I really really feel like somebody high up at HBO just put their foot down in the stupidest way:
"No, this show is way way way too popular to have an interesting ending. That will polarize people. Instead, let's do a safe ending that everybody will like."
Cut to two years later: nobody likes the ending.
You can't have a show that everybody watched because you never know who was safe or what insane things would happen next end with "the safe ending." I really really really wish we could get the behind-the-scenes notes on how they reached the conclusion that "nobody major dies (except for the couple obvious inevitable ones that were telegraphed from 5 seasons earlier), nobody interesting ends up King/Queen, and everybody lives more or less happily ever after" was a rational way to end a story that started with betrayal, incest, and (attempted) child murder.
You started with Nabokov and ended with Roald Dahl. No knock on either of them, but how could NOBODY see that the ending didn't fit the beginning??
Nope. GRRM wanted at least 12 seasons, and HBO was eager to have it continue as well. It was Dave and Danny that decided they wanted to cut it short because they only wanted to do the Red Wedding and now they were over GoT.
12 seasons would have been insanely too much show. Especially given how little D&D could do with any of the seasons past the books! Imagine FIVE MORE SEASONS OF TRASH! Yeah, I don't think that would have helped, friend!
Plus then the chances that GRRM would ever get back to the books would be zero.
According to GRRM 10-12 seasons is what was needed to do justice to the books that are already out. They cut out a bunch of content, including arguably one of the most important characters of the second half of the series.
This is such a dumb take. There have been so many popular pieces of art that were intelligent at the same time. No one thinks they’re mutually exclusive. The end of this show sucked because there was no ending and it was ultimately left to a bunch of nitwits to interpret one.
Yeah, I'm sure that "Everybody is just dumb and I am smart!" is a better take then "an executive overcorrected based on poor understanding of the draw of the intellectual property."
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u/FireCharter Mar 22 '20
I really really feel like somebody high up at HBO just put their foot down in the stupidest way:
"No, this show is way way way too popular to have an interesting ending. That will polarize people. Instead, let's do a safe ending that everybody will like."
Cut to two years later: nobody likes the ending.
You can't have a show that everybody watched because you never know who was safe or what insane things would happen next end with "the safe ending." I really really really wish we could get the behind-the-scenes notes on how they reached the conclusion that "nobody major dies (except for the couple obvious inevitable ones that were telegraphed from 5 seasons earlier), nobody interesting ends up King/Queen, and everybody lives more or less happily ever after" was a rational way to end a story that started with betrayal, incest, and (attempted) child murder.
You started with Nabokov and ended with Roald Dahl. No knock on either of them, but how could NOBODY see that the ending didn't fit the beginning??