Spoiler Warning || Spoiler Warning || Spoiler Warning || Spoiler Warning

So I recently finished season eight of Game of Thrones and, wow, that was dogshit. Somewhat fortunately, I had most of season eight spoiled for me in junior year of high school. Otherwise, the ending would have made me far more sad than it already does. The drop in quality is honestly astonishing, even from season seven. They make Jon blindly loyal, they completely undo Jamie’s character arc, Tyrion betrays his BFF Varys, Missandei says “Dracarys” which is code for “burn them all” (sound familiar?), Davos is quipping like a Marvel character, and when they fight the Whitewalkers, they hide the women and children in the crypt… Can I repeat that last part? They hide the women and children IN THE CRYPT. Against a guy who CAN RAISE THE DEAD. Is anyone home in there? There’s more but this is the big one: Dany turning evil. Before then, I supported pretty much anything the Mother of Dragons did because 1. she’s the Mother of Dragons, and 2. It’s Emilia Clarke, c’mon. Same with Kit Harrington, even the Wildlings call that mf pretty. Anyway, Dany turning heel was total BS. It makes it hard to gush about how incredible the rest of the show is. The show is everything I’ve been told it was; yes, the ending was bad, but this is still one of the best TV shows of all time.

I’d been told that seasons one through four of Game of Thrones were excellent. And they were. When they killed Ned Stark, I started to see why the show was so special. Killing off the guy who seemed like the protagonist with an episode blew everything apart. Suddenly, anything could happen. Season two is even better than the first, somehow. Season three made me never want to get married ever. And Season 4 is the best of them all.

Season four, episode eight, is my favorite episode in the series. Almost an impossible choice, even within its own season. Leading up to that episode and throughout its runtime, the writers lulled me into a false sense of security: Oberyn Martell chooses to fight for Tyrion, Sansa stands up for Littlefinger, Ygritte spares Gilly and her baby, even Oberyn seems like he’s about to win the fight—and then BOOM. The writers were conditioning me into thinking there’d be some happy ending. They made me forget I was watching Game of Thrones. And they reminded me when the Mountain crushes Pedro Pascal’s face like a grape. I don’t know how he survived that, but it seems like his acting career. That speech from Tyrion about how he used to watch a mentally disabled child crushing beetles as an analogy for humanity and God. That there’s no rhyme or reason to who lives and who dies, sometimes you get smushed. Unreal. To me, that speech epitomizes the philosophy of the entire series. Tyrion’s speech two episodes earlier is maybe even more legendary. Clearly, I have a favorite character. And in the final three seasons, they make him into a total idiot. Why, God, why? Why did you smush the writers’ brains.

Practically anything that followed season four was going to underwhelm, but the signs of decay before the eventual collapse were there. Seasons five and six were great, especially their finales. Not as good as previous seasons, but why complain? Season seven came around, and as they started to assemble the Avengers, a wince grew across my face. And then season eight is like a wet fart.

It’s really putting me in a bad mood. So, I did a little bit of research, and I found that the TV series actually surpassed the books. I don’t know how that’s even possible; with the set design, costumes, and finding real dragons for the show must have taken forever. But seriously, how the hell can the original writer not write faster than that? Anyway, this makes things abundantly clear. God didn’t smush the writers’ brains; they just weren’t as gifted as I’d thought. Sorry for blaming you, God. From my surface-level knowledge, it appears that they’re not so much “creators” as they are “adapters.” So when they started creating original content, things went sour.

But the series is still, for the most part, goated as hell. Can’t take away the good moments even if there are bad ones. I only recently finished the show, but anyone who says the whole thing is ruined because of season eight is ruining it themselves. Maybe that’s just the way I watch TV shows, or consume any media in general: I’m viewing it as a writer. I think about what I can take from it. What can I learn from this? What can I adapt? What can I reference? I could care less if the writers know what they’re doing, all I have to do is figure out why it works and then use that knowledge to further my own success. Because it really is all about me.

Now tell me what you think! I think there’s a comment button here but I dunno if it works lmao. Let me know! So if you want to add on, agree with me, disagree with me, please do.