How does GoT hold up for you since the final season?

I'm actually just finishing up my first full rewatch of the series since season 8 aired. It's still just as enjoyable to watch. Though there were quite a few criticisms I had about the way they ended things, I still love the show as a whole and always will. The fact that the final season was too rushed doesn't change the fact that Game of Thrones is still one of the greatest shows of all time.

 

Seasons 7 and 8 have moments in hindsight, but nothing I feel warrant a revisit the way I do with earlier seasons. Sure, without Seasons 7 and 8, we don't get Jaime and Olenna's final conversation, we don't get Jon meeting Dany, or Brienne being knighted, but conversely, we also don't get Jaime saying that he never cared for the people of King's Landing, innocent or otherwise.

Hell, if I wanted to stretch, I could pretend that this moment in Season 6 is the final moment of the series with Dany and company setting sail for a great battle ahead.

 

I have a lot of love for this show and I'll always have that, but I can't imagine myself ever re-watching season 8 (minus Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) To be honest, I only have the desire to re-watch seasons 1-4, Hardhome and a few early Stannis scenes from season 5, all of season 6, The Spoils of War in season 7 and Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in S8.

It's too soon. I'm still hurt.

 

Season 8 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I hate the finale but it doesn't actually ruin everything. The show still holds up greatly for the most part and that includes up to s7

 

From Season 1-8, the writing and storytelling have always been iffy. Things get introduced or abandoned for like ever.

I think Game of Thrones is a show where the parts are greater than the whole. I can clearly recognize there is genius and amazing work being done in the show in terms of production values, acting, performances, costuming. But there's always been a questionable level of writing to me.

IMHO there's no excuse for how things ended with Littlefinger. That's just bad writing to the core.

I think the other problem is after the show previously would just spend so much time getting to certain places, they clearly just lost patience and needed to rush to the finish line.

Also secondly, there's no excuse for how badly they messed up the White Walkers and the Long Night. The White Walkers were built up as the central main threat of the show. That payoff was terrible.

There's no excuse for "She kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" or "killing all of the Dothraki," oops they respawned. That is peak bad writing and storytelling.

 

The show started going off the rails at season 5. It's pretty clear once they had to move ahead of the novels they either just didn't want to do it anymore, or they never really understood the material to begin with.

 

Season 8 rendered so much of season 1 - 7 pointless that the show has almost no rewatchability for me. Since the show ended, I've tried watching some clips on YouTube of my favorite moments from season 1-7 , but it just upsets me. Even listening to Djawadi's score upsets me.

 

I re-watched all of it recently and my opinion hasn't changed much: seasons 1-4 were great, season 5 was okay minus the Sands Snakes, seasons 6 & 7 had some high points like The Door, The Winds of Winter, Dany landing on Dragonstone, and The Spoils of War but a lot more very questionable or terrible things. Season 8 was extremely disappointing and it's very hard to re-watch, especially episodes 3-6 where D&D completely blew it. They clearly needed more episodes to develop a proper ending and help writing it from GRRM.

 

Okay, I will defend that line not because it's good, but because of how meme-worthy it's become since then.

 

I love Game of Thrones all of the seasons. The last two season where not that bad not even close. I know that D&D get all the blame but the reality of it is HBO shares the blame if not all of it. When it was announced right before season 6 that season 7 and 8 would be the final two seasons. That could only happen if HBO agreed. HBO could have let D&D walk away and brought in new executive producers to take over and even more seasons. However HBO decided to go along with it. To be honest I can't say I blame them. They where pour a crap ton of money in to that show.

The Average Show cost 250,000 to 1,000,000 dollars per ep. Game of Thrones cost 6 million per ep. The last season was 15 million per ep. That is a ton of money. So HBO probably wasn't massively motivated to keep the show going. At the end of the day HBO has the final say not the executive producers.

As for the last two season they could been better but they weren't has horrible as many people make out to be. Everything that happens in the final two seasons makes sense and fit if you pay attention to the show.

To be fair she had a lot going on and she riding a dragon with a lot of things going on around her. So yea it could be very easy to for get about the Iron Fleet. But please share you infinite wisdom as you have tons of experience riding dragons in middle of a conflict.

As for the Dothraki, your making the assumption that all the Dothraki where killed off at winterfell fighting the undead. However she could have divided the Dothraki up and hand moved part of that army some other place. There could a thousand and one reasons why she still had a Dothraki Army at battle for Kings Landing. Your basically over thinking it and making assumptions. Now maybe it need scene to explain that she was going not use the entire Dothraki and Unsullied and had movied them to another location as fall back. Either way it's easy to explain off.

The bottom line is it wasn't as bad as every one makes it out to be. yes could been better think that last two season should have gotten a full 10 ep but it didn't.

Last point I'm gone make and then Ill shut up. They could easily kept the depth of the writing up all way to the very end and then just left the show hanging with no resolution. Every one would been really pissed even more about that then they way they ended it. That is all I'll say on matter.

 

I havent gotten the last season yet and done an entire rewatch if that says anything...

What they were thinking that last season is beyond me. The entire first half could've been a season within itself with the final battle for Kingslanding being an entire season. And of course I am one that feels that Dany dying a villain was wrong and not written or portrayed well.

Still a series overall that I enjoy and hope we get further shows on but the ending was a disappointed for many reasons.

 

Like many I still think seasons 1-4 are great and after that the show is kind of hit and miss. The final season was disappointing but apart from that last episode it wasn't terrible.

White Walkers being defeated so abruptly and in such a simple way was a disappointment. I have, however, come around to not really minding that it was Arya who killed The Night King and that Jon's real contribution was that he had brought the forces of the living together. He helped to save the Realm by being a leader rather than by being a warrior.

Daenerys' descent into the dark side was done pretty poorly. It was rushed and unearned. But I didn't mind that ending for her in itself. That's where I always assumed her story was going. For all good qualities she was always more of a conqueror than a ruler. And her obsession with the Iron Throne as her birthright and destiny wasn't the kind of thing that could lead into anything good in a series like this.

That finale episode, though. In a show that used to have strong internal logic and where actions had consequences, that last episode was just a series of random things that didn't make sense. And it didn't feel like they were even trying to have them make sense. Instead it felt like the showrunners just wanted to get it over with. Which I guess was the case with the whole season but by that last episode they weren't even pretending anymore.

 

I started my first post-book rewatch, but fell off right before the Red Wedding. I hope to at least finish through the end of Season 4 at some point, but there's just SO MUCH to watch.

I think the biggest struggle for me going back isn't the cratering of quality in the show, but instead the comparisons to the books. Season 1 is pretty accurate, though it's disappointing not getting to see any battles. But there are so many things that they changed or cut from seasons 2-4 that make it frustrating. It's still incredible television, but I can't shake that feeling of "Sure, it's great, but it COULD have been so much better."

Especially with Sansa. I get so mad over what they did to her in the show.

 

It hasn't, no. However, I haven't really done a rewatch.

Seasons 7 and 8 were a big step down, however "The Spoils of War" and "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" are among the best episodes of the entire show and are reasons I don't hate those last 2 seasons.

 

It was the last two seasons that provided the upset for me. Those two clowns ruined the final two seasons as soon as they overtook the books.

As soon as characters (like Varys) could teleport between episodes compared to taking an entire season to get from A to B, and as soon as Danni went rogue it all fell apart.

Far too many loose ends too. I dread to think how the spin-off shows are going to go.

 

I won't be canceling Westeros cause Ice and Fire ended poorly. This show will be great!

 

Jon was the biggest disappointment for me. All that buildup for him and he got nothing but "beyond the wall".
Looking back, I would say the hound was my favorite character. He and Tyrion both.
Varys is up there, as is arya.

 

How does it hold up? WONDERFULLY!
See how easy that was?
If you love it, YOU CLAIM IT!

 

I just don't watch the last two seasons and I love the rest. Even if S6 is the first truly mixed bag for me.

 

Like most have already stated I truly enjoyed Seasons 1-4 and just didn't find the story engaging after that. I think for me it was because of the fact that most of the major players who wanted to rule Westoros had died, leaving a feeling that the show lost it's way.

I wonder if book fans feel the same

 

As a book reader, I have to say that I didn't find A Feast for Crows or A Dance with Dragons nearly as engaging as the first three books. As satisfying as the deaths of Joffrey and Tywin were, it's like the series stumbled a bit at that point having lost its main villains. It kind of translated to the show a bit too since I thought season five was the weakest until the final season came along. Everything seemed to screech to a halt to reset the table. I still loved Hardhome, as well as the last couple of episodes of 5.

 

Personally, AFFC was one of my favorites in the series. (I'm just now starting ADWD) But I'm a sucker for character studies and world-building. I think the roughness of the transition is largely due to the limited POV nature of the books. Had the show seriously meant to adapt those storylines, they could have introduced Dorne earlier, developed the Tyrells more, made Asha/Yara a more important character earlier on, etc... and it wouldn't have seemed as abrupt.

 

To clarify, I've read each of the books twice and I did appreciate AFFC and ADWD a little bit more the second time. My first read-through was after season 1 aired and my second was after season 7 aired. I especially enjoyed books 4 & 5 more the second time because I now had more of a frame of reference thanks to the show. The sheer amount of new characters GRRM threw out there in books 4 and 5 was daunting during my first read-through. For me, A Storm of Swords being so epic in scope was a tough act to follow.

 

I definitely get that. I came to the show late and didn't start the books until after it ended. So I went in expecting the flood of new characters and storylines (and excited for them, since they were largely unspoiled by the show) and I'm sure that perspective biased me. That and, like I said, I adore the world-building in series like this, so getting to go to Dorne and Oldtown and the Iron Islands was a blast. The AFFC prologue is one of my favorite chapters in the series.

I certainly agree that ASOS is the best in the series thus far, though.