Is Game of Thrones Season 8 so bad it should be remade entirely?

dany stark

Obviously, I’m super-invested in Game of Thrones. I took over the recapping duties several years ago, and I was totally that person who got overly invested in GoT conspiracies and fan theories. I actually liked Season 7 – there was a lot of stuff happening, and a lot of characters coming together, and there were some really good moments and some really crappy moments too. But yes, in the final season – Season 8 – the quality across the board just isn’t there. The writing has been appallingly bad, the character development has been non-existent and there are some very strange technical issues – like no one being able to see a damn thing during the Battle of Winterfell – throughout. But is this the answer: remaking the entire season with different writers and showrunners?

A petition by an angry fan demanding that HBO remake the final season of “Game of Thrones” has now been signed by more than 350,000 people. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are the target of the petition, which asserts that the pair, who have shepherded the HBO hit from the beginning, “have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on.” The show first moved beyond George R.R. Martin’s ongoing book series in the sixth season.

The online petition, which was started on Change.org by a user called Dylan D., is titled “Remake ‘Game of Thrones’ season 8 with competent writers” and states that fans of the smash-hit show deserve “a final season that makes sense.” The petition was created following Monday’s episode, “The Bells,” which drew strong negative reactions from fans online over the actions of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Jamie Lannister. In its review of the episode, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper said the series had been “ruined beyond repair.”

The petition originally began with a target of 15,000 signatures, which was reached on Wednesday. A revised target of 300,000 was surpassed Thursday, and a newly revised target is now aiming at half a million signatures.

[From Variety]

As many of us have said this week, it’s not that we don’t buy Daenerys as The Mad Queen, it’s that the “Mad Queen” storyline hasn’t been developed enough prior to this, and also – maybe I’m alone here – I actually completely felt like Dany was mostly justified in what she was doing, so seeing other characters so worked up about the Mad Queen felt like a lazy way to tell us how we should feel. It was also tone f–king deaf to give Jaime and Cersei that ending – I’m still mad about it. But yeah, the writing has just been so f–king lazy this season and of course people want a mulligan. They’re not going to get it though. Which is why even though the petition is a good way to let off some steam, just know that it will literally never happen.

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lena 86

Photos courtesy of HBO/Game of Thrones.

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94 Responses to “Is Game of Thrones Season 8 so bad it should be remade entirely?”

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  1. Case says:

    That’s what fanfics are for. *shrugs*

  2. BaronSamedi says:

    George is going to give us the ending to the Song of Ice and Fire. To me that was always going to be only ending I accepted anyway.

    The writing about this was on the wall the second HBO allowed D&D to shorten the final seasons and not tell this story in the ten seasons it would have needed to be done properly. They should have gracefully bowed out and let someone else finish it if they were so tired of it. The utter disrespect they are showing for George, the story and the fans here is honestly breathtaking.

    • Original T.C. says:

      Problem’s not HBO, GOT is a cash cow for them. They were willing to write a blank check to D&D if they agreed to stay. D&D have been hired to do the next Star Wars movie so they over a mere TV show and wanted to leave. HBO should have let them out of their contracts and used the two years to replace them. Season 8 is pure crap.

      • dotgirl says:

        Cool, they can ruin another universe created by a guy called George.

      • May says:

        yeah, In the remake : Princess Leia goes on a rampage and kills all of the Ewoks! Vader is killed by falling debris after he smothers the Emperor with a pillow. Luke and the Rancor battle: it’s a TIE!

      • JanetDR says:

        @May : exactly! Maybe we can all hope for an animated version if the books ever get finished…

      • Angela82 says:

        Oh god so Star Wars might get fucked up too?

  3. Veronica S. says:

    It’s garbage, but the damage is done. HBO had two years and hundreds of people working on that project who could’ve put a stop to the utterly offensive sh*t they produced, but they didn’t. That’s on them.

    So here we are. Let them eat the backlash. I’d be happier if this actually led to D&D being dumped from future projects, to be honest.

    • Lady D says:

      Disney has hired them to write the next three Star Wars movies.

      • Veronica S. says:

        That’s the project I’d hope they got dumped from lol. Though honestly, Rian Johnson’s TLJ was enough to put me off from Disney’s Star Wars, so it’s not like I’m invested at this point or plan to see any more of the films. And that’s a really sad statement because my tastes are bad enough that I liked the prequels, despite all of their flaws.

        (Well, actually, they could absolutely do worse by adding a massive dose of racism and sexism to the heap, but it’s not like SW doesn’t suffer from those issues already.)

      • susiecue says:

        Star Wars is racist and sexist?

      • Veronica S. says:

        Haha, oh yeah it is. Nowhere near the level as what we saw on Game of Thrones, but Lucas definitely has his blind spots. Even if we overlook the lack of non-white primary characters in the original trilogies, the treatment of Carrie Fisher in RotJ has always been an issue, and Padme’s death definitely has elements of fridging in the prequels. That’s not even getting into the issues of how Jar Jar is handled (well meaning but ultimately problematic) or how Johnson completely reduced Finn’s character to laughable caricature in TLJ and sidelined the female protagonist’s character development for Kylo Ren’s angst. The movies aren’t completely awful, but they definitely have issues.

      • Aoife says:

        Oh God, there will be nothing left to like.

      • jjva says:

        Veronica, today I learned the term “fridging” and I am better for it. Thank you. <3

    • Megan says:

      I realized this morning we have plans Sunday night. My husband asked if I wanted to cancel since it is the last episode of GoT and I just laughed out loud. I am skipping the last episode and will just read the summary and comments here. Kaiser and people who post comments are far more interesting and entertaining than D&D’s mess.

      • Veronica S. says:

        I haven’t seriously watched the show since season 4 because I saw the writing on the wall (and was always critical of the sex/race issues), but I kept up with my favorite characters (Sansa, Dany, and Tyrion) by spot watching or reading summaries. Imagine my surprise that D&D still managed to viscerally enrage me by proxy through their utter ineptitude as writers and blatant racism and sexism. Beyond mindblowing to me that in the year 2019 a script passed through multiple hands featuring a scene where a WOC was memorialized by A SLAVE COLLAR – denoted as her ONLY POSSESSION – and not a single goddamn person was self-aware enough to put a stop to it by setting the thing on fire then and there.

        (And people defend it! THEY! DEFEND! IT! as “gritty realism.” Get out of here.)

      • BayTampaBay says:

        I added HBO to my premium channel line up just to watch the final season of GOT. After the first two episodes of the final season I called my cable company and dropped HBO from my premium channel line up. The final season has been so bad that I do not think I will watch the episodes I missed when HBO runs their next free holiday Watch-a-Thon weekend.

  4. Becks1 says:

    I mean, they arent’ going to rewrite it, LOL.

    I think there is a difference in being mad because of the pacing, and mad because of the plot developments. there hasn’t really been anything plot-wise that has bothered me objectively. But so much of this stuff feels so rushed. Like Varys – he finds out in one episode that Jon is a Targ, and in the next episode is trying to kill Dany and gets executed for it?

    ETA – hit post too soon – so, in that example, I’m not upset that Varys betrayed Dany, tried to kill her, and was executed for it. That actually could have been an interesting plot line for him. I’m upset at how fast it happened with very little development.

    • Christine says:

      Those are my thoughts as well. Had they had more seasons (or at the very least more episodes!) I feel the story still could’ve played out the same but in a way that didn’t feel so rushed and random.

  5. CES says:

    A coworker of mine said a show she watched in the last ended so horribly there was a backlash and they redid it. Not sure what the name of the show was, but I guess that means there’s hope

    • MrsBanjo says:

      Not with the amount of money HBO spent on this season – over $100 million. There’s zero chance HBO is going to want to spend even more to redo it.

    • Angela82 says:

      HIMYM? Worst ending in history besides Lost IMO. Never even watched it that’s how bad the reviews were.

  6. Nibbi says:

    Yeahhh… I’ve actually really been enjoying the heck out of season 8, on the edge of my seat the whole time, surprised, agog, emotional, etc. … but um, Daenerys “JUSTIFIED” in flambéing all of King’s Landing (making a neat side-to-side work-through to leave no lane un-flamed, no less)?? NO WAY !!!
    It’s an interesting plot turn to be sure and I’m sort of enjoying contemplating it and how dark and weird things have gotten- but on some level I can’t deal with anyone being cool or considering the slaughter of innocents as ever being “justified,” even on a silly fictional TV show. Call me scarred by the world, but I think it’s a bad, bad thing when people are inured to ideas like this, bc looking at the world, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to how we tolerate the scenes of atrocity in places like Aleppo, which many ppl have said this last episode reminded them of. Gross.

    • Lady D says:

      That dragon did look like he was going through the city burning it block by block.

    • Arpeggi says:

      Agreed, there was more than a million people in KL, I don’t care that you’re angry that your enemy killed your BFF/counselor, if you burn them after they surrendered, you are a monster. Same for Cersei when she blew up the sept and all its surroundings because fanatics had turned on her. Mass murdering is never justified; Dany and Greyworm had no excuse and Jon is incapable of controlling his men so I blame him too (he’d make a good king for super peaceful times, but he seriously lacks leadership!). I get the mob mentality that can take over, but the leadership is to blame.

      As for those asking a do-over, get over yourself! I’ve been annoyed by the inconsistencies, the hurried pace and low image quality too, but it’s just a darn TV show! There’s a refugee crisis, the US is on the brink of war with Iran, women’s rights are being ignored, we’re in the middle of an environmental crisis more dangerous than the Night King… keep your outrage for that!

    • Frizzy says:

      I didn’t see torching KL it as justified, rather an expression of Dany losing her inner struggle between moral goodness vs. power. I think we’re supposed to feel utterly horrified by KL on fire (we are shown to feel that through Arya’s eyes). I don’t mind the plot line, but I took exception to the “my best fried is a black person slave and died so I’m sad” to get there. It was cheap and not worthy of Missandei.

      I actually liked the Jaime arc too. He was trying to redeem himself and he did, but loving Cersei was never a bad thing. Doing bad things for love was bad. In the end he comforted Cersei as they died, and that was good. I didn’t like that he had to screw Brienne to realize that he loved Cersei.

      So, plot development: OK. Execution: Nay.

    • Gaby says:

      I agree. In regards to the murder of innocents, I absolutely prefer the narrative that she really is crazy instead of just angry. Anger is no excuse for what she did.

      And I’m not upset for the fact that they even wanted to make her insane, but had they given something like 5 more episodes which showed her getting more and more unstable and developing that insanity would have been better. The fact that she killed people before, even if not always correct, we had an insight to her decision: free the slaves, save herself and gain control of the Dothraki, not defending her brother, those were all things that we could understand where she was coming from.

      They could have shown her saying that the rest of Westeros would need to fear her, that Kings Landing would be an example, and that would be understandable from the “conqueror” point of view. But they didn’t give us that. And that is what’s so frustrating.

    • himmiefan says:

      Yeah, the Disney Star Wars movies are garbage, and to me, don’t exist. The story continues through the Expanded Universe, which Disney should have left as “canon” and not even touched the Skywalker saga. Disney should have created it’s own Star Wars saga.

    • geekychick says:

      Thank you. I’ve been saying the same for days. It’s pretty dangerous to present genocide, even in fiction, as something justifiable. Killing innocents, killing civilians is never justifiable-they aren’t collateral damage, it wasn’t a battle where few hundred of civilians also got hurt, it was straight up Dany burning innocent people, women, children, elders-just like that, just because they had the misfortune to live under Cersei’s rule.

      • Skeptical says:

        @geekychick. Me too. This. I’ll be interested to see what the show will meet out as a reaction to genocide.

    • Angela82 says:

      They did an awful job showing her descend into the Mad Queen.

  7. Incredulous says:

    The Dany stuff is bizarrely about the only subtlety left in the show. She burns her problems and always has done, it’s just now she does it without any advisors left to give us the soft pedal. The rest is just two show-runners who ran out of b – hang on, er, two show-runners who have no more better material to work from and tiredness and a blatant lack of caring. They are gunning to out-terrible Dexter’s ending, deliberately, it seems.

    Frankly, I thought the Cersei/Jaime ending was hilarious but, y’know, not in a good way.

  8. isabelle says:

    uh…no and people hating it have their own myopic view of how things would turn out. Nothing would truly satisfy them. They would be crabbing if it was a near perfect season.

    • Jax says:

      No one is making you read the complaints.

    • Linn says:

      Disagree.
      I was rooting for Daenerys and I was fully expecting to have at least some of the people alive, but the writers could have gone for a full “The Night’s-King-Wins” Story and I would have accepted it gladly as it made a lot of sense with the way things went down this season.
      All the Night’s King had to do was stay back after falling of his Dragon and he would have won the battle and probably the war. No need to go himself to Kill Bran when he has a huge army to do so.

      And while I was rooting for Daenerys I don’t need a good ending for her either.
      Make her fly to Red Keep and burn it down because she doesn’t want Cersei to potentially escape and she accepts thatshe will kill many civilians in the process would be at least somewhat understandable with the way her Character was written.
      Flying around burning random people because she is just so mad and evil two episodes and about a week after deciding to risking everything to help safe the wold is nonsense.

  9. Marty says:

    If they had taken the time, I think the negative reaction wouldn’t be this harsh.

    • CALI says:

      The backlash wouldn’t be so bad, but people notice the rush and I’m sick of the argument that people wanted a “happy ending” umm it’s GOT, there are no happy ending, but strong character development and story lines that completely started going off the rails seasons ago. But this season, the last season, is unbelievable terrible! The ruined everyone’s arch. The cinematography is great though so I guess that’s where all the effort went.

  10. geekychick says:

    I don’t think it’s garbage at all. Of course I’d love it if it was strecthed over more seasons, but this is actually the logical ending. G. R. R. Martin wanted to show the (Western) world what war actually is. Devastation with no logic, where the ones promising the most are usually the most dangerous and unhinged. My country has seen it’s fair share of Danaeryis political figures decade after decade. Their trajectory- all for people, all for end of injustice always slowly changes the closer they get to power and when they do grasp it, it always turns out that they were just dictators in the making and that they don’t care about justice or people at all. EVERYTHING, except atrocious battle strategy from Long night and sudden ingenuity of dragon fighting in Bells, is totally logical to me. But, as I’ve said, I live in a part of the world that has seen it’s fair share of wars, ethnic cleansing, conquering and so on.

    • Meganbot2000 says:

      One of the things about the books is that we were shown the utter devastation the War of the Five Kings wreaked on Westeros and on the regular people. The TV show only really shows the lives of the actual characters, who are all ‘important.’ I guess in the first couple of seasons we had more regular characters like Hot Pie, but it’s mainly super powerful people operating at a high level. So the wider context is lost.

  11. Michael says:

    The only reason I am still watching is that I have so much time invested in it. One more show is more than enough for me. Lets get it over with

  12. Grant says:

    How was Daenerys justified in murdering thousands of innocents? Um, no. She wasn’t. And I disagree about this all being out of left-field/underdeveloped. As many have said ad nauseum in these comments, the showrunners have been dropping hints about “Mad Queen Daenerys” as early on as the first season.

    • Arnk says:

      I honestly cannot believe that I read that on here… Every person in KL didn’t betray her or kill Missandei.

    • IlsaLund says:

      But foreshadowing about Dany becoming a mad queen is not character development. Nobody is objecting to the fact that Dany has become the Mad Queen, it’s how we got here in such a short time span.

    • himmiefan says:

      Yeah, that justified comment was a bit bizarre. Killing thousands of innocents is never justified. But, I do agree that the Mad Queen plot point is okay if she had been presented that way much earlier in the series. Basically in no time, we went from Dany the Savior to Dany the Mad Queen. That’s bad story-telling.

      • nb says:

        Dany has literally been saying she is going to burn down cities and take what’s hers with fire and blood since season 2. The people close to her usually talked her out of it but the theme has been there and she’s been vocal about it. Now that she’s alone to make her own decisions with all of the people close to her either dead or rejecting her she finally did what she always said she was going to do. I have no idea why people are saying there was no character development to turn her into the Mad Queen. She has been the ENTIRE TIME and has told the audience that the ENTIRE TIME and now people are acting surprised? She burned and killed a lot of people along the way to King’s Landing, even while she was saving others. She’s never been this pure savior of a ruler that people are making her out to be.

        Character development to turn her into the Mad Queen:

        2 of her children died, she was betrayed and rejected by Jon, her best friend was cruelly murdered in front of her, she fought in the battle at Winterfell just like Jon but no one in the North seemed to care and all fawned over Jon instead of her, her ultimate protector and father figure Jorah died in her arms, Tyrion is one of the last people she has left and he can’t give good advice to save his life and is tied to the family she’s trying to overthrow, the people of King’s Landing wouldn’t even protect or stand up for their current queen and pretty much immediately surrendered (so why would she think they would welcome and back her? Yes I know they have good reasons to hate Cersei, but why would Dany think they would be any different towards her and why would she care to rule over people who don’t care about her and have no loyalty?), and Varys was trying to poison her and overthrow her claim to the throne that she’s worked towards for years. All in all I’d say she had quite a lot of reasons to burn it all down.

    • geekychick says:

      Yeah, this is some logic that is constantly repeated here, although I don’t get the logic. Especially here! Look, a war criminal is a war criminal. A monstrous killer is a monstrous killer, no matter the gender.
      No killing in GOT can compare with KL massacre. The scope of it, the fact that it was totally avoidable…uncomparable.

  13. Mumbles says:

    Omg. It is what it is. While they are at it, can someone rewrite the last season of Lost?

  14. Jester says:

    There was always going to be backlash for Dany’s arc, just because she is a popular character with very devoted fans. It was up to the showrunners to nail the landing and make her descent organic. They failed to do so.

    Here’s some tinfoil for you: Weiss & Benioff liked Dany too much and were reluctant to have her become a villain, so they put off any work on the ending of her character arc until they absolutely had to write it into the script.

  15. MrsBanjo says:

    With the extremely high cost of this season, there’s no way HBO is going to want to redo it. That would be a huge waste of money and at the end of the day, they care about their bottom line.

    Also, all of the actors would have to be willing to return. I highly doubt the majority would want to do that when after a decade they’re finally done with it. They’ll want to move on to other projects.

  16. Sayrah says:

    I’m holding out hope for a good end. I’m interested to see Dany’s state of mind when episode 6 opens. Is she really crazy or just ruthless and had had enough with playing nice? She was supposed to trust Cersei when she had already been betrayed by her and she can’t even trust her allies or closest advisors? Burning everyone was awful but she heard all those voices telling her to conquer and be a dragon and she finally did.

    • Turtledove says:

      “I’m interested to see Dany’s state of mind when episode 6 opens. Is she really crazy or just ruthless and had had enough with playing nice? ”

      It won’t happen, but I think it would be amazing if she looks contrite and horrified about what she has done.

  17. Arnk says:

    No. The pacing might be off but it still makes sense. They shouldn’t remake anything just because Daenerys fans couldn’t see where her storyline was headed and don’t like it. And she was absolutely not justified in murdering thousands of people in any way, shape, or form at all.

    The only plotline that has bothered me so far is the Jaime/Cersei one. The pacing was always going to be off, and I really wish we could have gotten more seasons, or at least a longer season but it is what it is.

    Also when did people start believing that creating a show is a democratic process they’re involved in?

    • Emilia says:

      “Also when did people start believing that creating a show is a democratic process they’re involved in?”

      Exactly! The entitlement of some fandoms is astounding. I’ve been a fan of the series since season 2 and while I have some problems with the final season I’m not going to throw a tantrum because I didn’t get the ending I wanted. It’s just a tv show folks.

    • Erinn says:

      Yeah, I agree. It’s getting ridiculous with the entitlement. You’re allowed to be upset, you’re allowed to not like something and voice that – but to expect someone else’s work to be changed because it didn’t go the way you wanted is silly.

      Look, either stop watching (dropping viewership will be a bigger deal to a company than people complaining on twitter) or maybe consider getting into writing yourself.

    • Patty says:

      I’ve actually seen more people upset with what has happened to Jon, Tyrion, Varys, Jaime, and Bran over Dany. It’s not about people being upset about what’s happening with Dany. It’s about people being upset that every character on the show has been dumbed down to serve these big set pieces and that character development, story, and plot, has been sacrificed for spectacle and gotcha moments.

      • Alissa says:

        I’ve seen people complaining that Tyrion isn’t smart anymore and Jon is useless and that Jaime’s arc was for nothing, but the biggest complaint I’ve seen is about Dany.

    • shells_bells says:

      I agree with everything you said.

  18. DP says:

    It was believable that Dany would still burn the troops and Cersei, even after surrender, BUT it was not believable that she would burn the civilians right away.
    They should have made it look more like they got caught in the cross fire. Instead they showed her targeting civilians, chasing them street by street and burning them alive when no soldiers were even nearby.
    It would have made more sense if she said, “bring me Cersei” and when they didn’t or Cersei didn’t come out, she destroyed the red keep and “burned her out”. I believe she would have hurt civilians to get to Cersei but she was burning civilians before even trying to get Cersei. No way. Even if she had gone mad, it doesn’t make sense.
    She would have gone straight for Cersei after destroying the weapons. It’s stupid that they wrote it any other way.
    I think they did it to now force Jon to be against Dany. So annoying they didn’t do it right!
    Also, why did they give Jamie and Cersei a moment like that. I think they should have had Jamie try to get to the bell and get burned on the way or have the people turn on Cersei and take her down.

  19. smcollins says:

    Seriously? Look, I get people’s disappointment, I really do, but the backlash over this season is getting way out of hand. I agree that it’s racing too quickly towards the finish line and the story is suffering because of it, but I’m not about to throw a tantrum over it and start a petition for a do-over. A lot of people seem to be waaaaaaay too invested and need to get a grip (and this is coming from someone who’s been watching the show from the beginning, so I’ve definitely invested a lot of time in it). I don’t know…it’s just getting really ridiculous imo.

    • huckle says:

      I totally agree with you.

    • Original T.C. says:

      To be fair the only reason the show exists is due to the legions of passionate book fans. They have literally spent decades with these characters, making beautiful artwork, writing short stories, engaging in theory discussions on-line. Their extreme investment in these books can easily be found on ASOIF fansites and YouTube Channels. Right or wrong it has been an escape from real life. Their anger is due to watching their fantasy world and characters destroyed. Not going to lie I personally was so angry at the crappy end to the NK plot I was in tears.

      HBO depended on passionate devotion and over-investment to make money hand over fist. And now they are shocked, shocked to see gambling in this casino.

      • Alissa says:

        Just because people are big fans doesn’t mean they’re entitled to make petitions to get a redo on a season. It’s ridiculous and childish.

        All the actors are done. Everyone’s done. It’s over. You might not like the ending, and that’s fine. But that’s it.

      • DS9 says:

        Because GoT is the first and only rich and highly invested fandom?

        Is this the first fantasy world they’ve encountered?

        Because as a Highlander/Star Wars/Star Trek/Stargate fan, get a damned grip.

      • Lady D says:

        Huge J. R. R. Tolkien fan also weighing in.

      • Meganbot2000 says:

        I work in TV and I’ve seen this first hand a few times on shows I or friends have worked on.

        The hardcore stans are always the ones complaining that they’re the reason the show is so successful so their opinions matter, but realistically, I’m sorry, stans (not fans but the hardcore ones running fansites or fanblogs or doing stuff like petitions) make up like .1% of the audience. Fans are obviously important and certainly very important for things like selling merchandise, but in terms of ratings (which is the only thing that really counts) it’s the millions of regular viewers who every network and production company is focused on.

        An everyone in TV knows that regular viewers who tune in but would never for example go online to discuss the show are a lot easy and more “desirable” commercially (therefore targeted more) than the super-passionate fans. It’s a tricky balance, and one a lot of showrunners and TV writers struggle with. And we don’t always get it right. I don’t think GOT has got it right, but at the same time no half-decent writer would ever listen to fan/audience opinions on the writing.

        GOT is even trickier since it brought a huge book fanbase, but likely the majority of the audience aren’t familiar with the books, so it’s sort of having to juggle two different audiences.

    • isabelle says:

      100% quit humorous really. Fans want their saints to be saints and their baddies to be baddies, pitch a fit when characters go outside of their boxes.

  20. Jess says:

    No that’s ridiculous, I don’t think it’s that bad. I’m still shocked and disappointed and happy etc just like I was with all the other seasons. This is just a shitty thing to do for a show we’ve loved this long, so it’s not perfect, but Jesus Christ this is just mean spirited.

  21. Stella Alpina says:

    Ya see?!

    This confirms what I’ve thought all along. The showrunners and their writing team are hacks, as I said in yesterday’s George R. R. Martin post. They were fine as long as they were following Martin’s source material. Left on their own, they can’t cut it. Coming up: mediocre Star Wars movies courtesy of Benioff & Weiss. I hope HBO kills their Confederate project.

    Why oh why do people in Hollywood think they can improve on a popular or critically-acclaimed book? They rarely do. There are so many books that were turned into crappy films, often because the source material was altered too much. Sure, they can’t often fit the intricate details of a book into a 2 hour movie or even a TV series. Editing for running time is one thing, but completely changing characters, plotlines, and making stuff up that never happened in the book usually results in butchery. Also, it’s amazing how Hollywood can produce good films, when too many cooks spoil the broth, when too many suits interfere with the creative process.

    A remake will never happen. It’s a crazy request and HBO’s not gonna spend more money. In the end, it serves as an unmistakable message from the fans. The only way it could be salvaged would be if Martin himself wrote the final season, which, of course, is impossible. It IS possible he won’t live to finish the novels and that is the greater disappointment.

    • Meganbot2000 says:

      That’s true, but going in to GOT that’s exactly what they were trying to do: faithfully adapt a wonderful book series. (I know they did make some changes, eg leaving out Lady Stoneheart, but the first few seasons are pretty faithful to the books.)

      It’s not their fault GRRM didn’t deliver on the final books and left the showrunners floundering alone. I’m sure the showrunners and everyone at HBO would have far, far preferred to have more GOT books to adapt, rather than suddenly having to write the ending by themselves with only an outline.

  22. bus says:

    I’m still not convinced she’s ‘gone mad’. Her actions are justifiable from many points of view. It’s how naive others (Tyrion, Varys, Jon, etc.) are that could be problematic. All of that could have been shown more but to call for an expensive reshoot? No. Like always, the books will have the better story…if they ever come out.

  23. M.A.F. says:

    Geez, the writing was on the wall on how at least Dany was going to go. If viewers didn’t catch it then that is on them. However, the pacing for the last two seasons and the writing is the issue. HBO could have bought D&D out of their contract but for whatever reason didn’t.

    • Loretta says:

      Sorry but no. Foreshadowing isn’t a character development and that’s why there is a such huge backlash.
      D&D would have to build her madness (for me it’s more like pain, depression and maybe PTSD) in many more episodes and not with foreshadowing but with facts and they had to do it because it was the only way people would accept this change of direction from the most iconic (and one of the most beloved) character of the show .
      It’s simple but instead they have reduced it to a misogynist and sexist garbage. It’s unforgivable.

      • Becks1 says:

        I don’t fully get that argument, because from very early on we knew this was her character. I don’t understand why people keep saying they needed to develop it more. I’m not sure what people wanted from the show. Pretty much once she had her first taste of power, as Khaleesi, this has been her character. She didn’t go from being a savior to being a villain in one episode. She has always been both. I can understand why people may have missed that, since usually her “villain” choices could be justified, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t do bad things.

  24. Weaver says:

    I just can’t get past Cersei’s ending. All that build-up for her to die in the arms of her lover-brother with no consequences for any of the horrible things she’d done.

    • Alissa says:

      One could argue that dying is the consequence…

      • Lamontagne says:

        They threw her prophecy out of the window. Season 2 or 3 introduced it, and they just went “meh, nah”. Cersei deserved an Epic Death, as epic as her plotting and scheming from s01 to s06.
        Did they also forget she said she loved Robert in season 1 and used Jaime to get back at him? She’s spelled it out, she used her brother and somehow s08 rolls around and she’s like “aw you’re hurt ❤️” I’m sorry, but nope.

        Great actors, great cinematography, great investment from all parts and they were all let down by the writing.

      • Skeptical says:

        Is she dead?

    • isabelle says:

      She lost of her children to horrible deaths, was in a loveless marriage since she was a girl and as a woman had to sit back with godawful men rule her world. Then died scared, weak and knowing her last child was dying with her. She suffered.

      • joey says:

        Have we seen the bodies yet? Are we certain they died in the rubbles? I’d been wrong so many times that i never take anything for granted in ‘The Game of Thrones’. It aint over till its really over!

  25. teehee says:

    I actually would have flown straight to Cersei and toasted her face to face if I were Dany.
    I think Cersei deserved it and there was no other choice with that witch.

    The Bells episode was halfway decent comparatively, and season 8 has been totally emotional for me, on the brink of bawling during the battle scenes, the suspense is so high. So much has been built up and now the moment has finally come…

    ITA, now the writing is terribly lazy and fast. Things that are relevant are wrapped up in a few minutes after seasons of build up, and then unimportant things are lingered on and stretched out in between. Its just totally no imagination, no creativity or thought put into the season.
    …. its like they just got told “alright wrap it up! come on!” That does suck. But I mean, it has to end somehow, which wont be that much more pleasant to face either way.

  26. Loretta says:

    This season is an awful mess. The backlash is so huge and deserved.

  27. Margareth says:

    This backlash it what D&D deserved.

  28. Anna says:

    I’m loving all this backlash, it looks like a Daenerys revenge. Did you want to make me crazy in such a sexist and misogynistic way? Well, then I bring down the reputation of the show with me. This is poetic justice LOL

  29. DS9 says:

    I didn’t think there could be more flailing and gnashing of teeth than fan reaction to DC movies

    Or Star Wars movies

    Or the Mad Max reboot….

  30. Lex says:

    Nahh let’s wait 20 years. Regroup. Learn from mistakes.

    Remake the entire series then, and do it properly from start to finish. Focus on different elements of the story, as there is so much that’s been overlooked. Totally fresh. Maybe he will have finished the story by then… LOL

  31. Anitas says:

    Even if it was the worst piece of TV ever, demanding a remake is ridiculous. It’s like going to an art gallery, seeing a painting you don’t like and demanding the artist paints it again.

  32. Molly says:

    Dany and Arya are two the most popular female characters on the show. So of course Dany’s arc would draw a lot of attention and since the writing of Dany deciding to burn KL was atrociously bad (D&D said in their comments that it was spontaneous decision on her side) the backlash was predictable. HBO just probably never expected it to be that bad.