For anyone asking why the video begins so weird, I got a copyright claim on the first 2 mins of the video after it being up for 2 months. So I had to trim it out and now it begins in the middle of a Sansa section. Sorry!
Tyrion is my favorite character. After finishing the 5 novels I must have blocked out Tyrion becoming a villain. So, I guess, since he was so popular, it makes sense that the writers didn't want his arc to go that way. He didn't have to do stupid things, but since Tyrion's pride in his intelligence was all he had, maybe he needed to lose all and then be commanded to redeem himself by becoming Bran's Hand. Jaimie, altho he loved Tyrion, was too easily manipulated by Cersei, and to an extent Tywin. Losing his hand made a difference. Brienne made the biggest difference because she truly was a honorable knight and showed him what that meant. In the end, Cersei manipulated him again, but the prevailing thing with the Lannisters is Family First. Even Tyrion could not resist it and that is why he searched for his siblings. I agree about Danaerys. I expected her to be queen. I think after the death of the 2nd of her dragons she simply lost her mind. Another revenge point among the characters.
Theres something almost poetic about season 8, the show runners fast tracked everything so they could go off and make a Star Wars movie despite HBO begging them not to do this. They did it anyway and everyone hated the season. Disney ended up not making their Star Wars movie partly because of the reaction season 8 got. They wanted it all and lost it all.
@@mordecaiissad8529 I only got through the first episode didn't realize it was them. Books were already hard enough to get through. Between all the Asian names and the VR section that goes on for freaking ever.
My biggest problem with Cersei is that it made no sense why anyone would follow her after season 5. She had no money, she had no legitimacy to the throne, everyone knew she was an idiot, King’s Landing was starving, and she was exposed by the walk of shame. It made no sense that a 2nd riot of King’s Landing didn’t happen.
Totally agree. There’s no consequences for her actions at all during the later seasons which is what the earlier seasons were all about. Like she blows up the sept and nothing happens after. No conflict or anything. Shes just crowned as queen and goes on. So frustrating
Exactly and the fact she never used the wildfire again. Like we KNOW it's there because for some reason they had little explosions of it during the Bells episode.
Well Cersei has less money not “no money” the mines ran out of gold not all its other resources, hence why she’s a Silver Queen. She also blew up the great sept…though there’s no proof (everyone would suspect though) so most other major powers would be scrambling to fill the power gap. The people hated her but the army was mostly intact so she had guards and plenty of fear to control the common folk.
I'll never forget how my English teacher would come in every single week and spend the first couple of minutes chatting to the few students who watch game of thrones about the latest episode. Every week, without fail. And then the finale dropped. And they never mentioned it. Never spoke of it again. Ever. Incredible
@@ataridcyou must have had sucky teachers. Mine would talk about shows with me, I'm still friendly with a few of my teachers as a 28 year old grown woman now.
@@hastingscutoff1304 Eh, Daenerys is still a pretty name though, most of the Targaryen names are. Rhaenyra, Helaena, and Visenya sound and roll off the tongue beautifully...and definitely better than being named X Æ A-12 Do we mock parents who name their kids Jack knowing there's Jack the Ripper? or Charles considering Charles Manson?
@@hastingscutoff1304 You can say that about absolutely any name, though. Names are subject to trends irrespective if they came from pop culture or not. A child born in the 2000s named Mildred or Agatha or Ferdinand will be made fun of, even if the names themselves are normal seeming, by virtue of just being "old" and not "trendy" anymore. People already make fun of names like "John" or "Sarah" for sounding very 'white' or 'generic'. In the mid 2010s, names like "Mikaeylah" were already subject to ridicule because of how "LA" or hipster it sounds. People who want to make fun of you WILL make fun of you and will use ANY ammunition to do so, be it your name, size, gender or skin color.
@@hedgehobbit6844 Hah! I think Sarah is a a beautiful name, though I've heard a friend say it sounds "generic" and very "NPC" lol I disagreed with her, but eh, it wasn't my baby to name anyway lol
Jaime and Daenerys's endings broke my heart. I agree with Nikolai Coster-Waldau: Jaime and Brienne are on Tarth with like five kids living out their lives in peace.
I have watched so many of these breakdowns and alternative endings and none of them have Jamie stay with Brienne. It's totally baffling to me that they see him crawling back to Cersei as fitting in with his character, people leave abusive partners and go on to love themselves and others more, I would rather that Jamie died than lose all of the progress he made by going back, that was who he had been but not who he was when he left to fight for the North. They all downplay Brienne's role in helping Jamie realise that he is a good but flawed man underneath all the bullshit It's been so long but I'm still pissed 😅 Even Martin said that he wrote Jamie and Brienne as a reverse Beauty and the Beast and well, you didn't see Beauty go back to bloomin' Gaston!
@@kdusel1991 Within the books, I fully believe it will be Bran who rules Westeros (most likely from the Isle of Faces if KL is destroyed). It would be very GRRM, the only one capable of ruling would be the one who has no humanity.
I literally laughed out loud when they panned over to Bran. And then “Bran the Broken” I was absolutely floored with how ridiculous it all was. And then Sansa being given the North with absolutely no pushback from anyone 😂 I hoped we’d find out bran was just the one eyed raven who’d been scheming since before he even became one eyed crow / raven whatever. Saw some good in deep geek videos about that possibility.
I did like that last shot of drogon extending his wings as she came down the destroyed red keep. That was pretty cool. Other than that the finale was dog shit
The production crew deserves all the praise in the world for the set design and costumes. Them and the actors are the only reason the show remained somewhat believable when the nonsensical writing took over.
Jamie sacrificing himself to protect Bran and kill the night king would have been great. Jamie going back to Cersei to do anything but kill her is terrible.
After killing the night king, Jamie travels south with Daenery's army to capture Cerci, they capture her after the battle but when he finds out they are going to execute her he draws his sword and dies fighting Brienne.
This is such a great idea! I’d not heard Jamie suggested as the Night King killer before, it’s too perfect. I think I would’ve kept him alive though. Staying on as Lord Commander with his brother as Hand and dedicating his life to the king he tried to kill as a child.
@@Metaron The only alternative would leave bad guys™ with four characters one of whom is a mute for the sake of "cHaRActeR cHaNGe" Game of Thrones is about character conflict not teaming up and smashing the bad guys like a marvel movie.
@@Metaron What build up of conflict? What are you talking about? They were besties 6 episodes earlier. He goes north to fulfil an oath, then goes back. The only subverting expectations is him staying loyal to Danny after the nightking is dead when he has no reason to.
@@Metaron I have literally no idea what you are seeing to justify this "build up", I think it's what you wanted to happen so when the showrunners pulled that out of nowhere you went along with it then were surprised when they took it away.
I think Emilia Clarke was as upset as the fans. She's just too nice to say it. To this day, she still says she feels honoured to have been part of the show, even when it became a disaster in the final season. My guess is that she tries to block out Daenerys' character assassination and just focus on when the show was in its prime. Also, despite the terrible writing, Emilia may have done some of her best acting in Season 8. I think this is because she was GENUINELY upset. She put nearly a decade of her life into Daenerys and grew to really care about her, only for the idiot writers to destroy the character. It may be out of character for Daenerys but I think the anger, sorrow and confusion was real because Emilia was processing those emotions in real life at the time.
@@tomnorton4277her quote “best season ever!” With the face she did and the mixed girl who tries to cover up for her knowing she might get in trouble says it all
@@tomnorton4277what do you mean by destroy the character? She was always going to go genocidal, she's constantly talking about taking her birthright back by force. The issue with season 8 was just that they rushed the transition to full mania, but it was inevitable from the beginning.
@@ferios2she wasn’t genocidal, yall are just trying so hard to justify the trash writing. They did it for a cheap shock value. You have Caersei blowing up the Sept killing innocents inside and facing absolutely no consequences for that, but Daenerys is the one who’s actually mad? Nah, get out. The writers can’t even properly talk about her in the interviews for S8 bc they know they fuvked up. Everything they built for Dany is thrown away and no you have Season 8 dickriders because the character they personally didn’t like gets killed. That’s a trash writing and Dany is not the only character whose arc got thrown away. No one even remembers GOT anymore and the writers can not even get themselves into other projects. Karma.
I work in special effects and worked on Episode Three of Season 8. It was a brutal night shoot in a freezing quarry in northern Ireland, and even though I only filmed essentially half the episode for the six weeks I was there, I got to see the scale of this production up close. I had a great time with the cast and crew and wasn't aware at the time of how the rest of the season would pan out (I agree that it was poor) due to filming out of sequence and periodically intense scenes which take ages to shoot. My very first night shoot was filming Daenerys and Jura's last stand against the White Walkers. All the smoke swirling and blowing around them as they fight was my work as I stood on a large wind machine, blowing Artem smoke at them. It was freezing cold as the rotors sucked in already freezing air past me, chilling it almost to the point of pain! I was there when the Walkers first attack the front line, throwing in hands of soil as the characters fight the walkers (all the stuff flying past camera that looks like blood and guts in that fight scene is just plain old soil!) The best memory I have of this was sheltering in the far corner of the gigantic green screen quarry, huddled over a smoke machines as the Dothraki have their swords lit of fire. It was pitch black, about four am, with real wind and rain howling around the set, when out of the darkness the leading White Walkers in full makeup and costume slowly surrounded me as they prepared to come on for their next scene. I was half asleep when they did this and got the shock of my life when they slowly surrounded me, leaping up in fright! They all had a good laugh about that. Good memories but a shame the end result was so frustrating.
If it makes you feel better, hardly anybody criticized the acting, the cinematography, the score, the costume design, the general production, etc (quite the opposite actually, like how many people agreed that it looked like a feature film in terms of quality). What brought down the season was very poor writing and that comes down to two and only two culprits. We know very well who those two are. I once commented (might have been twitter or something) that in my opinion literally EVERYONE in this season did their jobs EXCEPT those two morons.
One of the weirdest decisions DnD made was to make it so that Jon didn’t want to rule. In the books, he wants that so bad. He was so close to accepting Stannis’ offer to legitimize him and become the Stark of Winterfell and the struggle between his personal desire to get the recognition he’s always wanted against the duty he has to the Wall and the Watch is so interesting.
I think that's why Jon was always going to fail in the show, as well as Tyrion in a way. They never understood the complexity of their characters and the arcs they were going on.
Yeah. It’s like they were trying to hammer home the fact that he was embittered by the decisions he’s had to make and doesn’t want to lead because of it but then neglect that while he was embittered he’s always picked himself up and tried to move on to help more people. There’s hints of that in the show but it’s more openly begrudging. The show runners finalizing the decision to have Jon not be king is still inconsistent though 😂😂😂 Since show Jon still is the type to take up the task, he’d just brood more. It’d make sense that he has Sansa be an advisor for a while, then going on to Tyrion once he’s proved his loyalty. Gendry becoming a lord makes sense, so many little things aren’t necessarily wrong (besides the blood riders, unless Jon says someone sniped her) but so many BIG THINGS make no sense.
I think it's going to go mostly the same in the books, only it'll make more sense. At the beginning of the story, Jon only wants to rule because of how he was raised. He doesn't know anything else to want. He only wants it because everyone else around him wants it, and even just expects it. Up until he joins the Night's Watch, he's only ever known lords and heirs, and so that's who he compares himself to. Stannis's offer was a struggle for him right up until the moment another option came along. Then he happily threw Stannis's offer away in favor of the alternative. In his heart, Jon really wants to be free. Not "free" the way he was north of the Wall in Storm of Swords, where he was just a different kind of prisoner. Jon wants to be free from the demands of duty and honor. One of the lesser-discussed themes of the books is that Jon is in the process of becoming everyone's heir or everyone's second choice. I suspect that when all is said and done, much as he became Lord Commander, Jon will be king by virtue of being the one person with a claim that the others object to least. If we look at the Hour of the Wolf from the Dance of the Dragons as a model, Jon may only be king for a day, or king for an hour, before he abdicates. Given the chance, Jon will choose total freedom over power. And when he abdicates, that makes Bran - the heir to everyone else's heir - the new king.
Arya killing the Night King is the moment I knew this show was beyond saving. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so empty watching a show as in that moment. Everything that followed after was just whatever to me
That's honestly it. I was genuinely willing to forgive soooo many of their mistakes as long as they stuck the landing. And then they did... that. And I knew there could be no room for forgiveness...
They should of made a book accurate winterfell. Book winterfell is massive has two massive walls with a moat in between them the gods woods has a diameter of 3 acres and the castle completely surrounds it If they made a book accurate winterfell the final battle there would of made more sense cause they would have more room for men and the night king would of had to go through the castle to get to the gods woods where bran was at.
The wight hunt in S7 was as bad as anything in S8, and so was the Winterfell plot with Littlefinger-Sansa- Arya. People feel more bitter about S8 because it was more definitive and that's understandable, but it didn't suddenly get so much worse right then.
The show pretty much ended after she killed the NK. I thought "am I seriously supposed to believe Cersei is the final boss now, after almost a Fing zombie apocalypse". I forced myself to watch the rest of the show because of all of the time I already have put into it.
jaime killing the night king? "And for generations after, people spoke of his nickname "kingslayer" with pride instead of revulsion." It writes itself so why not do this??
Agreed 👍 that would have been good but I still think Jon should have directed it. The night king was his adversary, so if he’d shouted to Jamie to get him instead of shouting at a dead dragon like an idiot 🥺
@@zarabee2880 I dislike this take because the others / WWs are the adversary of everyone. People just focus on Jon because of Hardhome. In my opinion that’s another detractor to the show - they clearly set up as a 1v1. There’s not even a Night King in the books
I would’ve loved the night king slayer, but the NKs kings guard should’ve had 1v1 with the key players. There was enough glory to go around. Brianne, Jamie, gray worm, Arya, hound, the little bear and Theon should’ve each taken down a kings guard, with John taking down the NK with Brans help. Also, no wargs in this fight? No dire wolves?
Imagine he survives the fight with the night king, dawn begins and as he rises from the rubble, bleeding and stumbling, the sun shining behind his back, the survivors chant: "hail to the king slayer"
It's actually at 21:38 but yeah...That is a historically cringe excuse. Perhaps he merely meant the majority of freys didnt deserve execution like walder. Seems the more likely explanation. After all, nowhere was it said the rest didnt deserve to face justice
Jaime killing the Night King would have been the ultimate completion of his entire story. He saves Bran, he fully regains his honor, and his title of Kingslayer is now his greatest triumph instead of his greatest shame. Maybe even allowing for a new position in the King's guard where one member wears a golden hand and that member is meant to be the only one who can strike the king if he becomes corrupt or mad. But at the cost of their life
@@darthjoe91 only one Arya should have killed is Cersei, i will never forgive them setting up Jon to kill him only for it to end like it did, no i will not watch anything dumb and dumber make in the future
Idk if Jaime killing the NK would be a great idea. Maybe Jaime could fight him for a bit, but killing him creates the same problems that giving Arya the kill does: it leaves the characters who’ve been dealing with the Whites incomplete
I gotta say, I LOVE the idea of Jaime being the one to kill the Night King in your mini-rewrite. Makes the "Kingslayer" nickname one hell of a foreshadowing and turns it into a true badge of honor.
Jamie should have kill Cersei, that was the logic ending of their arc: a cursed love. Killing the NK then why not to finish a redemtpion arc, but that would make him the big hero of the story which is a little bit weird considering is a selfless child killer.
Jaime saying that he does not care about the innocent people sounds like something you would come up with if someone tasks you with writing the most out of character line possible for this character. The equivalent would be something like Dany saying that she plans to enslave everyone (which she honestly came pretty close to), Jon wanting to make an alliance with the Night King in order to bring eternal night to Westeros or Arya saying that she wants to marry Joffrey, be his queen and have many children together.
@@YouScareMe1Jaime was a bad person thanks to his toxic relationship with cersei and his family but his POV in the books really illuminates how serious Jaime's psychology is, and how his unseriousness is a defensive front. Jaime took being a kings guard and an "honorable" knight very seriously as a kid. Once his dreams were flipped upside down by everyone seeing his literal saving of the entire realm as dishonorable murder, it logically soured his character. Aerys was going to destroy kings landing and Jaime killed him because of it. He cares deeply about the innocent more than he allowed himself to realize for a major part of his life
Recently rewatched all 8 seasons with my 17 year-old daughter. She loved it for the most part but by the end she said it "basically became a marvel movie". And I think that sums the show up quite nicely.
@@Fohnzii I've somehow escaped being caught up in all the MCU except for a Guardians of the Galaxy movie or two. I'm not in a big rush to get caught up on all 43 MCU movies and shows.
Was it enjoyable watching guys and girls bang it out with a dude jerking off with your child? lol there were so many sex scenes that were way over the top, it’s not needed.
Your kid is right. The “NVA” battle against the Zombies (the Zombies used the same tactics the NVA used in “We Were Soldiers”) got tiresome, and then the whole nuking of Kings Landing
One of the biggest crimes of the later seasons was the writers making Arya into an insufferably annoying character, where at first she had been interesting.
Nah, she was always the annoying little brat. Thats literally her trademark in all the family scenes. But thats ok. Its charming in her own way. Animes are full of this "tsundere"-stuff.
@@fruehlingsobst8123 Before she was a brat that didn't know anything. The later seasons she acted like a brat pretending to know everything. The actor really did not sell the new Arya.
Funniest aspect to me is that the new prequel show keeps showing prophecies and such about the Night King, but since we already saw him go down so easily and conveniently, it just feels like they were worrying for decades over absolutely nothing.
@@Batist13 Oh you mean a story that was basically dead that a majority of people agree it was a shit ending oh yeah i understand the ending. Eight years of time and investment gone to waste and two writers that ran out of material to adapt cause they caught up where the author left off. As they wanted to go and do other projects like Starwars which went nowhere.
@@silentecho92able Ah the famous theory of hater lore which starts from the postulate that the ending is botched, and therefore that the creators needed a reason to sabotage their life's work. Even GRRM said the ending was fine, sorry, be careful with HotD, Ryan is a fan of season 8, rightly so.
What you've forgot to mention about Cersei is A) the Maggie the Frog prophecy also mentioned that she's to be killed through the hand of her "valonqar" - which she translates with "small brother" but is simply "younger brother". She believes that Tyrion, the physically "small" brother, who has also "killed" their mother, is going to kill her. That's why she hates him so much. But Jaime is also her younger brother, she was born before him, and it was a fan favourite theory that it means that Jaime is the one to kill Cersei. Unfortunately, in the show they butchered this plotline completely. B) in the show, she is portrayed to be saddened by the death of her baby with Robert, however in the books she admits to Ned that she willingly killed the baby she had with Robert because she simply didn't want to have a child with him. I think that is a very important point to mention. Because it shows her character.
I think the second change is fine. I think the book cersei is a bit too evil in her back stories. That being said, getting rid of that Maggie the frog prophecy bit was a travesty.
Book Cersei is a much more one-dimensional character. The second change was actually better for the show. That doesn't necessarily mean that she was telling the truth about her baby with Robert, but it makes her a little less one dimensional. Also, people are taking the Valonqar prophecy way too literally. She did die with Jaime's hands around her neck. Maybe not by literally choking the life out of her, but she did die that way and the prophecy held true. Just not in the way you would normally assume.
I love that all the clips from season 8 are so dark that even on a phone with the brightness cranked all the way up, they’re almost impossible to see. Such a reflection of the season overall
On iPhone, when you pull up the tab to write a comment, it dims the video playing above, so I kept thinking that I had the comment bar open, then realizing it was just the bad lighting
Ah, the Battle of Winterfell, the thing that taught me that sometimes, one needs to go mess around with TV picture settings for specific episodes because of how they were filmed.
It makes no sense for Littlefinger to give Sansa away to the Boltons. He wants their eventual defeat, so why give the object of his obsession away permanently?
He did it to extablish Sansa as a foothold in the North. He didn't intend to give Sansa away permanently. He expected Stannis to win against the Boltons. No matter how much Littlefinger claimed to love someone, his ambitions came first. This was addressed at Winterfell when he stood accused of betraying the Stark family.
@@seaofghosts But nothing was done by him. He even saved the North (an utterly absurd concept to launch a surprise attack when it takes one 1000 miles of open terrain to reach Winterfell), and he does nothing. He doesn't seize power, even though his army is the biggest in the region.
Jaime is the most egregious to me, because like you explained in the video, his arc was basically complete. Him killing the Night King would’ve been great, but not necessary. But for him to completely 180 from having broken his Kingsguard oath in order to save millions of lives to then say “I never cared about the innocents” is a straight-up butchering of his character. He could have still gone back to Cersei. But the framing didn’t need to be “she’s hateful and so am I” - he could have simply told Brienne “she’s my sister. I love her,” and possibly even a call back to a quote he said early on in the series, “we don’t choose whom we love.” This makes Brienne’s weeping afterward more in character because it’s not that he’s leaving Brienne, but she’s heartbroken because she realizes Jaime can’t love her and never will. Honestly I think Jaime would be #1 most done dirty on my list.
On that note.. Brienne. Goodness me what sheer insult to her character. She would've grabbed her sword and fight Jamie to the death before letting him go back to Cersei.
There was the other obvious ending too, as Cercei herself fakes surrender, opens the door, and plans to blow the entire city up, with the same fire the Mad King did. So Jaime gets to choose between saving the city or killing his twin. Melodrama, times a thousand. But the ending they chose has no weight whatsoever
This, among many other things, was an egregious mistake. The Cersei prophecy should have been followed and we should have seen Jamie sacrifice himself again for the good of the realm instead we got the shit we got. Dumb dumb dumb D and D.
Two things about GoT that get me: 1) Rarely do you see a series especially one built in a fantasy world appeal to such a broad amount of viewers and become a cultural phenomenon which makes the fall to what it became even more impressive for all the wrong reasons. It tapered off as the seasons meandered on but by the time it came to an end *everything* came to an end. 2) It's so bad that it retroactively ruined the series where there's little desire to rewatch it knowing that it ends the way it does and it's a real shame because peak GoT is exceptionally great. That being said, as much as I hate what it became I am still grateful for it because it's a world worth exploring through spin-offs like House of the Dragon which has been a wonderful treat.
I started the ASOIAF series in 2006. Us book “purists” saw the show going wildly off the rails during season 5, when George R R Martin stopped writing and consulting on the show and D&D took complete creative control. We were told by the massive fandom that we were stupid for our complaints and warnings that the showrunners didn’t have any idea WTF they were doing. Watching the culmination of their stupidity that was season 8 and the disbelief reactions from the fandom was one of the most entertaining things I ever witnessed. The fandom quite literally imploded.
Yeah but it turns out the books are going to let us down too. They may not have a bad ending, but the problem is that they are going to have NO ending, cause GRRM will NEVER finish the books. And so the Song of Ice and Fire will be forgotten altogether, in both book form and show form.
It still hurts after all these years. What a different world wouldve been if it had been a good ending. But as George writes, "But it did no good to brood on lost battles and roads not taken. That was a vice of old done men." - A Dance with Dragons, Epilogue
Honestly, a full-on downer ending where the Night King wins and takes the iron throne before freezing Westeros in an eternal winter would have been better than the ending we got. If any series could have pulled off an unironic tragic finale it was Game of Thrones. Everyone had the chance to work against a common foe, they rejected that offer over their own petty squabbles, and the full tragic ending is just the natural and expected conclusion.
Jaime shows up in the gods woods and confronts the Night King, "do you know what they call me?" Bam! Protects Bran and slays the Night King with Widows Wail the sword forged from the Starks ancestral blade then returns it to the Starks. People would sing songs of him forever.
Jaime uses his golden hand to grab the night king's spear when he attacks and gold being a good conductor of heat takes longer to freeze over and shatter giving Jamie time to attack.
Dude it is necassary for the night king to be killed by the dagger. only an assassin is able to kill him and that would be a faceless one as the night king can see everything
Sansa ending up as a Queen in the North makes 0 sense if Bran, her brother, becomes King of the other 6 Kingdoms. One Stark rules independently, another rules the others? I cannot see that being popular for too long. And if Bran uses his powers to foil any rebellious plots, then we get weird commentary on a police state - big brother Bran is watching! Also, Cersei was never betrothed to Rhaegar. Tywin promised her she would be but Aerys always denied him.
Bran wouldn’t have been king for the rest of his life. IIRC he sets in place a democracy after. Having Sansa secede with the rest of the North as their queen prevents any southerners from lording over them in the future.
That's what I'm saying - D&D wanted a "everybody wins" ending but an independent North with a Stark king of the South doesn't work - ESPECIALLY with how it was set up. It's like if in our world the US senate elects the Senator of Ohio to be president. Then after all is said an done the governor of Ohio has the state become an independent country. I know my example is crude and historically there are a few decent examples, but as a fantasy it's sloppy.
Literally every Kingdom would demand independence the moment she did, Also wtf isn't there A Stark at Winterfell In the finally?, oh right they kinda forgot.
Bran has not a lot of power in the South as most weir trees were destroyed down there or never existed (Dorne). He is basically just a kid with no knowledge of politics or running a kingdom because his education and social development stopped around 9 years old to become a ward.
I think the way they could have concluded Dany's character arc without assassinating her character was to just have her simply *intend* to burn just the part of the city where the Lannister forces are concentrated, but in doing so ignites one of the undiscovered caches of wildfire left by Aerys, which then ignites other nearby caches and starts a chain reaction that wipes out the city like he intended. Horrified, she realizes that she will never effectively rule the people of Westeros because they will always hate her and see her as a monster that must be destroyed. From there...things could go a multitude of ways. She could abdicate her claim in Jon's favor and go into self-imposed exile, she could set up the royal elective before returning to Essos and rule the free cities, she could order Jon to kill her so that he could ascend to be the heroic king who slew the mad queen, etc. And this is speaking as someone who didn't even particularly *like* Daenerys.
Or just have her do it without it being "madness." Sh gave them 3 chances at surrender and each time they refused and killed her child and best friend. She could have been like, "Eff it! No more Mr Nice Guy it is! We'll do things the old-fashioned way!"
Seeing a character like Jon become tempted with power but still hold on the good within him would’ve been so interesting and really would’ve given a lot for Kit Harrington to work with. I hate that the writers remained stubborn with him and didn’t let him become somewhat harsher as Jon did in the books.
I don't remember where I saw it now, but I think my favourite theory/discussion as to why Arya's story felt so off was because they essentially gave her Lady Stoneheart's story instead. The theory went that Arya's storyline will culminate in seeing what the desire for revenge has done to her mother and choose to end her suffering. That she will give her mother the Gift of death, to put her own desire for revenge to bed. Lady Stoneheart slaughtering all the Freys is almost a certainty in the books, rather than it being Arya, so they just smushed the two storylines together and it ruined Arya as a result. Also, I have ALWAYS loved the Jaime-kills-the-Night-King theory. It is my favourite. And you saying that part about how it being one of Jon's risky plays that brought Jaime to Winterfell in the first place? Never thought of that before but that's just... chefs kiss. Jaime killing the Night King whilst protecting Bran would've been poetic cinema. Instead they massacred him.
@@thegoldman25I was disagreeing with you saying it doesn't make sense to have Arya kill the Night King, (I mean, I'm not married to the idea of her doing it and was open to almost anyone else) I just wanted the books to flesh that whole thing out more. But when you said it should be Jamie Lannister, bravo sir, bravo! That is just absolute poetry. Yes, it absolutely should be Jamie Lannister, the Night King Slayer. That idea completely removed my interference about Arya being the slayer and put me 100% all in on your take.
The suggestion for Jaimie is absolutely perfect. He should have killed the Night King and died while doing it. Would have made him an honorable hero, with an honorable end. This would have also benefited Cerise's arch because now she had truly lost everything and wanted to see everything burn.
That's what I was thinking as well. If Jamie died killing the Night King, he wouldn't be able to experience life as the hero he became. It's poetic justice after what he did to Bran. Also, he wouldn't have been able to build a life with Brienne after they fell in love. That's part of the bittersweet ending GRRM is shooting for.
RRMartin tried for realism. With children dead and her hated and female, well its 100% likely Cersei wouldn't keep army and Lannister and Baratheon lords loyal for a month. Knights were brutal selfish and abandoned leaders without heir instantly... They planned for decades and no heir was huge factor..... Only ummmm Jamie as known Lannister and warrior maybe could grab throne and lock up Cersei if needed, and marry ummm Sansa and agree she rules north and he rest, now that's the only non silly plot. Cersei power was over once children dead, she clearly had no long range future and all lords knew that then. . . . Just ignoring medieval politics robbed last seasons of believability, in season 1 even Ned didn't ask his wife for permission for stuff, and jumping to season 7 and ruling queen was silly.... In the HBO Dragon series even a Queen with dragon and history of fighting on the dragon, and living sons and liked is having issues CAUSE SHES A WOMEN. Cersei in reality as ruling queen is silly they'd rebel and abandon her
Yes and cerise turns the city int9 a wildfire tinderbox, Danny c9mes on the dragon and accidentally sets the wildfire deposits alight getting the blame for burning down kings landing.
Season 5? I think the first ugly crack was in Season 4 (Asha Greyjoy circumnavigating Westeros to save Theon and then running away from some dogs). Depending on who you ask, decisions made as far back as Season 1 (downplay the magic, shrink Winterfell) condemned the ending since then.
Honestly. I remember being one of the few that went around telling everyone how much season 7 sucked. People were so excited for season 8, but man, 7 left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just knew 8 would dreadful. I wasn't expecting how dreadful it would actually be though.
Just a 4th option for Daenarys going mad I've been pondering. Playing into Drogon being the most difficult to control, in such a populated city, she loses control. Her choice is not burning the city to the ground, it is LETTING it be burned to the ground, doing nothing to stop it and accepting it as the only way.
That, or having Rhaegal die DURING the siege on King's Landing. Losing another of her dragon children is the last straw and she and Drogon both avenge their fallen brother/child with fire and fury.
I will always watch retrospectives of GoT. I rewatched it for the millionth time with my girlfriend for her first time and even she noticed a change in S5 onwards. We watched HotD this week and she is relieved there's some good fresh GoT content.
Yes, the mangling of the Dorne faction was the beginning of the end. Not seeing Dorne with Doran, Arianne, Darkstar and the real Sand snakes scheming their own way would've been delightful to watch. And to see them join the rest of Westeros in the fight for Kings Landing and then outright survival would've been more delightful. D and D failed at a hall of fame level that they deserve their own wing.
S5 was okayish but S6 and S7 felt not at all at that level. S7 howrver added some slinghtly interesting things back. S8 was just a bad end in a lot of ways. A lot of characters out of role. However this is complaining on high level
To be fair, Seasons 6 and 7 at least *felt* they were building up to something big, and then...season 8 fails to deliver and gives a disappointing payoff.
My theory always was thar after Cerse's 3 kids die, she and Jamie have another, a daughter. She dies during childbirth, bring truth to the prophecy that a younger, more beautiful queen will strike her down. She never had anything to fear, all of the pain she suffered and people she killed was for nothing.
@@SpaceWitch144 Not of the seven kingdoms... but Jaime's slights being forgiven after enough heroic actions saving the kingdom, and the daughter allowed to go back to Lannisport wouldn't be crazy. There were a million ways to connect the dots creating payoff, but they chose none at all
It’s WILD to me how the writers didn’t even realize they turned both Sansa and Arya into CERSEI LANNISTER. Cersei exploded the Sept with wildfire, killing all in it for revenge, which D&D portrayed as an evil act. Then Arya kills off countless people at once too for revenge just like Cersei did and it’s framed as heroic! You’re telling me EVERYONE under Walder Frey was evil and deserved death?! As for Sansa…Cersei tortures young Sansa in the earlier seasons. When the only thing Sansa was guilty of was being Ned Stark’s daughter. Then in season 8, Sansa argued with Jon and demanded that literal CHILDREN (including Ned Umber) be punished just because of who they were related to. These acts on their own would be okay if Sansa and Arya later faced consequences for their vengeance or they later realized what they’ve become but D&D framed their actions as altruistic. It turns out that Sansa actually DID learn from Cersei after all! Cersei would be so proud of these little psychopaths. Good job, D&D.
I firmly believe that a big reason why people (mistakenly) believe the final two seasons were good is Ramin Djawadi's music. His score for the final seasons of GoT represent some of his finest work.
As a really surface level show watcher, I highly doubt it. Some of you really take in the details in the writing, the music, the wardrobe, etc. But in my experience, most people just watch the show. If there is something exciting, that's good enough. Given the fact that GOT had such a serious fan base, it makes sense to me that so many hate the ending. And I bet the people who think it was good are people like me who just watch the show and if we walked away feeling like we watched something good, then we say it was good. I personally doubt anyone who thinks the later parts of the show are good is thinking "But did you hear the music bro" The people who even thought about that were probably aware enough to know how shitty the ending was
@@godwarrior3403 It makes a very big impact subconsciously. Sure they may not be actively thinking about it, but the music was the only part of GoT that was always top notch quality imo
@@godwarrior3403You underestimate the effect of a soundtrack. It can make a scene that's chilling and horrific feel triumphant. A scene can be made funny or depressing just by the soundtrack. It's a huge part of Framing and storytelling that most of us don't notice.
I think Tyrion is the 3rd dragon rider..explains his bond with Jon from the start and Dani and the true reason Tywin hated him..not for being a dwarf, but for not being his actual biological son, but his best friend's son who was obsessed with his wife..
@@mattfoulgerBC they destroyed everyone's ark , by season 5 . When Barriston died , especially when brianne killed stannis i remember telling myself if stannis dies to Brianne hand im done with the show than season 6 actually was decent and i had some hope in it again . Fun fact i ate mushrooms during season 8 episode 3 and it wasn't dark at all and it was actually ok because of the shrooms for like a few months . i had projectile skeletons flying out my windows all over the corner when i pulled up haha so it actually made it better
I thoroughly appreciate how you analyzed season 8 by the way the beginning seasons set up the arcs and where the middle seasons fell short in order to get to season 8's conclusion. Well done.
Hearing you talk about these characters - what they were supposed to be and what they became in the show - it's so painful and makes me so sad thinking about what was taken from us :(
One notable reason why Arya's character fails is the exclusion of Lady Stoneheart, its clear that her and LSH will cross paths in the books (if they come out). Lady Stoneheart is the epitome of GRRM's Anti War and Anti Vengeance. GRRM writes vengeance in a raw and realistic manner, take Blood and Cheese from FaB for example. Lady Stoneheart's vengeance on the Freys in the books is going to be one of the most horrifically and unjust moments in the books and something that'll make BnC look like child's play in comparison. However because the show cut her out, they amalgamated the Frey vengeance plot point with her without the thematical point of anti-war/anti-vengeance in the books and when it came to S8, uh Oh Arya has nothing to do so they made her kill TNK to just give her something because they cut the Stoneheart plot out
I completely agree about Arya and Lady Stoneheart. Also, Arya's arc in the books points to unfinished business with her mother--book Arya was always relatively insecure about her relationship with Cat and then as her story goes on she feels like her mother wouldn't want her anymore if she knows what she's done, and it's Nymeria who pulls Catelyn's body out of the river for the Brotherhood to find. I really think their stories will converge in the Riverlands and Arya just slaughtering all the Freys in one huge spectacle is what's left of an absolutely critical climax in Arya's whole arc, only with everything that would have made it meaningful gutted out of it.
I hate how gutted SO MUCH from the books that were essential to character arcs. Like I can understand cutting the fat of the book but they just ripped pages out and had characters bumbling around.
Honestly I think Aryas killing of the Freys in the show was unjust too. Its played as this great moment but there’s no way everyone in that family was evil and in the books were even shown that the Rosby Freys all had to be sent away from the wedding because they couldn’t be trusted to betray Robb.
I think the final season as a whole is the prime example of something (outside of problematic writing, etc) falling under the weight of it's own complexities and ideas. Also probably why Martin is having issues with the final two books, because he's going to have squeeze everything left into those, but also make it clear what the story is truly about and saying. Also, the final season needed to spread out into a redone season 8, 9, and 10.
I think that as well. I don't think D&D ever really understood it. In beginning they tried and were good at it, but eventually they just cherrypicked certain parts and ignored the rest and in the end it didn't make sense anymore.
@@Ashbrash1998 do you think that's also why Martin is having difficulties wrapping the books? Not just narrative wise, but also thematically? Honestly, I don't know how he'll squeeze what's left into just two books. There has to be an 8th book if he wants do it properly.
Both GRRM and HBO wanted 10-13 seasons (George said it would need at Least 10) but Dumb n Dumber wanted out and refused to hand the show over so they rushed the ending. 4 seasons crammed into 13 episodes.
I think you are right with regards to sticking the landing in the books themselves (which are much more sprawling with more characters and storylines), but I think the show is an example of creator/showrunner hubris. The acclaim D&D got for Game of Thrones earned them a Star Wars trilogy deal and I think them looking to exit the series quickly to work on SW rather than hand the reins to others really had a butterfly effect. The most damning evidence is them turning down a higher episode count for the final seasons. HBO willing to continue to pay for an incredibly expensive show and they said no thank you? One of many bad decisions.
@@Modulater83 I totally agree. D&D let it all go to their heads and didn’t appreciate what they had created and how rare the opportunity was to continue this amazing show to the proper finish line. That show was and will be the biggest cultural phenomenon of their lives, not just the writers but also the main cast as well. They had the popularity, they had the funding, they could have created the best TV show of all time. Instead they squandered a rare opportunity, ruined the show and ruined their reputations along with it. So much for there Star Wars trilogy or any other future projects with HBO.
My biggest pet peeve with Danny is that they purposely made her the bad guy, so that by killing her, the remaining people can be "the good guys." A big part of the Game of Thrones. The Wheel, is that to stop evil, you have to become evil. Violence begets more violence. Revenge leads to more revenge. And at the end, they just 'pushed' all the bad mojo onto Danny, and then had her die. Therefore leaving everyone left with clean hands. It felt like such a massive cop-out. Danny was my favorite character, and I so wanted to see her "do what had to be done," and then when the dust settles, revert back into her more peaceful side. Balancing fire with diplomacy. And yeah, I felt her violence was justified. I felt like the Lannisters betraying her again and again and again sealed their fate. Not once did I feel like Danny overstepped. There was NO WAY anyone would believe the Lannisters are surrending and not just decoying. Any rational person would be skeptical of their authenticity. There's no way anyone would believe they're surrending. ---------- Another funny, but stupid part of the ending. The whole realm knew about this oncoming battle. The citizens knew Danny was marching onto King's Landing to blow it up. And for some reason the citizens thought King's Landing was the 'safest' place to take refuge? Danny wasn't looting and pillaging villages and towns on her march to King's Landing. She came with political ties to the North, and other kingdoms of Westeros. Why the holy fuck did the citizens think hiding away at ground zero was the safest place to be? ================== I was honestly going to buy an epic collector's edition of the show to support it. But when season 8 came out, they saved me a lot of money. They absolutely tanked it.
Here’s a little peak behind the curtain: the night of the Game of Thrones finale, I was actually watching ‘The Phantom Menace’ for its 20th anniversary and I thought everyone was having a great time watching the GOT finale while I was miserable watching TPM. Turns out we were ALL miserable that night. (I don’t know what’s more unbelievable: ‘The Phantom Menace’ isn’t the most disappointing thing released on May 19th or that there were TWO giant franchise disappointments on the same day 20 years separated from one another!)
@@thegoldman25 Endgame was also a far better finale! I saw it in the theatre with friends of mine that week. Infinity war is my favorite avengers film but Endgame is right up there after that. Super curious what avengers 5 and 6 are gonna do but I doubt they'll be as good.
Idk our ages but I just went to TPM’s 25 year rerelease and had a great time. The dialogue is horrendous but otherwise it’s great fun. And 4-6’s dialogue was also terrible, and delivery also pretty awful of it sometimes… Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford complained equally that “people just don’t talk this way,” “people just don’t do these things”… I was
I binge watched Game of Thrones about 2 months ago. Friends have warned me that the show gets worse towards the end and that the final two seasons are completely off the books. While keeping this in mind, I tried to be as objective and unbiased in order not to sway my judgement. And... yeah, D & D can go to hell. There were many moments in seasons 7 and 8 where I ranted out loud how stupid a specific plot point or a choice was. Something that I've not done once in the previous seasons. It's like all the major characters got downgraded by 80%.
@@thegoldman25 sure they were better than the last two but you could already tell things were going off road. + The spirit of the series was changing for something more ''big mindless epic battle yeahhhh'''
Tyrion becoming hateful and poisoning Daenerys would make so much sense for both their characters. That would have made GOT peak. Becoming the bad guy didn't harm Walter White's popularity. And it would make sense for Tyrion to play the long game, which would make Varys turn against them. And seeing the destruction would make Jon choose the easier life at the Wall. Then, this would all make sense.
Cercei never could keep power even 1 week after her sons died....... In medieval times every village lord has a small army. It takes convincing most of them you are #1 in line to rule. Robert led a alliance and didn't conquer he just let Jamie kill the king and then the families decided Robert was harmless enough so was a safe choice. Just saying his bloodline and prestige is low and not like the Targareans. With him and his children dead, Cersei had no claim to even having anyone to take over power. This in medieval times means quick rebellion with each village noble who had no good math skills seeing if maybe they could gain independence and stop paying the 25% the upper nobles demanded including Robert.. You need overwhelming by 3x army or great prestige and likability and blood priority, she had neither. In real life there would be half civil war and all travel stopping once last Prince was dead, Cersei with no teen boy offered nothing and would be killed by a Baratheon noble who'd proclaim her a witch and he would grab that province. In the longer term with no Targarean the land would revert back 200 years to 10 independent kingdoms. When Rome fell, or Charlemagne's German empire fell, no one let his wife continue, they broke off with a smile and formed Bavaria, Prussia, Netherlands, N. Italy, Burgundy, and 10 others, without a warrior king you don't keep together half a medieval continent.... Most in westeross probably are different dialect so have no wish to remain joined, the Scots even when they learned bad English still resisted English rule till their Scot King inherited the London throne. . . . That would be cool book, post all princes dead we have 10 lil kingdoms and Dany and Jon need to unify them again.. Dany in Essos saw nobles were not needed, cities had councils and not nobles. This was due to lack of farmland but it still would make her see a huge nobility is optional. She was a crusader. She freed slaves in Essos. In Westeross she would've have burnt the top 5% who leach off rest as aristocrats. She would be Pol Pot. Only that would make Jon consider killing her, he was a northern idiot who secretly loved being a noble, and Dany was takking that away. Medieval times lasted cuz there's always idiots who will kill the reformers and peasants in exchange for feeling mighty and taking over as middle lords to some lying bishop or king. Medieval ways NEVER ended in Europe by choice, the English started the industrial revolution which led to cities and after 1600 the cities became dominant and the nobles just were ignored.. Dany with dragons alone had chance of killing enough nobles, that would be good crusade, all nobles were torturers and taxed half the people made, kill em all, Stark, Lannister, Vale, etc.....
Great video, agree with all points. Tho I want to add one thing in dany section, her inner conflict is very similar to jon's one that of wants vs duty. using fire is a way to get it. In book1: all she wants is to go "home" , have a family, live a peaceful & comfortable life as a simple girl & not a item to be sold, then she connects the idea of "home" with westroes(saw a thousand red doors). Play's her Duty as khaleesi book2 : dodging all wrong doors/illusions/temptations to meet undyings one & asking what's the truth. in book 3: she calls slaves as her children not only cuz she believes she is infertile but she has a whole to be filled with love,care,affection & be connected with others at intimate level which she didn't had. Also she for similar reason tries to Self-love. she could have gone straight to westroes yet instead of flying off ,chooses to rule for her "Duty". Book 5 : puts aside her desire again for duty. i also don't think she would burn KL willingly, rather either for coming to terms with her father's legacy, or play with perception against young griff. Making anyone in story "mad" is lazy & in direct conflict with what martin says how he doesn't like Dark lord villians who do evil just cuz or he likes to write abt human heart in-conflict plus missing the whole point of "OTHERS" , be it cersei/dany/bran.
Cersei however would do some mad queen stuff in the book when she burns the tower of the hand with wildfire she is excited and even Jamie saw that Aerys look in her eyes and was freaked out. I hate how they ended Jamie’s story like that when it’s obvious he’s not going back for her in the books.
@@ACinemafanatic yes true but she would have reason to burn KL like Maggie's prophecy or her want for power (iron throne) or want to prove ppl wrong who pited her gender & didn't gave her any chance. Rather than reasoning as just cuz... Or them bell triggered genes moment. I'm calling no reason or a just cuz reason here lazy, Which is often used for these characters.
When Jaime left Brienne and then said he didn't care about the citizens of King's Landing, I thought to myself; "I have never seen a character get ruined this bad." Little did I know that the very next episode it would be *even worse.*
I love the fact that is has been half a decade later but the hate is still continue to the point that we still have more video paragraphs like this. Very well-deserved. Thank youuu
what kills me the most is that, throughout the shows run, i would often restart the series to watch through. before each season, i'd rewatch all seasons leading up to it. but since the show has ended, i have no excitement to go back, because i know where it ends now. season 8 retroactively made every other season a little bit worse, which is wild.
Didn’t think about this until just now, but y’all know the saying from Ned Stark where he’s like “When… and the white wind blows. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” Yet at the end of the series every Stark (by name or not) goes there own way….. Bran’s in King’s Landing, Sansa is in Winterfell, and Jon and Arya fuck off to beyond the wall and west of Westeros respectively. THEY’RE ALL LONE WOLVES AT THIS POINT TF????!??
Ah Game of Thrones its like setting up a role playing game where all the right things where done in the beginning then the torch was passed to a clueless player who chose the worst decisions late game. Knowing how bad the ending is gives me no reason to rewatch it. Its that awful
My God, your build-up to the possibility of Jamie killing the Night King had me mentally cheering! Also, I agree with everything you've said, and a lot of it really put into words what I've never been able to articulate myself. Great stuff.
Full honesty: when I watched the first season I was almost on cloud-9 on how great it was. Exellent writing, acting etc. And I litterally said "This is gonna break the TV-show syndrom. Every show that starts of great, always gets worse as the seasons keep going. But this will be different!!" And I've never been more wrong in my life
@@lukeluke333lukeluke Indeed. And yeah, same with me! Even though HotD is great (and I certainly hope it will stay that way!!!), the fact that the show still builds up to GoT season 8 really boggles me...
I don’t think the Ramsey season was entirely pointless for Sansa’s character dev. I think it was a necessary step for her to fully appreciate the north and her physical home. Being abused in one’s home then fighting for that home while ending the abusers life was poetic justice to me. Her final move with little finger before killing him was actually using him as a pawn in her game.
Considering Jon and the "duty over desire" - it could have also worked the other way around, while still remaining his "character": he doesn't want to become king, as he keeps mentioning, yet his duty is to accept the regalty. In literature tropes, the unwilling ruler is also often portrayed to be the best ruler, so Jon could have become a good and wise king, against his desire to lead a free life, but because his duty forced him to. Also, even though he's a Targaryen, I would have liked it better for his Stark side to be the stronger influence, hence making him a good king.
I love hearing people dog on the final seasons. An hour of it sounds just what I need today. ❤ Edit: Jamie would be number one on my list. With one sentence they ruined an entire characters redemption. With ONE SENTENCE 😖
For real, to this day I don't understand why they even added it. I think the point was to do some sort of "counter" redemption where he actually didn't care about saving the innocent people, only Cersei. It still doesn't really work, but it could have been an interesting angle if set up properly
32:50 Let me quote Dumbledore here: "It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well." I like your suggestion here a lot.
Changing Danny’s ending to forcing her to have no choice but to burn down king’s landing and killing innocent people in order to win and in turn causing her to have so much guilt that it drives her mad would have been so much better
I agree with the corrosive themes of vengeance, but to say people who are “just following orders” are implied as innocent… well we had a pretty big trial about that in Nuremberg. They’re guilty by both our’s and Westeros standards
Yeah, I too was wondering why he said that. I get the point that it should be a moral conflict for vengeful characters to consider. The book describes how every male Frey was involved in the plotting of the Red Wedding. Arya is the character I identify most with and she deserves better. Yet her arc cannot be just a fulfilment of revenge fantasies, she should face growing challenges with every revenge.
I remember watching this entire show after it came out with my girlfriend. She had already finished the show by this point, and every now and then she would mention how bad S8 was, and how I would be impressed at just how downhill it would go. I thought to myself, it couldn't be that bad right? Everyone's just exaggerating right? Well... Please let House of the Dragon have a good final season.
what i thought was so disappointing with the last 3 seasons was the fighting, going from quick and realistic sword and arrow fights. to huge coriograghed dances where five characters are able to slay small armies in some cases... or the dragon fire burns everywhere and everyone, except main characters. i started singing the" go go power rangers" song sometimes
Please talk about other characters too! You’ve hit the nail on the head with all of these. Would love your thoughts on Bran, Littlefinger , Stannis, Varys, Davos, Missandei, Brienne
Sansa should've tried to manipulate Ramsay, Cersei told her in season 2 a way to manipulate a man is by using what's between your legs and she didn't even do that, D&D just had her get abused. Sansa didn't even figure out that Little Finger was manipulating her against Arya, she had to go ask Bran and Bran showed her the truth, but she was even ready to kill Arya, D&D said it happened in a deleted scene.
A lot of people dont know or acknowledge that. They ("they" being the dumber portion of the fan base) love that arc and think the ending of it was "badass" instead of predictable and bad. He should have included Littlefinger in his list because D&D most definitely did him dirty too.
I didn't like that Littlefinger gave Sansa to the Boltons, makes zero sense, however, I will defend the fact that she was abused. I mean.. it's game of thrones, and Ramsay was a real monster compared to Joffrey. There is no other way, if the showrunners for some reason decided that Sansa marries a Bolton, it HAD to end this way, otherwise it wouldn't be the GOT as we know.
I’m okay with Jon not getting the Night King kill but…he should have fought him one on one with swords. The dragon fight was cool but we needed a more personal up close fight between them. If it appeared like he was gonna die again and then Arya swooped in that would have been amazing!
They could have at least made it a reference to Ned fighting Arthur Dayne. Like have Jon fight the Night King, be about to lose than someone saves him like Howland Reed saved Ned, which led to Jon being found
Omg, specially your Arya Analysis is on Point! I felt that too, Back when the series was on... I was so excited for Arya's Return, and felt what she learned in Bravos, that Not everyone deserves to die, and she can't throw away her Honor, Just as she can't throw away her identify, Just for all of it to be butchered by the showrunners in the next season. The Scene where she Kills the entire Frey Family, was almost as disturbing to me as the Red Wedding, and while so many Others celebrated that Scene and "sweet vengance", I Just thought "Where is the Arya that supposedly wasn't able to be 'no one' and instead supposedly reclaimed her identity? That Girl was Not Arya... She was No one... So all the Trouble she went through by leaving the Faceless Men, felt like time thrown out the window.
It's not about season 8 only, it begins in season 1. In the book, Drogo doesn't rape Daenerys on their wedding night. He spends hours reassuring her and gently urging her to consent. The fact that she falls in love with her husband is no surprise, unlike in the TV series, where Stockholm syndrome is a legitimate possibility. The series' writers never had the slightest respect for the story they claimed to tell. The psychological truth of the characters has always been less important to them than ratings. And that's a shame, because there was no one to counterbalance some of JRR Martin's unfortunate fixed ideas, such as his desire for unpredictability at all costs and his disdain for architecture, which ultimately detract from the cohesion of the work (but at a level far less crass than that of the show's writers).
Would Missandei's murder have a devasting impact on Dany? Yes. But would Missandei herself, even in the face of death, EVER advocate for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children? NO, no she would not. Using Missandei as the flipped switch that finally causes Dany to snap is really fcking aggravating to me anyway, but its doubly aggravating that they destroyed Missandei's character in her final moments in trying to truly justify that snap.
by the end of both shows HoTD will be considered the better of the two shows , clearly and it's because they know the ending and there not gonna diverge from the story . Season 2 of Hotd will be the best season of either show since season 4 of game of thrones and i think it'll be the consensus of the people
I’ve been fighting for my life in the trenches for my opinion that Jamie killing the Night King would be a satisfying conclusion to his and Jon’s arc! Glad to see someone shares that line of thought :D
I just want to say, this made me frustrated all over again, then you really reminded my of why l loved the books so much and I agree 10000% with every analysis you make. I think the way you resolve the story archs feels so narratively true to the characters and to GRRM. You have got yourself a new subscriber!
For anyone asking why the video begins so weird, I got a copyright claim on the first 2 mins of the video after it being up for 2 months. So I had to trim it out and now it begins in the middle of a Sansa section. Sorry!
I thought I was stroking out for a moment lmao
Tyrion is my favorite character. After finishing the 5 novels I must have blocked out Tyrion becoming a villain. So, I guess, since he was so popular, it makes sense that the writers didn't want his arc to go that way. He didn't have to do stupid things, but since Tyrion's pride in his intelligence was all he had, maybe he needed to lose all and then be commanded to redeem himself by becoming Bran's Hand. Jaimie, altho he loved Tyrion, was too easily manipulated by Cersei, and to an extent Tywin. Losing his hand made a difference. Brienne made the biggest difference because she truly was a honorable knight and showed him what that meant. In the end, Cersei manipulated him again, but the prevailing thing with the Lannisters is Family First. Even Tyrion could not resist it and that is why he searched for his siblings. I agree about Danaerys. I expected her to be queen. I think after the death of the 2nd of her dragons she simply lost her mind. Another revenge point among the characters.
Theres something almost poetic about season 8, the show runners fast tracked everything so they could go off and make a Star Wars movie despite HBO begging them not to do this. They did it anyway and everyone hated the season. Disney ended up not making their Star Wars movie partly because of the reaction season 8 got. They wanted it all and lost it all.
justice i guess
It does annoy me they are now doing another book adaptation series of a very popular trilogy.
@@mordecaiissad8529 Which one?
@@dannytheman1313 the 3 body problem, the first season is out already
@@mordecaiissad8529 I only got through the first episode didn't realize it was them. Books were already hard enough to get through. Between all the Asian names and the VR section that goes on for freaking ever.
My biggest problem with Cersei is that it made no sense why anyone would follow her after season 5. She had no money, she had no legitimacy to the throne, everyone knew she was an idiot, King’s Landing was starving, and she was exposed by the walk of shame.
It made no sense that a 2nd riot of King’s Landing didn’t happen.
Totally agree. There’s no consequences for her actions at all during the later seasons which is what the earlier seasons were all about. Like she blows up the sept and nothing happens after. No conflict or anything. Shes just crowned as queen and goes on. So frustrating
Exactly and the fact she never used the wildfire again. Like we KNOW it's there because for some reason they had little explosions of it during the Bells episode.
Well Cersei has less money not “no money” the mines ran out of gold not all its other resources, hence why she’s a Silver Queen. She also blew up the great sept…though there’s no proof (everyone would suspect though) so most other major powers would be scrambling to fill the power gap. The people hated her but the army was mostly intact so she had guards and plenty of fear to control the common folk.
Plus technically she’s the “dowager queen” still. Technically.
Exactly. All she had was the Mountain. He’s not enough to have an entire country submit to a stupid queen.
I'll never forget how my English teacher would come in every single week and spend the first couple of minutes chatting to the few students who watch game of thrones about the latest episode. Every week, without fail. And then the finale dropped. And they never mentioned it. Never spoke of it again. Ever.
Incredible
"Today's assignment: write me a better ending to a Game of Thrones"
@@Anthony-dy5cq lmao fr. extra credit if you make me cry
Things that never happened
@@ataridcyou must have had sucky teachers. Mine would talk about shows with me, I'm still friendly with a few of my teachers as a 28 year old grown woman now.
@@ataridcno. I had teachers who definitely would have done this!
Pretty insane that this show was everywhere within pop culture and simply vanished within a 6 month period due to how bad it ended.
Think of all the girls named khaleesi and Daenerys
@@hastingscutoff1304 Eh, Daenerys is still a pretty name though, most of the Targaryen names are. Rhaenyra, Helaena, and Visenya sound and roll off the tongue beautifully...and definitely better than being named X Æ A-12
Do we mock parents who name their kids Jack knowing there's Jack the Ripper? or Charles considering Charles Manson?
@@hastingscutoff1304
You can say that about absolutely any name, though.
Names are subject to trends irrespective if they came from pop culture or not.
A child born in the 2000s named Mildred or Agatha or Ferdinand will be made fun of, even if the names themselves are normal seeming, by virtue of just being "old" and not "trendy" anymore. People already make fun of names like "John" or "Sarah" for sounding very 'white' or 'generic'.
In the mid 2010s, names like "Mikaeylah" were already subject to ridicule because of how "LA" or hipster it sounds.
People who want to make fun of you WILL make fun of you and will use ANY ammunition to do so, be it your name, size, gender or skin color.
@@kenjinpiniteunow I feel left out, no one’s ever made fun of me for being called Sarah 😂
@@hedgehobbit6844 Hah! I think Sarah is a a beautiful name, though I've heard a friend say it sounds "generic" and very "NPC" lol I disagreed with her, but eh, it wasn't my baby to name anyway lol
Jaime and Daenerys's endings broke my heart. I agree with Nikolai Coster-Waldau: Jaime and Brienne are on Tarth with like five kids living out their lives in peace.
🤣
Same
Imagine how dangerous those kids would be 😅 Jaime’s speed and skill alongside Brienne size and strength
I have watched so many of these breakdowns and alternative endings and none of them have Jamie stay with Brienne. It's totally baffling to me that they see him crawling back to Cersei as fitting in with his character, people leave abusive partners and go on to love themselves and others more, I would rather that Jamie died than lose all of the progress he made by going back, that was who he had been but not who he was when he left to fight for the North.
They all downplay Brienne's role in helping Jamie realise that he is a good but flawed man underneath all the bullshit
It's been so long but I'm still pissed 😅
Even Martin said that he wrote Jamie and Brienne as a reverse Beauty and the Beast and well, you didn't see Beauty go back to bloomin' Gaston!
Daenarys was the worst. Her ending was perfect.
The fact that the kid who won the game of thrones isn't one of the characters you talk about says a lot about the show 😂
yeah it isn't great lol
@@thegoldman25 bran shouldn't have been named king. It should've went to Jon cause of his Targaryen heritage.
@@kdusel1991 well I’m sure GRRM will make Bran’s Ending make senses
@@kdusel1991 Within the books, I fully believe it will be Bran who rules Westeros (most likely from the Isle of Faces if KL is destroyed). It would be very GRRM, the only one capable of ruling would be the one who has no humanity.
I literally laughed out loud when they panned over to Bran. And then “Bran the Broken” I was absolutely floored with how ridiculous it all was. And then Sansa being given the North with absolutely no pushback from anyone 😂 I hoped we’d find out bran was just the one eyed raven who’d been scheming since before he even became one eyed crow / raven whatever. Saw some good in deep geek videos about that possibility.
The best of Daenerys in the last two seasons was her outfits.
I did like that last shot of drogon extending his wings as she came down the destroyed red keep. That was pretty cool. Other than that the finale was dog shit
she did have killer outfits ngl
The production crew deserves all the praise in the world for the set design and costumes. Them and the actors are the only reason the show remained somewhat believable when the nonsensical writing took over.
@@senjuguy Whoever handled the lighting on the Night King episodes had a vendetta on the other production staff though.
Couldn't see shit.
Thank god for Michele Clapton
Jamie sacrificing himself to protect Bran and kill the night king would have been great. Jamie going back to Cersei to do anything but kill her is terrible.
After killing the night king, Jamie travels south with Daenery's army to capture Cerci, they capture her after the battle but when he finds out they are going to execute her he draws his sword and dies fighting Brienne.
This is such a great idea! I’d not heard Jamie suggested as the Night King killer before, it’s too perfect. I think I would’ve kept him alive though. Staying on as Lord Commander with his brother as Hand and dedicating his life to the king he tried to kill as a child.
@@Metaron The only alternative would leave bad guys™ with four characters one of whom is a mute for the sake of "cHaRActeR cHaNGe"
Game of Thrones is about character conflict not teaming up and smashing the bad guys like a marvel movie.
@@Metaron What build up of conflict? What are you talking about? They were besties 6 episodes earlier. He goes north to fulfil an oath, then goes back. The only subverting expectations is him staying loyal to Danny after the nightking is dead when he has no reason to.
@@Metaron I have literally no idea what you are seeing to justify this "build up", I think it's what you wanted to happen so when the showrunners pulled that out of nowhere you went along with it then were surprised when they took it away.
The writing for Daenerys in season 8 could be summed up by one of my favorite quotes from the Godfather: "Look how they massacred my girl".
I think Emilia Clarke was as upset as the fans. She's just too nice to say it. To this day, she still says she feels honoured to have been part of the show, even when it became a disaster in the final season. My guess is that she tries to block out Daenerys' character assassination and just focus on when the show was in its prime.
Also, despite the terrible writing, Emilia may have done some of her best acting in Season 8. I think this is because she was GENUINELY upset. She put nearly a decade of her life into Daenerys and grew to really care about her, only for the idiot writers to destroy the character. It may be out of character for Daenerys but I think the anger, sorrow and confusion was real because Emilia was processing those emotions in real life at the time.
@@tomnorton4277her quote “best season ever!” With the face she did and the mixed girl who tries to cover up for her knowing she might get in trouble says it all
haha tru dat
@@tomnorton4277what do you mean by destroy the character? She was always going to go genocidal, she's constantly talking about taking her birthright back by force. The issue with season 8 was just that they rushed the transition to full mania, but it was inevitable from the beginning.
@@ferios2she wasn’t genocidal, yall are just trying so hard to justify the trash writing. They did it for a cheap shock value.
You have Caersei blowing up the Sept killing innocents inside and facing absolutely no consequences for that, but Daenerys is the one who’s actually mad? Nah, get out. The writers can’t even properly talk about her in the interviews for S8 bc they know they fuvked up.
Everything they built for Dany is thrown away and no you have Season 8 dickriders because the character they personally didn’t like gets killed.
That’s a trash writing and Dany is not the only character whose arc got thrown away. No one even remembers GOT anymore and the writers can not even get themselves into other projects. Karma.
I work in special effects and worked on Episode Three of Season 8. It was a brutal night shoot in a freezing quarry in northern Ireland, and even though I only filmed essentially half the episode for the six weeks I was there, I got to see the scale of this production up close.
I had a great time with the cast and crew and wasn't aware at the time of how the rest of the season would pan out (I agree that it was poor) due to filming out of sequence and periodically intense scenes which take ages to shoot.
My very first night shoot was filming Daenerys and Jura's last stand against the White Walkers. All the smoke swirling and blowing around them as they fight was my work as I stood on a large wind machine, blowing Artem smoke at them. It was freezing cold as the rotors sucked in already freezing air past me, chilling it almost to the point of pain!
I was there when the Walkers first attack the front line, throwing in hands of soil as the characters fight the walkers (all the stuff flying past camera that looks like blood and guts in that fight scene is just plain old soil!)
The best memory I have of this was sheltering in the far corner of the gigantic green screen quarry, huddled over a smoke machines as the Dothraki have their swords lit of fire. It was pitch black, about four am, with real wind and rain howling around the set, when out of the darkness the leading White Walkers in full makeup and costume slowly surrounded me as they prepared to come on for their next scene. I was half asleep when they did this and got the shock of my life when they slowly surrounded me, leaping up in fright! They all had a good laugh about that.
Good memories but a shame the end result was so frustrating.
That sounds like an amazing experience!
I’m sure you worked on it
If it makes you feel better, hardly anybody criticized the acting, the cinematography, the score, the costume design, the general production, etc (quite the opposite actually, like how many people agreed that it looked like a feature film in terms of quality).
What brought down the season was very poor writing and that comes down to two and only two culprits. We know very well who those two are. I once commented (might have been twitter or something) that in my opinion literally EVERYONE in this season did their jobs EXCEPT those two morons.
A shame that it was nearly impossible to appreciate your work, though. Couldn't see a GD thing.
Sounds like you enjoyed making the show more than we did watching it lol.
One of the weirdest decisions DnD made was to make it so that Jon didn’t want to rule. In the books, he wants that so bad. He was so close to accepting Stannis’ offer to legitimize him and become the Stark of Winterfell and the struggle between his personal desire to get the recognition he’s always wanted against the duty he has to the Wall and the Watch is so interesting.
Yeah. The fact he wants it is the source of a lot of the tension, and removing it ends that.
I think that's why Jon was always going to fail in the show, as well as Tyrion in a way. They never understood the complexity of their characters and the arcs they were going on.
Yeah. It’s like they were trying to hammer home the fact that he was embittered by the decisions he’s had to make and doesn’t want to lead because of it but then neglect that while he was embittered he’s always picked himself up and tried to move on to help more people. There’s hints of that in the show but it’s more openly begrudging. The show runners finalizing the decision to have Jon not be king is still inconsistent though 😂😂😂
Since show Jon still is the type to take up the task, he’d just brood more. It’d make sense that he has Sansa be an advisor for a while, then going on to Tyrion once he’s proved his loyalty. Gendry becoming a lord makes sense, so many little things aren’t necessarily wrong (besides the blood riders, unless Jon says someone sniped her) but so many BIG THINGS make no sense.
@@Ashbrash1998 I think you could say the same about most of the characters
I think it's going to go mostly the same in the books, only it'll make more sense. At the beginning of the story, Jon only wants to rule because of how he was raised. He doesn't know anything else to want. He only wants it because everyone else around him wants it, and even just expects it. Up until he joins the Night's Watch, he's only ever known lords and heirs, and so that's who he compares himself to. Stannis's offer was a struggle for him right up until the moment another option came along. Then he happily threw Stannis's offer away in favor of the alternative. In his heart, Jon really wants to be free. Not "free" the way he was north of the Wall in Storm of Swords, where he was just a different kind of prisoner. Jon wants to be free from the demands of duty and honor.
One of the lesser-discussed themes of the books is that Jon is in the process of becoming everyone's heir or everyone's second choice. I suspect that when all is said and done, much as he became Lord Commander, Jon will be king by virtue of being the one person with a claim that the others object to least. If we look at the Hour of the Wolf from the Dance of the Dragons as a model, Jon may only be king for a day, or king for an hour, before he abdicates. Given the chance, Jon will choose total freedom over power. And when he abdicates, that makes Bran - the heir to everyone else's heir - the new king.
Arya killing the Night King is the moment I knew this show was beyond saving. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so empty watching a show as in that moment. Everything that followed after was just whatever to me
That's honestly it. I was genuinely willing to forgive soooo many of their mistakes as long as they stuck the landing. And then they did... that. And I knew there could be no room for forgiveness...
They should of made a book accurate winterfell. Book winterfell is massive has two massive walls with a moat in between them the gods woods has a diameter of 3 acres and the castle completely surrounds it
If they made a book accurate winterfell the final battle there would of made more sense cause they would have more room for men and the night king would of had to go through the castle to get to the gods woods where bran was at.
It was the dragon getting sniped for me.
The wight hunt in S7 was as bad as anything in S8, and so was the Winterfell plot with Littlefinger-Sansa- Arya. People feel more bitter about S8 because it was more definitive and that's understandable, but it didn't suddenly get so much worse right then.
The show pretty much ended after she killed the NK. I thought "am I seriously supposed to believe Cersei is the final boss now, after almost a Fing zombie apocalypse".
I forced myself to watch the rest of the show because of all of the time I already have put into it.
jaime killing the night king? "And for generations after, people spoke of his nickname "kingslayer" with pride instead of revulsion." It writes itself so why not do this??
Agreed 👍 that would have been good but I still think Jon should have directed it. The night king was his adversary, so if he’d shouted to Jamie to get him instead of shouting at a dead dragon like an idiot 🥺
@@zarabee2880 I dislike this take because the others / WWs are the adversary of everyone. People just focus on Jon because of Hardhome. In my opinion that’s another detractor to the show - they clearly set up as a 1v1. There’s not even a Night King in the books
Good old Golden Hand the Just.
I would’ve loved the night king slayer, but the NKs kings guard should’ve had 1v1 with the key players. There was enough glory to go around. Brianne, Jamie, gray worm, Arya, hound, the little bear and Theon should’ve each taken down a kings guard, with John taking down the NK with Brans help. Also, no wargs in this fight? No dire wolves?
Imagine he survives the fight with the night king, dawn begins and as he rises from the rubble, bleeding and stumbling, the sun shining behind his back, the survivors chant: "hail to the king slayer"
It still physically hurts 5 years later.
21:58 not sure that "they were just following orders, so they should not face justice" is a good point at any given moment my man
It's actually at 21:38 but yeah...That is a historically cringe excuse.
Perhaps he merely meant the majority of freys didnt deserve execution like walder. Seems the more likely explanation. After all, nowhere was it said the rest didnt deserve to face justice
As a german, i concur wholeheartedly
Jaime killing the Night King would have been the ultimate completion of his entire story. He saves Bran, he fully regains his honor, and his title of Kingslayer is now his greatest triumph instead of his greatest shame. Maybe even allowing for a new position in the King's guard where one member wears a golden hand and that member is meant to be the only one who can strike the king if he becomes corrupt or mad. But at the cost of their life
Imagine the night king is the one about to push Bran from the window, to his death, again.
Id rather it be jon
@Cosmicshambler I agree completely. Jon is my first choice to take out the night king. But if not him, then Jaime is my second choice
@@darthjoe91 only one Arya should have killed is Cersei, i will never forgive them setting up Jon to kill him only for it to end like it did, no i will not watch anything dumb and dumber make in the future
Idk if Jaime killing the NK would be a great idea. Maybe Jaime could fight him for a bit, but killing him creates the same problems that giving Arya the kill does: it leaves the characters who’ve been dealing with the Whites incomplete
I gotta say, I LOVE the idea of Jaime being the one to kill the Night King in your mini-rewrite. Makes the "Kingslayer" nickname one hell of a foreshadowing and turns it into a true badge of honor.
"One hand is all that is needed." Syrio Forel, first conversation with Arya.
That change alone would have made it almost rewatchable just for that one payoff
For real!
I never thought about Jamie killing the Night King, but it's actually a great payoff
Same. It didn't occur to me either but it would've been a great full circle moment, certainly better then what we got.
@@roguechevelle anything would beat what we got!!! Still so disappointed after 5 years hahaha
jamie should of killed cersi. That is what is prophesied in the book.
Jaime kills the NK in this alt ending posted 2 yrs ago: ua-cam.com/video/KEHnDXfSxn0/v-deo.htmlsi=o9aRG96zxT09Wjl5
Jamie should have kill Cersei, that was the logic ending of their arc: a cursed love. Killing the NK then why not to finish a redemtpion arc, but that would make him the big hero of the story which is a little bit weird considering is a selfless child killer.
Conleth Hill throwing the script will forever be a mood to season 8
Jaime saying that he does not care about the innocent people sounds like something you would come up with if someone tasks you with writing the most out of character line possible for this character. The equivalent would be something like Dany saying that she plans to enslave everyone (which she honestly came pretty close to), Jon wanting to make an alliance with the Night King in order to bring eternal night to Westeros or Arya saying that she wants to marry Joffrey, be his queen and have many children together.
People say this as if Jaime didn't kill multiple innocents for Cersei.
@@YouScareMe1Jaime was a bad person thanks to his toxic relationship with cersei and his family but his POV in the books really illuminates how serious Jaime's psychology is, and how his unseriousness is a defensive front. Jaime took being a kings guard and an "honorable" knight very seriously as a kid. Once his dreams were flipped upside down by everyone seeing his literal saving of the entire realm as dishonorable murder, it logically soured his character. Aerys was going to destroy kings landing and Jaime killed him because of it. He cares deeply about the innocent more than he allowed himself to realize for a major part of his life
Recently rewatched all 8 seasons with my 17 year-old daughter. She loved it for the most part but by the end she said it "basically became a marvel movie". And I think that sums the show up quite nicely.
Don't remind me of the disaster that is the MCU
@@Fohnzii I've somehow escaped being caught up in all the MCU except for a Guardians of the Galaxy movie or two. I'm not in a big rush to get caught up on all 43 MCU movies and shows.
Was it enjoyable watching guys and girls bang it out with a dude jerking off with your child? lol there were so many sex scenes that were way over the top, it’s not needed.
A perfect insult to summarize what the show became.
Your kid is right. The “NVA” battle against the Zombies (the Zombies used the same tactics the NVA used in “We Were Soldiers”) got tiresome, and then the whole nuking of Kings Landing
There's no way it has been 5 years already!
It has been!
Yup. I remember so clearly. I was pregnant with my daughter at the time and couldn't drink myself to sleep after I watched the final episode.
@@jessjess23brooks89 Damn😂kinda glad i didnt follow the series back then, cant imagine the dissapointment.
Yup, since endgame too
Covid really threw off the timeline
One of the biggest crimes of the later seasons was the writers making Arya into an insufferably annoying character, where at first she had been interesting.
Nah, she was always the annoying little brat. Thats literally her trademark in all the family scenes. But thats ok. Its charming in her own way. Animes are full of this "tsundere"-stuff.
@@fruehlingsobst8123 Before she was a brat that didn't know anything. The later seasons she acted like a brat pretending to know everything. The actor really did not sell the new Arya.
@@ernimuja6991 How can you be a brat without pretending to know everything?
@@fruehlingsobst8123 There are many different ways one can be a brat.
She was brilliant in the first few seasons. Once she went to bravos I just lost all interest. I never bought her rise to assassin status
Funniest aspect to me is that the new prequel show keeps showing prophecies and such about the Night King, but since we already saw him go down so easily and conveniently, it just feels like they were worrying for decades over absolutely nothing.
>easily and conveniently
Don't say that to the Dothraki
The only good thing that came out of season 8 was the jokes and memes regarding the Starbucks cup left in one scene tbh.
Jenny of Oldstones.
“Dany kinda forgot about the Iron Fleet”
Ah, here we go, you didn't understand the ending, so you compensated your frustration with memes instead of trying to understand the story.
@@Batist13 Oh you mean a story that was basically dead that a majority of people agree it was a shit ending oh yeah i understand the ending. Eight years of time and investment gone to waste and two writers that ran out of material to adapt cause they caught up where the author left off. As they wanted to go and do other projects like Starwars which went nowhere.
@@silentecho92able Ah the famous theory of hater lore which starts from the postulate that the ending is botched, and therefore that the creators needed a reason to sabotage their life's work. Even GRRM said the ending was fine, sorry, be careful with HotD, Ryan is a fan of season 8, rightly so.
What you've forgot to mention about Cersei is
A) the Maggie the Frog prophecy also mentioned that she's to be killed through the hand of her "valonqar" - which she translates with "small brother" but is simply "younger brother". She believes that Tyrion, the physically "small" brother, who has also "killed" their mother, is going to kill her. That's why she hates him so much. But Jaime is also her younger brother, she was born before him, and it was a fan favourite theory that it means that Jaime is the one to kill Cersei. Unfortunately, in the show they butchered this plotline completely.
B) in the show, she is portrayed to be saddened by the death of her baby with Robert, however in the books she admits to Ned that she willingly killed the baby she had with Robert because she simply didn't want to have a child with him. I think that is a very important point to mention. Because it shows her character.
Exactly. I was pretty sure she killed her baby with Robert.
I think the second change is fine. I think the book cersei is a bit too evil in her back stories. That being said, getting rid of that Maggie the frog prophecy bit was a travesty.
@alisade127 Jaime gets a woman to "cleanse her" which probably means giving her some kind of abortifacient like Moon tea
Book Cersei is a much more one-dimensional character. The second change was actually better for the show. That doesn't necessarily mean that she was telling the truth about her baby with Robert, but it makes her a little less one dimensional. Also, people are taking the Valonqar prophecy way too literally. She did die with Jaime's hands around her neck. Maybe not by literally choking the life out of her, but she did die that way and the prophecy held true. Just not in the way you would normally assume.
Jaime literally led her to her death.
I love that all the clips from season 8 are so dark that even on a phone with the brightness cranked all the way up, they’re almost impossible to see. Such a reflection of the season overall
On iPhone, when you pull up the tab to write a comment, it dims the video playing above, so I kept thinking that I had the comment bar open, then realizing it was just the bad lighting
cinema is best viewed on a phone for sure.
They simply don't want us to watch it
Ah, the Battle of Winterfell, the thing that taught me that sometimes, one needs to go mess around with TV picture settings for specific episodes because of how they were filmed.
Crazy how it went from the greatest thing ever aired on TV to complete amateur hour the moment they ran out of source material.
That’s cuz D&D were most likely amateurs from the start
The prospect of Jaime Lannister being the NIGHT KING SLAYER blew my mind. What a scene it could have been.
It makes no sense for Littlefinger to give Sansa away to the Boltons. He wants their eventual defeat, so why give the object of his obsession away permanently?
Exactly, and then later Littlefinger brought an army to defeat the Boltons anyway, so none of that made any sense.
He did it to extablish Sansa as a foothold in the North. He didn't intend to give Sansa away permanently. He expected Stannis to win against the Boltons.
No matter how much Littlefinger claimed to love someone, his ambitions came first. This was addressed at Winterfell when he stood accused of betraying the Stark family.
@@seaofghosts But nothing was done by him. He even saved the North (an utterly absurd concept to launch a surprise attack when it takes one 1000 miles of open terrain to reach Winterfell), and he does nothing. He doesn't seize power, even though his army is the biggest in the region.
This bit broke me
It was supposed to be Jayne Poole disguised as Arya. This must be D&D’s way of changing the script to accommodate Sansa
Jaime is the most egregious to me, because like you explained in the video, his arc was basically complete. Him killing the Night King would’ve been great, but not necessary. But for him to completely 180 from having broken his Kingsguard oath in order to save millions of lives to then say “I never cared about the innocents” is a straight-up butchering of his character.
He could have still gone back to Cersei. But the framing didn’t need to be “she’s hateful and so am I” - he could have simply told Brienne “she’s my sister. I love her,” and possibly even a call back to a quote he said early on in the series, “we don’t choose whom we love.” This makes Brienne’s weeping afterward more in character because it’s not that he’s leaving Brienne, but she’s heartbroken because she realizes Jaime can’t love her and never will.
Honestly I think Jaime would be #1 most done dirty on my list.
Yeah, so frustrating
On that note.. Brienne. Goodness me what sheer insult to her character. She would've grabbed her sword and fight Jamie to the death before letting him go back to Cersei.
He should have killed Cersei. Then his arc would be complete. He was done the dirtiest of all imo.
There was the other obvious ending too, as Cercei herself fakes surrender, opens the door, and plans to blow the entire city up, with the same fire the Mad King did. So Jaime gets to choose between saving the city or killing his twin. Melodrama, times a thousand. But the ending they chose has no weight whatsoever
Jaime’s arc finale is truly tragic writing. He had so much more potential and it all felt undone.
They had that arc in the bag and completely fumbled 😂 It was like they purposely tried to ruin him along with the entire show itself 🤣
This, among many other things, was an egregious mistake. The Cersei prophecy should have been followed and we should have seen Jamie sacrifice himself again for the good of the realm instead we got the shit we got. Dumb dumb dumb D and D.
A satisfying ending to Jamie's arc would have been if he killed Cersei..
@@peepinRAnd the fact they broke their rule of no flashbacks (Bran was an exception) to show that scene and then it never mean anything at all.
"nothing else matter."
Jaime is perfect.
GoT's ending is a masterpiece.
Two things about GoT that get me:
1) Rarely do you see a series especially one built in a fantasy world appeal to such a broad amount of viewers and become a cultural phenomenon which makes the fall to what it became even more impressive for all the wrong reasons. It tapered off as the seasons meandered on but by the time it came to an end *everything* came to an end.
2) It's so bad that it retroactively ruined the series where there's little desire to rewatch it knowing that it ends the way it does and it's a real shame because peak GoT is exceptionally great.
That being said, as much as I hate what it became I am still grateful for it because it's a world worth exploring through spin-offs like House of the Dragon which has been a wonderful treat.
I started the ASOIAF series in 2006. Us book “purists” saw the show going wildly off the rails during season 5, when George R R Martin stopped writing and consulting on the show and D&D took complete creative control. We were told by the massive fandom that we were stupid for our complaints and warnings that the showrunners didn’t have any idea WTF they were doing. Watching the culmination of their stupidity that was season 8 and the disbelief reactions from the fandom was one of the most entertaining things I ever witnessed. The fandom quite literally imploded.
Yeah but it turns out the books are going to let us down too. They may not have a bad ending, but the problem is that they are going to have NO ending, cause GRRM will NEVER finish the books. And so the Song of Ice and Fire will be forgotten altogether, in both book form and show form.
It still hurts after all these years. What a different world wouldve been if it had been a good ending.
But as George writes,
"But it did no good to brood on lost battles and roads not taken. That was a vice of old done men."
- A Dance with Dragons, Epilogue
It does hurt! Every time I get an inkling of may be rewatching, all those memories flood in and i Just cant!
Honestly, a full-on downer ending where the Night King wins and takes the iron throne before freezing Westeros in an eternal winter would have been better than the ending we got. If any series could have pulled off an unironic tragic finale it was Game of Thrones.
Everyone had the chance to work against a common foe, they rejected that offer over their own petty squabbles, and the full tragic ending is just the natural and expected conclusion.
@@dracodracarys2339 nah. It should be bittersweet. A large enough loss but enough hope too
Jaime shows up in the gods woods and confronts the Night King, "do you know what they call me?" Bam! Protects Bran and slays the Night King with Widows Wail the sword forged from the Starks ancestral blade then returns it to the Starks. People would sing songs of him forever.
Yeah, but then how would a woman be shown as more powerful than a man?
@@darkglass1 Dragons and incest.
Disney fanservice dumb idea.
Jaime uses his golden hand to grab the night king's spear when he attacks and gold being a good conductor of heat takes longer to freeze over and shatter giving Jamie time to attack.
Dude it is necassary for the night king to be killed by the dagger. only an assassin is able to kill him and that would be a faceless one as the night king can see everything
Sansa ending up as a Queen in the North makes 0 sense if Bran, her brother, becomes King of the other 6 Kingdoms. One Stark rules independently, another rules the others? I cannot see that being popular for too long. And if Bran uses his powers to foil any rebellious plots, then we get weird commentary on a police state - big brother Bran is watching!
Also, Cersei was never betrothed to Rhaegar. Tywin promised her she would be but Aerys always denied him.
Bran wouldn’t have been king for the rest of his life. IIRC he sets in place a democracy after. Having Sansa secede with the rest of the North as their queen prevents any southerners from lording over them in the future.
That's what I'm saying - D&D wanted a "everybody wins" ending but an independent North with a Stark king of the South doesn't work - ESPECIALLY with how it was set up.
It's like if in our world the US senate elects the Senator of Ohio to be president. Then after all is said an done the governor of Ohio has the state become an independent country. I know my example is crude and historically there are a few decent examples, but as a fantasy it's sloppy.
Literally every Kingdom would demand independence the moment she did, Also wtf isn't there A Stark at Winterfell In the finally?, oh right they kinda forgot.
It's like when you find out coca cola owns all the god damn sodas
Bran has not a lot of power in the South as most weir trees were destroyed down there or never existed (Dorne). He is basically just a kid with no knowledge of politics or running a kingdom because his education and social development stopped around 9 years old to become a ward.
I think the way they could have concluded Dany's character arc without assassinating her character was to just have her simply *intend* to burn just the part of the city where the Lannister forces are concentrated, but in doing so ignites one of the undiscovered caches of wildfire left by Aerys, which then ignites other nearby caches and starts a chain reaction that wipes out the city like he intended. Horrified, she realizes that she will never effectively rule the people of Westeros because they will always hate her and see her as a monster that must be destroyed. From there...things could go a multitude of ways. She could abdicate her claim in Jon's favor and go into self-imposed exile, she could set up the royal elective before returning to Essos and rule the free cities, she could order Jon to kill her so that he could ascend to be the heroic king who slew the mad queen, etc. And this is speaking as someone who didn't even particularly *like* Daenerys.
Or just have her do it without it being "madness."
Sh gave them 3 chances at surrender and each time they refused and killed her child and best friend.
She could have been like, "Eff it! No more Mr Nice Guy it is! We'll do things the old-fashioned way!"
Seeing a character like Jon become tempted with power but still hold on the good within him would’ve been so interesting and really would’ve given a lot for Kit Harrington to work with. I hate that the writers remained stubborn with him and didn’t let him become somewhat harsher as Jon did in the books.
I don't remember where I saw it now, but I think my favourite theory/discussion as to why Arya's story felt so off was because they essentially gave her Lady Stoneheart's story instead. The theory went that Arya's storyline will culminate in seeing what the desire for revenge has done to her mother and choose to end her suffering. That she will give her mother the Gift of death, to put her own desire for revenge to bed. Lady Stoneheart slaughtering all the Freys is almost a certainty in the books, rather than it being Arya, so they just smushed the two storylines together and it ruined Arya as a result.
Also, I have ALWAYS loved the Jaime-kills-the-Night-King theory. It is my favourite. And you saying that part about how it being one of Jon's risky plays that brought Jaime to Winterfell in the first place? Never thought of that before but that's just... chefs kiss. Jaime killing the Night King whilst protecting Bran would've been poetic cinema. Instead they massacred him.
And Arya could even helped Jamie kill him and become a hero without taking anything away from her!
Hearing you say that Jaime should have killed the Night King gave me chills!! That would have been amazing!!
It gives me chills too! Thanks for watching!
@@thegoldman25I was disagreeing with you saying it doesn't make sense to have Arya kill the Night King, (I mean, I'm not married to the idea of her doing it and was open to almost anyone else) I just wanted the books to flesh that whole thing out more. But when you said it should be Jamie Lannister, bravo sir, bravo! That is just absolute poetry. Yes, it absolutely should be Jamie Lannister, the Night King Slayer. That idea completely removed my interference about Arya being the slayer and put me 100% all in on your take.
A S8 alt ending exists where Jaime kills the NK: ua-cam.com/video/KEHnDXfSxn0/v-deo.htmlsi=o9aRG96zxT09Wjl5
Absolutly not. If you want Disney ending without meaning, juste watch Disney.
@@thegoldman25 Sweet Disney summer child. You didnt understand Jaime or GoT.
The suggestion for Jaimie is absolutely perfect. He should have killed the Night King and died while doing it. Would have made him an honorable hero, with an honorable end. This would have also benefited Cerise's arch because now she had truly lost everything and wanted to see everything burn.
That's what I was thinking as well. If Jamie died killing the Night King, he wouldn't be able to experience life as the hero he became. It's poetic justice after what he did to Bran. Also, he wouldn't have been able to build a life with Brienne after they fell in love. That's part of the bittersweet ending GRRM is shooting for.
RRMartin tried for realism. With children dead and her hated and female, well its 100% likely Cersei wouldn't keep army and Lannister and Baratheon lords loyal for a month. Knights were brutal selfish and abandoned leaders without heir instantly... They planned for decades and no heir was huge factor..... Only ummmm Jamie as known Lannister and warrior maybe could grab throne and lock up Cersei if needed, and marry ummm Sansa and agree she rules north and he rest, now that's the only non silly plot. Cersei power was over once children dead, she clearly had no long range future and all lords knew that then. . . . Just ignoring medieval politics robbed last seasons of believability, in season 1 even Ned didn't ask his wife for permission for stuff, and jumping to season 7 and ruling queen was silly.... In the HBO Dragon series even a Queen with dragon and history of fighting on the dragon, and living sons and liked is having issues CAUSE SHES A WOMEN. Cersei in reality as ruling queen is silly they'd rebel and abandon her
@@Nita_Key absolutely
Yes and cerise turns the city int9 a wildfire tinderbox, Danny c9mes on the dragon and accidentally sets the wildfire deposits alight getting the blame for burning down kings landing.
Last season? 7 and 8 were both garbage. Everyone just gives 7 a pass because 8 was so much worse.
True!
Growing up is realizing that the cracks began to show by season 5, and that from 6 onwards it was complete ass.
People gave 7 a pass because it was still hypothetically possible that season 8 was going to be good (or at least passable).
Season 5? I think the first ugly crack was in Season 4 (Asha Greyjoy circumnavigating Westeros to save Theon and then running away from some dogs). Depending on who you ask, decisions made as far back as Season 1 (downplay the magic, shrink Winterfell) condemned the ending since then.
Honestly. I remember being one of the few that went around telling everyone how much season 7 sucked. People were so excited for season 8, but man, 7 left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just knew 8 would dreadful. I wasn't expecting how dreadful it would actually be though.
I just rewatched starting at S4. Bran is a fucking afterthought, They did that to Jon to simply "subvert expectations."
Just a 4th option for Daenarys going mad I've been pondering.
Playing into Drogon being the most difficult to control, in such a populated city, she loses control. Her choice is not burning the city to the ground, it is LETTING it be burned to the ground, doing nothing to stop it and accepting it as the only way.
🔥
That, or having Rhaegal die DURING the siege on King's Landing. Losing another of her dragon children is the last straw and she and Drogon both avenge their fallen brother/child with fire and fury.
I will always watch retrospectives of GoT. I rewatched it for the millionth time with my girlfriend for her first time and even she noticed a change in S5 onwards.
We watched HotD this week and she is relieved there's some good fresh GoT content.
Yes, the mangling of the Dorne faction was the beginning of the end. Not seeing Dorne with Doran, Arianne, Darkstar and the real Sand snakes scheming their own way would've been delightful to watch. And to see them join the rest of Westeros in the fight for Kings Landing and then outright survival would've been more delightful. D and D failed at a hall of fame level that they deserve their own wing.
S5 was the beginning of the end. They abandoned the source material. Lady Stoneheart being written out was the first sign.
S5 was okayish but S6 and S7 felt not at all at that level. S7 howrver added some slinghtly interesting things back. S8 was just a bad end in a lot of ways. A lot of characters out of role. However this is complaining on high level
HotD = GoT = GoT Season 8
Amateurs.
To be fair, Seasons 6 and 7 at least *felt* they were building up to something big, and then...season 8 fails to deliver and gives a disappointing payoff.
My theory always was thar after Cerse's 3 kids die, she and Jamie have another, a daughter. She dies during childbirth, bring truth to the prophecy that a younger, more beautiful queen will strike her down.
She never had anything to fear, all of the pain she suffered and people she killed was for nothing.
That would have been very interesting
That would be very ironic. But child can't be queen so it won't work.
@@SpaceWitch144 children can be queens, a pretty famous child queen died recently.
Ohhh, that’s so good!!!
@@SpaceWitch144 Not of the seven kingdoms... but Jaime's slights being forgiven after enough heroic actions saving the kingdom, and the daughter allowed to go back to Lannisport wouldn't be crazy. There were a million ways to connect the dots creating payoff, but they chose none at all
It’s WILD to me how the writers didn’t even realize they turned both Sansa and Arya into CERSEI LANNISTER. Cersei exploded the Sept with wildfire, killing all in it for revenge, which D&D portrayed as an evil act. Then Arya kills off countless people at once too for revenge just like Cersei did and it’s framed as heroic! You’re telling me EVERYONE under Walder Frey was evil and deserved death?! As for Sansa…Cersei tortures young Sansa in the earlier seasons. When the only thing Sansa was guilty of was being Ned Stark’s daughter. Then in season 8, Sansa argued with Jon and demanded that literal CHILDREN (including Ned Umber) be punished just because of who they were related to. These acts on their own would be okay if Sansa and Arya later faced consequences for their vengeance or they later realized what they’ve become but D&D framed their actions as altruistic. It turns out that Sansa actually DID learn from Cersei after all! Cersei would be so proud of these little psychopaths. Good job, D&D.
rarely do I find a UA-camr that does such a deep character analyses while also offering viable solutions to their development
nice video, mate
I firmly believe that a big reason why people (mistakenly) believe the final two seasons were good is Ramin Djawadi's music. His score for the final seasons of GoT represent some of his finest work.
His music was the one aspect of this show that was consistently on point from beginning to end.
@@sophieamandaleitontoomey9343 agreed, we are so blessed to have him continuing with HOTD
As a really surface level show watcher, I highly doubt it. Some of you really take in the details in the writing, the music, the wardrobe, etc. But in my experience, most people just watch the show. If there is something exciting, that's good enough. Given the fact that GOT had such a serious fan base, it makes sense to me that so many hate the ending. And I bet the people who think it was good are people like me who just watch the show and if we walked away feeling like we watched something good, then we say it was good. I personally doubt anyone who thinks the later parts of the show are good is thinking "But did you hear the music bro" The people who even thought about that were probably aware enough to know how shitty the ending was
@@godwarrior3403 It makes a very big impact subconsciously. Sure they may not be actively thinking about it, but the music was the only part of GoT that was always top notch quality imo
@@godwarrior3403You underestimate the effect of a soundtrack. It can make a scene that's chilling and horrific feel triumphant. A scene can be made funny or depressing just by the soundtrack. It's a huge part of Framing and storytelling that most of us don't notice.
There’s a great line in ASOS where Jaime says “that white cloak soiled me”. This line encompasses Jaime’s story.
when tyrion fed the dragons i was convinced , the show was gonna make him
a secret targaryion
I think Tyrion is the 3rd dragon rider..explains his bond with Jon from the start and Dani and the true reason Tywin hated him..not for being a dwarf, but for not being his actual biological son, but his best friend's son who was obsessed with his wife..
@@kimbervoss3753 i think so too
He might actually be a Targaryen but that’s not even relevant to all the ways the writers destroyed his arc
@@mattfoulgerBC they destroyed everyone's ark , by season 5 . When Barriston died , especially when brianne killed stannis i remember telling myself if stannis dies to Brianne hand im done with the show than season 6 actually was decent and i had some hope in it again . Fun fact i ate mushrooms during season 8 episode 3 and it wasn't dark at all and it was actually ok because of the shrooms for like a few months . i had projectile skeletons flying out my windows all over the corner when i pulled up haha so it actually made it better
"who's gonna ride the third dragon then?"
"oops i kinda forgot. idk, just have him die or smth"
I thoroughly appreciate how you analyzed season 8 by the way the beginning seasons set up the arcs and where the middle seasons fell short in order to get to season 8's conclusion. Well done.
Hearing you talk about these characters - what they were supposed to be and what they became in the show - it's so painful and makes me so sad thinking about what was taken from us :(
these types of videos are the only way i can cope with the ending 🙏🙏 thank you for your service
One notable reason why Arya's character fails is the exclusion of Lady Stoneheart, its clear that her and LSH will cross paths in the books (if they come out). Lady Stoneheart is the epitome of GRRM's Anti War and Anti Vengeance. GRRM writes vengeance in a raw and realistic manner, take Blood and Cheese from FaB for example. Lady Stoneheart's vengeance on the Freys in the books is going to be one of the most horrifically and unjust moments in the books and something that'll make BnC look like child's play in comparison. However because the show cut her out, they amalgamated the Frey vengeance plot point with her without the thematical point of anti-war/anti-vengeance in the books and when it came to S8, uh Oh Arya has nothing to do so they made her kill TNK to just give her something because they cut the Stoneheart plot out
I completely agree about Arya and Lady Stoneheart. Also, Arya's arc in the books points to unfinished business with her mother--book Arya was always relatively insecure about her relationship with Cat and then as her story goes on she feels like her mother wouldn't want her anymore if she knows what she's done, and it's Nymeria who pulls Catelyn's body out of the river for the Brotherhood to find. I really think their stories will converge in the Riverlands and Arya just slaughtering all the Freys in one huge spectacle is what's left of an absolutely critical climax in Arya's whole arc, only with everything that would have made it meaningful gutted out of it.
I hate how gutted SO MUCH from the books that were essential to character arcs. Like I can understand cutting the fat of the book but they just ripped pages out and had characters bumbling around.
Honestly I think Aryas killing of the Freys in the show was unjust too. Its played as this great moment but there’s no way everyone in that family was evil and in the books were even shown that the Rosby Freys all had to be sent away from the wedding because they couldn’t be trusted to betray Robb.
@@scoliosis9478 It was unjust, but the show didn't portray it as such or delve into the unjust nature aspect as the books did/will
Please explain for us laymen what all these acronyms mean?
I think the final season as a whole is the prime example of something (outside of problematic writing, etc) falling under the weight of it's own complexities and ideas. Also probably why Martin is having issues with the final two books, because he's going to have squeeze everything left into those, but also make it clear what the story is truly about and saying.
Also, the final season needed to spread out into a redone season 8, 9, and 10.
I think that as well. I don't think D&D ever really understood it. In beginning they tried and were good at it, but eventually they just cherrypicked certain parts and ignored the rest and in the end it didn't make sense anymore.
@@Ashbrash1998 do you think that's also why Martin is having difficulties wrapping the books? Not just narrative wise, but also thematically? Honestly, I don't know how he'll squeeze what's left into just two books. There has to be an 8th book if he wants do it properly.
Both GRRM and HBO wanted 10-13 seasons (George said it would need at Least 10) but Dumb n Dumber wanted out and refused to hand the show over so they rushed the ending. 4 seasons crammed into 13 episodes.
I think you are right with regards to sticking the landing in the books themselves (which are much more sprawling with more characters and storylines), but I think the show is an example of creator/showrunner hubris. The acclaim D&D got for Game of Thrones earned them a Star Wars trilogy deal and I think them looking to exit the series quickly to work on SW rather than hand the reins to others really had a butterfly effect. The most damning evidence is them turning down a higher episode count for the final seasons. HBO willing to continue to pay for an incredibly expensive show and they said no thank you? One of many bad decisions.
@@Modulater83
I totally agree. D&D let it all go to their heads and didn’t appreciate what they had created and how rare the opportunity was to continue this amazing show to the proper finish line. That show was and will be the biggest cultural phenomenon of their lives, not just the writers but also the main cast as well. They had the popularity, they had the funding, they could have created the best TV show of all time. Instead they squandered a rare opportunity, ruined the show and ruined their reputations along with it. So much for there Star Wars trilogy or any other future projects with HBO.
My biggest pet peeve with Danny is that they purposely made her the bad guy, so that by killing her, the remaining people can be "the good guys."
A big part of the Game of Thrones. The Wheel, is that to stop evil, you have to become evil. Violence begets more violence. Revenge leads to more revenge.
And at the end, they just 'pushed' all the bad mojo onto Danny, and then had her die. Therefore leaving everyone left with clean hands. It felt like such a massive cop-out.
Danny was my favorite character, and I so wanted to see her "do what had to be done," and then when the dust settles, revert back into her more peaceful side. Balancing fire with diplomacy.
And yeah, I felt her violence was justified. I felt like the Lannisters betraying her again and again and again sealed their fate. Not once did I feel like Danny overstepped. There was NO WAY anyone would believe the Lannisters are surrending and not just decoying. Any rational person would be skeptical of their authenticity. There's no way anyone would believe they're surrending.
----------
Another funny, but stupid part of the ending.
The whole realm knew about this oncoming battle. The citizens knew Danny was marching onto King's Landing to blow it up. And for some reason the citizens thought King's Landing was the 'safest' place to take refuge?
Danny wasn't looting and pillaging villages and towns on her march to King's Landing. She came with political ties to the North, and other kingdoms of Westeros. Why the holy fuck did the citizens think hiding away at ground zero was the safest place to be?
==================
I was honestly going to buy an epic collector's edition of the show to support it. But when season 8 came out, they saved me a lot of money. They absolutely tanked it.
That was pretty f*cked up that Sansa kept that information from Jon about having reinforcements for the battle of the bastards.
Here’s a little peak behind the curtain: the night of the Game of Thrones finale, I was actually watching ‘The Phantom Menace’ for its 20th anniversary and I thought everyone was having a great time watching the GOT finale while I was miserable watching TPM.
Turns out we were ALL miserable that night. (I don’t know what’s more unbelievable: ‘The Phantom Menace’ isn’t the most disappointing thing released on May 19th or that there were TWO giant franchise disappointments on the same day 20 years separated from one another!)
That's crazy! And phantom menace isn't great, but imho attack of the clones is the worst prequel film. I just dislike it so much
Endgame came out the same weekend as the long night, I'll never forget that weekend
@@thegoldman25 Endgame was also a far better finale! I saw it in the theatre with friends of mine that week. Infinity war is my favorite avengers film but Endgame is right up there after that. Super curious what avengers 5 and 6 are gonna do but I doubt they'll be as good.
Ok so may 19 is cursed 😂😂😂
Idk our ages but I just went to TPM’s 25 year rerelease and had a great time. The dialogue is horrendous but otherwise it’s great fun. And 4-6’s dialogue was also terrible, and delivery also pretty awful of it sometimes… Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford complained equally that “people just don’t talk this way,” “people just don’t do these things”… I was
Crazy that it's been 5 years. Felt like it took forever for the final season to come out. Now it feels like time's flying by.
I agree. I remember waiting for the next season to come out year at time.
I binge watched Game of Thrones about 2 months ago. Friends have warned me that the show gets worse towards the end and that the final two seasons are completely off the books. While keeping this in mind, I tried to be as objective and unbiased in order not to sway my judgement. And... yeah, D & D can go to hell. There were many moments in seasons 7 and 8 where I ranted out loud how stupid a specific plot point or a choice was. Something that I've not done once in the previous seasons. It's like all the major characters got downgraded by 80%.
28:55, you're right, his story wasn't about killing the Night King. It was about him becoming King since he's the rightful heir!!!
Plot twist : the show's last great season was the fourth
I enjoyed season 5 and 6. But yeah season 4 was my favorite
i'm still a 5 and 6 supporter
@@thegoldman25 sure they were better than the last two but you could already tell things were going off road. + The spirit of the series was changing for something more ''big mindless epic battle yeahhhh'''
Yep
You're right
Tyrion becoming hateful and poisoning Daenerys would make so much sense for both their characters. That would have made GOT peak. Becoming the bad guy didn't harm Walter White's popularity. And it would make sense for Tyrion to play the long game, which would make Varys turn against them. And seeing the destruction would make Jon choose the easier life at the Wall. Then, this would all make sense.
Cercei never could keep power even 1 week after her sons died....... In medieval times every village lord has a small army. It takes convincing most of them you are #1 in line to rule. Robert led a alliance and didn't conquer he just let Jamie kill the king and then the families decided Robert was harmless enough so was a safe choice. Just saying his bloodline and prestige is low and not like the Targareans. With him and his children dead, Cersei had no claim to even having anyone to take over power. This in medieval times means quick rebellion with each village noble who had no good math skills seeing if maybe they could gain independence and stop paying the 25% the upper nobles demanded including Robert.. You need overwhelming by 3x army or great prestige and likability and blood priority, she had neither. In real life there would be half civil war and all travel stopping once last Prince was dead, Cersei with no teen boy offered nothing and would be killed by a Baratheon noble who'd proclaim her a witch and he would grab that province. In the longer term with no Targarean the land would revert back 200 years to 10 independent kingdoms. When Rome fell, or Charlemagne's German empire fell, no one let his wife continue, they broke off with a smile and formed Bavaria, Prussia, Netherlands, N. Italy, Burgundy, and 10 others, without a warrior king you don't keep together half a medieval continent.... Most in westeross probably are different dialect so have no wish to remain joined, the Scots even when they learned bad English still resisted English rule till their Scot King inherited the London throne. . . . That would be cool book, post all princes dead we have 10 lil kingdoms and Dany and Jon need to unify them again..
Dany in Essos saw nobles were not needed, cities had councils and not nobles. This was due to lack of farmland but it still would make her see a huge nobility is optional. She was a crusader. She freed slaves in Essos. In Westeross she would've have burnt the top 5% who leach off rest as aristocrats. She would be Pol Pot. Only that would make Jon consider killing her, he was a northern idiot who secretly loved being a noble, and Dany was takking that away. Medieval times lasted cuz there's always idiots who will kill the reformers and peasants in exchange for feeling mighty and taking over as middle lords to some lying bishop or king. Medieval ways NEVER ended in Europe by choice, the English started the industrial revolution which led to cities and after 1600 the cities became dominant and the nobles just were ignored.. Dany with dragons alone had chance of killing enough nobles, that would be good crusade, all nobles were torturers and taxed half the people made, kill em all, Stark, Lannister, Vale, etc.....
Great video, agree with all points. Tho I want to add one thing in dany section, her inner conflict is very similar to jon's one that of wants vs duty. using fire is a way to get it.
In book1: all she wants is to go "home" , have a family, live a peaceful & comfortable life as a simple girl & not a item to be sold, then she connects the idea of "home" with westroes(saw a thousand red doors). Play's her Duty as khaleesi
book2 : dodging all wrong doors/illusions/temptations to meet undyings one & asking what's the truth.
in book 3: she calls slaves as her children not only cuz she believes she is infertile but she has a whole to be filled with love,care,affection & be connected with others at intimate level which she didn't had. Also she for similar reason tries to Self-love. she could have gone straight to westroes yet instead of flying off ,chooses to rule for her "Duty".
Book 5 : puts aside her desire again for duty.
i also don't think she would burn KL willingly, rather either for coming to terms with her father's legacy, or play with perception against young griff. Making anyone in story "mad" is lazy & in direct conflict with what martin says how he doesn't like Dark lord villians who do evil just cuz or he likes to write abt human heart in-conflict plus missing the whole point of "OTHERS" , be it cersei/dany/bran.
Cersei however would do some mad queen stuff in the book when she burns the tower of the hand with wildfire she is excited and even Jamie saw that Aerys look in her eyes and was freaked out. I hate how they ended Jamie’s story like that when it’s obvious he’s not going back for her in the books.
@@ACinemafanatic yes true but she would have reason to burn KL like Maggie's prophecy or her want for power (iron throne) or want to prove ppl wrong who pited her gender & didn't gave her any chance. Rather than reasoning as just cuz... Or them bell triggered genes moment.
I'm calling no reason or a just cuz reason here lazy, Which is often used for these characters.
When Jaime left Brienne and then said he didn't care about the citizens of King's Landing, I thought to myself; "I have never seen a character get ruined this bad."
Little did I know that the very next episode it would be *even worse.*
An excellent analysis and well discussed. It is great to hear the reasons why and how the characters changed over the series. A superb video!
I love the fact that is has been half a decade later but the hate is still continue to the point that we still have more video paragraphs like this. Very well-deserved. Thank youuu
The "best" thing Danyerys did in the last season was double the sales of Starbucks overnight
Haters did that, not her.
what kills me the most is that, throughout the shows run, i would often restart the series to watch through. before each season, i'd rewatch all seasons leading up to it. but since the show has ended, i have no excitement to go back, because i know where it ends now. season 8 retroactively made every other season a little bit worse, which is wild.
My feelings summed up exactly.
Didn’t think about this until just now, but y’all know the saying from Ned Stark where he’s like “When… and the white wind blows. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” Yet at the end of the series every Stark (by name or not) goes there own way….. Bran’s in King’s Landing, Sansa is in Winterfell, and Jon and Arya fuck off to beyond the wall and west of Westeros respectively. THEY’RE ALL LONE WOLVES AT THIS POINT TF????!??
😂
Ah Game of Thrones its like setting up a role playing game where all the right things where done in the beginning then the torch was passed to a clueless player who chose the worst decisions late game.
Knowing how bad the ending is gives me no reason to rewatch it. Its that awful
My God, your build-up to the possibility of Jamie killing the Night King had me mentally cheering! Also, I agree with everything you've said, and a lot of it really put into words what I've never been able to articulate myself. Great stuff.
Full honesty: when I watched the first season I was almost on cloud-9 on how great it was. Exellent writing, acting etc. And I litterally said "This is gonna break the TV-show syndrom. Every show that starts of great, always gets worse as the seasons keep going. But this will be different!!"
And I've never been more wrong in my life
You and so many people where wrong... Any after five years the last season still make me feel empty and disappointing.
@@lukeluke333lukeluke Indeed. And yeah, same with me! Even though HotD is great (and I certainly hope it will stay that way!!!), the fact that the show still builds up to GoT season 8 really boggles me...
I don’t think the Ramsey season was entirely pointless for Sansa’s character dev. I think it was a necessary step for her to fully appreciate the north and her physical home. Being abused in one’s home then fighting for that home while ending the abusers life was poetic justice to me. Her final move with little finger before killing him was actually using him as a pawn in her game.
Varys was done dirty by S8 and by being ignored in this video.
Considering Jon and the "duty over desire" - it could have also worked the other way around, while still remaining his "character": he doesn't want to become king, as he keeps mentioning, yet his duty is to accept the regalty. In literature tropes, the unwilling ruler is also often portrayed to be the best ruler, so Jon could have become a good and wise king, against his desire to lead a free life, but because his duty forced him to. Also, even though he's a Targaryen, I would have liked it better for his Stark side to be the stronger influence, hence making him a good king.
I love hearing people dog on the final seasons.
An hour of it sounds just what I need today. ❤
Edit: Jamie would be number one on my list. With one sentence they ruined an entire characters redemption. With ONE SENTENCE 😖
Damn never thought of Jamie being the one to off the night king. Man I’m totally here for it.
I can spend an entire day HATING the atrocius final season. I hope someone has a whole group of that or something lol
For real, to this day I don't understand why they even added it. I think the point was to do some sort of "counter" redemption where he actually didn't care about saving the innocent people, only Cersei.
It still doesn't really work, but it could have been an interesting angle if set up properly
32:50 Let me quote Dumbledore here: "It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."
I like your suggestion here a lot.
This is the first time I hear of the Nightkingslayer and its genius! The best take anyone ever had about Jaime Lennister and linked Jon Snow!
Changing Danny’s ending to forcing her to have no choice but to burn down king’s landing and killing innocent people in order to win and in turn causing her to have so much guilt that it drives her mad would have been so much better
I agree with the corrosive themes of vengeance, but to say people who are “just following orders” are implied as innocent… well we had a pretty big trial about that in Nuremberg. They’re guilty by both our’s and Westeros standards
Yeah, I too was wondering why he said that. I get the point that it should be a moral conflict for vengeful characters to consider. The book describes how every male Frey was involved in the plotting of the Red Wedding.
Arya is the character I identify most with and she deserves better. Yet her arc cannot be just a fulfilment of revenge fantasies, she should face growing challenges with every revenge.
I remember watching this entire show after it came out with my girlfriend. She had already finished the show by this point, and every now and then she would mention how bad S8 was, and how I would be impressed at just how downhill it would go.
I thought to myself, it couldn't be that bad right? Everyone's just exaggerating right?
Well... Please let House of the Dragon have a good final season.
Here's to House of the Dragon!
Lol, you're not ready for HotD ending.
cersei was never betrothed to rhaegar. it was proposed but aerys said no. so it never happened.
what i thought was so disappointing with the last 3 seasons was the fighting, going from quick and realistic sword and arrow fights. to huge coriograghed dances where five characters are able to slay small armies in some cases... or the dragon fire burns everywhere and everyone, except main characters. i started singing the" go go power rangers" song sometimes
Please talk about other characters too! You’ve hit the nail on the head with all of these. Would love your thoughts on Bran, Littlefinger , Stannis, Varys, Davos, Missandei, Brienne
Sansa should've tried to manipulate Ramsay, Cersei told her in season 2 a way to manipulate a man is by using what's between your legs and she didn't even do that, D&D just had her get abused. Sansa didn't even figure out that Little Finger was manipulating her against Arya, she had to go ask Bran and Bran showed her the truth, but she was even ready to kill Arya, D&D said it happened in a deleted scene.
A lot of people dont know or acknowledge that. They ("they" being the dumber portion of the fan base) love that arc and think the ending of it was "badass" instead of predictable and bad. He should have included Littlefinger in his list because D&D most definitely did him dirty too.
I didn't like that Littlefinger gave Sansa to the Boltons, makes zero sense, however, I will defend the fact that she was abused. I mean.. it's game of thrones, and Ramsay was a real monster compared to Joffrey. There is no other way, if the showrunners for some reason decided that Sansa marries a Bolton, it HAD to end this way, otherwise it wouldn't be the GOT as we know.
Never thought of it, but Jaimie killing the Night King would indeed be an amazing conclusion.
I’m okay with Jon not getting the Night King kill but…he should have fought him one on one with swords. The dragon fight was cool but we needed a more personal up close fight between them. If it appeared like he was gonna die again and then Arya swooped in that would have been amazing!
Agreed..a tension was built up between Jon and the Night King..they were too aware of each other, too many stare-downs and zero resolution with that..
Yeah..nah.
They could have at least made it a reference to Ned fighting Arthur Dayne. Like have Jon fight the Night King, be about to lose than someone saves him like Howland Reed saved Ned, which led to Jon being found
Omg, specially your Arya Analysis is on Point! I felt that too, Back when the series was on... I was so excited for Arya's Return, and felt what she learned in Bravos, that Not everyone deserves to die, and she can't throw away her Honor, Just as she can't throw away her identify, Just for all of it to be butchered by the showrunners in the next season. The Scene where she Kills the entire Frey Family, was almost as disturbing to me as the Red Wedding, and while so many Others celebrated that Scene and "sweet vengance", I Just thought "Where is the Arya that supposedly wasn't able to be 'no one' and instead supposedly reclaimed her identity? That Girl was Not Arya... She was No one... So all the Trouble she went through by leaving the Faceless Men, felt like time thrown out the window.
It's not about season 8 only, it begins in season 1. In the book, Drogo doesn't rape Daenerys on their wedding night. He spends hours reassuring her and gently urging her to consent. The fact that she falls in love with her husband is no surprise, unlike in the TV series, where Stockholm syndrome is a legitimate possibility. The series' writers never had the slightest respect for the story they claimed to tell. The psychological truth of the characters has always been less important to them than ratings. And that's a shame, because there was no one to counterbalance some of JRR Martin's unfortunate fixed ideas, such as his desire for unpredictability at all costs and his disdain for architecture, which ultimately detract from the cohesion of the work (but at a level far less crass than that of the show's writers).
Would Missandei's murder have a devasting impact on Dany? Yes. But would Missandei herself, even in the face of death, EVER advocate for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children? NO, no she would not. Using Missandei as the flipped switch that finally causes Dany to snap is really fcking aggravating to me anyway, but its doubly aggravating that they destroyed Missandei's character in her final moments in trying to truly justify that snap.
It would have been perfect if whilst Jamie killed the night king, he was weilding the valyrian steel sword Dark sister
I miss game of thrones so bad. Lets hope Hotd continues as good as s1
I’m so grateful for HotD cuz I miss GoT too
@@thegoldman25 I miss it too! Super curious about the tales of dunk and egg show that they're gonna do! I love HotD!
by the end of both shows HoTD will be considered the better of the two shows , clearly and it's because they know the ending and there not gonna diverge from the story . Season 2 of Hotd will be the best season of either show since season 4 of game of thrones and i think it'll be the consensus of the people
HoTD is not even close to early seasons GOT
Hotd is boring. Its just a decently written fantasy show. Its just not bad like season 7-8 of GoT.
This is the best analyse of the show I've seen *by far*! And I've seen a lot of them. I agree with pretty much every thing you talked about
I’ve been fighting for my life in the trenches for my opinion that Jamie killing the Night King would be a satisfying conclusion to his and Jon’s arc! Glad to see someone shares that line of thought :D
I had managed to get over this heartbreak.
Thank you for reminding me...
You are so welcome!
I just want to say, this made me frustrated all over again, then you really reminded my of why l loved the books so much and I agree 10000% with every analysis you make. I think the way you resolve the story archs feels so narratively true to the characters and to GRRM. You have got yourself a new subscriber!
Thank you for the sub!