Spoiler alerts, obviously.
Game of Thrones’ penultimate episode aired last night and it featured some pretty bold choices by showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff. Choices so bold, some fans say, that it ruined the entire series for them.
Character Arcs Decimated
Among the complaints was Dany’s quick-flip to the dark side, reminiscent of George Lucas’ own mishandling of a good-character-goes-bad arc in another huge franchise. We agree that if you want a character to “break bad”, the Vince Gilligan approach is much more effective than cramming it all into an episode or two.
Jaime Lannister’s character arc is another point of contention. They’ve spent years pushing him away from Cersei, coming to understand honor and oath, and finding attraction in character (Brienne) rather than beauty (Cersei).
Turns out, Jaime is still just as shallow as he was in Season 1. Going back to Cersei to die together was a serious digression from the book version’s likely path.
Some folks even complained that the fabled ‘Cleganebowl’ did not live up to the hype, although we’re not sure that would even be possible. Definitely making Gregor look like Hulked-Out-Varys was a poor choice.
We just have a week to find out how Weiss and Benioff plan to wrap up the series, but the anticipation levels seem to be dropping amongst fan circles.
