Garbage writing to wrap it up. The show was interesting in part because of the character development and dialog. They removed that from the last few episodes. Varys became flat, Jon became a waffle, Cersei was put on the bench, Grey Worm was castrated completely, and Brienne was made to blubber about Jamie. Tyrion lost his wit and became the great explainer. Daenerys was never a very strong character to begin with, which was probably the weakest aspect of the whole series, and yet, her transformation was too quick to be believable.

It was boring that Bran should be voted king, and hilarious that Sansa said no thanks and no one got to change their vote, however, it wasn't what actually happened that was the problem. The problem is that they betrayed the work that had been done and just got sloppy.

The dragons were so wild that they could barely be controlled by Daenerys, but then one became philosophical upon her death, and destroyed a metaphor. Sam presented the history of the war to Tyrion, and for the purposes of a joke, informed him that he wasn't in it, which would be impossible, seeing as Tyrion killed his father, the guy that sat in the Iron Throne. Not worth the shitty joke. Arya rode out of the ruins on a pale horse with a look of vengeance, then to walk out without purpose. Grey Worm teleported. The whole modern beverage easter egg thing was probably a symptom of shit going downhill.

The show did interesting things like the red wedding, Ned Stark's death, Cersei's shame walk, the fire bombing of the temple, and Hodor. The death of the night king and the ruin of King's Landing could have matched up if the writing wasn't shit.

So much delicious, delicious butthurt out there. I drink your tears.

Nobody who has paid attention to GoT, who has thought for the first second as to the why of it all, should be the slightest bit surprised or disappointed by the ending. All those parents who named their kids Khaleesi or Danerys? Fuckin' pay attention, you twits. The waif who burns a witch and jumps in the fire with her dragon's eggs after settling in with the rapist who murders her brother? That's a supervillain origin story. The Everyman who shuns rule at every step and gives everything up every single time, knowingly and willingly? Fuckin' A. He gets to go off to winter camp with his dog.

Just because Martin made her blonde and cute and slight doesn't mean he wasn't writing Hitler's origin story. Danerys is the girl who double-crosses anyone and everyone, who burns cities to the ground, who sails across the ocean for pure, naked vengeance even when it grinds everyone she knows into dust. The only people she's ever loved are her abusers. She shows no mercy to anyone and is driven entirely and completely by rage and revenge. Yeah - she's been on the right side of history for most of the series but that doesn't make her any less a ruthless sociopath. The writers put this in Tyrion's dialogue. They could not have made it more on the nose.

The whole point of the white walkers? Was to illustrate that power-mad sociopaths will set aside their differences for just long enough to avoid extinction and then immediately get back to the business of killing each other. Meanwhile, Martin has woven prophecy deus ex machina throughout the whole thing so that you know - you know - that whatever is important is going to be fated. Not fated? Not important. The red woman knew she had to burn Shireen so that the king could defeat the white walkers... but she thought the king would be Stannis, who got wiped the fuck out. What she did was drive Davos Seaworth so far into regret and disbelief that he split, sided with Jon and got the alliance that got Danerys and Arya to the wall. Danerys, meanwhile, was told she'd never sit on the iron throne, Cersei was told she'd outlive all her children and the fuckin' Lord of Light kept burnin'sword dude alive long enough to save Arya at the end, no matter the spectacularly ridiculous cost. Hodor? Hodor's life was ruined by a fucking time warp Martin went so far in bending causality to show the cruel, iron callousness of fate.

Game of Thrones started out as the Wars of the Roses and ended with the Peace of Westphalia. Martin's whole point is it sucks to be royal, royals suck, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that the ambitious will do fucking anything for power. Eventually you run out of men to fight - the bloodshed in Saxony was so dire during the Thirty Years War that the Catholic church encouraged polygamy for a generation starting in 1650 because there were no men left to marry.

Everybody in that series got exactly what they wanted, deserved or were fated for. Arya never wanted to be a queen or a princess. She reminds us of as much and sails off to find what's west of Westeros. Jon never wanted to be king and he doesn't have to. He goes back to the place he was happiest, with his friends and his fucking dog. Tyrion always wanted power but never wanted to rule; he's the hand. Davos ends up about where he started because he was fundamentally content. Samwell becomes maester because that's his jam and he's fuckin' earned it. Braun gets Highgarden because, as he says in his own dialog, royals are just those who were good at killing who get to enjoy it until their kids fuck it all up. Cue Tywin Lannister. Cue Highgarden. Cue Dragonstone. Sunrise, fuckin' Sunset. Even the fuckin' dragon comes out ahead, belonging to nobody, flying out to points unknown, because dragons are mystery and magic and magic has left the fucking building.

The whole of that series - the entire purpose of 73 episodes - was to show how someone you love becomes a monster. The whole of that series - the entire purpose of 73 episodes - was to show that if you're true to yourself and true to others, at least you'll avoid torture. Danerys consistently does the wrong thing and ends up burning a city of innocents. Jon consistently does the right thing and comes back from the mutherfucking dead. I mean, consider Catelyn vs. Cirsei - they're both 100% driven not by morals but by the importance of their children. Both do the wrong thing all the time. Catelyn dies Season 2 because nobody else cares about her children; Cirsei makes it to the penultimate episode because she doesn't care about anyone but her children and will spill any and all blood necessary.

Game of Thrones is Unforgiven stretched out to nearly 100 hours. Once Danerys snaps, the only question left is "is Jon gonna kill her." Not how, not when, but if because the time is now. And once Jon kills her the only thing left is mopping up, and the board is so bloody and battered that the only possible cleanup is fuck this shit. And that, in a nutshell, is how democracy got a foothold in Europe. You can hate on it all you want but the ending you got is the only ending you were ever going to get, is the only ending that would have satisfied the story.

Ned Stark died because he was too busy imposing his morals on everyone to notice he was in a deeply immoral place. Rob Stark died because he was too busy pretending life was fair to notice he was dealing with deeply unfair people. Jon Snow died because he was too busy taking care of others to notice nobody else cared... which is why he had to come back to life and keep doing it. Love is the death of duty, duty is the death of love - I mean, that's just Spock in pseudoshakespearean.

Game of Thrones is probably the last thing we'll all watch on television together. It is truly the swan song of mass televised drama. You and everyone you know watched the finale unless you were being contrary - that's 19.3 million people in a country of 330 million. But 86 million in a country of 200 tuned in to find out who shot JR and 104 million - half the bloody population of the country -watched medical army surgical hospital number 4077 go back to the States.

I can't think of a more fitting show to end it with and I can't think of a more fitting way to end it.

I watched the entire series in the last month or so. It’s been a long slog.

I watched the last two episodes last night almost entirely on one click of fast forward because I can’t handle Jon Snow walking around in slow motion with a constipated look on his face any longer than I had to. I’ve disliked him from the start, not because he was the saintly poor bastard, but because he’s such a whiny little bitch about everything. I felt the urge to punch him in the mouth almost every second he was on the screen.

khaleesi/Dannygurl was the most ridiculous and terrible storyline all the way along. Out of her entire story arc, two things made sense: when she burned the temple and walked out of it alive probably looked miraculous to the uneducated horsemen and When she freed the unsullied - I guess they didn’t know how to do anything else. But everything else about her story was a waste... which as the series dragged on, made me realize the series might have been a waste. Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad I watched it. I was moderately entertained on average, and more pleased than not along the way - but I guess if I really disliked both of the main character... what does that tell me about how I spend my entertainment time?

I couldn’t be more glad that I didn’t waste years thinking and talking about it. I got in, got done, and can put it behind me.

The first 2 episodes made me think we were going to lose some main characters in the epic battle that was coming to Winterfell in an emotional and devastating last stand for humanity. Instead we got subversive fake-out ninja John Wick

Some people are waking up to the fact that using algorithmic choices to determine your feeds on youtube and facebook etc leads to a race to the bottom for quality, satisfaction and even enjoyment when the criteria used for judging success is "engagement" because we get distracted by carefully engineered clickbait titles, thumbnails and everything that appeals to our baser impulses.

The rest of the season has felt like those exact same algorithms were choosing the characters actions decisions and the plots. It feels like this is precisely how they want us to enjoy their labour. I truthfully envy those people their ability to enjoy it in that way. If you enjoyed it and found it satisfying and thrilling I'm 100% honestly happy for you. I just couldn't. It feels like it's become a self-parodying farce of what is once was.

The last episode was like being lowered up to your shoulders into a vat of body temperature porridge.

I felt virtually nothing during the finale except for some mild annoyance. I mean what was the point of Edmure fucking Tully or Prince anonymous of Dorne?

I thought the whole season was a terrible rush job and so much seemed moot -- the Night King's too sudden death and end of that whole thread, Jamie and Brienne was such a waste and so poorly done, Jon not choosing to marry his aunt which could have fixed everything... oh c'mon! Yeah, you know all this and more, but --

I liked the last episode. I found it very satisfying. A lot of things tied up more or less neatly in satisfying ways. That's really what I wanted.

And I liked that we are left to imagine the continuing storylines. What adventures await Arya? Where is Jon going with the wildlings? And most exciting, will Bran find Drogon? Will he worg into him and bring back the dragon?

I'm good with the ending. I choose to overlook a lot because I want it to be an ending a like. And I'm ok with that too.

I was a little disappointed they had Arya go to discover America instead of founding the organization she imagined the Faceless Men were when she set out to join them to replace Varys and his little birds. I might have read too much into the pale horse appearing out of nowhere. Other than that it was fine given that there was a lot of stuff than needed tying up in not much time.