Editing A Song of Ice and Fire (section)

==Oh Yeah, About The TV Show==
[[image:KnightsWhoSayFuck.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Yeah, pretty much.]]

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After the first three books became hits, many Hollywood producers and directors had come to the sadistic neckbeard, asking him about making a movie adaptation. At first, he was reluctant at best, due to the fact that a lot of his content would've been cut out to fit into a movie trilogy (see the Lord of the Rings live-action films).  Then, a couple of dudes, David Benioff and D.B/Daniel Brett Weiss (AKA D&D, or more accurately as of the final season, Dumb & Dumber), decided to contact him and asked him at a local restaurant about turning ASOIAF into a Television show produced by HBO, the top-rated soft-core porno channel. The story goes that George asked them a very specific question (Who is Jon Snow's mother?).  Satisfied with the response they gave, he gave them permission to start work on the show, which would be titled after the first book, ''Game of Thrones''.  They would later go on to prove that this is not a good way of choosing who should adapt your work.

The television show casts several well-known performers, such as Sean Bean as Eddard, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, Lena Headey as Cersei, and Charles Dance as Tywin. They have also cast some comparatively less well-known actors and even ones new to cinema, such as Sophie Turner (Sansa), Maisie Williams (Arya), Kit Harington (Jon), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay), Alfie Allen (Theon), and Richard Madden (Robb)

Thus, book snobs seem to think that every episode post-season 4 is nothing more than Emmy-bait. Regardless of the fact Kit Harington still [[Fail|doesn't have an Emmy]], there's a valid contention in that regard, with the number of liberties taken overshadowing the initial appeal. 

The final season (more on that below) was eventually revealed to be such a train wreck because Dumb & Dumber did not want to work on the series anymore and had let the success with the earlier seasons go to their heads.  In their arrogance, instead of handing the reins to someone else, they decided to plan out their own ending and use it as an audition to Disney so they could write for Star Wars.  By then, they'd run out of books to adapt, there was no superior writing for them to leech off of and there was no one to gainsay them in their echo chamber of a writer's room (even George himself was cut out).  The result was absolutely shit writing that caused a glorious breakage in the [[skub]] dam that left [[Butthurt|many a fan's anus weeping]] (provided they weren't early seasons fans, book series fans, or any of the other assorted onlookers [[Lulz|taking part in the mightiest of keks]]) and, if anything proved <s>George's </s> Ramsay's quote at the beginning of the article true.  Goddamn Dumb & Dumber, could you talentless Derp machines do any worse if you tried? Luckily, comeuppance came after them and Disney, having some sense, told them to fuck off with their [[Star Wars]] ideas after the backlash towards the final season. Not that Disney Star Wars has been without its share of controversy and [[Rage]], but you know it's bad when someone gets told to piss off from even that.

The Greatest Irony and Tragedy of the show's writing was that in the first few seasons, with George RR Martin consulting them and with a wealth of material from the first few books to work with, D&D were actually pretty damn good at adapting the books into a TV format. In fact, quite a few scenes were in fact not only adapted, but actually created from scratch outside of the source material. One of the most noteworthy is the iconic introduction of Tywin Lannister in Season 1 Episode 7, where we learn everything we need to know about his character with nothing but precisely chosen dialogue and a rather blunt visual metaphor of him gutting a stag he slew in a hunt, all while brutally laying into Season 1's initially perceived villain, Jaime.  Contrast this with Season 5 where the show's major decline began with blunders such as the omission of fan-favorite Lady Stoneheart, literally butchering the Dorne subplot with Martell family team-killing and changing the Sparrows' movement to a militant atheist's stereotype of religion.  This decline makes a lot more sense after George himself admitted that Season 5 was the first Season where he was was really locked out of the loop.

Goes to show how much they had fallen when the well ran dry and the show' writing and adaptation process was no longer the finely honed instrument it had started as.

'''TL;DR'''

[[GM|Producers Dumb&Dumber-style change characters and railroad the plot at a whim,]] [[/d/M|the tits and ultraviolence spigot is opened even wider than the books,]] and most scenes are made for the actors to show off their skills at making their signature angry/murder/brooding/etc. faces, and wrapped it up with a season of TV soon to be discussed that even Matt Ward would be 100% justified in pointing and laughing at. Seasons 1-4 are worth your time, 7 and 8 are best ignored, and 5 and 6 are the [[Skub]] ones.

===The Final <s>Dumpster Fire</s> Season===
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{{Topquote|If you try to do something fancy with your ending and you screw up, your audience will probably remember the botched ending more than the well run marathon|JP from Terrible Writing Advice (and advice Dumb and Dumber obviously didn't heed}})

Seasons 5, 6, and especially 7 all got their share of grief from people. Mostly deserved in the case of Season 7 and [[Skub|arguably so]] for 5 and 6 (though the latter did at least finally give Ramsay his just desserts, most of the problems that cropped up in 5 and 6 happened when the show passed the book in particular plotlines and mostly served as an early warning, 7 is when things started getting criticized in general rather than individual plots or details). Season 8 though? Well, read on:

The Final Season kicks off with the Night King's army attacking Winterfell in a battle meant to be epic, but instead so chock full of tactical [[Fail|fails]] from the living, they make General Custer look like Sun Tzu.  The most infamous examples include Melisandre's powers being underutilized, putting soldiers in front of trenches/walls they should be behind/standing on, no flanking charges and hiding the non-combatants in a crypt while fighting necromancers.  The battle is resolved when Arya teleports directly to the BBEG and kills him with some sleight-of-hand that destroys his entire army Keystone Army trope-style and ends the winter.  Also Theon, Jorah and Melisandre die, but the story sweeps their deaths under the rug like they're nameless background characters.

Then the Westerosi go full-retard and start hating Daenerys.  Yes really; Dany helped end a nation-destroying winter plus a zombie apocalypse, has a claim to the throne AND is their best ally against Cersei... but they want her gone.  Even Sansa suddenly turns against Dany and starts seeking the throne, despite having no claim to the rest of Westeros and Dany being easily able to kill her for treason. Everyone inexplicably starts wanting Jon to be king despite his attempt to abdicate, and Jon himself even starts thinking Aunt Daenerys might be a bad queen... but that doesn't stop him from [[Incest Smith|starting a sexual relationship with her]].  The fact that Robert's bastard son Gendry is now a lord, giving him a claim to the throne at least as strong as Dany's or Jon's, is swept under the rug.  Varys also jumps ship from Dany to Jon for no reason, even trying to kill Dany in an uncharacteristically stupid move.  For his efforts, Tyrion reports Varys to Daenerys, who has Varys executed by Drogon's fire-breath.

Then Daenerys press-gangs people who should logically be happy to fight for her into an army to attack King's Landing and brings them there by sea.  Along the way Rhaegal, one of Daenerys' two surviving dragons, is killed by ballistae from Euron's ships.  This is despite the facts that Daenerys and her dragons should've easily been able to spot the ships, they were flying well out of ballista range and Euron had no way of knowing where they'd be.  After Daenerys and Drogon single-handedly destroy the Iron Fleet  (amid poorly animated weather*), they reach King's Landing.  Cersei's artillery does nothing despite Daenerys, all her advisors and her dragon being within lethal range plus Cersei's lack of scruples.  They in turn do nothing but watch Daenerys' friend Missandei, who was captured offscreen earlier, get executed by zombie-Gregor (despite the fact Cersei and co. had no reason to believe Missandei was anyone of import to either capture or execute.  Maybe someone left a copy of the script in Cersei's solar next to her Starbucks latte**)  

The battle for King's Landing has Daenerys' forces break in and battle through the streets.  Meanwhile Jaime snuck though the tunnels [[Fail|to find and reconcile with Cersei.  The Hound regresses to his old violent self and tracks down zombie-Gregor to take him down in a battle that kills them both (although most consider this the one bright spot in the episode).  Arya gives up on revenge and decides to let Cersei go despite having strong non-revenge-related reasons to kill her]].  The famed Golden Company is quickly killed off and Cersei signals a surrender by ringing the bells (the bells aren't, and have never been, signals for surrender).  Then, in the capstone of bad writing for this season, Daenerys' switch flips from good to evil because the writers want it to happen, and Dany abandons her plan of freeing and leading Westeros to purging King's Landing with her dragon and army.  Cersei and Jamie die together in a cave-in and Tyrion mourns their deaths despite being ready and eager to personally kill Cersei earlier.  This is followed by Dany's Saruman/Hitler-esque speech that has nothing to do with her former character.  Tyrion is arrested for criticizing Daenerys by saying "If this is liberation, I don't believe in liberation theology."  Yes, [[Derp|the writers think theology and ideology are the same thing]] (an unsurprising mistake, given they shoehorned in anti-religious rants for the past three Seasons despite the books' even-handedness).  This last one has proven to be its own personal bit of Skub, as many have argued that Daenerys going evil is in keeping with the cynical themes and tone of the setting. While this isn't wrong on its face, it does nothing to change the fact that the execution is 100% half-assed. Walter White's descent into villainy this is not, or even Anakin's arc in the Star Wars Prequels, which looks like The Godfather compared to what Season 8 does with Daenerys. 

In the aftermath, Jon assassinates Daenerys for the King's Landing massacre... [[Derp|right in front of her dragon]].  Drogon, due to Jon's stronger-than-Valyrian-steel-plot-armor, doesn't kill him but melts the Iron Throne ([[What|accidentally according to the showrunners]]) while chucking a tantrum before grabbing Dany's body and flying away.  Jon is somehow charged with Dany's murder despite there being no evidence that he did it, but surprisingly none of the surviving characters still loyal to Dany try to kill Jon (such as the Unsullied or the Dothraki).  Despite there being several legitimate choices of king still available, including Gendry, the nobles decide to replace a dynastic monarchy with an elective one and make Bran king.  Bran is nominated by Tyrion for a nonsensical reason ("he has the best story"), Tyrion somehow getting a say in the meeting despite being imprisoned for treason.  

The Unsullied go to Southros under command of Grey Worm (the only one who still has a personality at this point).  The Dothraki are forgotten about by everyone else.  Tyrion is freed and made Hand of the King to Brann.  Brienne is made Commander of the Kingsguard. [[Derp|Bronn is made Master of Coin (and Lord of Highgarden) despite him not knowing how financial loans work.  Gendry is completely forgotten.  Samwell is made the new Grand Maester]] and [[What|the North secedes and becomes independent under Queen Sansa (which definitely wouldn't cause future problems and tensions)]].  [[The Lord of the Rings|Arya sails to the West]] for some unknown reason and Jon is exiled but doesn't care because he gets to go back up north with the Wildings like he wanted.  The end.

This trainwreck of a plot is a testament to how two morons can royally fuck up a show beyond any redeeming qualities the cast and crew can put forward.  And even then there were screw-ups among the production staff, such as *the animators being unable to decide whether the sky is sunny or overcast when Dany and Drogon destroy the Iron Fleet - which mattered because Dany's plan to not get shot down involved having the sun behind her - and **not removing the actors' water bottles and coffee cups from the set before shooting. Hyperbole is sort of the norm here, but it really is hard to overstate how badly Season 8's finale fucks up. Game of Thrones was ''everywhere'' culturally for most of the 2010s, drawing in huge numbers of people who would otherwise never be caught dead indulging in High Fantasy works with us uber-nerds. Now, the entire Thrones fandom has practically disappeared or gone underground. Honestly, it would be an impressive achievement if it weren't so terrible.