Ten years ago, Game of Thrones burst into the television scene and rammed itself into the collective psyche of millions the world over. It was common for people to talk more about the politics of Westeros than the politics of their respective countries for a while! Almost overnight, the show leapt to meteoric heights, praised as "The Sopranos in Middle Earth" and having a talented cast of dedicated actors who worked their way through some of the most intensive scenes we've seen on television.
For all that though, not many people talk about Game of Thrones today.
Unlike say, The Sopranos or The Wire, or even other big name science fiction and fantasy shows like Merlin or Stargate and Battlestar Galactica; you don't see many people sharing memes about the show, it isn't often referenced in contemporary discourse, and often times people seem to act as though it didn't even exist. Where once you couldn't scroll through reddit, Tumblr, Facebook or Twitter without seeing something related to that series, now you only find it on dedicated fan sites and amongst people who still care about the (as of 2021) unfinished series.
Why that is, is hard to explain. For one thing, the show has possibly the most divisive ending in television history. From some who praised it, to millions of fans who were so pissed off they petitioned to have the ending re-filmed. In fact, the show seems to have ended on such a bad note that people who were fans seem to be almost unwilling to talk about having ever liked it in the first place. Hyperbole sure, but I certainly don't run across many people who I know loved the show who say they're going to re-watch it any time soon.
Even when the show was running there were many conversations about how it had markedly dipped in quality over the years. Depending on who you ask, the show began to lose focus and good storytelling around Season 4, 5, or 6. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is when the show outpaced the established material that Martin had written.
At the time, that wasn't going to be a problem. When the show premiered, the fifth book in the series had been released, and there was every reason to expect that the sixth would soon follow - until it didn't. This did, eventually, become a problem as 2015 rolled around the the next book was nowhere to be seen. It raised questions about how the show could continue. Because this was such a pop culture juggernaut, there was no chance of it not continuing. The showrunners boldly rode on, and the show kept going even though it was outpacing it's source material.
Exactly who to blame for the sudden dip after this point hard to quantify. Certainly Martin does bear some responsibility because he has, for over a decade now, failed to deliver on the next installment in the series. That of course doesn't mean it's his fault the series tanked, he was no longer directly involved after Season 4. The two show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss (D&D) most likely bear the most blame moving forward.
They were of course, working under immense pressure to produce something that would satisfy fans, and undoubtedly they would never be able to satisfy all of them. However, it is more than likely that once the show firmly left all the established cannon behind, it lost much of its core fanbase in the fans of the books who either ended up feeling alienated by the departure, or were so mad at the turns the series took they couldn't defend it.
Although this did leave a sizable show only fanbase, they still had their own expectations. To be sure, the show began pandering to certain characters, namely Jon, Danaerys, Tyrion, and Arya. They took over in their "exciting" storylines, while characters who were perhaps less interesting in polls (or to the showrunners) tended to be left behind. Witness for example, Cersei becoming the big bad villain at the end of the series despite the Others being the biggest threat established from episode one. Or Arya killing the Night King even though she wasn't involved in that plot at all. Among many other narratively incomprehensible but flashy decisions made in the final seasons.
It would take forever to list my own gripes with the series, and doesn't adequately pinpoint others either. So instead I'll focus on how this divisive ending managed to kill the shows re-watch value.
The show begins very closely focused on the plot - with deviations for television - of the books. In fact the first season is almost beat for beat the plot of A Game of Thrones and for me was one of the reasons why I picked up the books and dove head first into the world of Westeros. Broadly speaking, the next three seasons followed the two sequels, reasonably well. They had their changes though, some for better, some for worse.
With that information in mind, viewers expected they could make a reasonable following of the plot. The Starks would come back somehow, there would be a satisfying resolution to who sat on the Iron Throne, and the villains would either dodge karma or get their comeuppance as tends to happen in dark fantasy. Instead, there was a confusing series of, while visually stunning television experiences... events. Events is almost the only way I can put it. Things happen, and not necessarily for logical reasons.
Perhaps the showrunners were going against expectations, perhaps they thought this was what people wanted to see, or perhaps they didn't give a damn and decided to rush the ending so they could work on Star Wars. Whatever the case, the final seasons of the show left millions of viewers confused and unsatisfied. The plot didn't seem to make any sense, many dramatic moments felt sprung on people, and so much boggled enough minds that people simply wrote their own endings.
Indeed, Game of Thrones might go down in history as one of the only shows to ever bungle so badly people wish it didn't exist.
For what it's worth, the series is half excellent in my opinion. The show took many risks, but it also gave many strong women roles on television. It managed to bring high fantasy to the small screen in a way we haven't really experienced, and it spawned many imitators and made fantasy cool in a way only Lord of the Rings had previously accomplished. The reasons it has had such an almost ephemeral existence post ending (despite many announced spin offs) are hard to place. I can say why I ended up unsatisfied with the show, I can't speak for all the other fans, but I can say that it hasn't left an entirely positive legacy with it's intended audience.
Perhaps the only thing that can be said for this series is, the higher you climb, the farther you fall.
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