Game of Thrones: How Season 8 Fell Apart

this video is brought to you by winter wood games stick around to the end of the video to find out more about winter wood and their unique line of products so here we are we're now living in a post game of Thrones world and I'll be honest it feels pretty weird this show has been a main staple of pop culture for almost a decade and the joy or outrageous sparked across that time is unparalleled with any other TV show that's existed in my lifetime and across the final six episodes I think it's fair to say that the joy to outrage ratio was significantly tipped in one direction just to be clear this is not going to be a video where I go through every episode and talk about every dumb thing that happened and rant endlessly because there are already dozens if not hundreds of videos like that available on YouTube right now because there were dozens if not hundreds of terribly stupid things that happen this season and pretty much every single one has already been pointed out and harpooned and also I don't want to just complain because I like Game of Thrones I've always liked it even when watching the final season I was consistently engaged and curious because I care about this world and these characters so I want to evaluate season 8 in a more retrospective and general context because I believe this season was the ending the show was building - in terms of quality at least across the past two seasons that may sound controversial so I'll hit you with an even more controversial thesis to make my thoughts clear season 8 of Game of Thrones was never going to be good let's start back at the beginning or at least my beginning with this show I started watching Game of Thrones before season 5 came out so I binge through the best period of the show all at once and I absolutely loved it even with a general awareness about certain story beats character journeys and/or deaths that came from simply being on the Internet while Game of Thrones existed the big moments hit hard and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next it wasn't until after season 6 that I started reading the books and reading them actually gave me a new appreciation for how the show captured the spirit of the story while restructuring it for a new medium never losing the core of A Song of Ice and Fire along the way to me the core of the series has always been consequences realistic consequences are rarely important in big sprawling fantasy stories and while you get some moral grayness and allegiance switching here and there the lines between good and evil are usually drawn fairly clearly george RR martin was very aware of the traditions of fantasy when he was crafting Westeros so we took a more nuanced approach to his characters and all this stuff about the Dark Lord is rising in the north and you know the good guys have to get together to fight em guys and handsome guys in white cloaks fighting really ugly guys who dress all in black but my opinion has always been that the battle between good and evil is fought within the individual human heart all of us have the capacity for good all of us have the capacity for evil in A Song of Ice and Fire there aren't really any clear good guys or bad guys it's more about nuanced political maneuvering and a morality often takes a backseat because of that even though the Starks are framed by the narrative as moral and good their stubbornness in the face of the political world they enter is ultimately their downfall and it's hard for the viewer to accept that they cause their own downfalls and even though the Lannisters are often framed as closer to villains than heroes there's still some of the most complex and layered characters in the show and it's hard not to root for them at times again it all comes back to consequences Ned Stark Robb Stark Jon Snow Tyrion Lannister Jaime Lannister Tywin Lannister Cersei Lannister Joffrey Baratheon Oberyn Martell and many more all make mistakes and pay for them each of their actions and consequences have fallout big and small which inspires further action and further consequence and the last moment where the idea of consequence had any real significance was the death of John Snow at the end of season 5 which was then undone at the beginning of season 6 speaking of season 6 that's where we can start to track game of thrones' gradual shift in quality season 6 was the first season that was written without any book material as a source and it's important to consider that there were and still are no new books in sight now I like season 6 a lot I think it spaced very well the characters still feel true to themselves and the one-two punch of the Battle of the bastards and the winds of winter are without a doubt some of the best TV ever produced and sure maybe it just seemed better in comparison to the boring slog of season 5 but still as season 6 was coming out I saw some very noticeable changes across the episodes and some creative choices that very much informed where the show was heading in terms of quality Game of Thrones as an adaptation has always been very efficient in its simplifications and I think across seasons 1 through 4 showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss who I'll refer to as D&D from here on out did a fantastic job season 5 was a little shaky but to be fair they were trying to pare down roughly 2,000 pages of book into 10 episodes so not the easiest thing in the world with season 6 there was a very deliberate shift towards traditional blockbuster storytelling rather than the more low-key dialogue heavy storytelling of the books and early show the show still felt like Game of Thrones but characters started doing increasingly dangerous things without any consequences or getting critically wounded and just walking it off plot armor never really existed in Game of Thrones except for bran maybe but now it was all over the place as this was happening the lines between good and evil became more clearly defined you were obviously supposed to love Jon and hate Ramsay love Daenerys and hate Cersei loved Arya and hate Euron etc the sense of a multiplicity of perspectives kind of faded way the show didn't humanize the villains at all and the heroes were deified more than ever in this season the show also seemed more self-aware of its own reputation as a giant piece of pop culture trying to entertain an enormous audience rather than a niche one the action sequences had been getting steadily bigger and more impressive with every season but season six was the first time it felt like the show was building towards the action as the main focus rather than focusing on the drama around it there was also a noticeable increase in comedy but without the same wit and bite the characters had before especially Tyrion to be fair this was a result of the writers not having any book dialogue to work with but to me it felt like simplification was beginning to border on dumbing down overall I did like this season but I also acknowledged that Game of Thrones was going to be a different show without the books and I could live with that it was still great TV but a proliferation of plot armor the dumbing down of the story and characters and increasing focus on humor and action weren't the end of the changes they were just the beginning season six was a warning shot season seven is garbage I didn't like it when it came out and I don't like it now I made a video after season seven focused on the idea that spectacle was overtaking the storytelling of Game of Thrones and I stand by that 100% this season just kind of meanders along and the only points where it has any energy are when big battles are happening everything feels rushed and truncated mainly as a result of the season only being seven episodes long rather than the usual ten why wasn't I more concerned when D&D announced they were ending the show in 13 episodes why didn't I think that was a bad idea as much as I like it when TV shows are wrapped up well and not stretched out unnecessarily too little story can be just as big of a problem as too much the main problem with the show at this point was that it was being constructed around original material from the writers as well as notes from George Martin about how the story was allegedly going to develop in his books so while I'm sure D&D wanted to be true to Martin's ideas and plans for the story and characters they have a very different storytelling style from Martin and that dissonance had grown increasingly obvious as the two versions of the story diverged the show was shifting towards a much more traditional grand epic fantasy series and the attempts to recapture the political manoeuvring felt embarrassingly off the entire subplot with Sansa Arya and Littlefinger was so dumb I just I hate it again the show seemed to be aware of its own reputation and in season 7 it really started playing to its audience rather than staying true to its source and there's nothing wrong with that in theory when long-running TV shows approach their M they tend to get a little sentimental and retrospective but Game of Thrones never felt like it needed that I wouldn't say season 7 rewarded characters for their decisions but they definitely didn't face many consequences Jon got tackled into a frozen lake and was surrounded by the entire army of the Dead and still made it back home because one guy slowed down the whites for like two seconds characters did increasingly stupid things and were saved at the very last minute and if this show had still been the real game of Thrones characters would have died in these scenarios by the end of season 7 the show had very clearly transformed into something different something more conventional and more focused on entertainment than anything now I generally like watching reaction videos for things I enjoy I like fan excitement over big moments and I really enjoy Shaun tank-tops channel so this isn't me attacking those guys at all but they're kind of the greatest example of how this show fell apart provoking these kinds of reactions is not what made Game of Thrones work it was everything but that it was the kind of show you had to pay close attention to following the schemes and plans of various characters and tracking complex emotional arcs and then it became a show where a bunch of people could watch it in a bar and scream and cheer for minutes on end and miss nothing and that's a shame if anything season 7 seemed directed towards viewing the show like that just big exciting blockbuster entertainment and there's nothing wrong with that but it's not what the show started out as at all by the end of the season the show felt completely different but the stage was set for an exciting interesting culmination in and age I liked where the characters were I just wasn't a big fan of how they got there my only hope was that season eight would give us all a good ending and tie up the few plot threads that remained in a satisfying way or maybe in a very unsatisfying way because Game of Thrones had never been about satisfying its audience in a traditional way and I kind of got both through season six and seven the characters were reduced down to their most basic elements and their handling in season eight was very reflective of that it felt like every character was reiterating the same point over and over again in every scene they were in for no reason besides repetition she is my queen nobody was doing anything intelligently there didn't appear to be any planning or strategy for anything and despite the fact that there were two major battles that took up almost three hours worth of screen time it felt like the heroes just kind of made it up as they went since the show was no longer being driven by the characters but rather by spectacle the characters were left without much to do situations were contrived by which characters had the illusion of importance but given the impressive number of abandoned storylines in season eight it was only an illusion the characters at the forefront of the story were the only ones that did anything while side characters just kind of showed up and talked to them occasionally and then left and or died and or had sex as for the main characters nobody had time to properly develop believable dynamics or relationships Jon and Daenerys didn't have a deep meaningful connection the show just told us they did and expected us to believe it and sure the entirety of episode two was devoted to characters bonding and reminiscing but I found that episode mostly boring and any development that happened between characters was dropped by Episode four the characters weren't active participants in any aspect of the story except for battles Cersei who previously orchestrated the empowerment of the faith militant and destroyed the Sept of Baelor to eliminate her enemies just kind of stood around and then died this level of passivity which can also be seen in characters like John Tyrion and Jaime felt so untrue to those characters especially Tyrion who was previously one of the most intelligent characters on the show but made stupid decision after stupid decision throughout season 8 and also season 7 because when you really think about it if characters were actually intelligent the story couldn't have unfolded this way as a result of the generally lazy writing this season the decisions that characters made almost always made no sense so when the big emotional moments had to happen they didn't quite land because of characters actions leading up to them were either illogical or rushed to a conclusion that felt unnatural and after the Battle of Winterfell every character seemed invincible almost everyone was trapped in a situation where they certainly should have been dead at some point characters were either completely surrounded by or buried by zombies at different points in the episode and yet they were still able to escape when one other person came to help them as a result what should have been the most epic heartbreaking destructive battle in the show ended up killing four or five side characters and no I don't care about Jorah and Lyanna Mormont got to kill a giant zombie because fans thought she was really funny in one scene two seasons ago along with bran there was no real reason for Leanna to be around except fans like her and that's pretty antithetical to how Game of Thrones used to work ultimately I think the show wanted to have its cake and eat it too it wanted the reputation for killing characters but also wanted to keep the real fan favorites alive again the show was playing to its audience more than staying true to its own story and tone and the way the story ended is very indicative of that plus the fact that cleganebowl actually happened is hilarious it was a joke we were joking the fact that the characters were pretty much useless by the end happened because the structure of the story was so fractured a problem that starts from the bedrock of the writing like I mentioned before these final few seasons were written based on ideas from George Martin about where the story in the books is apparently heading I have no doubt that most if not all of the big moments and character endings we got in the season 8 finale were based on Martin's ideas however I suspect that these ideas were given to DND looking like this and they had to figure out how to get there from the end of season 6 which was more than a little bit of a jump in some places but that's not impossible except they only wanted to do 13 more episodes which again I don't know why I didn't get more nervous about that they probably should have taken a few more seasons or episodes to tell this story properly which Martin and HBO were willing to give them and I get it they've been working on this one project for a decade and they want to move on creatively but if that's the case then maybe hand the show to new show runners give them an idea of where the story should go and how to get there then go make some Star Wars movies but hey this was their show and they should be allowed to end it on their terms and they did the only problem is that it came way too fast again the endings they were given probably looked something like this and they had to get there in 13 episodes except the characters as established by the end of season 6 didn't really fit those endings but in the span of only 13 episodes they had to get there maybe they should have made a few more episodes if I'm right and if these character conclusions are planned for the books I am pretty confident they'll be executed in a way that makes sense based on how that story develops as for the show well Daenerys changed from a ruthless but merciful queen to a genocide on maniac who killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and wanted to conquer the world and then she died Jaime reversed on seven seasons of character development and went back to Cersei and then died and the most baffling of them all Arya who spends most of episodes 1 through 4 talking about how important it is for the Starks to stick together abandons her family twice in a row it felt like the big moments this season the dramatic character moments that were supposed to hit the audience hard were oriented around surprising the audience above all else things like Rey all being sniped out of the sky by scorpion cannons Masson day being randomly captured and executed varus being burned by drogon because he forgot how to be sneaky I guess the logical explanations for these moments are flimsy at best and when a show is built on logic and grounded human drama as heavily as Game of Thrones you can't just throw that out the window at the last minute like it's brand stark or something speaking of which empty surprised can especially be seen in who ends up sitting on the Iron Throne brand who I certainly never would have expected but only because it's dumb and also because it's really dumb the idea to make bran king was confirmed by Isaac Hempstead right to have come directly from George Martin but I'm pretty sure whatever path the books take will flush out that decision a bit more but even in the show it could have worked it may have been a more effective conclusion if the writers hadn't treated brand like a meme for three seasons leading up to it and who has a better story and brand the broken yeah brand story is so good we didn't see any of it for an entire season I didn't even think there would be another King because when drogon burned the Iron Throne the coolest visual of the season and one of the best of the show what that symbolically meant to me was that the old monarchy system was being destroyed and burned away see drogon understood the finer points of symbolic significance but I guess the writers didn't because having brand be made King in the next scene of the episode kind of killed that significance I'm not saying it's bad the show tried to surprise people I'm saying they have to build to those surprises like the show had before but they forgot about the building part [Music] when Game of Thrones first came out it quickly gained a reputation for being a show that shocked viewers and subverted expectations at every turn the death of Ned Stark the red wedding Joffrey's death John's death and countless other moments were built to naturally across the show again the recurring thematic backbone of those events was consequences however when the show ran out of book material it started to lean on the idea of shocking audiences and subverting expectations more and more as if the idea of subversion is what people liked but the build-up was just as crucial leading the characters to those points through natural developments based on their personalities and the personalities of the characters around them and the world they inhabited in season 8 there's no buildup things just happen as they need to happen to lead to a planned end point strung together by some of the loosest logic I've ever seen and in some cases not strung together at all the show paid some lip service to Daenerys has turned to madness but foreshadowing something in season two doesn't mean a very sudden transformation is justified in the span of an hour in season 8 the burning of King's Landing felt more like it was intended to surprise the audience than anything because that seems to be the motivation for any twist this season for God I think it's probably three years now or something we've known that it was gonna be Arya who delivers that fatal blow she seemed like the best candidate provided we weren't thinking about her in that moment we hope to kind of avoid the expected and Jon Snow has always been the hero the one who's been the savior but it just didn't seem right to us if the only reason for a major story choice like that is it will be surprising maybe take a step back and think about the story you're telling it doesn't really matter though because despite being the ultimate force of evil throughout the entire show the night King was killed in a very cheap easy way and then never referenced again it seems Lady and II don't plan their stories out too far in advance which is fine you don't need to have every single beat of your story mapped out from the start but A Song of Ice and Fire never felt improvisational everything felt deliberate and intentional even with surprising twists taking the in new directions maybe sometime in the two years they took to make season 8 D&D could have planned something or made it cohesive at least but no instead they rushed towards an ending that ultimately felt unearned it's not hard to surprise people with storytelling but it still has to make sense the final note of Game of Thrones is surprisingly positive the tyrants are all defeated and the good guys are in positions of ultimate power Sansa is ruling the north bran is ruling what is now the six kingdoms and Arya and John are able to go off and explore the free world at the beginning of season eight it was very clear who was supposed to be a hero and who was supposed to be a villain and the heroes won the only exception to this was Daenerys but when she died she was very clearly framed as a villain so my point still stands and then there's the new small council composed entirely of characters the audience likes who all probably should have died at some other point this season like in the Battle of Winterfell why is bran master of coin they say they need a master of war just make bran master of war all he does is fight in wars the more I think about this season I don't get angrier I'm just more disappointed because when you think about all the enormous shifts in power that have happened in Westeros across the show all of the apocalyptic events and horrendous destruction everything is wrapped up so neatly at the end of the story the overall structure of Westeros is pretty much the same Tyrion might say they're breaking the wheel but it's more like they're replacing it with a slightly different wheel and don't get me wrong I didn't want some ending where democracy was established and Aria and Gendry lived happily ever after in storms end or something but the tone of this ending finishing this story on such a victorious note feels disingenuous - what had come before Game of Thrones wasn't a show without positive scenes and victories for the characters but it never felt like a show that had to be this outwardly rewarding for the audience and it all comes back to that big thumb addict backbone that was lost around season six which is consequences the characters may lose significant things across season eight but they never really have to pay for their choice is the only real consequence John has to deal with is losing Daenerys who he's known for about a month in the show's timeline I think and despite the fact that he you know murdered the Queen he got off scot-free and got to travel beyond the wall to live the rest of his life in peace with his wildling friends by the end of the finale Game of Thrones had become a typical cliched fantasy story about good against evil when it had started as the opposite I won't be so dramatic as to call Season eight a betrayal to the audience but I would call it a betrayal of the show so in the end I can't say that I liked this season but it's definitely not the worst thing in the world the production design is incredible and in terms of cinematography and visual effects there's never been a TV show that looks this good at least when you can see what's going on I was entertained in the moment for the majority of the season so I guess as far as big exciting blockbuster entertainment goes it it worked but that's not what Game of Thrones was about that's not what made it a phenomenon that's not why so many people including me gravitated towards it so strongly once the writers ran out of books to adapt it was clear the show was going to be different but Season seven and eight just dropped the ball so severely despite the very limp and disappointing ending I still think DND accomplished something truly incredible by bringing A Song of Ice and Fire to TV in a way that felt so true to those books and for raising the bar of what TV could do cinematically everyone involved in every department that crafted the aesthetic of the show our masters and the actors brought the characters to life so beautifully I hope everyone has long and successful careers ahead of them it's undeniable that Game of Thrones changed television forever and like Lord of the Rings people are going to try to replicate that success for a long time after it's gone I just wish I could look back on the ending of this show as fondly as I look back at the beginning and sometimes you just don't get that with TV that's life and if I ever get around to re watching it I'll probably just stop at the end of season 4 and pretend that's where it ended Game of Thrones deserved a better ending but I was pretty sure we weren't going to get one since season six they had the pieces in place they just couldn't stick the landing the the King's Landing if you will there were so many things the show set up early on that I couldn't wait to see get resolved and while I did get some big moments so many of them were just thrown aside without any reference that it didn't feel clever or subversive just tired and lazy and while the production side of this show was anything but lazy the story of Game of Thrones is what made it so iconic so it's unfortunate that by the time Game of Thrones ended the story had already been dead for years if you're a fan of fantasy shows like Game of Thrones then you may have gabbled in Dungeons and Dragons in the past and that's where winter wood games comes in winter wood is an artisan woodworking company dedicated to combining quality craftsmanship and unique design they currently offer five species of domestic and exotic wood dice trays utilizing a professional-grade laser cutter to adorn the pieces with limited edition or custom designs check out their social media for frequent updates on products and behind-the-scenes looks into the creation process all orders are facilitated through Etsy so you won't have to worry about any complications check out winter wood games and enjoy the adventure so those are my thoughts on Game of Thrones season 8 and the way it all fell apart at the end thank you so much for watching this video and if you enjoyed it please feel free to give it a like and subscribe if you want to see more thanks again and I'll see you next time

Channel: Ross McIntyre

Views: 1,296,510

Keywords: ross mcintyre, game of thrones, game of thrones season 8, game of thrones season 8 review

Id: p9v_5drwU2k

Length: 26min 47sec (1607 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 07 2019