LordOfLore
Banned
Link. Spoilers of course.
Much more at the link.
Game of Thrones is going to disappoint us in the end.
Not because its seventh season wasnt its strongest or because of its pretty damn mediocre season seven finale. Not because of the struggles the show has faced since it outpaced its source material.
Rather, Game of Thrones is going to disappoint us because its put itself in an impossible position, and no matter what happens, its ending will dissatisfy many, or even most, of its viewers.
Since its very beginning, the show has been built atop three pillars, all of which have contributed to its popularity: the heroic fantasy, the subversion of that heroic fantasy, and the detailed history of Westeros. As I've written about in my book on the series and elsewhere, Game of Thrones has derived an astonishing amount of power from being both a traditional fantasy story one where kids come of age, embark on magical quests, and discover that theyre the true heirs to the throne at the same time as it subverts traditional fantasy story tropes. Ned Stark and Robb Starks deaths, the rises and falls of Stannis Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryens difficulties in Meereen, and especially Jon Snow's betrayal and murder at the hands of the Nights Watch are all tragic stories that traditional fantasy doesnt normally tell.
And all along the way, both the HBO series and the George R.R. Martin novels on which its based have gone into a tremendous amount of detail to fill in the entire story of Westeros and much of Essos at the end of the world. The detail of Game of Thrones has been a tremendous strength its world feels solid, lived-in, and real enough to support an ever-escalating, apocalyptic story within its fantasy setting.
But as the show now hurtles toward its endgame, it has only six episodes left to braid these three major elements into a single resolution. The problem is that each of them lends itself to a completely different type of ending, and all of them will upset viewers for one reason or another.
Game of Thrones must choose a heroic, subversive, or history-based ending its impossible to successfully achieve all three
Much more at the link.