Yeah, nah, Round 1 was much much worse.
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Well, I appear to be almost a lone hand here in that I thought the ending was just about right. So much of this was set up in previous seasons.
Bran almost had to be King, he is the one that can see the past, the present and the future and bring about the peace that they all want.
Dany had to die, and it had to be at Jon’s hand. If nothing else this story has been about lost loves, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands wives and friends. He could never recover from this and rule, his code of honour would never allow it. He says as much when he quotes “Love is the death of duty”. In his case, he had to decide which was his greater love, Dany or his sisters and his country. It would have been the only way he could justify to himself what he did. And she was clearly in that mad realm, where her power had finally corrupted her irrevocably.
Jon had gone native in the North so only appropriate that he leaves Castle Black with the wildlings, the assumption being he will never venture south of the wall again, synbolised by the closing of the gate.
Arya was never the type to settle down and conform, has been obvious from the very first episode. Leaving to see what was west of Westeros may be a bridge to far for many, but what place does she have in a peaceful world? She is an assassin and there is no place for her in the world Bran can create.
Sansa from the very first episode has always wanted to be a queen, she was never going to bend the knee to Dany or Bran once she had a taste of power, which she got the moment John left to get Dany and the dragon-glass.
Tyrion was always going to end up hand to the King, because the one real flaw in his powers of reasoning, Cersei & Jaime, are now dead. He no longer carries the burden of them in his decision making and has seen the best and worst of kings and queens. Who better for the job?
I must admit, at the very end I would have liked to see all the wildlings vanish into the trees before cutting from the scene and sure they felt a bit rushed, but they couldn’t go on forever. Once you get over your initial disappointment you will long look back at this series as a defining moment in television history. This was a fantasy story that took the world by storm. It had production qualities never seen before outside of a movie theatre. It became the most pirated item in the world and still made hundreds of millions for the studio and will make even more in syndication now. It was a phenomenon that may not be seen again for decades.
Life for all of us who watched this show religiously has just changed forever. No more waiting for the new season or a new episode, no more wondering if a favourite characters is going to meet a sudden and decisive end. I for one will miss it greatly.
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I thought the ending and the story line to get there was good. Like most others though, how they got there seems to be the issue. Based on the first 5-6 seasons, what we saw occur in season 8 could have spanned at least 2 seasons. I know a few have (probably rightly) pointed out that in past seasons there were several different plot lines which would extend out episodes/seasons but imo there were still enough to do similar in season 8, or at the very least explore smaller relationships/plot devices. Weird comparison but Avatar Last Airbender did this really well in the second half of the third season once all the different characters/plots merged into one (although admittedly they did diverge out again over the last 2-3 episodes).
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Loved Avatar, but animation is far less demanding on actors. Come in say their lines disappear. No take after take after take in demanding conditions. No having to worry about maintaining a certain appearance.
Ultimately for me, the ending was much like the story, nothing ever seemed to happen quite the way you wanted it to, but it made this series what it was.
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Good write up @Lifetime_ban. .
One thing I do/did like re the ending is, it has been left it open for more. (if they want)
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I didn’t hate the end, although it seemed a little jarring after Jon did the deed, no one seemed to care as much as I thought. Wtf happened to the Dothraki?
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I thought the finale was underwhelming just like the whole final season. A two year wait for this and to me it just did not deliver like I thought it would.
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An interesting thought has occurred to me.
Do we know that the Night King is the only walker created directly by the Children Of The Forest? ie could they have created more and thus the possibility of their return?
Recently I got a couple of friends watching GOT for the first time. After each episode one of them would try to predict what would happen next. They were always wide of the mark, sometimes very wide. l never gave away any of the twists, and all l said was
"nothing ever goes the way you think it will, it is better than anything you can imagine. To be able to maintain that same trait for 8 seasons is nothing less than brilliant and astonishing. We will never see it’s like again, ever, it is the greatest of all TV series, with daylight to whatever is next.
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Agree with you.
I thought it was great.
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Obviously loved the series, didn’t like the last episode. I just kept waiting for that something…something…nah nothing. I don’t know what I was waiting for, but it didn’t happen.
I’ll just leave this here though…
“Don’t fight in the north or the south. Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend, every possible series of events is happening, all at once. Live that way, and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before”
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Call me a big old softy, but I loved it.
All of it.
At one point I though there was going to be another big, horrible battle, even more senseless than the last. I’m glad that didn’t happen. I think the point had well and truly been made.
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This big softy loved that John and his Wolf got together again!
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neck it, trolley lover boi.
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In addition to the starbucks cup fiasco.
Not as bad, but it seems as though Jaime spontaneously regrew his severed hand just in time to die.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/f/f1/The_Bells.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20190513045458
It matched the spoilers that were released.
Oddly enough, I didn’t mind it. Maybe it’s acceptance.
I don’t love it, but it was better than what I read.
I have no issue with how they got to the ending. But it needed to stretch over more episodes if not seasons.I wanted to see Jon agonise over whether he should kill the Queen. Instead, it seems like he made his mind up within a morning.
I also find it odd that the Unsullied, Drogon and the Dothraki couldn’t really give a ■■■■ that their Queen was killed.
I don’t think Emilia Clarke pulled off the ‘Mad Queen’ well in the last episode. Maybe she needed to darkern her hair and be a bit more wild. Her dialogue at the throne seemed more like a ‘misunderstood Queen’ than a ‘Mad’ one.
Not happy with the choice of the King but I’m sure Martin will build towards it a lot better.
In a nutshell, not as bad as I thought when I stumbled across the spoilers after episode 5.
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Just finished watching episode 6.
I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with @Lifetime_ban.
I loved just about every minute of this show, from episode 1 of season 1 all the way through to the final episode today.
It’s easy to find fault if you need to but I’m just going to sit back and appreciate the fact that I have been well and truly entertained for eight brilliant seasons by the (imho) greatest show to hit the tv screens
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Look - there’s no denying it was the best adventure ever witnessed via a TV show.
But their impatience to wrap it up really short changed it after all those seasons of great work.
The best of GOT was the drama in between the battles - they had enough material to work with to build up to a great finish over a few more episodes.
It was all too sudden - the meeting between the houses - people we hadn’t seen for ages were suddenly there for a few minutes deciding on the end game - it would have been good to engage their characters a bit to make us care about them again.
As someone said above - too much didn’t make sense.
First, the dragon would have torched Jon for killing his mother, Grey Worm would have been compelled to kill him to honour his queen and don’t mention the Dothraki.
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Yep, the reaction to Dany’s death was non-existent - bit of a fail there. I took it already that the dragon was more intelligent than the average lizard, but still…