It should honestly tell you something that we’re still talking about the final season of Game of Thrones YEARS after it dropped on HBO. The reason for this is simple. Most people…really didn’t like it. In fact, there was a massive petition after the series finale that demanded the entire finale season get remade, and it had millions of signings…and even some of the cast was behind that notion! It also should be noted that the franchise essentially “died” for a time because of the negative response. It went from having “numerous spinoffs in the works” to having just one come out. Yes, House of the Dragon helped revive love for the franchise, but it’s not to the level that the original was at just yet.
The showrunners behind Game of Thrones, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, are widely blamed by fans for what happened. Specifically, when they had the material from George R.R. Martin to work with, they were brilliant in adapting it. But when they had to input their own material on a large scale, which happened in the final few seasons, it wasn’t as beloved. The two were on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast and noted that one of the reasons they didn’t expect the backlash was that the network was apparently positive about it all:
“I guess I hadn’t really taken into account the network effects. The network’s effects, it can help the show when they’re working in your favor as a positive feedback loop,” Weiss said on the podcast. “It’s hypocritical to love it when it’s blowing in your direction and to decide it’s the end of the world when it’s going the other way. I think maybe that was the part of it that we hadn’t really accounted for, in knowing that some people were going to like it and some people weren’t.”
Benioff added his own thoughts with:
“I think we knew it would be controversial, I think we hoped that it would be a little more 50/50. I think you hope for a better proportion of … Definitely didn’t want it to be quite so much hate, we were prepared for some of it.”
Today, the Game of Thrones series finale is counted among some of the most hated and divisive endings in television history. That’s a far cry from being the “best show on television” for several years.
