Game of Thrones is a “thrilling disappointment”

The Final Season of Game of Thrones is thrilling because fans like myself have invested more than 8 years into the series. It is a fantastic series, one of the best. But the ending is proving to be a huge disappointment as if the Game of Thrones writers have just given up and are taking the lazy way out. They could have put more effort into writing the last six episodes to make this season and the final season of the series the best ever. Instead, it is “a thrilling disappointment.”

By Ray Hanania

I’ve been watching Game of Thrones since it was first broadcast and I have binge-watched the entire series several times. It is one of the best series I have seen since the Godfather series was broadcast in the 1970s.

But this final Season 8 is a huge disappointment. The writers and producers have done a terrible job of plotting this final season out, taking shortcuts and skipping through what could have been phenomenally compelling TV for efficiency.

It’s almost as if they got tired of doing the show and want it to end.

The result of a very disappointing final season that could have been so much better.

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Now, of course, I love this series so much that even a disappointing season is still thrilling, thus the name of this post and podcast “a thrilling disappointment.” The fact is I love this series so much and have invested so much of my entertainment time watching it and studying it and understanding it, I have bought in deeply. Anything is good, but I know it could have been far better. And that is the disappointment.

Daenerys Targaryen. Photo courtesy of HBO

The dragons are a major attraction of the series and the way the writers have dispatched two of the dragons has been cheaply ridiculous. The first one was killed by a spear thrown by the no-personality Night King. It was too easy. The second dragon was killed in a ridiculous scene at the start of the 4th Episode of the final Season 8 by Euron Greyjoy the shallow character who has partnered with Queen Cersei. Euron’s ships were “hiding” in a huge bay that anyone riding a dragon high in the sky could easily have seen. To make the audience think they could not be seen is so ridiculous. And when Daenerys flews in on one of the dragons accompanied by the second dragon without Jon Snow (Aegon Targaryan) riding on his back, the second dragon is slain easily by Euron Greyjoy using the giant Scorpion crossbows with the 15 foot long arrows. In seconds the second dragon was killed.

I can only surmise that the writers wanted to try and make the Daenerys versus Cersei battle to be “equal” as two dragons could wreak havoc on King’s Landing and the Iron Throne.

Cheap.

Euron, by the way, is a shallow character that adds very little to the plot. The real evil partner for Cersei should have been Ramzi Bolton, a deep and truly troubled evil being.

The other aspect I didn’t like is how easily Euron’s ships destroyed many of Daenerys ships as they entered the bay. WHydidn’t Daenerys fly her dragon or dragons from behind the ship and torched them to cinder? Well, it would have been too smart and would have put Cersei at a disadvantage.

Now Daenerys only has one dragon left. So what can she do? Well, for starters, she could attack Kings Landing which now has eight or more scorpions pointing out to the sea in anticipation of the dragons not during the daytime but late at night when it is dark and hard to see the dragon until it strikes with its huge fire breathing weapon. Once she strikes and incinerates a larger segment of the castle, she should fly away and come back days later in another unexpected surprise attack that is harder to anticipate. Jon Snow’s forces could create huge black bonfires to create smoke to obscure the view and make it even more difficult to see and target the dragons.

Clearly, the writers are using a simplistic formula. Make the forces of Jon Snow and Daenerys look vulnerable only to have them turn it around and win as they did with the Night King and his army of Wight Walkers. His death in episode 3 was too quick, although I had predicted Areya would be the one to kill him. But it was so easy. It wasn’t very tricky. It wasn’t complex and it wasn’t a surprise. The surprise was how easy he was taken out and all the Wight Walkers collapsed and “died” permanently.

It was just bad writing at the most crucial moment in the episode and season.

I fear that the writers believe that the public is expecting the good forces to defeat the bad, as they did the Night King and the Wight Walkers. So they might take out the two heroes, Jon Snow and Daenerys, as their forces “win.”

They are rushing it.

They could have created a much more dramatic and surprising final season that would have made this series one of the most memorable closures of any TV series. Instead, it’s like them walking out and closing the lights.

I don’t want Cersei to win. I want to see her evil character suffer. I wan tthe good to win. And I want the final dragon to survive, maybe even have baby dragons.

Here’s my podcast that elaborates on all this speculation on “a thrilling disappointment” in this final season. Click here to go to the podcast page or use the widget below.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America.

"I write about three topics, the Middle East, politics and life in general. I often take my life experiences and offer them in an entertaining way to readers, and I take on the toughest topics like the Israel-Palestine conflict and don't pull any punches about what I feel is fair. But, my priority is always about writing the good story."

Click Here to LISTEN to Hanania's live radio show on 2nd Friday every month 7 AM CST. Click here to listen to Ray's Podcasts.

His columns are archived here. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.