Best Game of Thrones moments (spoilers)

[Funky]

For me and for most people the downward trajectory started at S8E4 (some would include the Battle Of Winterfell but I loved that episode). The last few episodes were very disappointing. But even within that the cinematography, the art direction, so much was still amazing. Any other show and we wouldn’t have cared.

There were missteps along the way, such as the Arya house of faces arc being too long and disjointed, but it always found glorious ways to redeem itself.

 

[Jark]

I loved Melisandre's return at the Battle of Winterfell. She was such a fantastic character, and so well played.

It's sad that the show completely lost interest in the magical elements it had invested 5 seasons in, because Melisandre was essentially the best character in the show* and there's so much they could've done in making her integral to how everything resolved itself in the end.

but at some point D+D said: let's reduce this to dragons and incest.

*LONG REIGN SANSA, MY ONE TRUE QUEEN OF THE NORF

 

[Jark]

it still makes me angry to think about what became of GoT. those first six seasons are the best television ever made. for the two showrunners to just GET BORED and drop the ball in such a big way was... perplexing and upsetting.

they really should have just let somebody else take over. cunts.

 

[Jark]

For a show of this size and under such a vast microscope, the show did incredibly well to remain onside with almost its entire audience until the second half of Season 8.

I worked for a television/nerd culture website at this time and we wrote extensively about GoT because obviously the audience was fully obsessed.

the decline definitely began at the very beginning of season 7 and everybody knew that season was a dud but still had high hopes for the eighth. which was somehow MANY TIMES WORSE.

 

[Jark]

anyway, sorry for ranting but my favourite male character in the show (lol ew right?!) was 100% the lovely, misguided, power starved WARRIOR Stannis Boratheon. his arc was one of the best stories across seasons 3—5 (alongside the adventures of Arya, and Sansa gradually growing into her skin).

one of my absolute favourite scenes in the show, maybe my favourite "regular" episode, is the one in which Stannis burns his daughter alive on the pire because Melisandre believes the Lord of Light commands it ().

really terrifying, not least because earlier that episode he has a lovely conversation with her where he tells her: you are the Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon, and you are my daughter. I cried, reader!

 

[RaspberrySwirl]

The end of S7 at that battle north of wall when Dany and her dragons travelled at the speed of light was the definite point of decline for me.

 

[Phoenix]

I hate that episode so much. It’s when the show totally jumped the shark for me.

 

[Loufoque]

I think Seasons 3-4 were the best in terms of consistency. Season 5 was utterly bleak, and had a few mis-steps like the Dornish Destiny's Child and Arya's homage to Rocky's training programme, but as @Jark points out, it also featured the climax of a number of storylines (Stannis, Sansa/Ramsay, Hardhome). Season 6, undeniably, featured two of the greatest episodes in GoT history (the final two of the season).

And then Season 7 rolled around, and it just turned into a cross between pure fan-service and never-ending attempts to out-shock previous seasons. It gave us ARTPOP era levels of "look at me". And much in the same way, we can now look back and scream "yaaass" at the odd moment, but sitting through it was a mess.

 

[Loufoque]

And part of the problem was that for a show that became famous on taking its sweet ass time, for it to suddenly jump to lightspeed and move characters around a continent as if they had suddenly constructed a hyperloop just felt "unbelievable" (in the context of GoT's reality).

 

[Jark]

the speed at which they were suddenly able to travel, after characters had previously spent seven episodes walking through the same one forest, was probably the biggest shark jumper of all.

 

[Lume]

Can you guys see the embedded Oberyn Martell vid or shall I switch it? I mean, I am in Finland so I might not be available here.

 

[Hak]

I didn’t mind that we had some padding in S5 because it was still really well crafted.

When S6 came along there were some bad signs, mostly around how the story tightened around the already developed bigger characters. While the main story generally held together well, there were little room for the newer cast to grow. Most of the Dorne storyline was also simplified and dumbed down for this reason. The Battle of the Bastards and the S5 Massacre at Hardhome were both clues of worse things to come. They show how the showrunners devolve intricate book storylines into simplified Deus ex Machina action sequences where the protagonists are saved in an unrealistic fashion.

S7 was clearly on a downwards trajectory but is still an okay show by normal standards. It still baffles me how no one at HBO said “This isn’t working” when they saw how badly they botched the S8 script/previews. I mean, most cast and production crew must have seen the bad reception coming from miles away.