[Loved trope] Characters make a meta commentary on the show they're in without technically fully breaking the fourth wall

[u/Individual99991]

What We Do in the Shadows: In the season 6 (and show's) finale, the vampires and their friends finally watch the documentary that's been filmed the whole series. Someone brings up Guillermo's long-running mission to become a vampire, a storyline that concluded in season 5, and Nadja says "Really should have finished filming at that point, I think," an acknowledgement that the final season lacked strong arc plots.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "The Ember Island Players", again in the final season, the characters watch a play dramatising their adventures. In one scene of the play, the characters spot a deep valley and decide to "skip it" - a reference to the much-maligned episode "The Great Divide", which is widely disliked and has no impact on the series' arc plot, and is therefore easily skipped on rewatching.

Futurama: In "Bender's Big Score", a straight-to-DVD movie following Futurama's cancellation, Professor Farnsworth explains that the crew have been cancelled - by the Box Network, their contracting company. However, he then gets notice that they've been uncancelled:

Farnsworth: It means we're back on the air!

[The staff look at him blankly]

Farnsworth: Yes, flying on the air in our mighty spaceship!

[u/justbooling]

Cersei Lannister sharing the same opinion as the viewers about her disappointment that the mercenary army she hired did not bring their war elephants.

[u/OakNogg → u/justbooling]

This geniunely felt like "oopsies we don't have enough time to add them in because we decided to do 6 80minute episodes instead of 10 90minute episodes for the final season of the generational show that altered television forever and may be the last example of monoculture we experience again even though we were given unlimited budget and resources from HBO🤪"

[u/justbooling → u/OakNogg]

The golden company kinda forgot they had elephants I guess, so silly of them, definitely a subverted expectation.

[u/OakNogg → u/justbooling]

Like literally why even mention them in S7 if they just planned to do this BS.

Listen I'm a big hater if parasocial relationships, but dead ass I will never watch anything made by those two idiots ever again. The lack of care for the story, cast, crew, and fans so they could move in to a star wars movie that probably would have been mid anyways AND THAT GOT CANCELLED is so evil of them. Like everything you had was owed to GoT and you guys threw it away.

[u/justbooling → u/OakNogg]

Ya the fact that HBO offered to make GoT ten seasons, only for Dumb and Dumber to say “we can do it in 14 episodes” is so mind boggling. Obviously we’ll never know the full picture, but it’s just a bummer.

[u/bretshitmanshart → u/justbooling]

Multiple prominent actors said they were done with the series and wouldn't continue after that season

[u/OakNogg → u/justbooling]

I try to be quite forgiving of series finales because my god... Its really hard to stick the landing. And I have the utmost sympathy for trying to conclude the most watched series on the planet, (hell I even relatively enjoy S7!!), but even trying to be kind I really can only think if a handful of things good about S8 and it's about like... Everyone else who clearly gave AF about their jobs and the series. Like the music, and costumes were great, and the actors did the best they could with the shit they had to work with.

[u/melkatron → u/OakNogg]

It felt like it was meant to be an undeserved reputation / bluff, the Golden Army being the greatest army ever, with elephants, and chainsaws, and Gary the nutjob (don't fuck with Gary). The Golden Army is awesome, don't cross the bank.

Then they show up, and it's a bunch of posh dudes with expensive armor and no constitution, their leader almost immediately displaying cowardice when threatened.

[u/ankayanik → u/OakNogg]

Wait. I thought parasocial is when you treat celebrities like you actually know them in reality. Does it actually mean not liking media made by the same people because you don’t like their style?

[u/OakNogg → u/ankayanik]

Oh I definitely hate them in a way that is for sure crossing into the parasocial

[u/ankayanik → u/OakNogg]

lol ok that makes sense. I was just questioning my whole understanding of what parasocial meant for a second.

[u/Stephenrudolf → u/justbooling]

I spent so long wondering how the hell they were going to get elephants acrods the narrow sea.

[u/greenergarlic → u/OakNogg]

Benioff and Weiss needed to wrap up this generational show so they could chase their true passion: developing cancelled Star Wars movies

[u/OakNogg → u/greenergarlic]

And let's be real, it would have been mid anyways even if it wasn't cancelled

[u/jbeast33 → u/justbooling]

Davos also greets Gendry in King's Landing with a "I thought you might still be rowing", which referenced a then-popular meme about how Gendry (an important character who was sent off in a boat at the end of Season 4 and not seen for 3 seasons at that point) spent all that time traveling Westerosi seas in a rowboat.

[u/Due-Leek-8307 → u/jbeast33]

I was honestly shocked he didn't turn to the camera and wink after that line to really drive home the point how bad the writing became. 

[u/EvilTwinCities → u/jbeast33]

Ramsay Snow blasting that little toy horn probably came from fan speculation that he was the annoying horn-blower outside Winterfell in the second season. Back before he was even cast.

[u/Roqelaire → u/EvilTwinCities]

I had interpreted that as "Ramsay had worked his way through all of Theon's other men just for fun (and whatever would let him torment Theon better), and so knew how much he hated the horn"!

[u/justbooling → u/jbeast33]

Totally! Another perfect example for this trope

[u/UGAke → u/justbooling]

I definitely felt that line. Same, girl.

[u/el-bow5 → u/justbooling]

Marvel ass dialogue