It's almost impossible to end a hit show in a way that makes everyone happy.
But thanks to rushed execution, frustrating character choices, and other inconsistencies,
a number of diehard Game of Thrones fans are pretty annoyed with how everything shook out.
Here's a spoiler-filled examination of what we think went wrong with the final season
of Game of Thrones.
For the first five seasons, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were able to mostly
follow Martin's books as a direct template, and many of the show's most beloved and infamous
moments, including the execution of Ned Stark, and the Red and Purple Weddings, were directly
out of the source material.
Benioff and Weiss did make some welcome adjustments; in the fifth book, Tyrion wanders around for
what feels like years before meeting Daenerys, whereas in the show, they team up pretty quickly,
but for the most part, they stuck to the literal script in front of them.
However, once the show's fifth season ended, so did the source material; the next book
in Martin's series, The Winds of Winter, is still unfinished.
And once Benioff and Weiss ran out of source material, that's around the same time many
fans started complaining about being unsatisfied with the handling of the show's overall story
and writing, even though Martin himself guided them through the final acts of the series.
Obviously Benioff and Weiss aren't without talent, since they built the show fans grew
to love.
But Martin is naturally better at manipulating his own story, and problems began to arise
when the showrunners were left to their own devices.
It's understandable that, as Game of Thrones went on and became a bigger and bigger hit,
HBO would want it to continue as long as possible.
But in 2015, Benioff and Weiss had a public dispute with the network over how long it
would run, expressing a desire to close out the show after just seven seasons.
Even though Martin himself said the show should be at least 13 seasons, the showrunners and
HBO eventually forged a deal for an eight-season run that would abbreviate seasons seven and
eight; the former would last for seven episodes, while season eight would only consist of six.
Many fans critical of the show have come to proclaim that cramming years' worth of buildup
and anticipation into a shorter set of episodes created a new set of problems, making it all
the more baffling that the showrunners insisted on these short seasons.
Without room to let the story breathe, the final batch of episodes felt really rushed.
As a result, they stand in stark contrast to the show's earlier seasons that focused
on epic journeys, character development, and long throughlines.
As the eighth season began with two slower episodes that harkened back to the show's
past, viewers got excited, but then it started barreling towards its grand finale, letting
narrative threads come up short in confusing ways.
Characters jumped in and out of the story at breakneck speeds, like Bronn's sudden appearance
and disappearance from episode 4 being just one example.
Seemingly insurmountable obstacles were overcome in the blink of an eye, like the long-awaited
war with the Night King.
And characters seemingly teleported across the map of Westeros when most of the early
seasons of the show were literally about how long it took to get anywhere.
Fans knew Game of Thrones had to end eventually, but no one wanted it to feel like it was trying
to get there as fast as possible.
With so much to wrap up, it's ultimately disappointing that the showrunners let their characters
and plots suffer on the road to the finish line.
The biggest and most unfortunate side effect of the rushed pace of Game of Thrones' final
season is that while some of the plots and developments were exciting and welcome, their
execution left something to be desired.
While there were plenty of issues to tackle, Daenerys' battle strategies, Missandei's exit,
Euron's temporarily impeccable aim, Cersei's maybe-real pregnancy, or how Bran became king
after doing basically nothing for the entire season, the worst example is Daenerys' sudden
pivot into madness.
After seasons of barbecuing her enemies and conquering lands beyond Westeros, fans were
anxious to see if Daenerys would follow in her father Aerys' footsteps and become the
In the end, it makes sense that she did; audiences have been tracking Daenerys' vengeful, unhinged
impulses right from the beginning.
But the only clear buildup viewers got for Daenerys' full-on descent into insanity was
her enraged reaction to Missandei's death.
For a character who was always committed to justice, some felt it was unearned to let
her torch thousands of innocents in King's Landing.
Instead of letting Daenerys experience a complex and fascinating character arc as she succumbs
to the madness she once so feared, the show did her slow, steady growth to that point
a disservice, and arguably made a mockery of one of its best and most interesting characters.
Daenerys' quick heel turn to Mad Queen is certainly one of the most obvious examples
of season eight's uneven character development, but she's not the only character to suffer
during the final season.
If you want to know where season eight went wrong with its characters, look no further
than Jaime Lannister.
Jaime started Game of Thrones off in a pretty bad spot, morally speaking.
Y'know, trying to kill a little kid because he caught you having sex with your twin sister
is definitely frowned upon.
"The things I do for love."
But over the course of the show, he became a fan favorite, thanks to a redeeming character
arc and an utterly charming performance from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
Most of Jaime's redemptive streak was thanks to his friendship and eventual tryst with
Brienne of Tarth, who loved the man beneath the armor and helped him escape the clutches
of his conniving, cruel twin sister.
However, after sleeping with Brienne, Jaime deserts Winterfell, which he risked his life
to save in the battle against the Army of the Dead, to return to his sister's side.
So why's he suddenly leaving to go be with his supervillain lover?
Jaime's only explanation:
"She's hateful, and so am I."
Some fans got their hopes up that he might actually be returning to King's Landing to
kill his sister.
But in the end, Jaime and Cersei reunited just to die in each other's arms.
With this one move, it's not hard to argue that Benioff and Weiss undid years of character
development, giving one of the show's biggest characters one of the least satisfying conclusions
they could have chosen.
And let's not forget about the other half of this pair of doomed dummies.
Cersei, one of the show's most fascinating and twisted characters and ostensibly one
of the biggest threats to the show's heroes, spent much of season eight drinking wine and
idly staring off a balcony, only to suffer one of the series' most anticlimactic deaths.
It may make a certain kind of sense for she and Jaime to be reunited in their last moments...but
seeing the show's most cunning and cutthroat villains get taken down by a pile of falling
rocks is just plain unsatisfying.
And this points to another big issue with the show's final season: failing to pay off
on the series' many years of buildup.
One of the major strengths of Game of Thrones was always its effective tension-building,
and fans were excited for huge storylines to come to a head in the show's final season.
Make no mistake, season eight had plenty of drama, but there were still several plots
that ended up with some pretty lackluster payoffs.
Another obvious example is the Night King, built up throughout the show's run as a formidable
villain who can raise entire armies of the dead with a flick of his wrist.
Seeing Arya swoop in and take him down might have been extremely fun in the moment, but
in the end, the entire narrative of the Night King and the true history of the White Walkers
was left largely unexplained.
Meanwhile, the show spent seven seasons building to the revelation that Jon was a secret Targaryen,
but threw it all out in the series finale, giving the throne to a boy with no claim to
it whatsoever.
Season eight had some satisfying moments, but ultimately, it suffered from a huge amount
of buildup that simply didn't pay off.
On the subject of lots of buildup without much payoff, right from the beginning, Game
of Thrones was rife with prophecies, focusing on everything from world saviors to poisoned
wombs and fateful deaths.
Since some of the prophecies came true during the show's run, like the prediction made to
Cersei regarding her marriage and children, it stood to reason that the rest of the prophecies
introduced would end up being extremely important.
Turns out, this wasn't the case at all.
With most of the show's prophecies abandoned by the final season, it's hard to understand
why they were ever introduced.
"Stannis was not the Prince who was Promised, but someone has to be."
One of the earliest prophecies made in the series concerns Daenerys and her child-bearing
capabilities, which is made by a vengeful witch who tells Daenerys that, more or less,
she will never be able to produce any heirs.
Daenerys fully believes this, telling Jon as much and treating her dragons as her children,
but in the end, Daenerys' fertility had as much importance as Ed Sheeran's bizarre cameo.
Daenerys was also a possible contender for the seemingly all-important theories about
Azor Ahai and the Prince or Princess who was Promised, but in the end, those prophecies
also fizzled into nothing.
Again, it makes sense that the series would make some cuts to the narrative as it honed
in on its final episodes, but after seasons of repeating these prophecies, seeing them
come to nothing is a disappointment.
Along with moments that ended up happening offscreen, plenty of plots from the previous
seasons ended up on the cutting room floor.
While not completing every single narrative thread on Game of Thrones is understandable,
it feels wrong that so many huge developments ended up having little to no bearing on the
show's eventual conclusion.
For example, Jon Snow went through quite the journey throughout the series, becoming a
strong and honorable man who literally died and came back to life for his people, all
before realizing his whole identity was a lie told to protect his life.
But in the end, none of that mattered at all, since the show shunted Jon back into the Night's
Watch without letting most of Westeros find out there was another heir to the throne.
Arya spent two seasons training with the Faceless Men, and while she might have picked up the
stealthiness and weapons training that allowed her to take down the Night King, it seems
odd that she didn't face-swap once during the final season.
These examples are just scratching the surface; after placing so much emphasis on the religions
of Westeros in previous seasons, from the Red Priests and Priestesses to the Old Gods
and the New, those were all basically thrown out and forgotten by the show's end.
Some plots were likely sacrificed for a reason, but this many feels kind of ridiculous.
It would be impossible to include every single character that ever appeared on Thrones in
the final season, but it's frustrating that a few big names were left out entirely, especially
when comparatively new and altogether annoying characters like Euron Greyjoy were allotted
plenty of screentime.
"I'm the man who killed Jaime Lannister."
Shut up, you idiot!
Anyway, considering how important Bran turned out to be in Game of Thrones' final episodes,
it feels really wrong that Meera Reed, the faithful companion who dragged him through
the far North and saved his life several times, never showed up again.
Other faces entirely absent from the final season are Daario Naharis, Daenerys' loyal
mercenary and onetime boyfriend, and Arya's assassin mentor Jaqen H'Ghar, both of whom
seemed to have unfinished stories left to tell.
And after a chance meeting in season seven, Arya's rogue wolf Nymeria is never relevant
again.
We'd have traded any of Euron's scenes for some of these forgotten favorites to show
up again.
"I'm going to put a prince in your belly!"
No, seriously dude, shut up.
One of the biggest questions of the final season was who would actually rule over Westeros.
Ultimately, the question of who would physically take the Throne was tossed in the garbage
when Drogon, after finding Daenerys dead, torched the chair out of existence.
But the fact remained that the Seven Kingdoms still needed a leader, and soon.
The Seven Kingdoms didn't exactly end up with a leader, the Six Kingdoms did, after Sansa
demanded independence for the North and became its queen.
The new king of the rest of the kingdoms ended up being none other than Bran Stark, who seemed
to already have a full-time job staring into space.
As with Daenerys' descent into madness, Bran becoming king makes some sense in the context
of the show overall.
But to many fans, how it arrived there feels basically absurd.
Tyrion argues that Bran should be made king because he had the "best story" of all.
But let's remember that this character is sitting between his two sisters with way more
interesting stories and actual leadership skills.
Sansa became the badass Ice Queen in the North, while Arya transformed into a super-assassin
and literally saved the entire world.
But sure, let's give the crown to the kid with mind control powers who just sat there
and did nothing to beat his mortal enemy, the Night King.
At least they didn't give their new king a really insulting nickname or anything, right?
"All hail Bran the Broken...All hail, Bran the Broken!"
Ummm, well...never mind.
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