise becomes popular
- A percentage over invest
- Some of the over investors rage because things aren't going the way they think it should.

And I don't have a problem with people not liking the end, or people being unhappy that things didn't turn out they way they wanted (I wanted Clegganebowl to be a very different fight to what it was, but I ain't signing no bone-headed petition over it).

It's just that people seem to think that "I didn't like it!" = "This is bad!". If you don't like something all it means is that you didn't like it. It's somewhat self-centred to believe that everything you dislike is inherently of low quality.

I don't like Primaris Marines. I do think the models look great (floaty autocannon guys notwithstanding), and I'm not about to denigrate the miniatures (other than calling them out-of-scale Marines) just because I think they have no place in 40K.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Frankly it would have been all but impossible to have wrapped up and everybody be happy (and that isn't an invitation to write me an essay about how it would have happened if you were in charge, BTW.)

I also agree here. There's no way everyone was going to be happy with the ending, especially for something that has captured the world's attention to such a degree.

But it's the vitriol of the detractors I take issue with, because they're acting as if this is somehow new. I remember people bitching about how awful this show was Ned got a spear to the leg way back in season one. I remember not liking Season 5 much at all. Didn't sign any petitions...

 Azreal13 wrote:
FWIW I think that pretty much everyone got an ending that they had earned/deserved/was appropriate and I look forward to the spin off show Voyage Of The Dawn Arya replete with talking gerbil.

I prefer "West of Westeros: The Voyages of Arrrrrya Stark".

It's not bad because I don't like it.

I don't like it because it's BAD.

The show garnered such a huge fan base by being really good. It's not the fanbase's fault that the ending was badly written. You can't expect them to be happy that something they liked has been ruined.

When GW blew up the old world, did you blame the fans for not liking it?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Easy.

Viewing figures.

Season 8 reached the largest audience for the whole series, and bizarrely, grew that week on week.

Given that’s what shows are made for, whether we like it or not, I doubt anyone involved gives much of a hoot about ratings.

https://tvline.com/2019/05/20/game-of-thrones-finale-ratings-season-8-iron-throne/

I mean, compare to Friends. 10 seasons of trite nonsense, with a live audience so astounded by the human ability to like, walk through a door, would whoop and cheer at every such instance. It was crap. Crap of the highest order. Compare to its British contemporaries of the time. Spaced. Black Books. Father Ted. All works of genius. All ridiculously, and deeply funny. Yet Friends stomped them in the ratings, and made the money. It was widely syndicate outside its native land, and is still (inexplicably if you ask me) enjoyed to this day.

Commercial success =\= acclaim. When the question being posed is "did the viewers actually think the show was good", the number of people watching it doesn't matter, as there's plenty of reasons for why a person would continue to tune in for something they no longer like or care about. As an example, I loved episodes 4-6 and had an amazing time watching all three of them, doesn't change the fact that they were complete gutter trash with terrible writing and characterization. Schlock can still be entertaining, or feel mandatory to watch if you've invested 8 years into it already or if you're the type of person who cares about being current with the big social events, etc.

If you're interested in the critical reception of a movie or show, that's basically what review aggregate sites were designed for.

That's kind of my point though.

Season 8 has the highest viewing figures of the entire series. And episode by episode, those increased.

Does that mean it's therefore quality? Nope. See my comments about the abysmal Friends. But it does mean it's a success. And that's all the Bean Counters require.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamereth wrote:

When GW blew up the old world, did you blame the fans for not liking it?

After a fashion, yes. WHFB wasn't selling enough for their tastes, so they reworked the whole thing, and relaunched it to ultimately greater success.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, Tyrion's fine and content. He's hanging out with Davos, as well as Bronn again, doing useful work and telling stories. He's content.

As much as I've been annoyed with the series, I for example, don't think it would end up on a Channel 4 "20 worst TV show endings" list show. But it MIGHT end up on the "20 MOST DISAPPOINTING TV show Endings" programme.

And I think that's the rub, even for the general public. Sure, it's not the OMG worst plot twist awfulness that some really passionate fans express.

But I do think that the vast majority of people, even casual viewers are disappointed by it. And it definitely won't be a thing of, "FROM THE CREATORS OF GAME OF THRONES" will end up being a big selling thing going forward. (Though they'll try, maybe?) but, yeah...

There was an article I saw that did well at summing up my own feelings I think. Meh or Eh

Yeah disapointment is my main feeling for this season - missed opportunities but oh well.

Some people think it needed mroe time but I think thats no excuse - I look at Avengers Endgame and see how many characters were done well in 3 hours and see the opposite in GoT.

Why they had to force a happy ending for the two main male characters the opposite for the main female lead is also a mystery.

Sure have her lover stab her in the heart but then let him burn or the Dothraki /Unsullied tear him apart not live happily ever after up north.
Same with Tyrion - oh no i get to be the most powerful person in the 6 kingdoms (*) - woe is me....

(*) Bran the Pointless is not going to do anything - hilarious hearing him described as "the storyteller" - he hardly speaks never mind tells stories.

The issue with comparing it to endgame is that GOT had more storylines to wrap up. If you look at Endgame everyone is basically part of the same major conflict, and the story is about their interaction with that conflict in GOT you had A lot more conflict and dynamics to wrap up so given that they did the last 2 Seasons as 13 Episodes after 6 seasons of 10 Episodes, things came across as rushed. It would have been akin to Marvel building up Thanos as a big threat, while having Hydra also in the picture, Then in Infinity war Thanos shows up is beaten and they move on to fight Hydra in Endgame, but during Infintiy war they hinted in the Civil War storyline between Cap and Iron Man. Then Endgame resolves the hydra storyline in the first hour, and finishes with Civil war in the second hour. IT takes time to properly wrap up existing story lines

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Tamereth wrote:

When GW blew up the old world, did you blame the fans for not liking it?

After a fashion, yes. WHFB wasn't selling enough for their tastes, so they reworked the whole thing, and relaunched it to ultimately greater success.

They didn't need to destroy the setting to do that though. They could have just reworked the rules.

And the year of disappointing shows continues...

There are definitely people complaining about about GoT who could be described as 'toxic fandom'. Give me the story and ending I want or I'm going to throw a tantrum like a child. Petitions to reshoot the whole season...how ridiculous. Grow up and realize that it isn't all about you, whether it's GoT, SW, or some other franchise. And don't name your daughters after fictional characters or anoint said characters as some kind of icon before you know their entire arc in the story, kids. Any devoted ASOIAF reader could have told you there was a distinct possibility Daenerys would end up crazy and skewered.

There are also those (like myself) who are fine with the broad arc of the story, but think the story could have been told better down the stretch. Personally, I really appreciate the work of all the creative professionals and actors on the show. Dinklage is a terrific actor who really brought it even when the script let him down. And we saw two lengthy action sequences with some amazing visuals and concepts. It's a damn shame that stuff was lost on so many people during this season because they were too busy scratching their heads over the story.

So who's to blame for the story failings? I think it has to be shared by both GRRM and the showrunners. GRRM did them no favors by failing to complete the next installment, and by leaving the last novel with an endless number of threads that needed to be addressed. The showrunners were in a heckuva pickle.

Still, the showrunners have to be the primary culprits. There were far too many 'unforced errors' on their part even considering their constraints. That summit scene at the arena is a prime example that gets worse and worse the more you think about and dig into it. Characters, established motivations, and even sense were tossed out the window too often in recent seasons in the name of driving the plot forward quickly to the next big thing. Big Things(TM) can still get you boffo ratings, but the show became almost a parody of what it was in earlier seasons. To be fair, it's hardly the first great TV series to experience that.

TL;DR - Fans aren't a homogeneous bunch, and there's blame to go around.

Thoroughly disappointed in that entire season.
Wont bother rehashing whats already been said about how woeful that last episode was. Bordering on downright cheesey in parts
Really felt like the writers had given up and just wanted to finish things off lickity split which is depressing considering the highs earlier seasons had given us.
Ah well back to watching Chernobyl.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

It's just that people seem to think that "I didn't like it!" = "This is bad!". If you don't like something all it means is that you didn't like it. It's somewhat self-centred to believe that everything you dislike is inherently of low quality.

It's pretty much a fact of life on Dakka, the hate here for some subjects gets so hyperbolic and vicious that I figure anyone who did like the show just doesn't bother posting here. In the tab next to this, I've got another forum open, where the consensus on the finale is more-or-less the same, but there's about 10% of the overblown stop-liking-what-I-don't-like nastiness.

My thought of the day -- Daenerys' heel turn didn't feel 'right' to some people not because she had avoided extreme actions, but because in between extreme actions she was measured, seemed to have some moral boundaries, and lacked an aura of menace and darkness. Making her more situationally ruthless than someone inclined to senselessly murder children (not that there can be any sense in that). More Tywin Lannister than Aerys the Mad.

So was the fault there in the writing, Clarke's performance, the direction she received, or in the casting of Emilia Clarke?

"Why did this thing happen? Because the plot required it it"
=Poorstory telling. I.E. We wanted dragonfire exploding stone all over the shop and lots of dragon on people violence!

The plot develops because things happen not the other way round so from that perspective its a failure from my viewpoint...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Tamereth wrote:

When GW blew up the old world, did you blame the fans for not liking it?

After a fashion, yes. WHFB wasn't selling enough for their tastes, so they reworked the whole thing, and relaunched it to ultimately greater success.

Again though, why was it not selling? Did WHFB fans just wake up one day and think "welp, that's that, I will no longer buy things for this game" in mass numbers for no reason whatsoever? Of course not, it wasn't selling because GW's own bungled mismanagement drove people away. That's not the fault of the people they drove away, and replacing it with a more mass-market product(that was also flopping like a live trout on a dock for months until they also started fixing all the company's attitude problems, lest we forget) doesn't alter that.

 gorgon wrote:
My thought of the day -- Daenerys' heel turn didn't feel 'right' to some people not because she had avoided extreme actions, but because in between extreme actions she was measured, seemed to have some moral boundaries, and lacked an aura of menace and darkness. Making her more situationally ruthless than someone inclined to senselessly murder children (not that there can be any sense in that). More Tywin Lannister than Aerys the Mad.

So was the fault there in the writing, Clarke's performance, the direction she received, or in the casting of Emilia Clarke?

I think it was an issue of being rushed. As Tyrion pointed out, throughout the series she was ruthless, it was just with people we considered bad people. Reflecting on her in between times she was often surrounded by people who loved/worshiped her, she would do a terrible thing, liberate people and they would be grateful, fall to their knees in thanks/awe etc.

She assimilates to the Dothraki culture, then when Drogo dies she burns the witch, and walks out of the funeral pyre with 3 dragons, those remaining with her are awed that she not only survives but thrives.

Then she frees the slaves, kills the masters and they worship her as Mysha (mother)

She burns the Khals, and walks out of the fire, and in their culture that worships strength she has slain all of their strongest proving her worth, and then mounts a Dragon.

Easier to remain measured when you are being lauded for your deeds, then when people are skeptical.
Compare that to her time in Westeros.

She Burns the Loot Train, kills some of the leadership, and people kneel to her in fear.
She rides her dragons north, to save Jon and he falls for her
Cersei betrays her (for which she has killed most)
Heads north with Jon to a cold reception from the people and leadership
She is key to defending Winterfell - but is still not loved by the people
Heads south and people retreat from her into the safety offered by her enemy.

SO I think part of it is that she does better as the beloved savior than the tolerated ally.

 Compel wrote:

There was an article I saw that did well at summing up my own feelings I think. Meh or Eh

And I submit that one sign a pivot hasn't worked is the fact that the show's architects had to try to explain it in a "behind the episode" interview. Also reeking of flop sweat: An on-screen character (Tyrion) spending a chunk of the finale retroactively re-framing Dany's history and motivations. Monologue as retcon; that's fun.

Yeah, as I said, that was very, very hamfisted and obvious. Trying to explain so hard that "She was always gonna turn mad!" feel something a writter that does know his writting isn't organic would do.

And at this point, all the "It was obvious she was gonna turn mad, you where just soooo simple to see it!" is becoming very tedious. Because as many have pointed out, is not the foreshadowing (Foreshadowing IS not character developement, people) , it is how it was done.

I wish I'd been moved in some way when Jon killed Dany, but my interest in that scene petered out as soon as it appeared Jon was never going to directly ask her about why she ignored the bells of surrender. Sure, those two danced around the subject, but as a whole, the show has seemed more interested in reverse-engineering Dany into being a Big Bad and shoving her into the Deserves to Die category than in making her choices reverberate with tragic poignance. Jon + Dany, despite the show's exertions, has never been a thing. Dany's heel turn could have been great, but it wasn't; it could have driven some of the best TV storytelling of all time, but it didn't. Possibly the only emotional moment that worked in the finale involved Drogon expressing grief for his mother.

This, basically.

The show also hammered home the bad things happen to good people and good deeds are not rewarded. Dany learnt from that

Once as a young girl and wife she was horrified by her husbands warriors sacking a town and gang raping women - but by the time she reaches Westros she has learnt that weakness = death or worse.

Then her trusted advisors keep on and on about being restrained and not destroying the Red Keep, not using her dragons - and just as before - weakness = death of allies and friends.

When she cuts loose - everything works out fine - the lesson is repeated again and again for her. Also remember that all those that she truly trusts - the free slaves, Dothraki and Unsullied have NO problems with anything she does includuing burning Kings Landing - in fact Missendrie's last words are prophetic.

I didn't enjoy them killing her off but for me what made it really dispapointing was then forcing a happy ending for Jon and Tyrion down our throats. The Show runners sould have showed some balls and killed 'em all.

And where exactly does all this Bran is the living memory and story teller come from - dude hardly speaks and then its usually fortune cookie crap. Bron tells more stories than he does,.

To me though the jump in her development happened in season 5-6. Look at her attitudes prior to being attacked in the arena by the Sons of the Harpy and after being taken by the Dothraki.

Before the attack she is trying to make things work as a ruler, giving concessions to the population, caring about her people, "in love" with Dario.

When she returns from killing the Khals, she is mostly cold and calculating with a few tender moments like when she makes Tyrion hand. She comes back wanting to burn the other slave cities. Then sails to Westeros, and every other word out of her mouth is bend the knee.

For me that is where I saw more disconnect with her than the final turn. It did look like they were pulling her back to being more stable with the romance with Jon, though why they didn't (other than plot convenience.) ever discuss a marriage alliance prior to sailing North, struck me as odd. I can see Dany not agreeing to it, but why not have someone at least bring it up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:
The show also hammered home the bad things happen to good people and good deeds are not rewarded. Dany learnt from that

Once as a young girl and wife she was horrified by her husbands warriors sacking a town and gang raping women - but by the time she reaches Westros she has learnt that weakness = death or worse.

Then her trusted advisors keep on and on about being restrained and not destroying the Red Keep, not using her dragons - and just as before - weakness = death of allies and friends.

When she cuts loose - everything works out fine - the lesson is repeated again and again for her. Also remember that all those that she truly trusts - the free slaves, Dothraki and Unsullied have NO problems with anything she does includuing burning Kings Landing - in fact Missendrie's last words are prophetic.

I didn't enjoy them killing her off but for me what made it really dispapointing was then forcing a happy ending for Jon and Tyrion down our throats. The Show runners sould have showed some balls and killed 'em all.

And where exactly does all this Bran is the living memory and story teller come from - dude hardly speaks and then its usually fortune cookie crap. Bron tells more stories than he does,.

I did feel like the end was a lot of fan service.

You are absolutely right on "her people' not caring about her burning kings landing, or rather not being appalled by it. The Dothraki freaking love that she did it. Missandi definitely called for it, I think she was upset that people were not thankful to her queen, as evidenced in the crypts during the battle of winterfell,

IT is also true that most of the time she has been better off not listening to her advisors and cutting loose.

Bran being the memory was mentioned during the battle of winterfell prep. What threw me was why does being the 3 Eyed Raven mean anything to the lords who were not at Winterfell? Like why is Yara not just like "He's the what now?" As to stories, yeah not shown too much on screen. I have to assume he related some of the stories to say his sisters prior to the Littlefinger Trial.