Game of Thrones

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I wrote this in 2020 after a 2 week binge watch on a staycation (COVID shutdowns started happening in the middle of it).

Game of Thrones is a wonderful fantasy series, revolving around control of power for one continent on an alternate Earth-like planet. It involves a vast array of royal characters with multiple schemes and goals at all times, and no one is really good. The division between right and wrong is blurred continuously.

A political junkie or an enthusiast of military history or fantasy stories will find themselves right at home. The setting is akin to the Middle Ages in Europe. While it makes it through 1.5 seasons without any overt violation of the laws of physics, alas it cannot take place in our universe. Too much mystical/magic ultimately takes place.

This society has a vast and very rich history that you learn about over time. It is very intricate and well thought out, and almost hard to believe that one person came up with all of it. He (the author) is in several of the special features and is a pleasure to listen to, discussing the world he created.

The show has powerful opening credits and a very addictive theme song that sets the mood perfectly.  I will miss hearing it.

While I very much enjoyed this series, there is much to criticize. Typically there are 4-5 separate storylines being explored at once. One of these moves at a snails pace and is completely disconnected from the rest for half the series. While this was not a problem for me, it must have been very monotonous for those watching over several years. Other storylines move at a snails pace over several seasons and ultimately go nowhere. I am pretty sure they cheat on time frames sometimes, when characters seemingly cross the continent overnight when it takes weeks or months at other times. Finally, a logistical problem is that some of the child actors age too much, especially for some of the seasons that had years between them in real time. This was very distracting.

As I mentioned the first season was very confusing. But this gets much better once you are familiar with all the people and places. The amount of background you get to the huge history is a bare minimum and not really enough.

The show features some pretty amazing performances from several actors, most notably Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance, Sophie Turner, Rose Leslie, Diana Rigg, and Iwan Rheon.

While I would tentatively recommend it, it is not a must see like Lost. You also have to be prepared for a very long buildup to the last 2 seasons, where everything finally comes together. Without a binge watch, you should probably approach each episode as a standalone medieval fantasy adventure which may answer very few if any questions you may have about what's going to happen. Part of me thinks this may have been better served by a series of movies like Harry Potter. But the author felt movies would cut too much out, so it's an HBO series. (There are several 1000 page books, with more coming.)

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Some other misc items.

I liked season 8, lol.

I own season  1 & 8 on UHD and the rest on Blu-ray. UHDs for the whole series were not available yet.

For a first time viewer, I recommend watching the special features for season 1 before actually starting the series. While it spoils season 1, it gives you a good introduction to the characters, world building, mythology, and geography of the GOT world.

I own HOTD S1 on UHD and liked it a lot.

This is the best Game of Thrones map I have found:
https://atlasoficeandfireblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/asoiaf-known-world-new-mountains.jpg

[emailking]

The most worthless stupid f[inks]ing epic fail dumpster fire of a TV show ever made.

Tell us how you really feel.

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If you don't like season 8, you shouldn't let that color your judgment of the rest of the series or HOTD.

[emailking]

If you don't like season 8, you shouldn't let that color your judgment of the rest of the series or HOTD.

Just watch the first six seasons, and call it a night after watching Daenerys' fleet sail toward Westeros.  Let that be the last image you will have of the series, and pretend the last two seasons don't exist.

The problem is then there's no ending and it doesn't get tied up. It's not like watching the original Star Wars trilogy and pretending the Disney movies don't exist because it has a satisfactory ending....S6 of GoT doesn’t.

Then just look at it as a history story. History never ends and there's always a cliffhanger upcoming, but it doesn't mean you can't enjoy what's already there.

[emailking]

It's part of Martin's plan, apparently, for Danny to lose it, fwiw.

https://www.quora.com/Did-George-R-R-Martin-always-intend-for-Daenerys-to-go-mad-and-burn-Kings-Landing-to-ashes