
The Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones - MaupitiBlue
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/
======
jamesrcole
Here's a different take, which I thought was quite interesting and compelling
[https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/1125856091261136896](https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/1125856091261136896)

~~~
joecot
I agree that D&D are plotters now. The real problem is that they were panters
for every season up to these last 2. They'd look at book characters and think
"not that important" and leave them out, or wildly change events from the
books to put out something that seemed more dramatic.

But like a kid who partied too hard senior year and found out his final
project is due in a week, they seem to have woken up one day and realized
they'd moved way, way too far from the source material, and then just jerked
the wheel to steer it back in a straight line towards the intended book
ending. Characters who've developed differently in the show than in the books?
Whiplashed back to the book versions. The Night King taken down in a single
episode, with no real understanding of what he was trying to do, or what any
of it really meant. Dany destroying all of King's Landing, but instead of a
culmination of increasingly morally grey choices as she takes the throne from
a loved leader, she's murdering civilians who don't even like Cersei because a
bunch of dudes kept saying she was crazy (or something).

Frankly I'd have preferred they just made up some hollywood ending that
vaguely fit the direction they'd brought the show, instead of giving us all
whiplash.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Dany destroying all of King's Landing, but instead of a culmination of
> increasingly morally grey choices as she takes the throne from a loved
> leader, she's murdering civilians who don't even like Cersei because a bunch
> of dudes kept saying she was crazy (or something).

From, like, season 1 on Dany is established to be explosively vindictive,
especially to perceived betrayal by those who are either personally trusted or
whom she feels owe her duty, as well as desperate for (and violence tempered
only by) receiving love on both an individual and mass level.

And those factors are directly the source of the violence she turns to in
S8E5. The direct lead up has been decidedly unsubtle and started before S8. It
wasn't a culmination of increasingly morally gray choices, it was a simple
continuation of a pattern of behavior that's been constant the whole show
combined with a pattern of increasing erosion of the factors that were
previously established as mitigators combined with an increasing accumulation
of factors previously established as triggers.

That it was headed for something like this has been evident for some time,
that it was likely to erupt at the particular time it did against the
particular target was clear in S8E4 with Missandei’s killing even before they
laid on more triggers in the part of S8E5 preceding the break.

~~~
orwin
I stopped following GoT since S05E04 or around that so i did not see nor do i
understand what's all this noise; but from the writing lessons i took years
ago i learned that foreshadowing is NOT character development. If you use
foreshadowing, especially if it's not subtle, you still have to "earn" your
twist (see: Frodo if front of Mt Doom, Gollum).

You can only foreshadow and drop hints about a character changes if you do
those change away from the action (the protagonist that will change is away
from the limited narrator), or if the spectator do not know the character that
well (he is one of the antagonist).

Let's compare to other "masterpieces" with a lot of public love. Does the
character change feel as justified as Darth Vader's one in Return of the Jedi?
Or even as Severus Rogue (Harry potter) change? Those change are not really
well written imho (a bit too rushed for the 1rst one, a bit forced for the
second, but that's only my opinion). If the character change in GOT is not at
least on this level, i would understand why people are disapointed.

The error GoT have done for me is from way back. The first few seasons used
realistic plot, few plothole, believable and clever characters, pretty
realistic choices and political stuff. My suspension of credulity bar was set
pretty low. Season 4 was weird regarding time and distance, but still mostly
believable (and the dialogs were really good too). But S05 broke my suspension
of credulity almost every 10 minutes and that made the show a bit boring
(imo).

That's the issue for GoT: they did set the bar too high at first, then
couldn't reach the same level again.

~~~
dragonwriter
The thing is _Dany doesn 't have a character change_, just a change of
location, available power, and other circumstances. She has a consistent
pattern of “This is how she acts in in this kind for circumstance”. And then
those triggering circumstances recur in a different time and place and when
she has vastly more power. And she acts _exactly the same way she always has_.

In fact, I'd argue that a distinguishing feature of GOT as a series (and
ASOIAF, the book series) is that there is remarkably little character
development in the narrative, and even further that a major theme of the
narrative itself is that binary positive and negative character assessments
tend to be made on the basis of circumstances when the same character in other
circumstances would be assessed very differently, and that changes of
circumstances are easily (and dangerously) mistaken for changes of character.

------
kkarakk
If you're familiar with manga(comics) and anime(manga comics adaptations to
animation video) then this is a good and hilarious analogy that works
perfectly for the latest season of game of thrones done by the meta anime
Gintama -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4S9NuI6NKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4S9NuI6NKo)

Looking forward to Game of Thrones: Brotherhood whenever it comes out

~~~
stefanfisk
I love it!

But, I think that the main issue is the INCREDIBLY lazy writing for S8 in
particular, and S7 to a large extent as well.

~~~
ianai
I think they’re just arrogant and full of themselves. They don’t have the
chops to end what Martin started. They’ve got to use cheap plot twists to be
compelling.

~~~
dragonwriter
Martin provided outlines through the end of the series early on; this was
widely reported at the time.

And what twists? Other than “who kills the Night King”, most of the “twists”
people have complained about are deeply flawed characters acting on accord
with, rather than transcending, flaws that have been consistently shown since
S1.

It's a twist only in that it defies narrative traditions of the medium, but
then that's also in accord with the character the show has shown since S1
(notably with the execution of Ned Stark.)

~~~
stefanfisk
even if we know that he provided outlines, we don't know to what extent if any
the producers chose to follow them.

~~~
ianai
Good point. Maybe they rushed to the end. That can lose an audience.

------
jayd16
It seems pretty obvious to me the issue is they just didn't put in the
narrative work to make Dany's transition satisfying.

~~~
nilkn
As a counter point to this, S8 was despised before E5 aired.

~~~
jayd16
I think there was a clear turn. There were valid pacing complaints but not
core plot issues like now.

~~~
nilkn
Maybe. This isn't exactly scientific, but E4 was actually the lowest rated
episode of the season so far here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/bpc20p/spoil...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/bpc20p/spoilers_postepisode_survey_results_s8e5_the/enr87fr/)

Those numbers do actually suggest a clear turn, but it seems to have happened
going from E3 -> E4 rather than from E4 -> E5.

~~~
jayd16
Hmm makes sense. Her change was telegraphed in E4.

~~~
nilkn
You can read the corresponding thread and see that not many folks there were
really talking about that at the time. I think this analysis is too
retroactive. E4 had many issues, particularly centering on Jaime, Brienne,
Euron and the Iron Fleet, and the nonsensical nature of the Cersei
negotiation. It also declined to fix issues presented by E3 (e.g., other than
the funeral, it was as if the NK and WW conflict never happened, it didn't
expand on Bran, etc.).

------
colordrops
Everyone is analyzing how the process of writing may have changed but I think
we need to go deeper. The show is created by mere mortals with families and
children who burn out like everyone else. They've also got contracts that pay
them by the season rather than the episode, and a contract for a Star Wars
trilogy in the waiting. They are just sick of the show and are doing the bare
minimum to fulfill their contractual obligations.

~~~
kkarakk
Explanation fails when you take Marvel studios into account. Overall
consistent product with some outstanding and satisfying movies. Disney/HBO
seem like hacks in comparison. Now that Disney is assuming control of Marvel
however i expect the quality to drop because of things like James Gunn
incident etc. Companies that are too concerned with image and aligning with
the cultural zeitgeist are consistently putting out mediocre products

------
hyperpallium
Although this is in Scientific American, it's an informal article about an
informal pop-culture topic. However, I'd still prefer it to make its claim,
and make its case.

Here, that means first defining "sociological/institutional storytelling" and
"personal storytelling", then arguing that GoT is the former and not the
latter, by reference to the source material (i.e. examples).

I can only infer these definitions: "sociological" means reacting to
circumstance; "personal" means agency.

If we take the first season, the climax shows the two main actors acting with
agency - against sociological forces: Ned chooses honour, against all
circumstance, advice, sense and customs of the world. Joffrey chooses
execution, again against all circumstance (protocol, advice, expectation of
others - even self-interest).

The article mentions another aspect, of characters being killed off, and that
this shows the story is sociological rather than personal. But not all
characters have been killed off, notatable, the Stark children have only been
top-and-tailed (Robb and Rickon), leaving Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran. They were
present at the very beginning; they are present at the end. The story is about
them.

The standard argument is that character deaths make us fear for the main
characters, instead of assuming plot armour. Minor and major characters
routinely die. Even within the family, Ned, Cat, Robb and Rickon die. Further,
Bran and Jon also appear to die, though live on. But most of the children, the
core, remain.

The claim of sociological storytelling would have more support if all major
characters died, and were replaced with other characters, who behaved in
similar ways under similar forces. Then the story would be about those forces.

Therefore the story is personal, not sociological. Of course, the world is
deep and interconnected, and makes sense. In this sense, the novels are
"sociological". But the _story_ itself is not.

It is not a story about circumstance and institution forces, but a story about
personal agency.

------
fa
Other examples of sociological storytelling y'all might recommend—other than
Game of Thrones and The Wire—and not necessarily from TV but in any medium?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The biggest reason is that fans can’t stand seeing someone that they thought
was the epitome of good and someone they identified with, become evil before
their eyes. Every other reason is secondary to that.

~~~
m_mueller
Most negative opinions I heard and read were not about the fact that Dany
turned evil - this has been telegraphed for a long time and most have expected
it. It's that the transition was almost completely unmotivated. It makes no
sense whatsoever. People want to understand the characters, that's the central
point of this article.

~~~
dragonwriter
The underlying character needs and triggers were established over many
seasons, and the multiple triggers were laid on heavily throughout S8 (and
some pretty heavily in S7.)

The idea that the actions were unmotivated is bizarre; I get that some fans
were hoping (and that narrative convention supports those hopes) that Dany
would _transcend_ her clearly established flaws, but the idea that there was
anything not clearly established, in either general orientation or specific
triggers, is hard to believe.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, she literally says many times "I will take what's mine with blood and
fire".

~~~
m_mueller
Is that the same as saying "I will take what's mine and then burn it all to
the ground, and everyone in it"?

