7 / 10
Game of Thrones is the single best argument in the history of television for finishing your source material before you start the show. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss developed the HBO series, adapted from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. The first four seasons are some of the best television ever made. The fifth is good. The sixth is okay. The seventh is bad. The eighth is one of the most spectacular creative collapses in the medium’s history. The composite grade is a 7 because the highs are 10s and the lows are 2s and that averages out.
The cast is enormous. Sean Bean as Ned Stark in the first season. Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister across all eight. Lena Headey as Cersei. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime. Emilia Clarke as Daenerys. Kit Harington as Jon Snow. Maisie Williams as Arya. Sophie Turner as Sansa. Iain Glen, Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, Aidan Gillen, Conleth Hill, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Natalie Dormer. The supporting bench is one of the deepest in television history. The casting director, Nina Gold, deserves a chapter in any future history of the medium.
Seasons One Through Four
The first four seasons faithfully adapt the first three books, with the third book split across seasons three and four. This material is fully written. Martin had spent years working through the structure. The show benefits from a foundation it did not have to invent. Ned Stark’s execution at the end of season one is one of the great moments in television because the audience does not believe the show will actually do it. The show does it. Every subsequent twist lands harder because the audience knows the show has no rules.
The Red Wedding in season three is the high point. The Purple Wedding in season four pays off setup that took two and a half seasons. The Battle of the Blackwater and the Battle of Castle Black are two of the best single hours of action television ever produced. The show was firing at the top of its form because Martin had given them material to work with.
For Writers
Adaptation is structurally different from original creation. The first four seasons of Game of Thrones were essentially an HBO production team executing on Martin’s existing plot architecture. The plot decisions had been made and tested. The character beats had been built. The showrunners had to compress, cast, and direct. The lesson is that adaptation buys you a foundation but commits you to a structure you did not design. When the source ends, you have to design. The two skills are not the same and being good at one does not make you good at the other.
The Collapse
By season five, the show had caught up to the published books. Martin had not finished The Winds of Winter and has still not finished it. The showrunners were on their own. The fifth season is uneven but mostly works. The sixth is structurally panicked. The seventh accelerates the plot to a pace the established world cannot support. The eighth tries to land plot threads that needed twenty more hours of setup to land properly. By the final episode, half the major arcs have been resolved in ways the previous seasons did not justify.
The specific failures are well-documented. Daenerys’s heel turn requires the audience to forget her established characterization. The Night King’s death after eight seasons of buildup happens in a single move from a character who had not been positioned to do it. Cersei spends the final season standing on a balcony. Bran becomes king for reasons the show does not adequately explain. The destruction of the show’s reputation across two seasons is one of the most thorough creative collapses any major property has ever suffered.
For Writers
A story’s ending must earn the setup. Game of Thrones spent eight seasons building specific expectations about specific characters. The final season did not honor most of them. The audience felt betrayed because the audience had been promised, implicitly, that the show would respect what it had built. The lesson is that the ending is the entire purpose of the rest of the work. If you cannot land the ending, you cannot write the rest. Plan the ending first or accept that the ending will determine how the rest is remembered.
The Cast Memory
The seven seasons of strong work are still good. The cast performances do not go away because the writing collapsed. Peter Dinklage won three Emmys for Tyrion and deserved them. Lena Headey was robbed of any Emmy because the show was a victim of its own success and the supporting categories were overstuffed with worthy nominees. Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell is one of the great late-career performances in television. The casting bench was so deep that even one-season characters like Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister are remembered fifteen years later.
The achievement is not nothing. For five or six years, Game of Thrones was the most-watched, most-discussed, most-influential television series on the planet. It is the reason every streaming service spent the next decade trying to produce its own fantasy epic. It also failed its ending. Both are true.
For Writers
A great middle without a great ending is still mostly worth doing, but the ending will be what gets remembered. Game of Thrones produced some of the best television hours ever broadcast and is now mostly remembered for its disastrous finale. The lesson is that audiences remember the last thing they saw more vividly than the best thing they saw. This is not fair. It is how memory works. If you produce great material, finish strong. The strength of the middle will not survive a weak ending.
Craft Note
David Benioff and D. B. Weiss developed for HBO. Based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Eight seasons, seventy-three episodes, 2011 through 2019. Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, and a deep supporting cast. Approximately fifteen million dollars per episode by the final season. Ramin Djawadi scored. Multiple Emmy winner for Outstanding Drama Series. Spinoffs and prequels including House of the Dragon followed.
The Verdict
7/10 composite. 10/10 for seasons one through four. 6/10 for seasons five and six. 3/10 for seasons seven and eight. Watch the first four seasons. Watch five and six knowing the quality is dropping. Skip seven and eight or accept that you will not enjoy them. The first four seasons are essential viewing. The rest are a cautionary tale.
FAQ
Should I watch all eight seasons?
If you can stop after season six, do. If you have to know how it ends, accept that the ending will frustrate you. The books are still unfinished. They may not finish.
Will Martin finish the books?
Unknown. The Winds of Winter has been in progress since 2011. A Dream of Spring after that. Martin is seventy-seven. The honest assessment is that the books may not be completed.
How is House of the Dragon?
Better than the final two seasons of Game of Thrones. Not as good as the early seasons. The Targaryen civil war material is interesting. The pacing is uneven.
What went wrong with the ending?
The showrunners ran out of book material and were given a fixed shorter final season order by HBO. They compressed plot lines that needed more episodes. They made character decisions that contradicted established characterization. The result is a finale that fails to honor the setup.
Did anyone predict the ending would fail?
Many critics flagged the pacing problems in season seven. The final season’s specific failures took most viewers by surprise.
How does it compare to other fantasy television?
The first four seasons are the standard against which other fantasy television is measured. The final two seasons are the standard against which other television finales are measured, in the bad way.
Should I watch this?
Yes, with the caveat that you may want to stop watching at some point.