Students on De Montfort University’s Music, Film and Entertainment Journalism module pick the films, plays, music, TV shows or books they detest. Haris Khawaja bemoans a rushed, nonsensical final season that took the GOAT out of GOT
Watching season eight of Game of Thrones felt like being forced to sit through a slow-motion
car crash. After nearly a decade of masterful storytelling, the final season collapsed under rushed pacing, abandoned arcs, and baffling creative choices.
With George R. R. Martin yet to release The Winds of Winter, fans were left relying on
showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss to land the plane. Instead, they put it into a nosedive.
Once praised for adapting Martin’s complex world, they delivered a six-episode sprint that
sacrificed logic and character consistency for spectacle.
The season began with promise. Jon Snow learning he was Aegon Targaryen should have
reshaped the political landscape. Instead, it went nowhere. The long-awaited showdown with
the Night King – built up since the very first episode and teased magnificently in
Hardhome – ended abruptly. Years of existential threat concluded in a single episode
dominated by plot armour and dim lighting. Arya’s killing blow may have shocked viewers,
but the larger narrative payoff felt hollow.
Then came the character assassinations.
Jaime Lannister’s redemption arc – one of television’s best – was undone in a single line
when he dismissed the very people he once saved. Tyrion, once Westeros’ sharpest mind,
devolved into a strategist who couldn’t strategise. Varys, the master of whispers, openly
plotted treason with the subtlety of a town crier.
Daenerys’ descent into madness was the breaking point. After losing Rhaegal and
witnessing Missandei’s execution, she burns King’s Landing to ashes. The issue isn’t that
she turned tyrant – it’s that the transformation lacked the careful build-up earlier seasons
excelled at. It felt rushed and nonsensical.
Cersei, after eight seasons of calculated ruthlessness, dies… by bricks. Arya abandons her
revenge quest. The Hound and the Mountain deliver spectacle, but little thematic closure.
And then, in perhaps the most bewildering twist, Bran Stark is crowned king. Not Jon, the
rightful heir. Not a hard-earned political compromise. Bran.
The finale of Game of Thrones wasn’t just disappointing – it felt indifferent to the very story it
once told with so much finesse. Season eight didn’t merely stumble; it undermined the emotional
and narrative investment of millions.
After years of buildup, fans deserved an ending worthy of the journey. Instead, we got a
rushed epilogue to what was once the greatest show on television.
