Game of Thrones... 3 Years Later

on august 1 1996 author george r.r martin released the first book in his new fantasy series this book was titled a game of thrones while his new book series did gain popularity in the fantasy community martin never anticipated that his story would become a global phenomenon 20 years later watching game of thrones each week wasn't like watching any show it was watching an event you had to tune in each week to check in on jon snow tyrion lannister daenerys targaryen and dozens of other characters this show wasn't just popular marvel is popular but people aren't calling the marvel movies some of the best movies ever made at its peak game of thrones was in the conversation for the best show ever made this was the conversation for many years once the show got into its later seasons like five six and seven people started to notice a decline in the quality of the series but it wasn't bad enough for people to declare this show past its prime that may have been the case narratively but each season became more popular than the previous game of thrones wasn't like the walking dead or the office or other shows that overstayed their welcome entering the final season the show was at its peak popularity conversations were still held as to whether or not this show was the best show ever made and it was unlikely that the final season would change any of that right it just took one month and arguably four episodes to turn the conversation around game of thrones from being one of the best shows ever made to it having one of the worst endings ever made rarely and i mean rarely are there movies or seasons of shows that are borderline universally hated even movies that are passionately hated by a lot of people like star wars the last jedi or batman v superman have a significant fan base trust me i would know but when it comes to the last season of game of thrones the amount of disdain this season received was something i have never seen if i pulled 100 random people who have watched this show i would bet thousands of dollars that at most one person would say they kinda enjoyed the last season how did this happen how did a show that was in the conversation for the best show ever made earned this reputation for the worst ending ever made how did a show so popular piss off so many people how did two men who were show runners for the most popular show and history of tv get clowned so hard by fans they are widely viewed as awful storytellers well let's start from the beginning and i mean the beginning after george r.r martin wrote a game of thrones in 1996 he continued this series with more installments a clash of kings a storm of swords and a feast for crows were some of the books that came to follow a game of thrones around the time of the release of the fourth book a feast for crows in 2005 the series was already immensely popular the series had sold around 90 million copies before a single second of game of thrones appeared on tv martin received many nominations and awards for his fantasy series in 2005 a writer from time magazine dubbed martin the tolkien of our time he began getting calls from studios about potentially adapting his work into a film series martin would reject all these offers claiming his story was too vast and too complex to be one movie the analogy he used was telling the entirety of the lord of the rings trilogy in one movie also a high budget movie would most likely mean a pg-13 movie and making game of thrones into pg-13 goes against everything the book is about so he would go on to reject all these offers however in 2006 two men would approach martin about adapting his series into a television show these two men were david benioff and d.b weiss martin liked what he had heard from benioff and weiss but before they officially had his support they had to correctly answer one question who is the mother of jon snow the fact that benioff and weiss correctly answered this question and won the respect of martin will become very relevant towards the end of this video but in the meantime benioff and weiss got martin's approval and decided to go around hollywood pitching game of thrones the late 2000s and early 2010s were a time where tv was rising to the forefront shows like the wire the sopranos breaking bad madmen the walking dead 24 and many others ushered in a new era of tv benjafin weiss pitched the series to hbo promising a series of family drama not some giant scale cgi series but what really hooked hbo was the notion that the main character and the hero of the first season would die in this world nobody is safe hbo greenlit the series and season one was well underway with benioff and weiss as the creators and showrunners for the series in 2009 a pilot was filmed for game of thrones according to literally every person involved the pilot was a disaster benjoff and weiss were not prepared for the scale of this production actors were told they were unenthused about the story scenes dragged on and were wildly confusing supposedly early screeners found the episode so confusing that they didn't realize cersei and jaime were brother and sister at the time hbo had 10 pilots in production and only 5 would be greenlit to continue the series benjoff and weiss fearing that they screwed up their one in a lifetime chance came clean to hbo about how bad the pilot was they went through each scene in the pilot one by one and explained why the scene didn't work and how they planned to fix it but around 4 months later hbo ordered 10 episodes of game of thrones including a re-shot pilot but this time around a lot of changes were made both in front and behind the camera first time tv director tom mccarthy was replaced on episode 1 by a top hbo veteran tim van patten who had directed many acclaimed episodes of hbo dramas british american actress jennifer ale who played catelyn stark in the original pilot had changed her mind about the series and was replaced with michelle fairly hbo also made the tough decision to replace tamzin merchant as daenerys targaryen and hired emilia clarke instead with everything ready shooting began and season 1 was filmed and released to the public on april 17 2011. season one was pretty much a masterpiece on every level the new pilot was significantly improved character relationships and plot lines were clear to the audience the stakes were established and the director was able to capture the scope and scale of westeros even though the pilot didn't draw in as many viewers as hbo had hoped they shortly ordered a renewal for a second season but what about the first season of the show made it so great some of you may say that they had the book to adapt therefore it wasn't really hard to make a first season great the story was already there i know it's fun to [ __ ] on benioff and weiss and give them no credit for anything but adapting a story isn't as easy as it sounds if it was easy then every adaptation of every great book would be great and as we've seen many times this isn't the case season 1 took its time establishing the characters and the world every scene and every line of dialogue had a purpose characters personalities and goals were clear from the get-go ned stark was an honorable good man robert baratheon was a king who was a drunk and a fool cersei lannister was a queen who was forced into marriage with robert and held a lot of resentment against him i could go on and talk about pretty much every character in this season and how three-dimensional they are one trait that makes us empathize with the heroes of our story are traits that are treated as a handicap in the world of game of thrones jon snow is a bastard of ned stark even though he is the son of the lord of winterfell he won't be entitled to any lands or any property because he isn't the son of the lady of winterfell tyrion lannister is a dwarf even though he is the son of the mighty tywin lannister he gets clowned on by everyone including his own father and sister just because of his height in the books tyrion is one ugly [ __ ] but the show didn't go down that route and i think it was a good choice daenerys is well a woman if you're a woman in game of thrones you're going to be treated as a second-hand citizen women in game of thrones are used as objects for sex objects for building alliances through marriage or are simply discarded for nothing arya stark wants to be a warrior well she can't because she's a girl the world of game of thrones doesn't want you to feel comfortable it doesn't want to try and tint everything with rose-colored glasses westeros is a cruel world full of violence disease rape and death however the realism and depth of westeros and its history are what sucked so many people into this world you ever wonder what separates certain franchises from being popular to being super popular it's usually what exists outside the main story star wars isn't just nine movies there's two spin-off movies a bunch of shows a bunch of animated shows dozens of video games hundreds of books hundreds of comics and thousands of years of history to explore the same could be said about marvel dc harry potter avatar the last airbender and of course game of thrones you watched the first season of the show and you want to learn more are you curious about the details of robert's rebellion well you can go online and read about the details of what happened you can go on youtube and watch fan creations of what happened during certain battles hbo also wisely along with each season had the actors narrate certain aspects of the lore do you want to listen to tywin lannister talk about the history of the lannisters for 30 minutes well you can do that is there a certain house that you feel like you identify with best do you feel honorable like a stark do you feel smart like a lannister do you feel ruthless like a targaryen well choose a house get a banner for your room and you are now a part of westeros elements like these are what turns a fan into a super fan so the characters were great the world building was great and also the dialogue was great now most of the credit here belongs to martin considering a lot of the dialogue is ripped straight from the novels but this isn't the case for every scene some scenes like this one where tywin talks to jaime are not from the books yet they are still compelling and rich with character work one thing game of thrones excels at more than almost any other show is conveying exposition exposition is one of the hardest things to write the audience needs to know something but you can't have the character straight up tell the audience or else the dialogue feels inorganic having a character yell you're breaking my heart or having them say i truly deeply love you is awful dialogue but game of thrones masterfully conveys exposition that feels organic to the viewers now i could sit here and go on for hours about why almost every aspect of season 1 of game of thrones is pretty much perfect but if i were to do that then this video would be over 3 hours long but the aspect of season 1 that i do want to focus on is the death of ned stark and why it's one of the most iconic death scenes in tv history ned stark was of course the main character of season one his actions move the story forward and we see most of the events taking place through his eyes now of course killing off your main character is something that is uncommon in stories but to sit here and say that the reason ned stark's death is great was because he was the main character is only scratching the surface sure killing your hero is ballsy but it's the way it happens and what it says about the story that makes it so great ned stark is the unequivocal good guy of the story he's a loyal family man he is equally nice to those beneath him on the social ladder as he is to those equal to him he conveys empathy towards those around him and he seems fair and just in his decisions it would be easy to kill ned stark in some heroic sacrifice this way he's portrayed as a hero whose death inspired millions but that's not what happens ned tries to do the right thing and make sure that the proper heir to the iron throne is selected in that process he is manipulated by a man who is more than willing to take advantage of his honor he is wrongfully accused of treason and he is again manipulated into pleading guilty and gets executed because of it in front of both of his daughters what this tells us are two very important things about how this story is going to go firstly being good and fair and noble is not rewarded in game of thrones we see honorable men and women lose and die in the process and we see despicable lying men and women win and get rewarded it doesn't matter if you're good evil or somewhere in the middle your life is constantly at stake in the world of game of thrones what this does is keep the audience on their toes at all times because one minute you can be enjoying a sweet moment with a character and then they will die now the second important lesson about ned stark's death and this is just as important as the first is that actions have consequences if ned stark was happily walking down the street one day and was sniped by an alien sure that would be surprising but it wouldn't be impactful in this world characters aren't going to get away unscathed if they do something stupid they will face the consequences of their actions what happens when you physically threaten a horse lord who kills for sport well he's going to kill you in the case of ned stark him being a good person was what led to his downfall what happens when you tell the queen of westeros that you're going to have her arrested if her and her children don't leave the city and give up the iron throne well she will use that information and plan a defense for herself what happens when you tell a man who's wildly manipulative and selfish that you're not going to do what's in his best interest well he's going to turn against you ned stark made decisions that while honorable left him vulnerable and he faced the realistic consequences of those decisions because of his honor he was wrongfully executed the notion that actions have consequences is such a crucial part of game of thrones this way what happens in the story feels real if in your universe your characters have made decisions that lead to around two dozen potentially world ending events but every single time your characters get away with it and manage to save the day then your world starts to feel more like a fairy tale than an actual lived-in universe game of thrones is the antithesis of that and ned stark's death was what really drove that home to the audience season 1 excelled at so many things but the question would be whether or not this excellence can be maintained there are copious amounts of shows that fall off after the first season will game of thrones follow the same fate let's find out most fans of game of thrones would agree that the first four seasons are the strongest of the series these next few seasons excellently raised the stakes from the first season season one while having a few battles and some action was mostly a political thriller yeah we had the story with jon up north and daenerys out east but the main story was with ned stark in the capital and learning why jon arryn died game of thrones didn't start right away with a countrywide war it waited a full season of development before war began what i love the most about seasons 2 3 and 4 are that it feels like a chess game yeah you get the occasional battle here and there but the main focus is on the characters and them scheming to better position their house if there's one thing that is consistent with pretty much every person in game of thrones it's that they're loyal to their house people form alliances to better themselves in the war effort the northern houses are all declared for house stark but once the car starks are out of the equation tywin lannister makes a deal with the freys and the boltons to take out rob stark and give them power in the north the lannisters hold sansa stark hostage while the starks hold jaime lannister hostage the tyrell is declared for renly baratheon but after he is killed they ally themselves with the lannister to gain their trust and have margaery marry the king thus giving the tyrells more power tywin forces tyrion to marry sansa so in the case that all the stark men are dead sansa will become the heir and tyrion will become lord of winterfell tyrion marries princess marcella to the dornish so they form an alliance with the lannisters as well when catelyn stark gives up jaime the starks lose their leverage and are now free to be executed elena tyrell assassinates king joffrey because his younger brother tommen will be far easier to manipulate than joffrey watching all these different houses and people within those houses make wise and calculated moves to better their position is simply fascinating to watch every piece matters in the world of game of thrones just like a chess piece the theme of actions having consequences is still prevalent in these seasons rob stark makes a promise that he will marry one of the daughters of walder frey when he goes back on that promise frey betrays them man the stark leadership is murdered speaking of the red wedding this was way more surprising than ned stark's death in season one ned while being the main character was completely outclassed in king's landing he was surrounded by enemies so while it was surprising to see him murdered it wasn't a complete shock after his death it seemed that rob stark's journey would be about avenging his father that after his father was wrongfully executed he would march down a king's landing kill king joffrey and bring justice to the world but that didn't happen it's been established that it doesn't matter if you're good or evil you are not safe just like his father rob stark made some decisions and he faced the consequences of that he betrayed his oath to the phrase and was murdered because of it robb would not fulfill the trope of avenge and justice he would die after being backstabbed like his father the themes of game of thrones are reinforced through these seasons now something that the season excels at that wasn't really present in season 1 was the lack of good vs evil sure the starks are mostly good and the lannisters are mostly bad but that's not entirely the case tyrion is a pretty good dude even though he is on the side of the bad guys we still love him and we want him to succeed one of my favorite parts of the first four seasons is the battle of blackwater bay how often in a fantasy story is there a battle where there's no clear good or bad side the lannisters have some [ __ ] on their side like joffrey and cersei but they also have good guys like tyrion the baratheons have stannis in charge who is kinda a dick but they also have sir davos who's a good dude we are just watching events play out and how they affect the characters we both love and hate and this isn't really just for battles it's for most of the plot lines that go on through these seasons with tyrion's trial we know that the tyrells are behind joffrey's murder so while we are rooting for tyrion to be found not guilty for his supposed crimes we also don't want to see the tyrells face the consequences of getting caught what these earlier seasons love to do is take the characters and challenge them in so many ways let's look at jon snow he's taught for pretty much a season and a half that the wildlings are the enemy so the writers then decide to stick him with the wildlings for a whole season and he even falls in love with one of them jon's experience with the wildlings is a fundamental part of his character going forward whenever he makes decisions the wildlings experience weighs heavily on that decision and i just want to say my single favorite jon snow moment in the series is during the battle at the wall in season 4. when he sees yegrit for the first time again and she's pointing an arrow right at him the first thing he does is smile that is such a sweet moment and it shows us how much he loved her then of course the little [ __ ] ali had to shoot and kill ygritte the fact that the audience feels inclined to hate ali is a testament to how good of a job this story does at making us care about certain characters but since we care about the wildlings now the way we interpret this death is different another example of how the writers can make us change our opinions of a character is with jaime jaime for the longest time was my favorite character in season 1 he's portrayed as a prick well because he is he literally pushed a kid out a window remember how i said when discussing season one that this story makes us sympathize with characters that are at a disadvantage like how jon snow's a bastard and how tyrion's a dwarf well once jaime loses his hand everything about his character changes jaime prided himself on being one of the greatest swordsmen in westeros but once he loses his hand he has to find out who is jaime lannister the person not jaime lannister the warrior one of the most powerful scenes in the entire show is when we learn what really led to jaime killing the mad king he did it to save a million lives but the lords of westeros didn't care he broke his oath and that plays heavily into the ark he goes on later in the series now that jaime lannister has lost his right hand he has a handicap in the world of game of thrones and that makes us empathize with him more than we did before the first season of game of thrones told a fantastic story but it's the second third and fourth seasons that elevate this show to a whole new level these seasons took pretty much all our main characters in interesting directions that fundamentally shape who they become later on it's crucial in stories that your main characters are challenged in many ways and these seasons do that brilliantly seasons one through four were the peak of game of thrones there's no denying that so once we get to seasons five six and seven there's a noticeable dip in quality and don't worry i'm gonna save season eight for later most fans would agree that seasons five six and seven are not as good as the earlier seasons but they also aren't awful these seasons are filled with great moments that fans love and they're also filled with rather dumb moments i want to take a look into these seasons and analyze what worked and what didn't work i think the overall characters themselves continue to be developed in interesting ways well besides tyrion but more on that later in the earlier seasons we see how the characters have certain beliefs and characteristics and then they go through a significant event that changes them in these three seasons we really start to see how these characters have changed and how it has impacted their decisions with jon becoming the lord commander for the first time in the series we really start to see how jon would do in a leadership role he makes tough and unpopular decisions like leading the wildlings past the wall and into the seven kingdoms a decision that many of his fellow brothers hated he inevitably gets killed because of this reinforcing the theme that actions have consequences but he comes back and we see him as a leader in the campaign against the boltons because jon stood up for the wildlings and helped them they returned the favor and helped him in the battle of the bastards with jaime he is sent north to riverrun to end the siege there the old jaime probably would have just gone straight into battle that led to the deaths of many people but instead he uses his diplomacy to end the siege and take the castle without any deaths jaime losing his hand forced him to become a more diplomatic person this is a major positive change for his character but let's take a look at tyrion because he was the character that was butchered first tyrion was one of the smartest players in the game of thrones but once he leaves king's landing and meets daenerys he becomes one of the dumbest people in the show tyrion was known for his sharp mind and good plans remember this is the dude who is mostly responsible for winning the battle of blackwater but once tyrion meets daenerys he never makes a good decision again for the rest of the series almost every time he advises daenerys on something it ends up being an awful decision another aspect of these seasons i found to be weak were just the lines in general i wouldn't say they were bad per se but they were not as engaging the stuff beyond the wall was great but everywhere else there isn't anything special daenerys is fighting off the sons of the harpy and then the dothraki again which are okay the whole doran plotline was kinda dumb arya training with the faceless men was interesting for a time but it started to drag on and the whole drama with the high sparrow was also rather annoying i would say the biggest reason why these storylines weren't as engaging was because the show stopped feeling like a chess game it didn't feel like characters were scheming as much to make clever decisions to subvert their enemies events kinda just happened and we saw them deal with the effects now of course the main argument people love to point out for why these seasons declined in quality was because benyoff and weiss ran out of books to adapt in 2011 martin released the fifth book in the series a dance for dragons that book mostly coincided with the fifth season but the show kinda ignored a lot of what's in that book so once we get into seasons six and seven it's pretty much material that they had to come up with on their own sure there were moments that they knew would happen thanks to them talking to martin about what would happen next but the intricacies of what made those events martin mentioned so compelling were lost on benioff and weiss and they had to come up with it on their own george rr martin also wrote one episode in each of the first four seasons which stopped in season five so it's easy to blame the lack of material to adapt and the lack of martin's involvement for the decline of the show but i wouldn't put it all in that because there were still some fantastic moments in these seasons again pretty much everything going on up north is great hard home is one of the most iconic episodes in the series this was really the first time we got to see the horror of the undead this episode is absolutely crucial in the development of the white walkers these are the beings that were introduced in the first scene of the series and for the first time we really got to see the horror they can inflict once we get back south a bit the battle of the bastards was also great but it wasn't game of thrones great what made game of thrones so special was its ability to remove the good versus evil aspect of its conflict remember the battle of blackwater bay wasn't a battle of good vs evil it was just two sides at war with each other the battle of the bastards is a clear good versus evil battle the starks versus the boltons good versus evil so while the battle was engaging and tense it lost what separated game of thrones from everything else also we start to see the element of actions having consequences start to fade there was really no such thing as plot armor in the earlier seasons but watch the battle of the bastards and tell me that jon snow isn't the luckiest person alive someone who charges a loan into the middle of a battlefield and faces down the entire opposing army would almost certainly die but not jon snow he is the main character season 7 is far more guilty about this but more on that in a second the one episode in these three seasons that felt like the game of thrones of old was the season 6 finale cersei blowing up the sept of baelor is pure game of thrones cersei constructed a plan to rid herself of any crime she may have committed in the eyes of the gods and that plan was to gather all her enemies in one place and blow them up it is truly an iconic and badass scene but once we get into season 7 that's when characters completely stop facing the consequences of their actions cersei blew up one of the most holy buildings in king's landing and pretty much ended one of the most powerful houses in westeros in season seven she faces no consequences for that now what a lot of people agree is the dumbest aspect of season seven was the journey beyond the wall the plan to take a white and bring it back down to cersei was simply a dumb ass idea an idea from tyrion i might add throughout this whole sequence with them stuck on the ice the fact that none of the important characters die is insane jon literally stays back to fight the whites by himself falls into the water that would certainly give him hypothermia but still somehow manages to survive this is plot armor at its finest it seems like narratively the only reason to include this journey beyond the wall was so the night king could get a dragon and destroy the wall it doesn't leave any lasting impact on our characters which is not what game of thrones is about even though these seasons do struggle in some ways i wouldn't say there is anything really awful seasons 5 6 and 7 definitely had their great moments short but they clearly were a drop in quality from what came before now it is time to talk about the best season of game of thrones season 8. before we analyze the multitude of things that went wrong in this season let's look at the few good things this season did the second episode of the season actually wasn't that bad it's the only episode that really takes its time by giving us good character moments game of thrones is at its best when characters are sitting or standing in a room and just talking now there's no scheming here but we just get to hear what the characters are thinking they all believe they're gonna die and their attitude towards the whole situation is totally realistic you're about to fight an army of zombies brienne getting knighted was such a sweet scene for so long she's been held back because she's a woman and now she finally gets to be a knight other moments in this season that were okay would be jorah's death it wasn't really special but it wasn't bad either the same could be said about theon fine death and the other thing that i liked would be how sansa's story wrapped up it's awesome to see how when she was younger she wanted to become someone else's queen and now she is a ruling queen of her own home it's probably the only arc of the character that didn't die that ended beautifully tyrion's last words to jaime were beautiful the effects this season were great the music was phenomenal especially when the night king dies but that's pretty much it off the top of my head now there's so much to talk about with things going wrong this season i'm gonna try and be organized and just cover the major things so let's begin with the conclusion to the night king and the army of the dead there have been two plot points that literally have been built up since the first episode daenerys getting the iron throne and the army of the dead jon has spent literally the entire show since the end of the first season preparing for the army of the debt every decision he has made has been influenced in some way by the threat of the night king now some of you may say that since this storyline is about jon he should have been the one to kill the night king would that have been predictable yes but at least it would pay off his arc in some way but this actually wouldn't have been the best way to conclude his arc the whole point of season 7 was him trying to rally the lords of westeros to help him in this fight jon was the one who convinced daenerys to stop her campaign against cersei and help him jon was the one who helped organize a meeting in the dragonpit to ask for a ceasefire jon was the one who brought the wildlings south of the wall to help in this fight there's a subtle theme here about the negligence of global warming jon is trying to get people to stop fighting each other and worry about the much bigger threat kind of like how some are doing it in our own world so while jon shouldn't be the one to kill the night king himself whoever does kill the night king should be at winterfell because of jon the entire conclusion to this story should be that if it weren't for jon trying to rally everyone to put aside their differences then the night king would have ultimately prevailed it could have been daenerys herself she wouldn't be there if it weren't for jon it could have been someone from daenerys army it could have been one of the wildlings because jon brought them south of the wall but there are two people that would have been the best choice to kill the night king jaime or theon for jaime it would have been poetic for him to have been the one who was leading the war against the starks for so long to be the one who saved winterfell but the main reason why jaime would have worked is because he was the only one who took the journey north after the big meeting in king's landing jon went north to get the white daenerys came to save them and one of her dragons died so much sacrifice was made just so they would have a convincing argument for cersei to agree to a ceasefire as the story currently stands all that sacrifice meant nothing the campaign to get a white in front of cersei only hurt things because the night king was able to get a dragon and the only thing to come out of the meeting at the dragonpit was jaime going north but in the battle he doesn't really do anything if he were the one to kill the night king then jon's plan would have meant something if jon never traveled south to get an audience with cersei then jaime would have never gone north to try and kill the night king that's why jaime would have been a great choice similar things could be said about theon theon wronged the starks in so many ways so it would have been poetic for him to save them all and save winterfell they kind of do this a little bit with him defending bran but the way he died was less of a sacrifice and just kind of lame also similar to jaime jon was the one who brought theon to winterfell it was their conversation at the end of season seven that made theon feel like he could be a stark again i feel like jaime would have been the better choice but either or would have been great and either aura would have been leagues better than arya arya showing up to winterfell has absolutely nothing to do with jon she just showed up there out of the blue because she heard the boltons no longer held winterfell now the defense for arya is that in season 3 it was foreshadowed she would close blue eyes forever but this is the dumbest reason i have ever heard paying off one off-handed comment is not more impactful than eight seasons worth of development for jon the other defense is that she was training to be a fighter for eight seasons and this is the culmination of that this is true but you can pay off arya's training in a multitude of different ways it doesn't need to be killing the night king so yeah arya killing the night king was not a smart way to conclude a storyline that was set up from the very first scene next let's look at jamie lannister because his character assassination was the one that pained me the most what's so strange is that the first half of the season actually has great moments to cap off his art jaime ultimately went on an arc of becoming a humbled man who values honor he was the sole man in king's landing to honor his promise to go north and help the starks once he gets there he apologizes to bran for what he did and he goes to brienne and tells her he would love to fight alongside her in battle this was the same man who called her a wild beast seven seasons ago but after the battle he decides he must go back to king's landing to find cersei the conversation he has with tyrion breaks my heart tyrion tells jaime that a million lives are at stake and jaime says he's never cared for the people of king's landing innocent or otherwise the whole point of his character was that the most dishonorable thing he ever did was actually the most honorable because he saved the lives of millions of people but now you're telling me he doesn't care and then he goes back to cersei and dies what's the message of jaime's story we all assumed his story was about how anyone can always change for the better and it's never too late to start doing the right thing that arc was built up for eight seasons and in one episode they managed to ruin all of that is the message here that it doesn't matter how hard you try you will always regress back to your worst self that's a depressing message to send i think that's part of the larger problem of season 8. they wrap up all these storylines that send rather depressing messages the best example of this is with daenerys but i want to talk about her nephew jon snow first of course it's been meme to oblivion that all he says this season is mcqueen you are my queen the backstory behind the character of jon snow is one of the most clever and well-done backstories at the beginning of the series we all just assumed that jon snow was bastard there was a little mystery behind who his mother was but we didn't think much of it and while we all questioned why the honorable ned stark would cheat on his wife with some random girl we kinda just accepted it along with this we've heard the infamous tale of how rhaegar targaryen kidnapped lyanna stark and raped her and that is what started robert's rebellion but as the series progressed whenever a character talked about rhaegar they had nothing but nice things to say rhaegar was supposedly a kind soul who everyone loved so we as the viewer questioned these two things ned stark is so honorable yet he cheated on his wife and had a bastard child and rhaegar targaryen was this kind and loving man who supposedly raped and killed someone the best twists are the ones that not only make sense but that we don't see coming jon snow is not only not a bastard but he is the legal heir to the iron throne he is the son of rhaegar targaryen and lyanna stark george r.r martin's inclusion of this into jon snow's character is so genius it may be one of the smartest narrative decisions i have ever seen on tv not only does this revelation change how we view jon snow but it puts into perspective how honorable of a man ned stark really was this man lied to every single person he knew including his wife about cheating and having a bastard son he was ridiculed for this and his honor was mocked for almost 20 years but he did all of this just to keep his nephew safe the safety of his nephew was more important than how his honor would be perceived then stark died seven seasons ago and we're still learning new things about his character this plot point was so genius and so important to the story of game of thrones that benioff and weiss could not get the job of being showrunners unless they correctly knew who jon snow's parents were remember how i brought that up earlier well here's the payoff you know how the reveal of jon snow being the heir to the iron throne impacted the story and the final season of this show it barely meant anything the only thing to come of this revelation was that people started to turn on daenerys and it was another factor for why she went crazy arguably the best plot twist i have ever seen in any tv show ever amounted to pretty much nothing it's beyond painful to think about that really but you know what this isn't even the worst of it because the worst crime that season 8 committed was the absolute nuclear destruction of daenerys targaryen some people like to use the term character assassination but i don't think that's harsh enough daenerys first seven seasons of game of thrones showed us what kind of woman she was sure she was harsh at times but she was a kind and loving person someone who devoted their entire campaign towards ending slavery and helping the oppressed what's really painful about how daenerys story ended was the incredibly unfair standard she was held to daenerys is viewed as an awful person for things other characters in the series do all the time remember when she was ridiculed for killing her enemies when the turlies wouldn't bend the knee and she had them murdered then her allies all thought she was evil because she didn't spare them but jon snow literally did the same thing but it was viewed as okay or when rob stark did it and it was viewed as honorable but for some reason daenerys does it and she's a criminal daenerys sacrificed so much for the lords of westeros if it weren't for her the night king wouldn't have been defeated and everyone in westeros would be dead but because she decided to help jon snow fight the army of the dead two of her dragons died her best friend died someone she kinda loved also died a large portion of her forces died supposedly and you know what the thing she gets is everyone tries to subvert her quest to become queen because she may or may not kill some innocent people on her quest to remove an evil [ __ ] from the iron throne who has already murdered thousands of people and who is arguably to blame for the entirety of the war of the five kings i feel bad for daenerys because she was gaslit so hard into believing that she would become some evil tyrant you know what maybe this is what benioff and weiss were going for maybe they wanted everyone to treat her like [ __ ] so when she was on drogon and the bells were ringing we would understand why she burned down king's landing but i'm sorry no amount of gaslighting or trauma or unfair treatment could convince me that daenerys would burn down the entire city if daenerys just went straight to the red keep and burned that entire building down i would be totally with her even if the bells were wrong i would be so fed up with the way everyone has been treating me that i would go to the red keep and burn it down anyway that's all the storytellers had to do but no she had to commit mass genocide so they can justify killing her off in the finale there are two ways that i look at the way daenerys's story ended and both are depressing the first is the message that benioff and weiss were trying to send remember when i spoke about the message of jaime's story and how depressing that was well daenerys's message is way worse assuming that her turn to evil was justified and made sense the message that benioff and weiss are pushing here is what that it doesn't matter if a character promises that they won't be evil like their father that it doesn't matter if they have done so much good for so long that it doesn't matter who you are or what you want to be you will ultimately fall victim to your bloodline because supposedly fire and blood is in her nature that is the most depressing thing i have ever heard and the other way to look at how our story ended is one of tragedy she did so much good in the world and all of a sudden she was gaslit into committing genocide and then was murdered for it how did this even happen how did we get to this point people can blame george martin for not finishing his books people can blame benioff and weiss for being idiots but the real reason we got the disaster that was season 8 was because benioff and weiss rushed to the ending six episodes to wrap up the night king storyline and the climax of the show is just not enough time this show thrived on its pacing early on characters slowly changed over time we saw their flaws and how it affected them we saw them build relationships for better or for worse the longer something dwells usually the more impactful the payoff the world of game of thrones felt huge because it used to take characters months to travel from one end of the continent to the other but in these later seasons characters make the same trip in a matter of hours a show like game of thrones is the last kind of show you want to rush remember how in the beginning i mentioned how martin refused to let a game of thrones be translated into a movie because you just couldn't fit this story into a three-hour movie well it came back to haunt him because the writers tried to fit a 20 to 30 episode story into six episodes the worst part is that hbo wanted more usually it's the studios that handicapped the writers into [ __ ] stories but no hbo wanted to go on for 10 or more seasons but for whatever reason benioff and weiss wanted to end this thing as fast as possible i can understand wanting to move on to a different project denyoff and weiss worked on this series for 10 years it makes sense they wanted to do something else but just let someone else finish the show you know what's crazy there's an alternate universe out there where after season six benioff and weiss leave and someone else continues the show and then say the showrunner does four more seasons and the series ends in season 10. the ending still isn't that great and the conversation that people have is that they missed the days when benioff and weiss were in charge of the show i guarantee you that if benioff and weiss let someone else finish the show this would be the narrative you guys don't understand how powerful certain narratives can be it's kind of like with george lucas for almost 15 years he was the clown who made the prequels and ruined star wars people back in 2014 were thrilled that he had no part in episode vii but because he sold the franchise and let other people do star wars fans ended up hating what came next and george lucas is now seen as a god but that is just an alternate history benif and weiss rushed to last season and arguably ruined their reputation throughout hollywood forever people are beyond thankful that the guys who created the show game of thrones the show they love so much has no part in house of the dragon shoulda woulda coulda now i could sit here and talk about how other parts of this season were dumb like how bran becoming king is dumb or how arya's faceless training amounted to nothing but i think i made my points clear about this season so game of thrones all these years later what's its legacy gonna be of course legacies can always change but right now it has an aura of what could have been what could have happened if this show went 10 seasons and let the story breathe what could have happened if benioff and weiss left the project to pursue something else what could have happened if george rr martin actually finished his books so benjoff and weiss didn't have to make up their own [ __ ] we can only ponder the reality is that the later seasons of the show did irreparable damage to the brand of game of thrones if you look at all the most popular franchises they have one contained story that is great it doesn't matter how [ __ ] the star wars prequels may be it doesn't matter how [ __ ] the star wars sequels may be the star wars original trilogy will always be great and nothing will change that it doesn't matter how [ __ ] the hobbit may be it doesn't matter how [ __ ] the lord of the rings show may be the lord of the rings trilogy exists and will always be great it doesn't matter how [ __ ] mcu phases 4 5 and 6 and so on may be the first three phases leading up to endgame will always be great well mostly great with game of thrones what are you gonna say that the first half of the show was great that only four seasons of the story was great while the other four were [ __ ] game of thrones will never have that complete great story but the reason why we are still making videos all these years later is because of how great the beginning was those first four seasons are what made millions upon millions of fans fall in love with this show but the things we love destroy us every time lad remember that

Channel: The Gold Man

Views: 1,504,222

Keywords: Star Wars

Id: NdcjCR9_dNA

Length: 45min 58sec (2758 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 21 2022