Best season since S1; best season ending yet. I have no faith this pleasure will last, but any pleasure buoys this miserable foundering. Nor am I ashamed to conflate pleasure and quality in this case. Game of Thrones needed it.
This is probably the best season, and only one I rewatched all the way. After this is mostly stuff GRRM hasn't written yet--basically paraphrased Winds of Winter. Mileage may vary.
I don't recall S7 as much--so I wouldn't ding that too much; though it seems like it belongs below S1-S6. I did like some episodes in S8 (loved the episode w/ Jaime and Brienne's reunion), but some others were dreadful. In the moment it aired I even defended some, but the last one (or few) offered so little it was shocking. Did the creators look at each other thinking they landed the plane? I hope not (and I pity them if so). It doesn't need to be perfect, but some spiritual essence needs to remain. Instead we got an autofill of whatever GRRM paraphrased; heresy, honestly
This is helpful. As much as I admire the bleak brutality the first several seasons established, I hardly enjoyed it. By the last season, I just wasn't a mega fan of GoT, so quick comfy closure didn't bother me. Quick meaning fewer episodes per season, comfy meaning most character conclusions felt relatively just to me. When I didn't notice quality declining, I guessed people didn't like S8 due to injustice for the characters, like how I felt at the end of S1. Usually I feel I'm more artistically purist than the mainstream, so if I didn't notice artistic impurity, I guessed the show would end in a series of tragedies that explained the outcry. When it didn't, I was pleased. Maybe GoT is an exception where I needed more pleasant justice than normal, because it was exceptionally unpleasant and unjust. So I was actually more interested in happy endings than the masses were, and less interested in artistic integrity or whatever. I genuinely didn't notice artistic compromise, and I was genuinely relieved by the events.
You liked Jaime and Brienne's reunion; I liked the last three seasons due to their reunions and general character comfort. I wanted all of the Starks together, for example, which was distressingly delayed for many seasons. One artistic decision I questioned in S8 was all of the non-action before the Winterfell war; sitting around a fire, drinking, joking. It felt a little like time-filler, but my point is I didn't actually mind it, because all of these characters I loved were together, appreciating each other. In prior seasons, any pleasant state of affairs was too brief to enjoy. In the last couple of seasons I could savor things a little.
This is probably the best season, and only one I rewatched all the way. After this is mostly stuff GRRM hasn't written yet--basically paraphrased Winds of Winter. Mileage may vary.
ReplyDeleteYour and others' warning confuses me, having seen the last two seasons now. Did you dislike them?
DeleteI don't recall S7 as much--so I wouldn't ding that too much; though it seems like it belongs below S1-S6. I did like some episodes in S8 (loved the episode w/ Jaime and Brienne's reunion), but some others were dreadful. In the moment it aired I even defended some, but the last one (or few) offered so little it was shocking. Did the creators look at each other thinking they landed the plane? I hope not (and I pity them if so). It doesn't need to be perfect, but some spiritual essence needs to remain. Instead we got an autofill of whatever GRRM paraphrased; heresy, honestly
DeleteThis is helpful. As much as I admire the bleak brutality the first several seasons established, I hardly enjoyed it. By the last season, I just wasn't a mega fan of GoT, so quick comfy closure didn't bother me. Quick meaning fewer episodes per season, comfy meaning most character conclusions felt relatively just to me. When I didn't notice quality declining, I guessed people didn't like S8 due to injustice for the characters, like how I felt at the end of S1. Usually I feel I'm more artistically purist than the mainstream, so if I didn't notice artistic impurity, I guessed the show would end in a series of tragedies that explained the outcry. When it didn't, I was pleased. Maybe GoT is an exception where I needed more pleasant justice than normal, because it was exceptionally unpleasant and unjust. So I was actually more interested in happy endings than the masses were, and less interested in artistic integrity or whatever. I genuinely didn't notice artistic compromise, and I was genuinely relieved by the events.
DeleteYou liked Jaime and Brienne's reunion; I liked the last three seasons due to their reunions and general character comfort. I wanted all of the Starks together, for example, which was distressingly delayed for many seasons. One artistic decision I questioned in S8 was all of the non-action before the Winterfell war; sitting around a fire, drinking, joking. It felt a little like time-filler, but my point is I didn't actually mind it, because all of these characters I loved were together, appreciating each other. In prior seasons, any pleasant state of affairs was too brief to enjoy. In the last couple of seasons I could savor things a little.