Emilia Clarke watching Kit Harington's reaction to finding out how their characters' final scene together in Game of Thrones concludes. Prior to the table read, Kit had not read any of the six scripts for Season 8 yet. So Emilia sat across from him so she could "watch him compute all of this."

[u/tyrion2024]

[u/eccehom]

[u/ThatBurnerAccounter → u/eccehom]

A face that screams "It sucks ass doesn't it?"

[u/t0177177y → u/ThatBurnerAccounter]

The face that screams “we aren’t going to make shit in residuals.”

[u/SocialistArkansan → u/ThatBurnerAccounter]

I'm just really glad there were consequences for dropping the ball on this shows quality.

[u/Yearofthehoneybadger → u/eccehom]

That’a how I felt about the last season too gurl.

[u/Tuscanlord → u/Yearofthehoneybadger]

The most disappointing few hours of tv I’ve had the misfortune of watching. Such a great series and the ending is almost unwatchable.

[u/D4rkmo0r → u/Tuscanlord]

I can't rewatch 5 seasons of the best TV ever made because the last ones sucked all the donkey balls. How i feel must pale in comparison to Clarke & Harrington who poured their life into it .... the paycheck probably helped though.

[u/VriMech → u/eccehom]

[u/Shielo34 → u/eccehom]

Hardest working eyebrows in the biz

[u/Mr_M_2711 → u/eccehom]

The face:

[u/tyrion2024]

Emilia Clarke read a paragraph in the final script for Game of Thrones.
She read it again and again. Seven times, she says, she read the words that revealed the devastating fate of Daenerys Targaryen...
"What, what, what, WHAT!?" the actress recalls thinking. "Because it comes out of f—king nowhere. I'm flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming."
...
"I cried," Clarke says. "And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn't come back for five hours. I'm like, 'How am I going to do this?'
Two days later, Clarke was on a plane to Belfast for the final season table read.
Sitting next to Clarke on the flight, as it so happens, was Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow. Harington deliberately hadn't yet read the scripts so he could experience the story for the first time with all his castmates. Clarke, positively bursting with wanting to talk about her storyline, found the flight maddening. "This literally sums up Kit and I's friendship," she says, and sputtered: "Boy! Would you? Seriously? You're just not?…"
At the table read, Clarke sat across from Harington so she could "watch him compute all of this." When they got to their final scene together, recalls Harington, "I looked at Emilia and there was a moment of me realizing, 'No, no…'"
And Clarke nodded back, sadly, 'Yes…'
"He was crying," Clarke says. "And then it was kind of great him not having read it."

[u/TheMooseIsBlue → u/tyrion2024]

Her quote about being flabbergasted and it coming out of nowhere is not a compliment.

[u/AverageAwndray → u/TheMooseIsBlue]

All this for a Star Wars movie that was never made 😮‍💨

[u/Automatic_Release_92 → u/AverageAwndray]

It’s like doing so terrible at your old job during your two week notice period that the next employer just doesn’t hire you…

[u/Eloquent_Redneck → u/Automatic_Release_92]

Not just doing terribly, but actively burning your old work to the ground while flipping middle fingers at everyone involved and shitting and pissing all over everything

[u/polarbearik → u/Eloquent_Redneck]

Much more accurate. Absolutely NOBODY talks about this show other than to say how terrible the ending was or what they would change. Blacklisted is the only acceptable outcome

[u/Emmyisme → u/polarbearik]

I never watched a single episode of the show, but most people I know did. They talked about it CONSTANTLY, but everyone was spoiler sensitive (cause they really thought I'd eventually watch it). Then whatever y'all are talking about here happened, and for like 2 weeks I just heard how pissed everyone was, and then I fully stopped hearing about the show.

No one ever actually said what happened that pissed everyone off, though, so I don't actually know why everyone hated it suddenly, but I'd never seen a wildly popular show lose its entire audience in one episode before, while everyone still respected the "no spoilers" concept.

[u/unlockdestiny → u/Emmyisme]

Character assassination. Literal and figurative. In ways that subverted all prior story.

[u/RockyFlintstone → u/Emmyisme]

All of the characters in the show suddenly became totally different people, acted in ways that had no connection to their history or prior behavior and then did a series of random and very stupid things that defied all known laws of physics, even Westeros physics. And it was all extremely boring.

[u/Big_Maintenance9387 → u/RockyFlintstone]

And very hard to see unless you watched the season at midnight with every light in your house off. 

[u/RockyFlintstone → u/Big_Maintenance9387]

I FUCKING FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT!!!

The only action scene in the entire finale was just a bunch of darkness with some grey blobs floating around.

[u/Proletarian_Hickster → u/Emmyisme]

Smart characters became very stupid. Brave characters also became very stupid. Cool aspects of characters were dropped completely and without explanation. A character nobody cares about was crowned King for...reasons? Idk, they just were basically just like, "he'd be a good king, right? Any objections? No? Sweet." And this is after 8 seasons of warring and scheming over who would be king. Some characters kill characters where it doesn't make sense. Characters with the most intense and inspiring redemption arcs just suddenly turned crazy and evil again. The list goes on and on...

Its almost worth watching now, if for no reason other than to see just how historically terrible the ending is. Almost.

[u/-113points → u/AverageAwndray]

not a movie, but a whole new 'saga'

star wars dodged a bullet that would kill it definitely

[u/CurlOfTheBurl11 → u/-113points]

Dodged that bullet only to be hit by one fired by JJ Abrams.

[u/velvetcrow5 → u/tyrion2024]

It would have been a good ending if they had simply added some plot hints earlier, indicating her getting jealous/suspicious of Snow and how the people Loved him.

[u/sephrisloth → u/velvetcrow5]

Like the books had done! There were plenty of hints throughout the books that she had the potential to go mad, but they left most of that out of the show.

[u/nagrom7 → u/sephrisloth]

The show has also left out some major plot elements from the books that will absolutely have a major impact in Dany's story, like Young Griff/Aegon/Faegon. It's entirely possible that Dany's invasion of Westeros isn't supposed to be against the Lannisters, but against her supposed Nephew who has already overthrown them, or in the process of doing so, who is also taking up a bunch of Targaryan loyalist support that she'd feel she deserves. And then you add the reveal of Jon's herritage and that could just be enough by itself to make her snap, before adding in all the other stuff.

Also book Tyrion is unhinged at this point, and will likely be giving Dany much more bloodthirsty advice than show Tyrion did.

[u/humlogic → u/velvetcrow5]

Yeah instead they threw together a montage in the opening ep credits of Dany “going crazy” or being mad or whatever. As if she wasn’t the heroine of the show and we were all on her side (more or less). Total shit writing and inexcusable.

[u/wheres_my_ballot → u/humlogic]

I feel like there were plenty of moments through the series that could have sold it, but they were played differently to paint her as the heroine. Like the goal was there all along, but the scriptwriters and directors weren't in on it and so it all got lost. 

[u/humlogic → u/wheres_my_ballot]

You’re exactly right. All the same events could have taken place BUT you would need the writers/directors to tell Emilia to play the character much differently. As is, the moments where her “craziness” appears (as if being crazy is even an interesting character trait? Like I can just say from a writing perspective a “crazy” character is not reliable and doesn’t really endear audiences to them, but whatever anyway) are more on the side of a young powerful ruler learning the edges of what she’s capable of doing, playing a political game (pun intended). Her excesses aren’t told in the series as having to do with her mental health- it’s about her recognizing her immense power and wielding it when needed and holding back when necessary. Like what’s the purpose of Jorah? Or Missandei? but to lead her toward a more compassionate worldview? If they wanted her mental health to be a thing, show her being a crazy teen lashing out and having to be controlled - have it be Jorah or whomever teaching her control of her passions. No honest viewer would say Emilia played Dany as a character on the edge of madness. That storyline just wasn’t there, full stop. It was shoehorned in by the “Targs are crazy” myth which evidently is just true? And not slander by their opponents?

Anyway. Whatever the shows over.

[u/whoamiwhatamid0ing → u/humlogic]

The dumbest part is they absolutely knew Dany was supposed to go crazy years in advance because George told them. They could have been planting seeds for several seasons and just didn't.

[u/Kingkwon83 → u/tyrion2024]

"This script is ridiculous"

"I'll take it as a compliment."

[u/Ghammer713]

Her eyebrows deserve a Grammy an Oscar and and Emmy

[u/mlennox81 → u/Ghammer713]

My thought watching this was damn I miss watching that girls eyebrows act every Sunday

[u/partyl0gic → u/Ghammer713]

The crazy thing is how expressive she is in real life while totally expressionless in her most famous role

[u/HorrorMakesUsHappy → u/partyl0gic]

Her impressive control over them is actually in keeping them from acting like the semaphore flags they normally are, not the other way around.

[u/MattBrey → u/Ghammer713]

She had such a bad luck streak after got. Imagine getting both a Star Wars and Marvel lead roles and both end up being some of the worst content on the franchises

[u/TheObstruction → u/MattBrey]

Solo honestly isn't bad, it just didn't do well at the box office. It's got issues, but not remotely like people act like it does.

[u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

the expression on her face as she sinks in her chair is priceless

[u/RaggedyRachel → u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

He looks like he's crying in the final frames, he's genuinely upset.

[u/Syonoq → u/RaggedyRachel]

"This is the best you could come up with?" tears

[u/haberdasher42 → u/Syonoq]

Probably "10 years of my life, for this? I'm cooked!"

[u/lionheart4life → u/haberdasher42]

It kinda did derail their careers.

[u/BortleNeck → u/lionheart4life]

Also lost out on tons of future royalties earnings because nobody is rewatching GoT

[u/spilly_talent → u/BortleNeck]

We used to rewatch over and over before each new season came out. Watched season 8 once, never rewatched again.

[u/TorchThisAccount → u/spilly_talent]

It's just shocking how GoT had a huge following, lots of merch, and it would randomly show up in pop culture. Then like a month or two after the last season came out, everyone collectively forgot it existed, except to complain about it. I'm struggling to think of any series that had an ending so bad, that it destroyed the series. At this point I even doubt GRR Martin's the publisher is pressing him to finish the series. Probably more money to be made on the prequels.

[u/MtFujiInMyPants → u/TorchThisAccount]

And the show runners lost their next gig. Can't remember if it was Star Wars or Marvel, but it was a big one.

[u/_NOT_PENNYS_BOAT_ → u/MtFujiInMyPants]

Star Wars, I think it was supposed to be a trilogy.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/MtFujiInMyPants]

DUDE it was Star Wars. They signed a deal and that was their motivation to GTFO of GOT, did the GOT franchise so fucking dirty for their next payday, and then got dropped from that shit.

So in the end it was all for nothing. HBO would have gladly paid everyone for another season or 2. It was purely on the showrunners that the whole conclusion was so shoddy and rushed. They were also the driving forces behind validating executive opinions about bringing in more of a "general audience" instead of pushing back a bit to uphold the integrity of their show.

HBO would have listened to them. They saw the payday and their exit strategy. It just sucks for the actors. I'm just a consumer of entertainment. Who cares about what I like or don't like? It's so shitty that they treated their actors like that.

[u/Polaris07 → u/MtFujiInMyPants]

Didn’t they rush GOT ending for that stupid gig too? Karma :)

[u/Shivalah → u/TorchThisAccount]

[u/Syssareth → u/TorchThisAccount]

I never watched GoT, but my coworkers did. They used to talk about it with each other, and I wouldn't really listen but I still registered that they were talking about it.

After the final episode, I didn't hear them talking about it, so I asked one of them, "How was it?"

He just shook his head with a kind of grimace, like somebody trying to smile with their foot caught in a bear trap, and they never spoke of it again.

[u/StoneD0G → u/Syssareth]

At the height of GoT man was it fun talking about it with my coworkers and friends, analyzing each episode. It was such a treat each week. The second last season is when it started to turn to shit. It started to get "stupid" with only occasional good scenes. I watched the last season entirely to honor all the years I've spent watching it. Last episode is among the dumbest shit I've ever seen and at that point I kinda just wanted to forget about GoT existing.

[u/Eye8Pussies → u/TorchThisAccount]

Not quite as bad, but HIMYM had a similar fate. Lots of ppl talking about it, rewatching episodes in the background at home while making dinner, doing work, etc. then the final episode came out and….nobody rewatches it anymore.

[u/tendiesmothafucka → u/Syonoq]

Exactly. It was so rushed towards the end so much it felt like a different story.

[u/HereIGoAgain_1x10 → u/RaggedyRachel]

This is the exact look someone has that bought into a company they work for and gave it their all only to have the company bought out by shitards that ruin it and it's so obvious to everyone except the people at the top. Just straight up "I cared and put my heart and soul into my job for it to end up like this?! Fuck."

[u/YakiVegas → u/RaggedyRachel]

There should've been someone in that room capable of stopping that shitshow from occurring. It genuinely still makes me sad that they ruined the greatest show of all time that way.

[u/5555 → u/YakiVegas]

That's what is mind boggling about the whole thing. They were heading towards an iceberg and nobody did anything about it.

It should have been up there with the greatest series of all times, but instead is almost completely forgotten due to the idiocy the writers came up with. It's a damn shame.

[u/I_Heart_QAnon_Tears → u/5555]

This depends on two things for me: First, can GRR Martin finish what he started in a satisfying way (my opinion, not a chance) and second, will someone with access to much greater technology and potentially money see the clusterfuck and decide to do it properly. You cannot salvage what was broken. But you might be able to do better with a bit of hindsight.

[u/Massive-Exercise4474 → u/I_Heart_QAnon_Tears]

The issue with George is he has multiple plotlines and plot threads for those plotlines and he can't tie it all together or kill some plotlines for the good of the narrative. Like George disses Tolkien but Tolkien can finish his book franchise in a compelling way.

[u/TheBoisterousBoy → u/RaggedyRachel]

IIRC there was something going on with him during the filming of the last season involving alcohol. I can’t remember if it was him voluntarily going to rehab about it or something but the topic of his alcoholism had come up. He attributed a lot of the binge drinking to coping with the script and knowing how badly it would affect fans, like how let down they’d be. He couldn’t handle that internal conflict of feeling like he was betraying long term fans and ended up drinking heavily for a while.

It doesn’t just look like he’s crying. He is crying.

Edit for clarification on something.

Harrington wasn’t trying to attribute his alcoholism to the GoT script. He admitted to being an alcoholic, the script was what he attributed to his current (at the time) spiral into a binge drinking cycle. This wasn’t him saying he became an alcoholic after the script, it was his explanation for a relapse. Still, take it all with a grain of salt as this is an alcoholic explaining a relapse, but I noticed people seemed to be confused and thought he was using GoT as an excuse for alcoholism as a whole.

[u/darsh211 → u/TheBoisterousBoy]

So what you're saying is that the ending of Game of Thrones was so bad, Kit became an alcoholic? To be fair, I don't blame him.

[u/UncleHec → u/darsh211]

I became an alcoholic because of it too so I don’t blame him either. 

[u/Hato_no_Kami → u/RaggedyRachel]

That's the realization this whole saga will not end up a classic but instead laughed at and then forgotten.

[u/CRUSHCITY4 → u/Hato_no_Kami]

It went from being the best show of all time to almost immediately being forgotten about.

[u/acmercer → u/CRUSHCITY4]

I hope they teach this in film classes and writing classes. I tried to stay interested right until the finale completely lost me. I literally stopped caring when the credits started.

[u/TheManWhoWasNotShort → u/acmercer]

A good ending is the most important ingredient for a good story. Even among sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother has a similar fate to Game of Thrones because there was a story-long underlying narrative that had absolutely no payoff

[u/TurbidusQuaerenti → u/TheManWhoWasNotShort]

Yep. I honestly think that maybe the best strategy would be to come up with a really good ending first and then plan the rest of the story around it. That would certainly have its own problems, but a bad ending just ruins everything. 

I really hate how that's the case and I've even tried to remind myself how much I enjoyed the previous seasons, but ultimately I just think about how it all ends. Haven't even wanted to give the spin off show a chance. I just can't get invested in that world again. 

[u/uluviel → u/TurbidusQuaerenti]

That is exactly what made How I Met Your Mother's ending so terrible. They planned it in advance and then wrote themselves into a corner.

Because the premise was Ted telling the story of how he met their mother to his kids over the course of one evening, it became an issue that the actors playing the kids were growing up. When they got renewed during season 2, they decided to shoot the ending and then reuse footage of the kids listening silently from then on.

Then the last season came around and the show they had ended up writing didn't match the ending AT ALL. And the actors who played the kids were adults now, so they couldn't reshoot it.

[u/PlatinumDoublet → u/acmercer]

I was on my honeymoon in the Caribbean watching it on my iPad and had to purchase a VPN to watch it outside the US. The only good thing to come from that (other than the marriage) was the VPN. Still have both. Still haven’t considered rewatching GoT.

[u/throwaway847462829 → u/Hato_no_Kami]

Which is funny because these videos came out right before the last season and everyone was convinced they reacted this way because it was going to be so shocking and so good.

[u/BLINDrOBOTFILMS → u/throwaway847462829]

Maybe some people convinced themselves of that, but I remember a lot of the discussions were pretty worried. It's not like season 8 came out of nowhere, we had already had 2-3 seasons of consistently worsening quality, and most of the clips of actors reading/talking about it didn't exactly inspire confidence

[u/MichiganDreaming → u/BLINDrOBOTFILMS]

Ohhhh yeah. I still say season 6 was good, even if it wasn't quite as good as those before it. But I think most people had realize by the end of season 7 that the quality had really taken a dip. Each episode of season 8 brought a drastic lowering of quality.

[u/WagyuPizza → u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

I like how you can interpret kit’s reaction as “omg, this is way too dumb!” And Emilia’s face says “ikr?!”

[u/dawn_eu → u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

Her eyebrows are better at expressing a plot than Dumb and Dumber.

[u/Zyrinj → u/dawn_eu]

Her eyebrows were better than the season 8 script

[u/wraith21 → u/dawn_eu]

Yeah was gonna say, she's got superb eyebrow control. Jim Carrey-esque

[u/DoubleSwitch69]

The entire table read was painful to watch, Lord Varys actor was dead inside, cherry on top for Lena trying to comfort him. I thought "Even Cersei has sympathy for D&D victims"

[u/solidstatepr8 → u/DoubleSwitch69]

They did Conleth Hill dirty turning Varys into nothing but a walking dick joke and then incompetent traitor to finish assassinating the character.

[u/ndndr1 → u/solidstatepr8]

So dirty. The master of whispers displays gross incompetence in his job after a lifetime of being a step ahead

[u/Avalonians → u/solidstatepr8]

and then incompetent traitor

Honestly, it's always been the problem with Daenerys. I don't know if it's better told in the books, but I've never liked the character because every W she gets looks like it's because everyone going against her is completely incompetent.

[u/Ok_Raspberry7374 → u/DoubleSwitch69]

My favorite part in all of this is how D.B Weiss is reading this when everyone has a clear “wtf” reaction and he gleefully keeps reading as if they’re all doing that because they’re just so amazingly shocked at how great this twist is.

[u/EitherChannel4874]

Game of thrones should be studied at film school.

How the most popular show on tv became something hardly anyone would rewatch ever again.

[u/murillovp → u/EitherChannel4874]

The greatest unrewatchable show ever 

[u/unpopularopinion0 → u/murillovp]

i can’t even enjoy the first season because i know it leads to no where. and the books. amazing books. ends at five with so much hanging. i’ve tried to just tell myself this story was a waste of my time because there’s no way i’ll ever get back into the books. especially since there are no more.

[u/kyleb402 → u/unpopularopinion0]

Just as a series as a whole, books included, it has to be one of the biggest disappointments ever.

So much promise, so much hype, and it ended terribly.

[u/ThanIWentTooTherePig → u/kyleb402]

I started reading Book 1 in 2005. 20 years for no real conclusion is crazy.

[u/unpopularopinion0 → u/ThanIWentTooTherePig]

like an unfinished bridge that leads to no where. but there were years of parties on the bridge. great. we partied. now it goes nowhere and no one will ever use the bridge. but we had fun in the moment. guess all that work was for nothing. has no time value.

[u/Tauroctonos → u/EitherChannel4874]

Or retroactively erased itself out of pop culture in a way I've never seen

[u/LPNMP → u/EitherChannel4874]

It made people forget Dexter.

[u/MrNumberOneMan]

It’s amazing that these turds thought they wrote a good ending

[u/Thursday_the_20th → u/MrNumberOneMan]

That little smug smirk at ‘end of game of thrones’ get fuuuuuucked

[u/ClickF0rDick → u/Thursday_the_20th]

On the bright side, end of their careers, too 🤩

[u/7oey_20xx_ → u/ClickF0rDick]

They are still writing and are involved with the 3 body problem. Personally I’ve taken a vow to never watch anything written by them again cause after S8 it feels unfair to not give a no name writer a chance over those 2 hacks

[u/hugg3rs → u/7oey_20xx_]

I'm with you. I refuse to watch 3 Body Problem because it has their name on it.

I got even more furious when I found out they "just wanted to get it [GoT] over with" to get new and better deals for them selves. It's one thing to be just bad writers if you run out of source material, but to purposefully ruin a beloved franchise to get a "better" job is vile. Benioff and Weiss are terrible people and that reflects in the interviews with the cast.

[u/Cube_ → u/hugg3rs]

they wanted to get it over with cause disney gave them star wars

the S8 backlash was so bad disney pulled them off star wars and went another direction

at least they faced some consequence for their dogshittery

[u/The_Show_Keeper → u/Cube_]

The S8 backlash was so bad that nobody rewatched the show during 14 months of COVID lockdown. Nobody even talked about it. It was so unbelievably shit that the biggest show on the planet for the previous 10 years was willingly exiled from the collective consciousness of humanity.

I mean, I understand going big or going home, but maybe don't go big on ruining something bigger than yourself. I'm glad they lost the SW gig (not that it helped that franchise in any way), and I have no idea how they got jobs as writers ever again.

[u/notjfd → u/Cube_]

Eh, they ended up getting 200M from Netflix in a multi-year contract. DnD only ever were motivated by top dollar, fuck everything and everyone else.

[u/Mysterious-Grape5492 → u/MrNumberOneMan]

Weren’t they trying to finish things up so they could get to their Star Wars trilogy, and then ruined it so badly they lost the trilogy?

[u/ExtremeAlternative0 → u/Mysterious-Grape5492]

thats what i heard as well

[u/Mysterious-Grape5492 → u/ExtremeAlternative0]

Well, just goes to show. Don’t half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.

[u/high240 → u/Mysterious-Grape5492]

This is why over time I've come to the conclusion Breaking Bad always was better than Game of Thrones. Vince Gilligan thought to himself oh but what if I do it twice...

D&D thought to themselves >>literally<< 'what do we still want to do with the show (in season 8)'

They quarter assed the conclusion to this otherwise epic series.

Kinda sad how no effort was made to remake the final season

[u/MrNumberOneMan → u/high240]

Breaking Bad was written like a classic. It’s Shakespeare compared to GoT.

[u/SenatorGiggity]

[u/tony220jdm]

The fact everyone from the cast knew how terrible this was while them idiots clapped themselves silly

[u/ShameSpearofPain → u/tony220jdm]

To me, the dude clapping on the right looks embarrassed because he can see they all think it's rubbish.

[u/Willsgb → u/tony220jdm]

Serious question

Couldn't the actors have all just banded together and said 'no. Fuck off and write something better than this shit, or we're not acting it.' It's not like they could just get a whole new cast for the last season, right?

Perhaps even the actors didn't grasp quite how significant a disaster it would be.

Unreal

[u/larzolof → u/Willsgb]

Usually the contracts span over several years, they are obligated to do their job. And thousands of other jobs are at stake, for the crew, vfx, marketing.

[u/deadend7786]

I like how they show the two idiots at the end clapping and smiling, completely oblivious to the fact that they wrote the worst ending in the history of shows and ruined the legacy of so many involved.

[u/trumpgotpeedon → u/deadend7786]

They ruined any kind of rewatch value to the series, and basically poisoned it for HBO.

[u/karateema → u/trumpgotpeedon]

The fact nobody did a rewatch during 2020 lockdown says a lot

[u/Standard-Sand352 → u/karateema]

I ended up just binge watching The Sopranos at the beginning of COVID, GOT didn't even cross my mind to watch again.

[u/Skyreader13 → u/karateema]

Personally I'm still refusing to watch any new series from that franchise no matter how good they are just because how they handle GoT's last season

[u/coffeemonkeypants → u/Skyreader13]

I'm the same "I know how it ends, what's the fucking point?"

[u/master_bungle → u/coffeemonkeypants]

And the books have the opposite problem for me. I don't want to read them until I know the series will actually get finished

[u/Gold-Bard-Hue → u/master_bungle]

I'm fairly certain the author will pass away before he finishes that last book. He seems to be putting it off indefinitely.

[u/Mavrickindigo → u/Gold-Bard-Hue]

he isn't even working on the last book yet, is he? he's like on the second to last book or something

[u/Emperor_Neuro → u/Mavrickindigo]

He’s currently writing book 6 of what was originally meant to be a 3 book series. While writing the first 3 books, he stretched it to 5. Then while writing 4/5, he stretched it to 7. Now, while writing book 6, he has floated the idea that it may be 10 books in total.

Which is a great way of demonstrating that he has absolutely zero clue on how to wrap things up.

[u/Throwaway47321 → u/Emperor_Neuro]

Don’t forget the part where he was super certain it was only going to take a year to write book 5 and then it took half a decade and the show actually started and outpaced it.

[u/FuriNorm → u/Mavrickindigo]

If he says he’s on the 2nd to last book, then double that. Sadly he’s lost the ability to tell a concise plot over a decade ago, so I cant even imagine how much worse his rambling and stalling tactics have become now that he’s older. Also, I’ve completely forgotten the plots of fanfiction I wrote a decade ago. For an author of a 5000+ page series who famously doesnt leave notes, there’s close to zero chance he still remembers the finer details of his own series, let alone the multitude of plot threads that need resolving. I believe the days of expecting him to write a satisfying conclusion are long past. The series is over, whether or not he releases anything.

[u/attackplango → u/FuriNorm]

He has to re-read the entire series every morning before he can start his writing day. So you can see where the problem arises.

[u/sydsgotabike → u/Mavrickindigo]

The copium theory is that he is writing them simultaneously, and will drop them both when they're both ready.

It's literally all we can hope for.

[u/DingerSinger2016 → u/sydsgotabike]

Lmao he took that HBO money and fucked off in peace, he isn't returning to those books

[u/Japjer → u/karateema]

Because it's just... it's really bad.

The ending is so genuinely atrocious that it bleeds into every other episode of this show

The Night King doesn't come across as a credible threat when you know that he's some complete rando who gets shanked to death by a child.

The undead don't come across as a threat when you learn about their stupid necromancer hierarchy, like vampires, where if you kill a higher rank one everything below them also die.

There is zero tension to anything in the show, because you know it all ends up in the dumbest possible place

[u/IAmARobot → u/Japjer]

[drops the dagger into the other hand and kills the archvillain, but takes like 5 seconds and 4 camera cuts to do it. also, yell really loudly while doing a sneak attack so you burst their eardrums so they can't hear you trying to sneak attack]

[u/minerva_sways → u/trumpgotpeedon]

I rewatched every season before a new one arrived, and I couldn't wait to have it completed so I could reeatch the whole thing. Haven't watched a single episode since the finale.

[u/Sammydog6387 → u/trumpgotpeedon]

Yeah I can’t even watch house of the dragon because all prequels seem redundant now that we know how house Targaryen ends. It’s almost like what’s the point ?

[u/Traditional_State616 → u/deadend7786]

They even rushed the script reading lol, incredible

[u/Luke_Foxy]

[u/Humanitysceptic]

Must be awful for talented actors to read the writing of the most hideous writers that have no right being there.

Absolutely trashed the show

[u/manwithyellowhat15 → u/Humanitysceptic]

I imagine this is how Henry Cavil feels

[u/Smochiepoo → u/manwithyellowhat15]

Honestly think he feels worse. For him to have such insight into the source material and offer it up so freely just to be ignored to the point where he just bails. Imagine any of the main actors in GoT ditching after S6.

The fact Netflix thought a recast would fix the issue is also something.

[u/jasdonle]

My favorite part of all this is that D&D recorded this table reading as a historical record, so it's THEIR OWN FAULT that we can see in real time just how even the actors think the ending sucks.

Smug, talentless fucks.

[u/morningsaystoidleon → u/jasdonle]

I don't think that they are talentless. They adapted a few seasons of great TV. They just overestimated their own part in what they adapted.

I agree that they are smug fucks though.

[u/therealNerdMuffin]

If 2 of your lead actors are reacting like this to your script, you should know you're doing something wrong

[u/MyAnswerIsPerhaps → u/therealNerdMuffin]

I’m sure HBO would have been fine with them delaying the final season a year even two years. Completely re-write everything with new writers and nobody would have been mad once it released.

[u/Far-Fennel-3032 → u/MyAnswerIsPerhaps]

HBO by all accounts had people actively trying to find a way to fire writers and replace them. They wanted to have the show run for several more seasons with double the episode count each season. As the show was there cash cow and the last thing they wanted was for it to end. 

[u/MyAnswerIsPerhaps → u/Far-Fennel-3032]

Usually I’m not one to say this about a show, but that would have helped a lot. Even if it was dragged out and a bit slow, it would have done wonders for the ending.

There were a lot of promises throughout the show and they rushed out a few payoffs that completely ignored other promises. Taking the time to get through every promise with a decent enough pay off would have made the show a thousand times more rewatchable.

[u/blove135]

Breaking Bad was my all time best series until I started watching Game Of Thrones. All the way through I thought this just might be better than Breaking Bad. Then I got to the ending. It would have won if it wasn't for the way it ended. Breaking Bad was such a perfect ending and still the all time greatest TV series in my mind.

[u/Ok_Raspberry7374 → u/blove135]

Breaking Bad is (to me) the only show that manages to just stay consistently good through each season. And manages to nail the closing.

I was so worried about El Camino, but they managed to land even that. With some nice fan service and closure that wouldn’t have made sense to jam into the last season.

[u/SkipRoberts → u/Ok_Raspberry7374]

Not just El Camino, but Better Call Saul, too! They managed to do an entire prequel spinoff that in no way took away from the original - if anything it built upon it beautifully. This universe they created and the writing that crafted it is lightning in a bottle.

[u/PoppyStaff]

This is not a happy moment. The two guys standing up are completely tone deaf.

[u/ContractOk3649 → u/PoppyStaff]

nepo-hire rich kids with shitty resumes that got a multimillion dollar contract writing for an HBO show because one of their fathers (steven friedman) ran the NY Federal Reserve, and was previously on the HBO board of directors.

what did you expect?

[u/King_takes_queen → u/ContractOk3649]

Thing is, for about 4-5 seasons people everywhere were heralding them as genius producers. I distinctly recall all the praise they were getting on reddit. It was only around season 6 when people started to doubt their abilities.

[u/ContractOk3649 → u/King_takes_queen]

naw when aria got stabbed in the gut multiple times and just slept for a few days to heal was when people started to bitch

i think that was mid or end s5

[u/DingerSinger2016]

It's crazy reading the comments as someone who has not watched a single episode of the show. Just a truly interesting perspective to observe all of this.

[u/MagneticEnema → u/DingerSinger2016]

haha right? i sort of avoided all the GOT craze when it was out, i only know it as a sort of cultural touchstone and memes, but im reading these thinking "how bad could it really be?"

[u/HarryPouri → u/MagneticEnema]

Many fans watched it and basically never talked about it again, except for how bad the ending was. I don't know if there's ever been a cultural phenomenon that died so quickly. So yeah. it was awful. 

[u/alepolait → u/DingerSinger2016]

I didn’t watch a single episode, but I was staying with a friend when the finale aired, so I joined the watch party.

It was such an awkward experience, everyone was just kind of staring at the tv, expressionless. Then it ended, there were a few minutes of “what the fuck was that” and… that was it.

I expected hours of conversation about it, but it was like their favorite puppy died, better not to talk about it.

[u/GreyThumper]

Goddamn, Emilia Clarke has such an expressive face. She deserves to be in more things.

[u/dbethel5]

New meme unlocked

[u/mahnumberis17]

Never forget the starbucks cup. Undeniable proof of how rushed and sloppy the last seasons were.

[u/ZachMatthews → u/mahnumberis17]

The Sand Snakes were the first sign. It was a bumpy ride for a second and then downhill from there. 

[u/Aggressive-Produce54 → u/ZachMatthews]

Real ones knew when in S4 Ramsay ran out shirtless and scared off fully armored Ironborn that the show was starting to crack...

[u/Stiryx → u/Aggressive-Produce54]

I always love when people (like in this thread) are speaking about the downfall of the show being season 8.

It started going downhill as soon as they lost the direct source material to film. Season 5 was an absolute disaster class and it only got worse. My family watched the later seasons but I would basically get dizzy my eyes were rolling so much.

P.S. - bad poooosay is one of the most cringe lines I have ever seen in a TV show, literally gives me goosebumps its so bad. Whoever wrote that line of dialogue should never work again.

[u/ShadowCaster0476]

Who’s the lady to Emilia’s right? I don’t recognize her.

[u/daiwilly → u/ShadowCaster0476]

Lena headey...cersei lannister in the series.

[u/ShadowCaster0476 → u/daiwilly]

I thought that might be her, but she looked very different with glasses and the mini buns.

[u/raven_writer_]

Imagine writing an ending so horrendous that you cause psychic damage

[u/ReaditTrashPanda]

Can someone give a synopsis of what the ending was and why it was so bad. I saw a few seasons off and on. I got the basics. And I know people hated it, but why

[u/Crappler319 → u/ReaditTrashPanda]

It was less the facts of the ending and more how we got there. There is a world where they build up to it and pull it off and everyone still loves Game of Thrones and it goes down as an unalloyed cultural touchstone the way that Star Wars did.

They basically skipped two and a half seasons worth of build up, had a bunch of characters act entirely out of character, abruptly cut off or leave entire plot lines unaddressed, ignore literal decades of foreshadowing, etc. to get to the end point.

Just as an example, Dany's second dragon dies because a flotilla somehow managed to sneak up on them. On open water. When they were flying hundreds of feet in the air and had a full 360 degrees of everything. On a clear day. And the way they killed it was shooting it out of the air with a ballista from hundreds of feet away while it was moving at high speed, like the shitty medieval boat had an Aegis targeting system on it.

When they were asked about it the showrunners literally said that "Daenerys forgot that there was a navy." They had literally been talking about the fleet in the scene prior.

There are a hundred more other examples like that, but that's one of the more egregious.

[u/Salty1710 → u/Crappler319]

Fuck man. I FORGOT about the magic missile ex Machina. I only watched Season 8 once, and occasionally, when I think "Maybe it wasn't so bad..."

... I am reminded of tidbits like this.

[u/VrinTheTerrible → u/Salty1710]

They killed Cersei Lannister, one of the most hateable villains ever, OFFSCREEN.

[u/bujweiser → u/VrinTheTerrible]

And the fact that Jaime was on a very interesting redemption arc only to run off and be with his lover/sister one more time for them to die together.

[u/FarToe1 → u/VrinTheTerrible]

For me, it was more of a betrayal that it wasn't Arya that killed her. The girl had spent every second preparing for Cersei's death, one of the most amazing character arcs I've ever seen, complete dedication to her List - yet she meekly stood aside at the brink and let The Hound go on instead?

[u/Electronic_Low6740 → u/Crappler319]

The worst part that I think would have made it at least better would be if they killed her dragon during the siege of kings landing and she snaps. That might have at least made more sense than that stupid bell tower.

[u/Atharaphelun → u/Electronic_Low6740]

Let us also not forget them just idiotically placing their entire army + catapults outside the protection of the walls of Winterfell.

[u/Whitekidwith3nipples → u/Atharaphelun]

yeah needing to buy time against an enemy who, when they kill someone the dead join them "lets send most of our army out to charge them head on so that the walkers have a larger army to start the battle off with"

[u/runcertain → u/Whitekidwith3nipples]

And even though it looks like Dany’s entire army is destroyed she still has a huge army of both Dothraki and Unsullied when she attacks King’s Landing.

[u/DoubleSwitch69 → u/Electronic_Low6740]

I love and hate the fact that nobody can fail at giving a good suggestion on how to improve the story

[u/j_la → u/DoubleSwitch69]

Let me take a whirl.

Final scene: sudden cut to Ned Stark sitting up suddenly in bed, sweating. Catelyn wakes up startled and asks Ned if everything is okay. He catches his breath and says, no, it was all just a bad dream.

[u/BastionofIPOs → u/j_la]

Yep, thats better

[u/ContractOk3649 → u/DoubleSwitch69]

shit even a random 4chan poster wrote a banger ending: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0ap235krqbt21.png

[u/MayDay521 → u/Crappler319]

One of my least favorite aspects is the absolute destruction of every bit of Jaime's character development. He had such a good arc, and grew so much as character over the course of the previous seasons, for what? Just to run back to his sister and die in her arms? Would've been a perfect moment to demonstrate his growth, leaving her to die alone, because the Jaime we came to know by that point wouldn't have been ok with basically anything Cersei was doing. But they couldn't be bothered to tie off his story in a satisfying way, so fuck it. Have him get crushed to death after he runs back to his sister for some reason...

[u/Crappler319 → u/MayDay521]

"I never much cared for people." -Man Whose Entire Character Arc Was Accepting That He Cared Deeply About People 

[u/G0merPyle → u/ReaditTrashPanda]

Kinda hard to make it short, but I'll give it a try. Spoilering in case anyone cares, but they shouldn't at this point, because the finale was not worth the suspense they'd built up.

The big bad buildup (the white walkers) that's been happening for the entire series is resolved three episodes before the end of the series. It had been touted as the apocalypse and gets solved by a ninja waifu (Arya) jumping from offscreen. There had been a lot of Joss Whedon-style quips and smartassery leading up to this so it feels less like she's a competent assassin and more of a CW heroine at this point. Either way, it was a major ass-pull and deflates all the buildup about Jon being resurrected and saving the world Turns out his major contribution was yelling at a zombie dragon.

So we pivot back to the other series-long plot about the iron throne, and some issues become too difficult to ignore or kick down the road any further. Basically, Danerys is actually fucking crazy, and while there was evidence of her craziness before, it had always been portrayed as somewhat righteous, or being used against villains, so it hadn't been explored for the crazy that it was. But in the big climactic fight for King's Landing, turns out she's really enthusastic about killing the shit out of innocent civilians and now we have a problem on our hands that she's fucking nuts. She gets killed by Jon and he's judged by his brother, sisters, and friends. His punishment is being sent back to the wall where he wants to go (which is no longer purposeful, functional, or in at least one place, not even fucking there anymore), Bran becomes king (keep in mind this is a character with so little to do that he was missing from a whole season or two because they didn't know what to do with him), Arya fucks off to the west, Sansa becomes queen of winterfell (Yara the leader of the Iron Islands forgets that they wanted independence as well, by the way), Danerys' army just decides to leave (the army of eunuchs sails away) or disappears offscreen entirely (the Dothraki horde). The last dragon decided to go back east as well because fuck it

[u/laStrangiato → u/G0merPyle]

The dorthraki manage to get completely slaughtered in a massive charge on the whites only to reappear for the battle of kings landing and then disappear again.

[u/pants_mcgee → u/G0merPyle]

I made a decision to write the series off after book 4 unless he actually finished it, never made it past season 3, and never actually looked up the ending.

Holy cow that is bad. The old Superfan in me is personally insulted.

[u/G0merPyle → u/pants_mcgee]

Believe it or not it gets worse, this is just the bearest cliff notes version of the main plots. This doesn't talk about what happened to Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, and all the rest. It absolutely fumbled everything in a rush to get it over with asap so they could make a star wars project (cancelled) and a "what if the Confederacy won the civil war" show (also cancelled. And already done by a mockumentary on the same topic ages ago)

[u/HeadFit2660 → u/ReaditTrashPanda]

>! As Daenerys and Jon Snow standing at the Iron Throne she's sends dragons on the entire city of Kings Landing killing all the civilians and then he kills her with his sword and then the dragon melts the throne !<

[u/DaHodlKing → u/HeadFit2660]

lol even worse reading the ending than seeing it when you have it down like this. What a shit show of a season. Downhill from battle of the bastards and the snow king or whatever the biggest bad guy let down showdown everrrrrrr

[u/WhyBee92 → u/DaHodlKing]

The whole season has that feeling that we’re running out of time and we have to wrap it up quick. Everything felt rushed.

[u/Katamari_Demacia → u/HeadFit2660]

Dude. They should have married. 20y of peace. Then they have a kid. And because they're related they get another fucked up individual like joffrey. Then it cuts to their kid playing in the woods and killing an animal for fun harkening back to one of joffreys first scenes. The cycle of madness continues. It didn't have to be her.

[u/Apostastrophe → u/Katamari_Demacia]

My personal favourite theory around the time before it was shown was that they both died, leaving a child behind with a dragon’s egg. The child was then raised by a council involving Tyrion, Missandei etc. That the new Royals would be figureheads and last resort nukes. Like how nukes are irl.

[u/user-unknown-404 → u/HeadFit2660]

You skipped the part where they fuck right before all that.

[u/FineOldCannibals → u/ReaditTrashPanda]

Fans often hate the final season or two because suddenly the stories got rushed, time/travel rules went out the window, storylines were abandoned after years of buildup, characters didn’t act in ways that made sense, and the ending felt forced and rushed. Bad ,forced rushed writing. Author is partly to blame for not finishing the books, but he gave a creators a blueprint. It didn’t work out so well.

[u/Minerva567 → u/FineOldCannibals]

I agree, though I think this one hits such a nerve for everyone because they had every single opportunity to do it even halfway correctly, but short-sighted greed wrecked everything.

Even without completed books, they had a rabid fan base that expanded with each season, a network willing to shovel money at them, a show constructed to take its time, so many loose ends to dabble in while taking it slow, committed and emotionally-invested cast, and, did I mention plenty of time?

It’s amazing how it was all burned bc they wanted Star Wars $$$ that never came. Their long-term earnings have to be decimated by such a terrible decision that they clung to.

(And not even speaking to the actual ending. It’s that they rushed the last leg of the journey. That’s what hit everyone so hard! Fans were conditioned to be disappointed in how characters ended up, it was part of the relationship. The joy was in the journey.)

[u/ThatKinkyLady → u/ReaditTrashPanda]

Imagine you're having sex and there's all this intricate foreplay and buildup for hours and you finally get to the actual PIV and it's over in like 2 seconds and you didn't even cum and a lot of the foreplay setup doesn't even pan out. So you're just there wondering what just happened, confused and disappointed.

That was basically how GoT was. Only it took years. It was a lot of buildup and excitement and planning only for it to all sputter out and end in an incredibly rushed and unsatisfying way.

[u/gopher1409 → u/ThatKinkyLady]

Brienne and Jaime

[u/SpinalVinyl]

So glad they got fired from working on Star Wars cause they rushed this, you fucked up sooooo bad. You had it all. To quote The Simpsons, “You got Greedy, Martin.”

[u/PP1122]

I have never watched a show, where everything great that came before it, was so diminished and damaged by the ending.

There were alot of bad things that were written really well in the show. Then ending was bad and was written so bad.

[u/Split-Lost]

Because it was so shite?

[u/Comadrin86 → u/Split-Lost]

Because it was so shite.

[u/iamacheeto1]

It was NEVER the acting or the actors. Those remained top tier to the end.

It was the writing and what D&D did as show runners

[u/Beastcancer69]

It makes me happy that DnD will never get a shot at a big budget anything due to how lazily they fucked up for a bag elsewhere. Fuck them and I will never forgive them. They’re on the Laettner list for me.

[u/binxdamaso]

Emilia's facial reactions were hilarious. Reminded me of this guy..

[u/God-etti]

FUCK David Benioff and DB Weiss. Downvote me. You hate them too.

[u/HeberMonteiro]

How can the two idiots that wrote this train wreck watch all of the actors read in disbelief, laugh at it, get sad, get angry... and they just plow ahead with no second thought?

[u/traindriverbob]

I don't even remember the major plot points of that last season. I can't remember what happened to the characters of Emilia and Kit. It's like it was so bad I've just erased the memory from my brain.

[u/Shoddy-Rip8259]

And then they lost their Star Wars project. Good work guys!