WARNING: Massive spoilers for all of season eight ahead!
After eight long years, arguably the most popular TV show of this decade came to a close; from 2011 to 2019, Game of Thrones has held a fledgling place in the entertainment scene and through a majority of its runtime, the series for was widely acclaimed and celebrated by its fans. For season 8 however, the opposite has occurred. Over the last few weeks, the disappointment has been vast and wide-reaching across the internet so far and while I’m not about to get vitriolic about the way things wrapped up, I can’t deny the show’s highly anticipated finale was a let-down. Of course, we can all agree that season eight was rushed out the door by writers David Benioff and D.B Weiss, who were anxious to move onto their upcoming Star Wars project. If there’s anyone to point fingers at, it’s them, but I wouldn’t discount the other components of the final season. The actors gave it their all, despite the rotten material, the production values are still second to none and Ramin Djawadi’s score is again excellent. There’s no denying the other qualities of the show and at the start, we were all on for the ride…
The season started off well enough, with episode one serving as a grand establishing section to bring the characters together and get them in place for the battles to come. I kicked off the series with a group of friends and we were generally happy with how things started. The acting was strong and some long-awaited reunions were fulfilled brilliantly; there was a genuine eagerness to see what the rest of the season had to offer.
This same trend was continued into the second episode, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” which was by far the best entry of the season. It was the calm before the storm, a collection of heartfelt and poignant character moments that hit all the right marks. Brienne’s knighting, Sansa conferring with Theon, Sam handing his family sword to Jorah and the intimate moment between Arya and Gendry were all executed extremely well. We all saw it as a final collection of moments with our favourite characters before facing down the jaws of death. As the episode ended and the White Walkers were in sight of Winterfell, the combination of excitement and fear couldn’t have been higher. Little did we know that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
Episode 3: The one where the anger started to pour out; while I believed the darkened lighting was meant to give off a sense of disorientation, other problems were far more prevalent. The first time watching The Long Night, I was exhilarated the whole way through and even after it ended, I remained in awe at what had transpired in those ninety minutes. Then, something changed; the initial shock wore off and I came to terms with that final twist. Several TV shows have come to thrive on shock value over the years, especially Game of Thrones and at first glance, you’re left with a shocking moment that keeps you glued to your seat. But once the party is over and the hype dies, you bring yourself down from it and come to a realisation; yeah, that was a bad move… For years the Night King was built up as the ultimate threat to all of Westeros and beyond; the mystery behind his character was a driving force for the show’s horror elements and we were all looking forward to seeing what the truth behind this character really was. In an instant, all that build-up was reduced to cinders by a character who had nothing to do with the tales that unfolded beyond the wall. Subverting expectations this may be but in doing so, it ended up wreaking more than just the episode’s last ten minutes. That wasn’t the only with the episode however; the battle tactics were poor, and the characters were up against the wall as the show refused to kill off most of them. That’s not to say it was a total write-off; Theon Greyjoy, Jorah Mormont and Lyanna Mormont all went out in blazes of glory that really got across the intensity of the battle. Be that as it may, this was the first time the show used shock factor blatantly to get a reaction out of viewers, rather than tell its story coherently.
This approach of shock over storytelling was like an affliction that continued into the following three episodes; I held out hope that Bran would deliver an explanation of the Night King’s background over the second half of the season but sadly there was nothing. In its place were more baffling choices that really took the wind out of the character’s sails; of course, I’m talking about the senseless moment in which Rhaegal was shot out of the sky in a somehow perfectly calibrated ambush by Euron Greyjoy’s iron fleet, which Daenarys apparently “forgot about”. It was a simply a lazy bit of storytelling to elicit shock and quickly rush towards the final battle at King’s Landing.
Episode 5 is where things really went downhill; aside from showing the horror and brutality of war, “The Bells” had little to write home about. Rushed and butchered character arcs, imbalanced military strength between Dany and Cersei and characters that had no reason to be in the city were all thrown into a thoroughly disappointing mix. Daenarys, out of nowhere, transformed into the Mad Queen by going on a genocidal rampage, Jaime Lannister’s development was put down by one simple line and characters like Cersei and Arya barely had a reason to be involved. The only satisfying sequence was Cleganebowl but even that felt a bit lacklustre considering how it happened due to writer and fan demand rather than feeling like an organic part of the story. While episode 3 was baffling, the fifth episode sunk into infuriating territory and this massively deflated the sixth and final episode: “The Iron Throne”.
From the moment episode 6 began, it didn’t feel meaningful or worth getting invested in. In its rush to the finish line, the dramatic heft of the series finale was severely lacking. Dany met her end in a rather limp fashion, the title of king was handed off and the Starks went their separate. To be frank I don’t have a problem with the outcome (Bittersweet is a worthy bow for Game of Thrones), the issue is how shallow and inconsequential it all felt. Because there was so little build-up or development to the moment, the emotional moments rang hollow. Had these plot threads been extended over a further two episodes or perhaps an entire extra season or two, it would have been far more effective.
In the end, only two out of the final six episodes were wholly satisfying and that’s a huge shame. All of this raises a question. As entertaining and prominent as they’ve become, have fan culture and reaction videos inadvertently dampened the storytelling in our favourite shows? Take the Burlington Bar in Chicago, USA as the prime example; ever since Game of Thrones season four, the popular venue has been putting out videos that garner millions of views while also hooking their way into the viewing experience. Shocking moments and the reactions they draw garner plenty of attention so the writers may have applied this mindset to the final season, all the while forgetting about what made it work in the first place. It’s great to get a community together, after all Game of Thrones did become a highly social experience over time, but it’s likely these circles have had an unintended negative effect.
So where does Game of Thrones go from here? Me personally, I’ll wait for the final two books to be released; with the let-down of the TV show, the anticipation levels for The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring have been given a considerable boost. George R. R. Martin has explained time and again that he listens to no one when it comes to writing his stories, so I have no doubt he’ll pull through and deliver a powerful conclusion that the show lacked. There’s also a prequel series or two in the works but the excitement for these may have dropped substantially following season 8 and all its anticlimactic trappings. I suppose it's on to the next big series; as disappointing as Game of Thrones has become, there likely won’t be another series like it ever again and that’s the ultimate impact it will leave on all of us.
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