Lana and I just finished watching the final season of Game of
Thrones last night. It seems like everyone else in the world has already shared
their disappointment with the finale, so I’ll do my take. Warning: Spoilers
ahead.
I had zero interest in Game of Thrones when I first heard of
it. I hadn’t read the books and hadn’t been in the mood for what I thought
would be “High Fantasy” for years. But Lana, my wife, was captivated. She kept
telling me I’d like it, and at some point I sat down and watched an episode. I
was immediately hooked. It wasn’t High Fantasy, but some semi-historical
combination of High Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery. There are folks who’ve
told me they don’t like Game of Thrones. They’re entitled to their opinion and
I’m entitled not to care.
The settings, the characters, the ambience were all
excellent. The acting was terrific. There was tons of intrigue but it never got
in the way of moving the story forward. I quickly developed strong attachments
to the characters. Some I empathized with and came to love, like Tyrion
Lannister, and some I came to hate, like Cersei Lannister. Some went from one
extreme to the other, and sometimes back again, like Jamie Lannister, Arya
Stark, Sansa Stark and Grey worm.
Then came Season 8. I certainly empathize with the writers
who had to try and bring this sprawling epic to a satisfactory close. They were
working without a net by now, having gotten ahead of the books by George RR
Martin, and there were numerous plotlines to bring together. Many viewers have described
season 8 as feeling rushed, and I agree. There was so much to get done and some
of it did not get its due. This is one reason I was particularly irritated by
some of the “wasted” time in the final season. There were long, long scenes of
characters mourning, of characters waking up and trying to figure out where
they were, of characters staring in shock. The mourning scenes and shock scenes
were necessary but far too prolonged, and this time could have been better
used.
The most difficult part for me to deal with in season 8 was
the change in some of the characters. Tyrion suddenly becomes a bumbling,
love-sick fool, Daenerys Targaryen—an awesome character—takes a 90 degree turn
into viciousness, Jon Snow seems to periodically lose his spine. Oh, there was
some justification given for all these changes, but it felt very cosmetic and…contrived.
I think the problem was, in large part, that they killed the Night King fairly
early in season 8 and then needed another villain. Cersei was available but her
movements were constrained, and so they had to make Daenerys a villain—or felt
they had to. (See my last paragraph here for another possibility.)
Despite these complaints and the somewhat ham-handed forcing
of the characters into awkward actions to close the storyline, I thought there
was quite a bit of good in the final season. For example, Arya using an
assassin’s trick to kill the Night King was perfect. I heard one critic say it
should have been Jon Snow, and Jon was used poorly in the end of that episode,
but it was right to have Arya do it. It should have been Jon clearing the way
for her to reach the Night King, however. In addition, the ending of the Hound
in conflict with his brother was spot on, I thought. And I thought it
appropriate for Cersei and Jamie to die together, buried by rubble in the
depths of the castle that Cersei had ruled for so long and so monstrously. I
thought the end of Jon’s story was also right, even though it was emotionally
painful for the viewer—at least this viewer. He was kind of a Moses character
in some sense and thus could never quite reach the promised land. I liked Arya
sailing off to chart new lands. I liked the bantering and bickering among the
new King’s council near the end. It sounded just right to me.
And finally, Daenerys’ end. It seems to me that Game of Thrones
was her story. She was truly a doom-driven hero, and her descent into madness
was perfectly suited to drama, even if it was both hard to watch and so rushed as
to make it hard to believe. In the end, having Jon Snow kill her the way he did
was the only choice left to these characters. And to have her carried off by
her last surviving dragon was a nice touch. So, I watched Game of Thrones. I
don’t regret it. It won’t be easily forgotten in the years to come.
