I can tell you that Game of Thrones is phenomenal, visual beautiful, fantastic, exhilarating and action-packed thrilling rollercoaster that in many ways has not been seen yet in a tv show. I could say that and be absolutely right about it, but unless you have been living under a rock without an internet connection for the past 2 years than no doubt you already heard, seen or read for yourself what a masterpiece the books and/or this tv series is.
Game of Thrones is exactly like the title says: A game for the throne. Played by the people who think its their right to claim, conquer or inherit it. They all have different goals and different ways of getting to that point, but their goal is in essence in one way or another the same for all of them: to be recognized and remembered for their deeds. Off course that is not so weird since everyone in real life at some level thinks like that. But the main characters in Game of Thrones are different, either through noble descent, the power and money they have, intelligence or sheer luck they have become a member of one of the noble houses that rule the countries and can decide the fate and lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people within the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos.
The story, setting and characters are all taken from a broad range of European history. Most of what we see of the continent Westeros (castles and tournaments) is taken from High Medieval Western Europe from around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. But the story takes bits and pieces from other time periods as well. For example the wildfire that was used in season 2 in a brilliant strategic move of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister during the Battle of the Blackwater is in fact Byzantine "Greek fire" which was invented and first used in the 7th century during battles between Muslims and Byzantines. This and other historical events, devices and characters based on real people out of history are all as it seems perfectly interwoven into each other into the fictional world of Game of Thrones by the author of the books George R. R. Martin.
For the actors who play the characters i have nothing but utmost respect. The performance they manage to show episode after episode is definitely what makes this tv show so popular. There is one in particular that without a doubt is one of the more popular stars of this tv show: Peter Dinklage who plays the role of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister. In the 1st season he was portrayed as nothing more than someone who took advantage of his noble status and money to do whatever he wanted. But in season 2 (and hopefully the next seasons too) he transformed despite his disadvantage of being born as a dwarf (who during medieval times and in this fictional world are considered "lesser" humans) into a brilliant military and political strategist and someone who can very good and enjoys as he so very accurately said himself "play the game".
Game of Thrones is without a doubt the hit tv show of this decade. It started out with a story about medieval times, but slowly with every episode we see the world of the Seven Kingdoms transform into a place where mythical creatures exist, magic and dark powers are used as a weapon against enemies and where the dead are once more walking again.... Winter is coming, and i have no doubt it that it will be as spectacular and story-wise phenomenal as we have have seen in the previous seasons.
This is like Mass effect games. Mostly amazing, sometimes disappointing...with an ending that ruins the entire ride.
First 4 seasons were really good, 5 and 6 have their problems but 7 is when it gets a lot worse. (Season 8 doesn't exist lol).
Don't think I would ever rewatch this because I know how terribly it ends.
And NO WAY I'm hearing anyone out who says this is better than Breaking Bad, that show was perfect from start to finish. How are you gonna compare BB to a show, that has 8 seasons and the writing goes to shit after 4 seasons?
Fantastic Brilliant and Awesome to watch from start to End
Gonna give this a shot over the weekend. Heard so much about it.
OMG reading the books now.
Don't waste your time with this.
I have seen season 1,2 and 3. But I can't get myself to continue. The series is beautifully made, it really is. But I just can't seem to get into the story.
I had to downgrade the rating form 10 -> 9 all is because of Season 8, this is how you almost ruin the best show in the world...!
Chapeau Breaking bad :)
I still don't get it!
And here it is: the end of the biggest television show of all time.
Seasons 1-4 are (close to) perfect.
Seasons 5-6 are where some of the cracks start to appear, with some filler episodes that don't build a lot of character. However, they're still great seasons nonetheless.
Seasons 7-8 are good, not great. They have certain pacing (rushed developments, teleportation of characters) and writing issues (plot armour, unsatisfying & unearned conclusions etc.). It is especially the level of production that elevates these seasons above average television.
Am I also unsatisfied with how they handled certain characters at the very end? Absolutely.
Do I think, however, that they mostly stuck the landing? Yes.
S1: 9.5/10; S2: 9/10; S3: 9.5/10; S4: 10/10; S5: 8/10; S6: 8/10; S7: 7/10; S8: 7/10
Overall rating: 8.4/10
Peak show ( S1-4 are the best piece of media )
Seasons 1 to 4 were arguably among the best TV ever created. But the show steadily went downhill after they went past the books and it became clear the writers were in way over their heads. Seasons 5 and 6 were decent, season 7 was bad, and season 8 was one of the worst seasons of television ever put to screen. Just unbelievable. D & D should seriously rethink their career choices after that finale.
First 4 seasons, perfect narrative, dialogue and consequence. 10/10. Seasons 5 and 6, complete dip in all around quality with enough published foreshadowing and plot points from George to get by. 7/10. Seasons 7 and 8, dumpster fire with zero narrative consequences, no consistent character action nor any redeemable arc conclusions. The cinematography and production earns the entirety of the final seasons 4/10. Impossible to give this "complete" story anything above a 7. Completely betrays the characters and the audience.
"Last season sucked!"
"The end sucks!"
Sorry, I prefer to be positive and as someone who is involved in the creative work as a writer I think that they made their best. You can have your opinion, that's mine!
An amazing show tainted by disappointing deviations from the source material and two absolutely awful last seasons. Bad last seasons will always ruin a show for me if the show is intended to portrait a continuous story with ever evolving characters and plot lines. The ending is as important as the beginning if you are trying to tell me a story. The ending of Game of Thrones was a joke, some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed on TV, the show was ruined and honestly at this point I just want to forget about it. The fans deserved better. George R R Martin deserved better. The people that worked on the show deserved better. It's what you get when a show is made hostage by two horrible writers that are in a hurry to ruin Star Wars next. I honestly wouldn't recommend this show to anyone anymore unless they don't mind getting massively disappointed with the last 20 episodes or so.
If you enjoyed the finale, power to you, but this is my opinion. Game of Thrones is a show I don't intend to watch ever again. Hopefully HBO wont ruin the prequels/spin-offs although I don't think I care anymore.
After reviewing the 8 seasons individually and averaging my personal scores it gets a 7.4 out of 10 from me, it's a shame because the first four seasons were close to being perfect.
I really don't understand why this is so popular. It's boring, horribly slow, the story repeats itself again and again, terrible acting.... Why? Oh I really tryed watching it, thinking "it must be me; it must be good; do your best; make an effort", but I after season 1 I still couldn't find anything that entertained me, not even a bit. It just annoyed me. So just keep the hype going without me!
the most boring thing ever
Plot (Story Arc and Plausibility): 9,2/10
Personal Enjoyment (Premise & Entertainment Value): 9,6/10
Acting (Characters Performance): 10/10
Cinematography (Environment, Setting, and Wardrobe): 10/10
Editing (Pace & Effects): 9,5/10
Music and Sound (Sound Design & Film Score): 10/10
Story (Vision & Execution): 9,9/10
Characters: 10/10
Protagonist: 9/10
Antagonist: 9,5/10
Deuteragonist: 10/10
Ending: 3/10
Season 1. 9/10
Season 2. 10/10
Season 3. 9,3/10
Season 4. 10/10
Season 5. 9/10
Season 6. 9,4/10
Season 7. 9,3/10
Season 8. 6,5/10
Overall Assessment: 9,3/10
Best moments are S1-S6 . Skip s7 and s8
Perfect series but the 8th season is a huuuuuge disappointment
Create a character you root for, kill him off, rinse and repeat. Sure, it is technically, as in acting and special effects, a good show but the story is just crap.
Big loss... it was one of my favourites until sixth season. I really loved it so I'm really disgusted because they basically ruin it... they had a great story, great actors... great all! And at the end they fucked it.
"Game of Thrones" is a dark fantasy story about the way in which power corrupts, and everyone, even our biggest heroes, fail us. It is fantasy, but it is adult fantasy. Highly political, violent, dark, and sexual. What makes "Game of Thrones" so great though is that it has created an incredibly epic fantasy world, but still seems so similar to our own. Most of the show is about human desire, and what they will do for love, power and sex. "Game of Thrones" is full of great writing, fantastic character development, awesome build up, and powerful, intense scenes of action, suspense, and emotion. Unfortunately, "Game of Thrones" falls completely off a cliff when it hits season 8, which likely is the only reason it got a 9 instead of a 10 for me. I understand why for some people this ruined the show, but for me, seasons 1-7 were probably the best television I have ever watched (or very close to), and to me, "Game of Thrones" remains an amazing accomplishment.
Have really enjoyed this show. Recommended for sure
This show could have been my favorite if it wasn't for the unfortunately bad final season
A a a a a 89
Finished series the night it ended.
first few seasons are an 11/10, just astounding world building and enthralling characters. the ending definitely screws the pooch and frankly almost ruins the entire thing, but it's still worth a watch
If it wasn't for the last season, this could have been the goat.
It really hooks you on. The story, the characters.. Everything was perfect, until the end got too confusing me to handle, no idea why they eventually decided to go that way with the ending. Anyways it was a blast watching this.
They managed... by the gods, they managed to fuck it up!
I didn't give this show a chance until recently because I've never been a huge fan of the genre and I heard the last season sucked. What a mistake! A little context - I tend to like dramas like Mad Men or Better Call Saul. I despise shows that have limited backdrops (zombies, vampires, etc) and I've never been a fan of movies like Lord of the Rings.
Season 1:
The opening scene of the first episode gives you a false idea about what the next several seasons are about. The season is generally good and then late in the season you get your first feel for how the series is going to go for you.
Seasons 1 - 4:
The show settles in to a nice pace and there are ebbs and flows along the way. Some storylines are better than others but I can say there are few bad scenes
Season 5:
I started to get a bit itchy. The season is very good but because there are so many storylines it feels like the plot is moving forward ever so slowly. This series really could have gone on forever if they wanted it to.
Season 6:
We start to see the end in site and storylines start to converge (or end)
Season 7:
And then it happens. All of the sudden the episodes went from "this is really good" to me wondering if I could call in sick tomorrow because I want to binge the rest of the season. It really is that breathtaking. It really was a joy to see the storylines come together and to see actors who had not acted together in the series working together. But more importantly, you began to see the results of all of the setup that had been done in the previous seasons. There is probably a stretch of 10 - 12 straight episodes that are just ridiculously good.
Season 8:
There are few shows where you feel like you are losing an old friend when it ends and this show ended up being that for me. I could not imagine that I would ever feel that way about it. Anyway, I can't fathom why this season is so reviled. The finale was only "good" given how poor series finales tend to be I was happy with that. The ways that the stories wrapped up were true to the overall series. I can't imagine what people expected - more fighting? The show was never about that. Anyway, I felt a huge weight off of my shoulders during a certain episode ended - I can imagine that others did as well. It may not have reached the heights of Season 7 but it was still really good.
Overall I would put this series in the same place as Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul.
Cast 10/10
Storytelling 10/10
Characters 10/10
Video Prouduction/Cut 10/10
Environment 5/5
Conclusion 3/5
Without season 8 = 96%
Brilliant and unmissable show until the final season where they wrecked years of work. final season seemed rushed and botched, disappointing.
The first 6.5 seasons were really great, often truly amazing. The last 1.5 seasons were poor. The last 1 season was terrible. The last 0.5 season was just an utter disappointment that made me really sad. Overall, still one of the best TV series in the world.
For me, it's the best show ever even with the sharp decline after they ran out of original source material
Trainwreck...
(Don't mind me, just thinking out loud)
Somebody asked me,"should i watch it? i hear the last season was awful". You absolutely should. The last season is bad mostly by comparison and by its own high standards, but the series was declining in quality since it stopped following the books, so it was expected (for me at least). This is the greatest fantasy series ever and one of the greatest of any kind. A must watch.
With already way over 300 comments I am not sure one more will matter but I make the effort anyway.
I've waited 5 years, until the show finished, to watch it in one piece. I actually managed not to know anything about the plot. But, all the time wondering: will it be worth it? From where I stand the answer is a confident "NO". Every season I was looking to convince me to continue until I finally couldn't any longer in season 4.
The production, without doubt, is probably one of the best ever done for TV. That I will like to admit. The cast is splendid. But the story could not get me excited in any way. Half of the time it was interesting while the other half is more like a highly praised soap opera (yeah, call me names but I stand behind that).
Reading how the show ended and what even the ones who love this show think about it, I guess I made the right decision. I don't know of another show that has such a drop in the avarage ratings for it's final season.
Well, there are many other things to watch now.
season 1: good adaptation of a good book. great casting. 8/10
season 2: massive drop in quality. many character arcs butchered. at least the broader strokes are fairly accurately adapted. 6/10
season 3: bad adaptational choices continue but generally the character arcs are better. 7/10
season 4: the material being adapted is the best so far but the adaptational choices are the worst as well. 6/10
season 5: why. why would they adapt two of the most complex books in the series in 1 season. everything is rushed and terrible. jon's story is the best of these but it's still vastly inferior to the book. some truly baffling adaptational choices here. 3/10
season 6: on the surface this is a step-up in quality... but this season feels incredibly artificial. there is so much fanservice crammed in here that it's borderline offensive. this show doesn't resemble george's story anymore. this is an incredibly overrated season. relies on "wow!! cool moment" to mask how fucking vacuous it is. 4/10
season 7: lmao what the fuck is this. this is awful. this is bad fan fiction. absolutely shameful. 1/10
season 8: one good episode. at least we got the broad strokes of the ending if george never finishes asoiaf. funny how people only started noticing the show's problems in the final season. seriously? it's been bad for 4 seasons and season 7 was worse. something tells me that people are just angry they didn't get the fanservice ending they wanted. not that im gonna defend this season, its terrible, but its better than season 7 at least. 2/10
Amazing if you only watch Seasons 1-3.
Anyone who down play this show is mental. The show was epic. Start to finish. Standing ovations to everyone who lived and died. It left me wanting more but content with what I GOT.
Great Show but the last season broke the show, that why i changed my vote from 9 to 6. All nice little hints and stories became broke in the season so this show was a real disappointment for me.
I hate having to wait to watch next episode :exploding_head::exploding_head:
as a big fan have to say it is probably the worst episode I've seen
One of my favorite shows. I'm sad this is the last season.
Winter is here. If you haven’t watch this series, watch this series
sorry I don't get the hype, maybe because I'm European and tits and ass are nothing special here lol
cersei lannister did nothing wrong
I love Cersei so much.
Is ok
I thought this show was massively overhyped. It looks amazing, but I can't say I really care about any of the characters.
Funny, in case of Breaking Bad I am actually one of those people claiming it's sort of the best drama in television history and can't understand most of the criticism that it gets from the "haters" (you know the drill).
While in case of Game of Thrones I am on that other side, the "haters" side, I assume.
Generally spoken, I am genuinely interested in plot driven shows where you have a complex society and their circumstances explained to you. In lack of a better example, I enjoyed the anime MAOYU (Maoyuu Maou Yuusha) a lot. It focused on the improvement of society in a middle age like time. That involved for example trades for profit as well as for political pressure or education for the common men to improve the live of all. Compared to GoT it was obviously much simpler but you hopefully get the point that I am not condemning GoT for what it is or tries to be.
I just can't get into this show. I get where it is coming from, the scenery is actually really good, costumes are very well made, some likeable characters but all that is left after watching an episode are the basically countless breasts, some pointless violence, profanity and a lot of confusion due to the cutscenes that you see in every episode and the sheer endless amount of characters. Cutscenes from one house and plot to another. Because of that it feels like it's not moving forward at all and as a watcher I feel tortured and bored to death with all the unnecessary anecdotes, side characters and sideplots not bringing anything to the table.
The whole show tries way too hard and puts too much into the pot to attract as much people as possible. Sex, nudity, portraying women almost only as whores or otherwise pleasure material, incest, profanity, violence, partly even gore, all kinds of characters mixed together, great scenery, outstanding props/environments.
As soon as something starts to make just a bit sense another cutscene and you're left hanging in the air until you forgot where you were or what happend before until you get back, resulting in you not caring for a single or at least most of the characters.
Having partly awful actors doesn't help this show either (the guy playing Viserys Targaryen for example, wow is he bad). Actors who rigidly recite their text with almost no (plausible) emotion in voice or facial ex-pressi-on (basically every private scene of Eddard and King Robert).
In addition it seems like this show is on of those where you have to prepare before watching it to be able to follow it, like reading up on Wikipedia, the books, searching for a relationships chart (which I did, cause I lost track of all the connections pretty fast) and the like.
Concluding I must say as a TV show this one fails big time (for me). It's bad. Really bad.
After watching 5 episodes, that are roughly 5 hours, a sixth of the whole show for now I can't watch another episode.
Getting back to the hater thing, I can't leave this being unsaid: It's a hilariously overrated show.
Maybe I am going to take the risk and read the books instead, in some years when the hype is over. Instead of watching this I rather waste my time on Homeland that picked my interest from the start and was actually able to make me care about the characters.
Out of all the fan theories that circulated over the years, you would be hard pressed to find one that was dumber and more disappointing than what the actual final season turned out to be. You would be better off watching Cats the movie in its place, because then you would at least be able to laugh and cringe rather than feel immeasurable disappointment and emptiness.
If you can stop yourself from watching the entire show, you might do well watching seasons one through seven and picking your favourite fan theory to close out the series. Truthfully, even seasons five, six and seven were weaker than the first half of the show, but at the time it seemed forgivable because of the show's strong beginning and the expectation that everything would tie together nicely at the end.
Those foolish enough to watch to the end will be faced with an experience similar to the five stages of grief and loss as they make their way through the final episodes. Denial that this episode is actually part of the series and not an out of season April Fool's joke. Anger that you let yourself get so invested in this show after refusing to get on the bandwagon for so many years. Bargaining, that these were fake episodes to "subvert your expectations", or that the season could be remade. Depression, that this is actually the real thing and it somehow turned out so poorly. Finally, acceptance. Just an empty feeling, no anger or sadness over increasingly stupid and illogical scenes and outcomes. Just coming to terms with this really being the end of the show and this somehow managing to get released.
It comes together about as well as a project finished in the last hour of the last day before a deadline, despite having had vast resources to pull from over the two preceding years. The only remotely redeemable aspect of the final season is the endless amount of hilarious critical reviews and memes that come at its expense.
As for the rating, it would be unfair to give a give a 1 the entire series as a whole because of the incompetence of the writers in the final season. The series did start strong and everyone involved in the project aside from the writers obviously invested a lot of time and quality work into the show. The acting, music composition, cinematography, editing, visual effects, etc. all ranged from great to amazing.
Started watching this since it was often trending on trakt. Great show. So thanks trakt!
Can't wait for season 5!
i can’t fucking breathe
This show is awesome. The story line, background and characters are phenomenal. love it
last season( season 4) was 'quiet', seems this one is starting off well. i'm already looking forward to the 3 powers battling for the iron-throne.
At one point in time there was no Game of Thrones. Shudder.
I have never been so bored watching a tv show. Even The Sopranos was better than this, and that was bad!
This is one of the best I've ever seen on TV!
Gripping from start to finish. A must see :-)
Honestly one the most brilliant shows of ALL TIME
I watched the first 3 season's when they came out as well as reading the first two books, this show and the books are overhyped and complete non-sense. Now I've given it a chance and watched all 8 seasons, and my opinion of the show is the same... each season has 1-2 episodes that are good with both action and solid story telling... GOT for me is a fantastic character study with very bad and bland world building.
I honestly wish I liked it more, but it doesn't hit a standard of writing I'm use to with fantasy realms like this.
I know i know the final season is pretty bad...... This does not take away how amazing the show is overall. I just recently rewatched this entire series again and was shocked with just how good this show was. I would honestly recommend rewatching it.
A show that left me waiting every minute for the next episode for the past 9 years, binged watched Season 7 in one night leaving me in a zombie state the next day but well worth it. Seeing the end coming had me anxious and we would religiously watch each episode of Season 8 as it is released, and the episodes were damn good. It was so good it brought people who are not into this Genre to love it and be invested in it as the story unfolds
The ending is not what I was expecting, and I was left unsatisfied and wanting more. I still loved every season of the show but for a show that always set the standard high, it wasn't what I was expecting at the end for such a phenomenal show which was true thrilling roller-coaster. I'm trying not to ruin it for anyone with a spoiler but I loved this show and still do even with the ending that we saw
Lets hope that a show can match the story telling of Game Of Thrones, with an ensemble of fantastic actors, amazing visual effects, and fantastic story telling to fill this void at HBO
#GOT #GameOfThrones #TV #2019 #Seaon8 #NoSpoilers #HBO #GeorgeR.R.Martin #KingsLanding #Books #Fantasy
Many episodes are really boring, especially in the early seasons.Some other are really good but they are not so musch, however is highly overrated
The best Serie that ever existed.
The most beautiful, interesting and amazing TV series for me. I love it. Also I wait the 8 season
could not stop watching burnt up 9 days
everything ends up being women in power
This is the first show ever to make me go from a 9/10 for the first 5 seasons to a 10/10 for the sixth one!
There will be a before and an after Game of Thrones in television history. Must watch! And several times!
Read the books as they came out, I find this to be extremely well done and a mostly faithful adaptation of the books. The real heroes are the casting people and the art direction, I honestly can't think of a single casting decision I disagree with and feel as if the books have come to life.
Undoubtedly one of the best series I've ever seen. Everything on the show is amazing, the way the director adapted the book for the cinema was spectacular.
Epic series!
My best recommended TV show ever.
Excuse me, but what exactly happened in season 2 through season 4? In every season there was one interesting episode, maybe two. Season 1 was the best in my opinion; each episode was thrilling and exciting. I could't wait for the next episode. Now when I watch it I literally fall asleep.
Khaleesi and Jon Snow are just as beautiful as they are boring. Yes, Daenerys is a strong and powerful woman, but all she does is talk and even though she moved a lot the past seasons, her character is static. On the other hand, what Jon constantly does is training. Nothing exciting about that. Still, "The Watchers on the Wall" episode was one of the two interesting episodes of season 4.
The same happens with another show that started amazing and now there is almost nothing interesting in it: The Walking Dead.
Hate me if you want but my words are not untrue.
One of the best show I've watched in a long long time. The story isn't as typical as the American tv and movie stories we are accustom to. I am sick and tired of the white American super hero coming to save the day bullshit. In this show you shouldn't expect anything else but least expected. I love it. I mean look at it's rating. Unbelievable. Great plot. Great casting. Great writing.
Worst show of all time. Fantasy garbage with that typical HBO porn trash flare. Pass on it or just hate watch it. Very poor show.
For christ sake, more and more stuff different than in the book :/
I need to get caught up on the books before the season finale. This show is awesome!
Surpassed my expectations.
for show the best show on television right now.
i read the books ages ago when i was a kid and the show does it wonders!
its incredible how often they are word for word from the book when they speak just goes to show how awesome a writer George R.R. Martin is.
for those who loved to read the books of George R.R. Marin: The tvshow has the same awesomeness!!
It is well worth sticking with, it won't take long to get used to all the characters and the story is easily one of the best I've ever read. It looks like they've knocked it out of the park with the adaptation so if it gets the backing it should, it should start knocking shows off the top of Top 10 lists pretty damn soon.
Was a great show, until it wasn’t.
The Stark mongrels all deserved to be deskinned just as much as all the Lannister subhumans. That's about all I have to say about this show. Sansa Stark may have been the most vile of them all. Everyone knew what the Lannisters were, but she connivingly worked her way into an undeserved seat of power. She should've had her skull bashed in, instead. At the end, the people of color and a woman win two wars and bring peace to the realm, and the whites decide to betray and murder the woman, and tell the people of color that they'll die, if they enforce justice for the murder of their queen. They should've slaughtered all those white mongrel subhumans right there in the dragon pit, starting w/ the Starks.
this show is simlply great
The ending is good, actually.
5/5 Rating for the entire series and overall review: A show like this was always going to end in a way that wouldn’t please everyone, but Game of Thrones really polarized viewers and critics alike with how everything got wrapped up. Like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it became very trendy to just dismiss it all as unequivocally rubbish. But like that infamous Star Wars film, the truth of Game of Thrones is more complicated and not as bad as some say. Overall, this is without a doubt one of the best series ever made, and one I was majorly obsessed with throughout the past decade. Pretty clearly seasons 1-4 and 6 are where most of the best episodes reside. Below is a breakdown of general thoughts about each season.
Season 1
Not one of my favorites until years later when a rewatch with perspective on where the show went reveals a restrained, wonderfully written introductory season with complex, developed characters and increasingly dramatic political deceptions in the second half that gives way to the more anarchic and scattered later seasons. 10/10 Best episode: Baelor
Season 2
Has a lot of strengths and also ups the brutality from season 1, especially in the first half of the season. I love how dark and increasingly fantasy-centered this season is, with an incredible battle episode to cap it off. However, I have to deduct a point for butchering the amazing Danaerys in the House of the Undying scene from the second book, A Clash of Kings, and the muddled climax to Jon’s storyline where he gets captured by the wildings, which is far more exciting in the book. 9/10 Best episode: Blackwater
Season 3
The fan favorite, this fantastic season sets up the increased action and face-offs that’re plentiful in season 4. The Rob Stark storyline and tragic ending to him and his mother is heart wrenching, and I absolutely love all the amazing Icelandic scenery throughout. I don’t like the Theon dungeon scenes in the middle episodes, but everything else being so perfect still means this is a 10/10 season. Best episode: tied with The Rains of Castamere and Kissed by Fire.
Season 4
Perhaps the juiciest season yet, comprising of the climactic second half of A Storm of Swords, the best book of all five. Suffice it to say, there are numerous highlights across nearly all episodes, especially involving Tyrion Lannister. Really no weak moments aside from maybe 1-2 random scenes. The season that cemented the show as one of the all-time greats. 10/10 Best episode: The Lion and the Rose, with The Mountain and the Viper, The Laws of Gods and Men, The Children, and The Watchers on the Wall as runner-ups.
Season 5
Oof, this season was a doozy which began the second half of the series with fallout from all that happened in seasons 3 and 4. 5 here meanders around from one miserable nightmare of an episode to another, including Sansa and Theon's storylines, Jon Snow and what eventually happens to him, and Stannis and his daughter. The only real highlight is Hardhome, and I suppose the final scene in the following episode with Drogon escaping captivity in the gladiator arena. 8/10 Best episode Hardhome, duh.
Season 6
The other side of the coin that was season 5. Season 6 is a monumental achievement, finally doing away with the unnecessary “sexposition” and rivaling 4 for being an amazing climax of a season with one highlight episode after another. Sure the Arya storyline is weak, but literally everything else is excellent. High 10/10 with Hold the Door, Battle of the Bastards, and The Winds of Winter all tied for best episode in the season and basically of the whole series.
Season 7
Aaaand here’s where it starts to go downhill. But there are still some amazing moments to be found! The Loot Train Attack and Lady Olenna’s final appearance are without question two of the finest scenes of the entire series. The Beyond the Wall episode is full-on fantasy schlock, but at least it’s fun and enjoyable to watch so I don’t mind. I also like how the extended season finale emphasized character interactions and development, which was very interesting to watch. 7/10 Best episode The Spoils of War
Season 8
A shaky final season with filler episodes and some bewildering climactic episodes too. The Long Night was well executed, but felt anticlimactic after just how much the show built up the white walkers, and they don’t even fight any humans the whole time! The real problem though is with The Bells, a miserable slog where Dany suddenly decides to be a violent mass murderer because seeing the capital of King's Landing made her crazy? Why didn’t she just fly over there and burn it down with Cersei inside and then declare herself queen, instead of doing what she ended up doing. I’ve heard some say she was slowly getting crazy but we didn’t notice, like making her dragons execute people, but come on. It’s an insane jump to go from executing traitorous prisoners of war to slaughtering a city of innocent people. And Grey Worm immediately joining in on it is even more far-fetched. I don’t know, all of that just didn’t work for me. It was well done on a technical level, but I just did not buy the writing on The Bells. The final episode I actually like, call me crazy. Was a nice breather after all the aforementioned craziness, the dragon melting the iron throne was a series highlight, and I thought where all the characters were left was satisfying. I rate this season 6/10 with the best episode being the series finale, The Iron Throne.
Top 25 episodes ranked: 1. Battle of the Bastards 2. Hardhome 3. The Door 4. The Winds of Winter 5. Baelor 6. The Lion and the Rose 7. Blackwater 8. The Mountain and the Viper 9. The Spoils of War 10. The Rains of Castamere 11. You Win or You Die 12. Kissed by Fire 13. The Laws of Gods and Men 14. The Children 15. And Now His Watch is Ended 16. A Golden Crown 17. The Watchers on the Wall 18. Oathkeeper 19. The Wolf and the Lion 20. First of His Name 21. Two Swords 22. Book of the Stranger 23. Winter is Coming 24. The Queen’s Justice 25. Second Sons
one of the top shows of 2011. so many twist and turns it kept me watching till the end.
ending wasn't the best but it definitely was "bitter sweet" as told.
Shushed dheheh hehehe hehehe hehrhr
I read the books after the first season came out and subsequently lost interest in the TV adaptation for a long while. As a result, I come before you in 2022 having finally watched the whole show after being pulled back in by House of the Dragon.
I have to tell you: I'm fucking mystified by the adult babies that hated this ending. It's perfectly thematically cogent and set up well in the lore, the plot of the last few seasons and even the color theory employed in S7 & S8 when everyone but John, Jaime, Brienne and Davos swap their lighter colors for ominous black. I mean, with all the "coin flip" lore about Targaryen's going apeshit periodically, and you still didn't think the lady in the Hugo Boss black leather dress who burns people to death and is increasingly single-mindedly wrapped up in her own will to power might be the baddie? In the finale, TYRION EVEN LAYS IT OUT STEP BY STEP FROM ASTAPOR TO THE PRESENT HOW SHE WOUND UP LIKE THIS. So how come all anybody could talk about in 2018 was how surprising and "poorly set up" it was that the lady who crucified people turned out to be kind of unhinged and maybe not the person you want in peacetime power? Given her path, how is it at all surprising that her last remaining close confidant getting beheaded in front of her, and that confidant's last words being the classic Mad Targaryen "Burn Them All" refrain, pushed her over the edge into flagrantly cruel madness?
This is an idea in historical and political analysis that I've long found fascinating: The people who make good revolutionaries rarely have the temperament for ruling in peacetime. It's usually best for everyone if they fuck off or get murked when the war is won. Add to that the biggest underlying creative force in Game of Thrones - fantasy trope subversion - and you have a recipe for the Good Warrior Queen who goes too far and has to be put down like a dog. Robb, Ned, John, Sansa, Bran... nobody escapes becoming a shattered-and-patched together version of themselves by the end of this. Why would Daenerys? If you were expecting this to end as anything other than the hope-tinged tragedy it ended as, you weren't paying attention and I can't comprehend why you didn't give up on the show by Season 3.
I am convinced if this hadn't come out during the Trump years, when we were all collectively dealing to various degrees with the trauma/upset of Slay Kween Hillary getting fucked out of "her turn" by Trump, people would have recognized this for the genius it is. I can only hope we get to have a re-evaluation of this show soon. Benioff and Weiss killed it, beginning to end. The only subpar thing about that final season is that The Long Night was less impressive than some of the other Battle Episodes, but that's a pretty high bar since The Battle of the Bastards is maybe best battle I've seen in visual media. I will say that I hope Martin finds a clever but equally thematically coherent way to change things up in the final books (if he ever finishes), however, only because it will be more fun for me as a reader to see a different version of the story.
10/10s for Seasons 3, 4 & 6. 9/10s for all the others. 10/10 overall. Love it!
After season 1 I couldn't get back into it. I didn't like how season 1 ended and it was hard to continue watching season 2 because it was a bit boring. After a few years and seeing others praise this show so much I wanted to see what it was about. It was hard to get through season 2, but it was worth it. The seasons afterwards were amazing. This is one of my favorite shows now and I'm glad I've finished it.
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Excellent until season 8 (words)
Excellent show but I didn’t read the books. I think it should be watched in one shot, the first time I saw it I had to wait 1 year between 2 seasons and forgot a lot each time. I watched every seasons before watching the last one and I did not regret it!
Not sure if that even makes sense, but "Game of Thrones" could be an excellent example of a down-to-earth fantasy. Magic and superstition have a tangible impact on the events - you could replace the dragons with nuclear weapons and it will still make sense. You can see blood, sweat, and all kinds of body fluids in a hostile world where there is (almost) no plot armor for anybody. Revenge is hardly direct, and good guys don't always get to win.
My favorite thing is the focus on the sociopolitical implications rather than empathy with individual characters. It doesn't matter if a major character gets abruptly killed mid-season; their house's story will keep going on without losing its main thread. Characters can change sides and do the most questionable things, but there will always be a detailed sociological setup that had led to those decisions. Everything is affected by chaos and chance, but it still seems to happen in the function of someone's story arc.
The early seasons are more focused on character development and world-building, with most minor battles happening off-screen. It's probably due to budget restrictions rather than storytelling necessities, but the action for each season is limited to one "zombie" episode and one traditional battle episode (usually the penultimate). The rest is primarily dialogue-driven. The second, third, and fifth seasons are the least eventful, but they also happen to have at least one memorable episode or a mind-blowing plot twist towards the end. The pacing got remarkably tighter from the sixth season, which also happens to be the first after the writers ran out of material to adapt from the books. There the writers did a remarkably good job and remained coherent with the source material.
Unfortunately, the writing took a significant turn for the worse with the seventh season, getting much closer to any other mediocre TV show, flirting with soap-opera level dialogue and filling pages with logical fallacies and forced or incoherent character development.
The meticulous construction of the source material has been both GOT's strength and weakness. For the portion that covers Martin's books, the central plot was mostly kept on hold while expanding the scope sideways, with tons of new characters and locations each season. This made the show remarkably rich, but at the same time it made it hard to wrap up coherently. It might have worked if they were planning to keep going on for decades, but there's no way that a couple of seasons could close so many meticulously built-up character arcs. From the sixth season onwards, you can clearly notice that the showrunners started to purposedly cut storylines and kill off characters just to make the load lighter and write themselves out of the corner with many situations. The overall direction of the plot is still coherent with the previous seasons, but the ways the characters end up to their outcomes became highly questionable. Many character arcs that have been carefully drawn over have been conveniently cut out, some regressed or lost their whole purpose, some even ended up being exploited for mere fanservice purposes. Another big flaw comes from the fact that the characters that would take on a more prominent role towards the end also happen to be the ones played by the most terrible actors in the cast, killing any further chance to add nuance to their relationships.
Regardless of the problems with the writing, the show has outstanding production value, compelling world-building, and, even at its worst, it always manages to be gripping and engaging. That's not obvious for a show that is made of 80% talking, 15% action, and 5% boobies in the air. It's also one of the rare cases where slow pacing becomes a necessity, as it takes time to remember all characters and their intricate relationships as the plot keeps turning, twisting, and subverting expectations. Characters are first introduced as either black or white, but as the show progresses, things get more and more ambiguous. It's rarely to the point you will change sides, but there were many moments I could get into the bad guys' shoes and empathize with them as much as with the protagonists.
S4 > S1 > S6 > S3 > S2 > S5 > S7 > S8
Shout by aniforprezBlockedParent2021-06-10T04:52:54Z
Seasons 1-4 - Excellent
Season 5 - Meh
Season 6 - Great
Season 7 - Meh
Season 8 - Dumpster fire