Welcome to the GoT experience.

I’m still gutted about it, especially because while the quality did keep dropping, there remained those flashes of promise that they’d turn it around. Series 5 ep 8 was one of my favourites and felt like it set us up, finally, for a really serious scary white walker invasion we’d been promised since the first scene of episode 1.

Early GoT was good because you could understand why everyone was doing what they were doing, and when they took a misstep the consequences were brutal. There was also momentum established by certain events and it got you invested in loving or hating certain characters. That starting sputtering out in the middle seasons. Endless wandering the woods on horseback, seemingly lost.

Series 7 and 8 felt like they existed in a different world. Characters seemed pulled along by plot rather than their own motivations, and brutal consequences (even some set up just an episode or two before) could be avoided because, again, the world was now on rails, not being driven by plausible free thinking people.

Tyrion becomes especially painful to watch. He was always good because he was smart. His lines in series 8 felt like fan service / GoT the sitcom written by someone not nearly as smart as Tyrion was supposed to be.

It’s so sad because it was such a riot in the early seasons, and seemed to be lining itself up for such an epic conclusion. Though maybe that’s the ultimate GRRM undercutting expectations red wedding style shocker. Get your much loved fantasy series to shit the bath and disappoint everyone. Mad lad.