• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

It's amazing how the ending of GoT completely killed its influence on pop culture

Fbh

Member
1460708311-jon-snow-sad.gif



I know most shows or movie franchises become less relevant and less talked about once they finish, specially when they do so in a disappointing way.

But damn, GOT just completely went away.... it's like it never even released. No memes, no reaction Gifs, no threads in places like GAF shitting on it. Same with the cast.... what's Peter Dinklage up to these days? Who gives a fuck. It could fucking snow tomorrow (it's summer here) and I doubt I'd even see a single "winter is coming" meme on social media.

Even Lost was still sort of relevant and talked about for a while after it ended and everyone hated that too, or the Last Jedi, or Mass Effect 3.

I'm not complaining btw, the last few seasons were trash. I just find it fascinating how it went from dominating pop culture for a while to absolute and complete irrelevance in less than a year.
 
Last edited:
Frankly, it’s a travesty that arguably the greatest show ever (at least the first 6 seasons) was completely FartNoised by the showrunners at the hugely anticipated conclusion

turned into a joke

I still look back fondly and enjoy binge watching seasons here and there in chunks but man....squandered potential

(Just my opinion of course)
 
Last edited:

Hinedorf

Banned
It was a totally fucking miserable show that ended miserably. The primary focus was on sex, murder, betrayal, deception, and war.

It's not that the last or last couple seasons were bad, they just weren't Martin's word for word dialogue that was used in most of the early seasons.

The biggest flaw was format change. They shortened the seasons on their fan base TWICE. And what was the overall reaction? Disappointing, unexplained, and felt rushed. Because it was.

This isn't about bad material it's about having no material at all and winging it.
 
I gave up on it after season 5 but to be honest season 3 killed it for me and I was just trying to give the show a chance to recover.

When every character is just a step away from getting killed, or raped, or maimed, the viewer gets numb to it and stops caring. When I stopped caring, there's no reason to get excited about the plot development. The fantasy world itself really isn't all that unique or interesting. It's the torture-porn and the softcore-porn and the comeuppance that people watch it for.
 
nehhh trust me the fans are alive and well but are just pissed at HBO and D&D

the ideal case would have been for GOT to exist as we fucken speak but those fuck lords both got tired of GOT and wanted to do star wars

2 fuckin yeaz until house of the dragon and you know that shit is gonna be YUGE
 

Naibel

Member
Seasons 7 and 8 (and 6 to a lesser extent) were so far removed from the absolute greatness of 1 to 4 it felt like a different show to me, like some kind of a lame cover version. The writing and the dialogues were so embarrassingly bad I just couldn't believe it ! Mad Queen Dany and the Night King being Arya'd were facepalm moments of epic proportions.

And also, why did we have to wait two freakin' years for seven miserable and rushed episodes ? It really soured the overall experience for me, even tho I still remember early GOT fondly. I'm clearly not a fantasy guy, but this show was the exception, for a while at least.
 
Last edited:

Bigrx1

Banned
Yeah you’re right - definitely the best example of a huge show that goes out with a tiny whimper that I’ve seen. Lost is kind of close too but it wasn’t GoT level.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Just a damn shame how it fell off a cliff. It was such a great show in the beginning.

At least it got me to sort of stop caring about the books and if Martin will ever finish. I’ll still buy whatever he puts out, but I’m far less invested in knowing what happens now.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Super Mario

Banned
I watched a lot of shows that got FAR worse in the later seasons than GoT. Other than the last season, GoT was doing just fine up until that point. That ending made me just want to cry.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
i dropped the show around season 5 or so. whenever the mountain tore that guy's head in two. i was like, nope, sorry, im out, gonna take a break. lol im a little squeemish so its crazy i made it that far.

Dany always seemed crazy and violent to me, all the people in the show were murderous dictators, so the idea that they would "betray" her character or whatever didn't make much sense to me. i'll have to watch it again.
 

Karma Jawa

Member
Lost was a massive disappointment. I’d say the ending of The Walking Dead was the worst, but in the spirit of the show it just keeps stumbling forward long after it died.

I actually loved the two blockbuster episodes in the last season of GoT, but it should have been told over at least two full seasons. The whole thing was a rushed mess, and the final episode was just awful. The whole story was about the control of the throne, but yeah lets go with a psychic psycho voted in by a majority of friends and family.
 
Dany always seemed crazy and violent to me, all the people in the show were murderous dictators, so the idea that they would "betray" her character or whatever didn't make much sense to me.
One of the original yassss kweeen slay pop-culture figures, that's why.

To be fair, in the first season Dany goes from a younger sister sold to a tribal chief for his army, raped multiple times (this is emphasized more in the books), but then arrests her husband's affection, gains the respect of the dothraki, eliminates her scheming brother, prepares to claim the throne in Westeros, loses her husband, and then is reborn as the dragon queen (one of the first true fantasy moments in the franchise up to that point). Her arc was genuinely great at first but then it slowly fizzled.
 

Fbh

Member
It wasn't just the ending, it was the fact that each season got worse as it went on.

True, but it was still rather big all the way through....and then it just died almost from one day to the other.
Like take The Last Jedi, that was terrible too but at least people still talked about it, you saw memes, we had threads about it pop up on Gaf every now and then and It still sort of left a mark on pop culture even if just because of how bad (or "divisive" it was).

But GOT is simply gone

i dropped the show around season 5 or so. whenever the mountain tore that guy's head in two. i was like, nope, sorry, im out, gonna take a break. lol im a little squeemish so its crazy i made it that far.

Dany always seemed crazy and violent to me, all the people in the show were murderous dictators, so the idea that they would "betray" her character or whatever didn't make much sense to me. i'll have to watch it again.

In theory, the twist with Dany wasn't bad. I think there were hints about it from the beginning and I do think it's what RR Martin wanted to do with the character. It's just the rushed and sudden way in which they did it which sucked.

As opposed to the whole thing with the night king which was just straight up shit
 
Last edited:
It really did.

I mean, when the last season was airing, IT WAS EVERYWHERE! Even in the years lead-up to that season, it was everywhere. People were talking about it nonstop.

While it was airing.. oh the memes! Anyone remember the coffee cup? Or how Dany just sorta forgot about the Iron Fleet? While a lot of them were making fun of the show, it was still keeping the conversation going.

But like you said, once it all ended with a wet fart.. it just... died. I'd say there was a week or two where people were complaining about the ending/talking about it, but then.. nothing. Silence. Death.

It might as well never have been a thing at this point, and that's amazing frankly. To go from an 11/10 to -2/10.
 
7 seasons of build-up for a war between the living and the dead, that was over in 30 minutes and was less detailed and tense than the wildling war.

Unpopular opinion: I liked season 7, it set up season 8 perfectly, with so many questions of which factions were going to form to stop the dead, who was going to be betrayed...then season 8 happened...
 

eot

Banned
For me the big drop off was season 5 and I stopped with the show after that, only picked it up right before the end. The Dorne stuff was laughably bad, and S6 only tricked people into thinking it wasn't already free falling into a bottomless pit of poor writing by including some good action sequences and desperate shock moments.

Tbh I kinda liked the Winterfell episode, but it was ruined by how conveniently almost everyone survived, totally against the spirit of the show. Night king, who cares, he was a shit villain anyway and that was never going to be satisfying.
 
Last edited:

LordPezix

Member
I'm just about to start the fifth episode of the last season. So far I don't see why everyone is upset. The long night was a kick ass episode. So far this season is delivering in my opinion.

If the last two episodes completely shit ball it then I'd still consider it an OK season because from what I have seen the first 4 episodes are pretty good.

Caveat* As you can probably tell I don't watch TV often as it has taken me this long to watch this season so I am by no means a connoisseur of televised programs. What I consider good or fair might be complete garbage to the more cognoscente viewer.
 
Last edited:

#Phonepunk#

Banned
In theory, the twist with Dany wasn't bad. I think there were hints about it from the beginning and I do think it's what RR Martin wanted to do with the character. It's just the rushed and sudden way in which they did it which sucked.
yeah that's what i hear, that the rushed nature of the final season is really what did it in. like the army of frost zombies is set up to be this epic battle and it's over in a single ep? i can see how one would feel cheated.

it's still there IMO, if you go to Halloween part or Dragon Con or something you will always see tons of GOT. people love the books, they still like the show, it was just really popular to bash it for a while. they just don't have a show on right now so there is a little more of a dry spell in media being taken up by Star Wars and Cats and Sonic and whatever else.

i was kind of surprised at how quickly public opinion turned on the writers. there was so much outrage at them. i'm not going to call it fan outrage, because it wasn't just fans, in fact there were tons of articles by the access media acting toxic towards these creators, calling them hacks, saying SW is better off without them, etc. as always the media setting a shitty example they later blame on "toxic fans". they did a Q&A and everything people took offense for, to me it read like pretty typical thoughts from two collaborative creatives. people were saying "look at these hacks, they know nothing about running a tv show". as if any of us know what that is like lol.

for instance them working with the actors and asking them for input was taken as a weakness, a sign they were shitty writers, rather than them actually being open to more possibilities, asking the actors to chip in as a more democratic way to do things. but the narrative was "these guys are bad" so anything to grab onto was clutched. it's odd how closely all that happened with the announcement of them leaving Lucasfilm. seemingly a flood of pro-hate articles were written seamlessly leading from the reviewing of the final season into their firing from Star Wars. one week it just all dropped at once. gotta keep that narrative going...
 
Last edited:

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
7 seasons of build-up for a war between the living and the dead, that was over in 30 minutes and was less detailed and tense than the wildling war.

Unpopular opinion: I liked season 7, it set up season 8 perfectly, with so many questions of which factions were going to form to stop the dead, who was going to be betrayed...then season 8 happened...
Yeah the army of the dead had the biggest build up of anything in any show I can remember. They were the first scene in the first episode - a constant sinister menace throughout seven seasons..... and they were gone and forgotten in a single episode.
 

Gargus

Banned
Got stopped being relevant to pretty much everyone 2 seasons before the ending came along and put the last nail in it's own coffin.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Series was a puzzle it was always interesting to figure out what was going to happen and what was next.

The moment u see the end rolling, there is no puzzle anymore, there is no what's next anymore and the series fades out of existence.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Never watched the show aside from a handful of season one episodes and some big battles on YT. Meh.

ONly good thing I remembered was that tiny blonde chick getting naked. Yum.

Then I watched a clip of the final fight with the frost lich boss. LOL. And I thought he was supposed to be some awesomely powerful final boss. Haha. Oh and how convenient. The good old Hollywood plot wrapper upper where if you kill the final boss, every other one of the million enemies dies too in the next 20 seconds. Yay..... every enemy is dead.

One good thing about it ending is I don't have to hear coworkers talking about it every week.............. for the millionth time...... No, I didn't see this week's episode. As I;ve said for years, I don't watch the show or have HBO.
 
Last edited:

-Arcadia-

Banned
I absolutely loved the first season. Sean Bean and his character carried the entire show.

Everything after, I just don’t see it at all. I tried and I tried, but it didn’t seem like a good TV show and story(great production values though) in the execution. I felt similarly about The Walking Dead, which was also a sister phenomenon right alongside it.

To me, it just seems like the ending has set things right in terms of perception.

Now the books on the other hand, I think those will be fantastic. That’s something I want to get into, if I have a guarantee that the author is committed to finishing them.
 

MadAnon

Member
Season 7 was already going off the cliff. The whole travel beyond the wall and meeting with Cercei. Just trash writing to bring all the major characters together. For some reason normies love this kind of shit.

Season 8 was such a trainwreck that I lost any desire to ever rewatch the series.
 
Last edited:
It was a totally fucking miserable show that ended miserably. The primary focus was on sex, murder, betrayal, deception, and war.

It's not that the last or last couple seasons were bad, they just weren't Martin's word for word dialogue that was used in most of the early seasons.

The biggest flaw was format change. They shortened the seasons on their fan base TWICE. And what was the overall reaction? Disappointing, unexplained, and felt rushed. Because it was.

This isn't about bad material it's about having no material at all and winging it.


Indeed. What made the show strongest before the later cringe-fest was the dialogue and script. No source material, no bueno. The overall story itself is meh. It's just dragons and chosen ones and shit. Whatever.
 
Last edited:
Dumb & Dumber will be forever known as the douchbags that ruined GoT.

It was blatantly clear that they just rushed everything so they can move on to Disney money.
 
Yup, them hitting fast forward on the pace of the show is what really fucked it up. The last two seasons plot points are mostly fine, but the way they got to those plot points were so half assed and rushed that it killed the payoffs. Different plot points and scenes didn't have time to let things breathe and develop - it's kinda like Rise of Skywalker in that sense. You have a problem introduced in one scene and is solved immediately without any real consequences. Wack.

At the end of it I wasn't nearly as annoyed as I was with the end of Mr. Robot. Holy shit that show took a massive dump at the end

EDIT: I also count House of Cards as falling off worse than GoT. WTF were they thinking
 
Last edited:

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
It believe it has more to do with the rapid pace at which media is produced consumed nowadays. There is always something to look forward to in terms of media, and very little time to ingest.
For example, Avenger’s End Game is already old news. I don’t see any more snap jokes.
 
Last edited:

-Arcadia-

Banned
For example, Avenger’s End Game is already old news. I don’t see any more snap jokes.

That has more to do with the fact that Infinity War delighted audiences, and Endgame, at best, just kind of wrapped things up.

For a whole year, nobody could stop quoting IW. A month later nobody even cared about Endgame.
 

888

Member
I think about midway through the shows lifespan is where I started to not be so crazy about it. Generally I find the more popular something is, the worse it gets. Marvel is my one thing I give a pass to even tho it’s had it’s Rough moments.

it’s kinda like the way call of duty started, peaked and now has that rep. Same with fortnite and battle royale in general to me.

I don’t know if the popularity is a turn off to me personally or if the popularity adds a certain pressure on the media that it just can’t maintain its quality.
 

LordPezix

Member
Just finished season 8. Ended like the first season. Not how I wanted it to be but something you just have to accept.
 
Top Bottom