After a few days of processing and hearing all the other takes....
This season is probably in the running for the worst season with season 5 and 7. Its not because that ending(s) don't make sense like some believe, its because they feel rushed and not totally earned. Dany turning crazy and the Others (white walkers in show) being a macguffin are not totally out of left field turns, and there are plenty of seeds in the show and books to support both. I just think this story should've gotten two more 8 episode seasons to flesh out these drastic turns better. Right now its the equivalent of keeping all of the original Star Wars trilogy intact with the exception of omitting one scene and changing another in Return of the Jedi. If you were to take out the scene where Yoda and Obi wan confirm Vader was Luke's father and have Vader admit he was lying about it to turn Luke to the dark side then you would have an understandable ending, but ultimately an ending that feels that it needed more to justify that ending.
To address a few criticisms Ive come across...
1) That its the worst ending ever in a TV show.... No it isn't. I don't think anything compares to Lost. Ive never finished the Shield or the Sopranos, but Ive heard they were bad too. But Lost made no sense whatsoever atleast Thrones makes sense if you think about it. You may not like it, or like how we got there through writing, but it makes sense.
2) These are Last Jedi subversions... No they aren't... Well maybe depending on your view on Arya being the one killing the Night King. But ultimately I think these subversions make sense according to the narrative and the character arcs, but aren't totally fleshed out.
3) The book readers.... Here is one of my biggest gripes the past few seasons, and its the book readers acting like Martin will do it totally different or do it totally better. They have gotten way louder these past five weeks, and its time to address the elephant(s) in the room....
A) Martin has been clear that there will only be 7 books and we have already gotten 5. As it stands there are a lot of central plot points that have to be resolved to stick the ending. We have to have a resolution of the whitewalkers, a resolution about the faith militant, a resolution of the Boltons, a resolution on the Stannis story, need to know if Jon is alive, Dany needs to cross the narrow sea, and an end to the war of the 7 kingdoms. So that's a lot of huge plot points to put into 2 books, and its probably going to take 1200 page books to finish it in a satisfying way.
B) Martin never has and never will be Tolkien's equal. I think this maybe the core of the problem. A lot of the rabid fans of the books want Martin's books to be on par with LOTR, but the ending the show has presented threatens it from happening in their eyes. If you ever read A Song of Ice and Fire then you would probably feel "A Game of Thrones" (the 1st book) is a very good book, but as you get further along in the series the quality drops, and books start to feel longer. I think what Tolkien did is probably a rarity, and will never be duplicated. Even Harry Potter had issues in the center of the series.
C) This is Martin's ending.... Again, Martin has said it over and over again that the show wouldn't end very differently to the books. I think Dany killing innocents has totally made the book readers mad that they have invested in this character for over 20 years that they just want to believe this is D&D being hacks and idiots instead of their favorite writer being a cruel sadistic Santa Claus. Lets be real anyone that really has been reading in between the lines knows Jon is the hero and basically everyone who tries to take the Iron Throne has a degree of evil qualities. So I don't know what folks were expecting Martin to do.
D) Martin's constant trolling should really tell you that he either has no idea how to end this or he wants to so desperately not go the LOTR ending route that he has chosen this ending... or perhaps both. I think a good bit of his delay on the Winds of Winter is mostly due to see how the show ends so he can change a few things.
E) Martin's lack of involvement from season 5 onward should be telling that he doesn't want to be associated with the show with the exception of pre production conferences. I think many book fans try to believe this is due to his disgust with the direction, but I think its more to do with that he knows the ending isn't going to be liked by many. I think he doesn't want to kill his book sales by being directly associated with the TV show because he knows fans of the books are going to hate this ending and are going to be hoping for a different ending in the books.
Overall I give this season 6/10. ranking seasons:
1. 4
2. 3
3. 1
4. 2
5. 6
6. 8
7. 7
8. 5
