Once upon a time it seemed like Game of Thrones was untouchable. It was arguably the most popular show on TV. When people spoke of "The Golden Age of Television" Game of Thrones would be listed as one of those shows. Nowadays people say that it sucks. Somewhere along the line Game of Thrones fell from grace. The interesting question is...why? Why is Game of Thrones now considered an awful series? Well, let's find out.
# 1 - The "Teleportation" Problem
One major problem with the latter seasons of the show is that they play fast and loose with travel times and distances. One character shows up in a spot in one episode and then is somehow able to travel halfway across their continent in the same episode with no explanation given to explain how they arrived there so fast.
Nobody in Game of Thrones has access to fast travel. The closest we get are dragons and even they have limitations. The earlier seasons of the show do a much better job at establishing how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B. The usual argument given in defense of this is to say that there are different timelines occurring between all the events in the series. The problem with this explanation is that the show gives absolutely zero indication that this is even happening.
In short: The show chucks internal consistency out the window in their attempt to race toward the finish line. Since there's no attempt explain how this works it comes across as extremely lazy writing.
# 2 - Dumbed Down Characters
Another major problem with the show is that the characterization is awful. For those of you who have been keeping up with what I've written in the past, you'll know that I personally don't like most of the cast. That being said, the show manages to dumb down the cast which destroys any remotely compelling character traits about them. The easiest way to think of this is to take the IQ of any given character and divide it by 20. That's how stupid most of the cast becomes. For example...
- Tyrion: As I've mentioned before, Tyrion becomes really stupid from Season 5 onward. Every major decision he makes either backfires or gets massively screwed up in ways that are really easy to see coming. No plan ever works out for him. It's really disappointing for a character whose primary trait is his shrewd nature and political savvy to be reduced to a complete idiot. It stretches our suspension of disbelief for why Dany still keeps him around as an advisor when he doesn't seem to be capable of making a plan that actually works. It also doesn't help that his dialogue went from being witty and clever to just making unfunny dick jokes over and over again.
- Littlefinger and Varys: Somebody else did a better job of explaining where the show went wrong with these two:
"Vary and Littlefinger suffer just as badly as Tyrion. Where as the first four seasons establish the two characters as two of the masterminds behind the scenes, the puppet masters pulling strings, playing games within games, wheels within wheels, tricking and manipulating this character or that, and constantly thwarting each other along the way... Post season 4, and their motivations are both inexplicable.
What does Varys do in seasons 5–8? Nothing of ANY importance. He does not factor into ONE SINGLE important plot development post season 5. He doesn't utilize his skills as a spymaster/whisperer, or disguise. He doesn’t advice, nor manipulate, nor coerce. he just….exists, looking mopey.
And of course, that brings us to Littlefinger.... He would never stick around Winterfell with an omniscient boy who showed signs he was onto him. He would not set up such a clumsy, and easily seen through (though it very nearly worked, thanks to the bad writing of Arya and Sansa) plan to pit sisters against one another to seize power from Jon, and, when his life was at stake, he’d mount SOME sort of coherent argument, ESPECIALLY as every charge laid against him was deniable or explainable.
Instead of (like Varys with Daenerys) avoiding executing by mounting even the most basic self defense, he just plays dumb, begs to be taken to the Eyrie, and then falls to his knees hoping Sansa will spare him due to his (legitimate) assistance to her. Littlefinger is many things, but he is no coward. He dueled Brandon Stark for Catelyn Tully’s favor! He makes the ballsiest political moves in the series. And, in the final season, when he wasn’t just leering sinisterly from the shadows, he was reduced to a whimpering, weeping shell of a formerly machiavellian character.
Both of these characters were Emperor Palpatine levels of cunning and were political masterminds who were ultimately reduced to simpering idiots that played a very insignificant role in the grand scheme of the show's plot.
These three aren't the only examples of how the characters got collectively dumber for the sake of the plot, but they're pretty good representations of what happened later on.
# 3 - "Subverted Expectations"
One of the biggest memes in the Game of Thrones fandom is how the show in the latter seasons prioritize shock value over logic and coherence. The show-runners are clearly more interested in major, shocking plot twists than they are in telling a good story. This became the bread and butter of the later seasons and it ruined the show. For example:
- One of the major villains of the show was the Night King. He was set up to be this major, "final boss" type of villain. He dies in one episode from Arya jumping out of nowhere and shanking him with a dagger. The show did not properly build this up. That entire battle makes the entire build-up from the past 7 seasons utterly worthless.
- Daenerys Targaryen massacres an entire city long after that city surrendered. This shocked a lot of the fans who saw the show, but it was clumsily handled, not properly built up, and didn't make sense coming from the show's version of the character.
- At the end of Season 7 Arya and Sansa Stark go at each others throats because Littlefinger's turning them against each other. The show never bothers to explain why he's trying to turn the sisters against each other. It's actually really counterproductive for him to do that since he just helped the Starks get their homeland back.
- At the end of Season 5 Sansa Stark gets pawned off by Littlefinger to Ramsay Bolton. The show never explains why Littlefinger chose to make this arrangement. Ramsay rapes Sansa during their wedding night. This did absolutely nothing for Sansa's character arc. In fact it actually made Sansa regress as a character.
So to sum that portion up: Game of Thrones started throwing narrative logic out the window in favor of big, shocking plot twists. The problem is that these plot twists don't make sense and they actually make the story worse off as a result.
# 4 - Pointless Crap
There's a lot of pointless stuff that happens in the later seasons of Game of Thrones. I won't try to list them all because there's too many, but here are a few examples:
- Bran: What exact purpose did Bran Stark serve in the story? He was built up to have magic powers that let him see the past and the future. He was built up to have some important role against the Battle against the White Walkers. He didn't do anything against the White Walkers. There was lots of build up but no pay off.
- Jon Snow's Parentage: One of the big reveals in the show is that Jon Snow is actually the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Nothing gets done with it. Nobody makes a claim on Jon Snow's behalf for the Iron Throne, Jon doesn't sit on the Iron Throne and Daenerys still lets Jon fight for her even though he's got a better claim to the Throne that she wants. What purpose did this reveal serve again?
- Jaime Lannister's Story Arc: The show built up a redemption arc for Jaime Lannister but then threw it in the trash. In the end Jaime still goes back to his sister long after he already knew that she was toxic trash. Having Jaime still be in love with Cersei means that his character goes nowhere and does nothing of value.
In Season 8 Jaime has a pointless sex scene with Brienne before leaving to King's Landing. Why this sex scene happened, we'll never know. All he does in King's Landing is try to help Cersei escape. He fails and they both die.
- Cersei Lannister: Cersei in the final season was essentially a final boss from a video game. She stood around, did nothing and waited to be defeated by Daenerys.
- Brienne: If Brienne died around the mid way point of Season 6 nothing would have changed.
Like I said, I could keep going but you get the point. The later seasons of Game of Thrones did not know what to do with some of its characters and it failed to provide meaningful closure to a good chunk of the cast.
# 5 - Tactical Stupidity
As you'd expect of a medieval fantasy series, Game of Thrones has a lot of battle scenes, especially toward the latter end of the show. While they're pretty to look at, they don't make much sense from a tactical standpoint.
Nobody takes advantage of castles anymore. Instead, all the major characters will send their armies outside the castle so that we can have big battle scenes.
During the major battle at the end of Season 6 Jon Snow races headlong into an enemy cavalry despite the fact that his army is significantly behind him. They only save his butt in the nick of time.
In Season 7 Cersei's army is somehow able to sneak up on an enemy castle and take it with zero resistance. How her army managed to sneak up on a major castle that should be well defended is never explained by the show.
In Seasons 7 & 8 Cersei's navy is capable of teleporting across major sections of the continent and can even sneak up on Daenerys's dragons, even though these dragons can fly and should be able to see a freaking navy coming a mile away. One of these ships somehow manages to kill one of her dragons.
After Daenerys loses her dragon in one episode she's somehow able to solo Cersei's entire fleet and wipe out King's Landing with one dragon, which is something she never came close to accomplishing back when she had three dragons.
In Season 5 Ramsay Bolton and "20 good men" are somehow able to sneak into Stannis's camp and raid his supplies without ever being noticed. Once again, the show never explains. It makes even less sense when you take into consideration that Stannis is supposed to be an accomplished military commander while Ramsay has little to no experience at all. Later on, Ramsay somehow destroys Stannis's army without an explanation ever being given.
When the good guys fight the White Walkers in Season 8 they know that anybody who dies turns into a White Walker. So what do they do? They blindly send their cavalry to charge headlong into the White Walker army where said cavalry proceeds to get wiped out. Great, now the White Walkers have an entire cavalry on their side. Great job guys!
So let's recap. Why did the show fall from grace?
1) It threw out all sense of narrative cohesion out the window. Characters can now travel at lightning speeds because the plot demanded it.
1) It threw out all sense of narrative cohesion out the window. Characters can now travel at lightning speeds because the plot demanded it.
2) The show made most of its cast complete idiots. Part of the appeal of the show came from seeing all these shrewd Machiavellian players outmaneuver each other on the chess board. Once Season 5 came around all these cunning players suddenly became stupid. Nobody likes watching a show where supposedly intelligent people are actual idiots.
3) The later seasons prioritized shock value over logic. Many of the twists the show created ended up hurting the show. The twists made no logical sense and in one case regressed a character's arc.
4) It added pointless crap and a significant portion of the characters had nothing to do and failed to contribute to the plot in any meaningful way.
5) The battles in the show stopped making sense which broke everyone's immersion to the story. When I feel like I'm a better tactician than the supposed military geniuses and commanders on the show, you know you've got a problem.
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