Game of Thrones: Your Final Evaluation

Because moar freds.

So with the show now done and half a million HBO subscriptions being cancelled, I would be intrigued to know what everyone thought in retrospect. So in the vein of the typical Premier League evaluation stuff;

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons):
Favourite Season:
Least Favourite Season:

Characters

Best Character:
Best Actor/Actress:
Worst Character:
Worst Actor/Actress:
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted:
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character:
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character:
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series:

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc:
The Worst Plot/Character Arc:
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc:
The Best Fight/Battle:
The Worst Fight/Battle:
The Most Shocking Moment:

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?:

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): Six out of ten.
Favourite Season: Four seemed like it had a lot in.
Least Favourite Season: One of the boring ones after that.

Characters

Best Character: Jorah Mormont.
Best Actor/Actress: The dwarf.
Worst Character: Collective award to the women of Dorne.
Worst Actor/Actress: As above. I recently saw the bird who plays Sansa Stark saying that people calling her a crap actress on social media made her depressed during the earlier series. Well, yeah. How do you think we felt?
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Lovejoy when he turned up as that Lancastrian cult leader pleb for five minutes.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Too many to mention.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: The Blackfish, whose death was senseless and shit.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: Greatjon Umber (actually Oberyn Martell).

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: The Hound.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Sansa Stark.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: I think everyone got what they needed really.
The Best Fight/Battle: The Mountain vs the Red Viper, and the attack on the Wall.
The Worst Fight/Battle: All of them since except for that gladiator tournament Jorah Mormont won with a forward roll.
The Most Shocking Moment: Probably Joffrey dying.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: It was about as good as it could be really without making ten series or working off finished books, so whatever. The ending was safe rather than shit, because it's too big a cultural thing to have an ambiguous or miserable finish that would make cynical people like us happy.

Game of Thrones in a nutshell: Marvel did it better.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): Errrrr 6 or 7 I guess. At it's best it was superb but it was always a show that had it's share of filler.
Favourite Season: Probably 4.
Least Favourite Season: 8. There was another shiter early doors but not with so much riding on it as this one.

Characters

Best Character: Tywin Lannister
Best Actor/Actress: Charles Dance
Worst Character: So tempting to say Daenerys but despite it being rushed and Clarke being rubbish her heel turn (which was a shock to me only because I didn't think they'd pull the trigger) redeemed her a bit. Secret antagonist Bran the Boring is a shout. Always tedious, never know what he's meant to be there for and then it turns out he's allowed a shitload of death to happen so he can sit on the throne and try to lure Drogon back to begin a new reign of terror with post-show.

Or literally anybody Dornish other than Oberyn.
Worst Actor/Actress: Relative to the importance of the role, Emilia Clarke. Otherwise you can have your Sand Snake of choice.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Ian McShane
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Probably Gendry as it turned out but it's a strong field.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: Doran Martell.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: I'd be inclined to agree with Lewis about Oberyn Martell. Possibly Barry Selmy. Or Tormund running about wrestling whatever beasties are north of the Wall now there are no zombies to worry about.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: I think the Hound is the only one that didn't shit itself by the end and ended roughly where most hoped it would. A more emphatic victory over Mt. Zombie would have been nice even if he'd died afterwards but they probably got that one about right.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: So I'm not just moaning about how shit Dorne was again let's say Barry Selmy, dying to some twats having achieved not that much.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: All of the Dorne stuff. They should either have done it properly or got rid of it altogether.
The Best Fight/Battle: Viper / Mountain or the Blackwater.
The Worst Fight/Battle: The fight between Emilia Clarke and her own facial expressions.
The Most Shocking Moment: The visual for Oberyn's death.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: Maybe don't start adapting something that's not done? Or if you do properly learn into it and pace it the same as when the show was actually good.

I should probably have put the Night King in as one of my worsts. What a waste of time the snow zombies were.

Other than enabling Bran the Baddie to take the throne. In fact by being so useless even on home turf they've maybe done more harm than if they'd been allowed to just march south and murder everybody. Bastards.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): 7/10
Favourite Season: 4
Least Favourite Season: 8

Characters

Best Character: Davos
Best Actor/Actress: I mean, it is Charles Dance, but Lena Headey deserves so much praise
Worst Character: Euron
Worst Actor/Actress: Shae
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Ciarán Hinds. He wasn't Mance.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Night King lol
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdeveloped character: Anyone in Dorne
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: Prequel with Oberyn just like BCS is a prequel

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: Tormund
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Jaime
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: Dorne
The Best Fight/Battle: Battle of the Bastards
The Worst Fight/Battle: Sand Snakes vs Jaime/Bronn
The Most Shocking Moment: Cersei blowing up the sept, since all the previous shocking moments were in the books already

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: End it at 6x10.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): 6-7
Favourite Season: 4 I think, the first four seasons are blurring together a bit in my memory, though.
Least Favourite Season: 5 or 8. Probably 8.

Characters

Best Character: Halfway in I'd probably have said Littlefinger. Now it's probably Davos, though he was as shit as everything else in the last episode.
Best Actor/Actress: Liam Cunningham/Charles Dance
Worst Character: Euron Greyjoy
Worst Actor/Actress: Shae
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Ciaran Hinds or Tobias Menzies. EDIT: I forgot about Alexander Siddig.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Sand Snakes and Rickon Stark come to mind. Probably a lot more.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: Blackfish or Doran Martell.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: The Faceless Men, ultimately they were intriguing but made little sense in their depiction on the show as it is.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: The Hound
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Ramsay Bolton comes to mind, or Ellaria Sand.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: Ellaria Sand
The Best Fight/Battle: Oberyn/Mountain
The Worst Fight/Battle: Sand Snakes against Jaime and Bronn
The Most Shocking Moment: I read the books after Season 2, so the Red Wedding/Oberyn I knew were going to happen. Probably the sept blowing up or Ned Stark dying.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: Stretch the last two seasons out to at least double the amount of episodes they got. Though I'm not sure if everybody who worked on it would have been up for that.

Forgot to do this myself.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): Probably works out at around a 7 all in all, but man you can tell that everything after the Battle of the Bastards was downhill.
Favourite Season: It all blurs a little but after checking various synopses on wikipedia, Season 4 was probably the best.
Least Favourite Season: I mean, anyone not saying Season 8 needs their TV watching privileges taken away from them.

Characters

Best Character: I honestly can't decide between Davos and Ser Friendzone.
Best Actor/Actress: Probably Dinklage, he carried the show at times.
Worst Character: Euron, because for someone who was obviously meant to be the 3rd 'big bad psycho' after Joffrey and Ramsay he ended up doing the square root of fuck all except killing two Sand Snakes, fucking Cersei and having this mad look in his eyes.
Worst Actor/Actress: I don't get the point of Missandei. Brought absolutely nothing to any scene she was in.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Ian McShane without a doubt.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: You could have removed Gendry from the plot and it would have changed nothing. Honourable mentions to Rickon, Euron and everyone in Dorne barring Oberyn.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: The Blackfish needed more, given his reputation. Or Barristan Selmy, who was a waste of a legendary character.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: I think there's potential in a prequel revolving around Robert's Rebellion and the Greyjoy Rebellion, given how much it shaped the main GoT series.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: The Hound. Followed by Bronn getting his castle (would have been better if he wasn't such a cunt in Season 8)
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Night King lol.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: Anything involving Dorne.
The Best Fight/Battle: Battle of the Bastards, followed by Viper vs. Mountain.
The Worst Fight/Battle: Euron and Jamie staggering on the beach like two drunks was especially shit.
The Most Shocking Moment: I had the benefit of not reading the books, so The Red Wedding hit me like a truck.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: Make seasons 7 and 8 a full ten episodes long, add another season and pace the fucking thing properly.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): 8/10
Favourite Season: One of the first four
Least Favourite Season: The last two were both shit

Characters

Best Character: Tyrion by miles
Best Actor/Actress: Dinklage out of the main lot (honourable mention to Maisie Williams, Cersei and Jon Snuhhh). From the supporting cast, obviously Charles Dance and Diana Rigg are a class above.
Worst Character: Any of the women who were only there to show their titties
Worst Actor/Actress: I like her a lot in Upstart Crow, but the actress who plays Yara or whatever her name is was comically bad in this.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: The great Roger Allam (my favourite actor) as Illyrio in a fucking stupid costume. Remember that?
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Kingy 'Night's King' Kingers and his dancing shoes.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: Was there ultimately any point whatsoever to the entire Stannis arc?
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: I'd watch a Barristan prequel

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: Arya up to a certain point, but also, controversially, I think Daenerys was done fully and convincingly.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Varys getting offed like that was a rubbish ending for him. I also think the Red Wedding was grim, but you can blame the fat man for that rather than the TV writers.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: Not so much an arc, but I thought the whole setting of Braavos, brilliantly evocative in the books, was rubbish. It looked just like anywhere else.
The Best Fight/Battle: The one between Hound and Brienne in the wilderness.
The Worst Fight/Battle: Any of the ones where Grey Worm is just knobbing everyone (kill total: about two million in straight hand to hand combat)
The Most Shocking Moment: When Ned Stark actually got his head lopped off. Every other TV show would have saved him, but not this one (in its early guise).

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?:[/QUOTE] They needed to stay character driven and just settle in for a lifetime, as if it were a soap. The GoT world has endless possibilities and trying to end it in a conventional way made it very shit, very quickly.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons):Six, maybe rising to a seven when enough time has passed for season eight to fade from memory.
Favourite Season:Four, although honorable mention to one as something completely original.
Least Favourite Season:Eight, but it shouldn't be forgotten than seven was turgid shit as well and whichever one had the theatre troupe was largely a load of bollocks

Characters

Best Character:The Hound
Best Actor/Actress:Peter Dinklage, with an honorable mention to Tormund for stealing literally every scene he was in, and Oberynn for doing the same albeit with a load more dialogue.
Worst Character:Ramsay Bolton and the Sand Snakes
Worst Actor/Actress:The Shae actress was atrocious, but she didn't matter. Littlefinger's accent skittering all over the world was a genuine distraction, so him.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted:There were loads, but the only really egregious ones yet to be mentioned are bringing in Max von fucking Sydow to sit around on a tree for a sum total of about eight minutes of screen time, and Jim Broadbent spending about three episodes saying nothing but 'nope' and 'can't be done'.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: Hot Pie, for being I think the only named character without even a hint of plot relevance.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character:Oddly, Tormund. He felt like a very real character, but a lot of that came from the actor being a genius and having more charisma in his right eyebrow than a lot of the cast could muster on their best day. Think about what we actually learned about him and it's basically that giant story and that he's fucking well up for a fight.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: I'd watch Arya Columbus off to discover America.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc:Ned Stark. It was perfectly written and realised.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc:Ramsay turning Theon into 'Reek' was stultifying.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc:The existence of Dorne
The Best Fight/Battle:Hardhome.
The Worst Fight/Battle:That one beyond the wall when they went to kidnap a Wight, particularly the little jump cut sequence of the main lads thrusting their swords off screen. Honorable mention to Grey Worm doing exactly the same in all his fights.
The Most Shocking Moment:Ned's head.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be? Changing one thing would be pointless, there were a million things wrong with it by the end, but deleting the Sand Snakes would improve things for me.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): I would probably still give it a solid 8 out of 10 overall. It really was magnificent at it's peak.
Favourite Season: I'm not sure really. Whenever Robb Start was at his peak, before fucking it all up. That's when I remember enjoying it the most.
Least Favourite Season: Definitely season 8.

Characters

Best Character: Stannis (the Mannis) Baratheon. He was the one I was most genuinely rooting for to "win" at any point during the entire run of the show. Obviously his ending was complete nonsense though. You could argue that was the start of the downward slide in terms of nonsensical plot developments, actually.
Best Actor/Actress: Obviously Charles Dance was the best, I think that sort of goes without saying. Aside from him then you would have to say Dinklage really had some great moments. I thought Roose Bolton (Ian something, I forget) was fantastic as well.
Worst Character: Renly always annoyed the shit out of me. You can't just start spouting off that you have a better claim to the throne than your older brother based on little more than the fact that you're better looking than him. Tosser.
Worst Actor/Actress: I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I always found the lad who plays Sam very annoying. He just does that same daft face and gormless vocal inflection whenever he has a line.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Obviously Ian McShane, but I don't really know if we can say they "wasted" him because surely that was only ever meant to be a cameo. I'll go for Baristan. We should have got a lot more Baristan.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: However-many-way tie between everyone from Dorne who wasn't called Oberyn. Fuck all that shit.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdeveloped character: Blackfish. The show should have had about a thousand percent more Blackfish in it. His delivery of "I'm disappointed" to Jaime is right up there with the single greatest moments of the entire show.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: Young Ned and Robert during the Rebellion is the only spin-off idea that really interests me. I'm pretty sure they've confirmed that won't happen though.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: I actually Jaime's was a very satisfying character arc. You watch old clips of Jaime in season one and he's a completely different guy. The development, right down to the way he actor's mannerisms and the way he carried himself, was fantastic. I know he effectively died right back where he began. That didn't bother me though. I always saw the two of them as filling that "doomed lovers" archetype.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: I hate to just say The Night King, but it was a load of old shit.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: In terms of a general plot device the Lord of Light stuff was really underdeveloped to me. They were out there bringing people back to life and shit. Why wasn't everyone in the Seven Kingdoms jumping on board? Why was Mellisandre really about a thousand years old? What did it all mean?
The Best Fight/Battle: Hardhome. That was a proper glued-to-the-TV, jaw agape, "oh shit!" moment in television history. The ending when they're just pushing off out to sea, in complete silence, while he raised the dead? Amazing.
The Worst Fight/Battle: All the ones that The North won under Robb than they didn't have the budget to show us.
The Most Shocking Moment: I don't think anything will ever really top Ned getting his head lopped off, to be honest. It was still early enough in the show that you didn't expect bad shit to happen all the time.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: Somebody else summed up my thoughts perfectly by saying it needed to remain character driven. They developed all these brilliant, unique characters who impacted the world in a specific way. But by the end they just had them all running all over Westeros at the drop of a hat, doing things that were completely out of character just to hastily tie up the story.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): 6/10 I guess. Better than most shows, but still pretty shit all around
Favourite Season: Can't recall specifics. Something in the first half I am guessing.
Least Favourite Season: Something in the second half. Maybe the last one.

Characters

Best Character: The Hound maybe? Fwiw, I thought Cersei was alright
Best Actor/Actress: Don't know/don't care
Worst Character: So many to choose from. I'll go with 'Dany.' I am sure that there are worse ones, but they were also insignificant, so whatevs
Worst Actor/Actress: Don't know/don't care
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: I'm not good with 'big names.' I don't think that I recognized anyone from anywhere else
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: 99% of them? Lots of shit around that was presented and then used for fuck all
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: 99% of them? Don't know, there were supposed to be plenty of supposed badasses around that were just there to be owned by someone shit
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: No one. Maybe some of the other people that were supposed to be great but we hardly saw anything of

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: Of the stuff that made it to the end, it has to be the Hound. Some of the earlier stuff maybe? Was the stuff with the perv (Bolton?) any good? Can't remember. Or the religion crap?
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: The white zombies nonsense
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: All the religious shit. A lad came back to life twenty time and we just shrug our shoulders?
The Best Fight/Battle: They were all shit. Best one probably wherever the perv died/got captured (I think.) It was the only one where anyone kept a semblance of real tactics (men with pointy sticks and shield stand next to each other in formation instead of sprinting and fighting one on one like plebs)
The Worst Fight/Battle: Everything else
The Most Shocking Moment: Can't think of any

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: Get rid of all the magic and you have a solid political thriller in your hands. They created an interesting world, but then spoiled it all by following shit storylines (zombies, dragons, etc.) With magic you either end up with boring overpowered fucks, or you have to twist your own rules into a pretzel so that the boring overpowered fucks are kept in check.

One of the things that has struck me about the storytelling is that the way that the books are told, all major military events are always recounted in hindsight, through someone reading a letter or walking through the battlefield or what have you. This is how it was in the first few seasons as well (we never saw the battle of the whispering woods for instance). I think perhaps the first battle of the wall is the only exception? Even so that was just told from Jons perspective in the book, I think.

As the show went past the books, and perhaps got a larger budget (even still), it started depicting battles by actually making massive battle scenes. Of course we don't know that Martin wouldn't do this in the books as well, but it never felt like that.

If they would have stuck with the format and not felt so compelled to do action scenes, they would have had so much more time to do the character arcs that now ended up feeling like they went missing.

Overall

Show Rating (across all 8 seasons): 6
Favourite Season: 2
Least Favourite Season: 7

Characters

Best Character: Tyrion for quality, Theon for development. Honourable mentions to Davos, Brienne, and Tywin (for achievements in villainy).
Best Actor/Actress: Alfie Allen, whose character actually had to develop over the course of several seasons. Charles Dance had one note, but it was a fantastic one.
Worst Character: Catelyn Stark for breaking everything she touched.
Worst Actor/Actress: I might have said Emilia Clarke until the last few episodes, where her physical acting really sold the (totally unmotivated) descent into madness. That leaves anyone from Dorne who wasn't Oberyn.
The 'Ocean's 12' Award for the Biggest Name Actor/Actress wasted: Ciarin Hinds did well with his role, Richard E. Grant was a quite meta choice for his, but Ian McElhinney had so much more to give.
The 'Jar Jar Binks' Award for the most pointless character: The Night King. What a shambles of a storyline that turned out to be. If the army of the dead, winter, and death itself can be held off by a ragtag bunch of northerners and their plus ones, then Cersei made the right call by not getting too worked up over the situation.
The 'Rachel Dawes' Award for the most underdevloped character: Meera and Jojen Reed, who seemed as competent and powerful as the plot needed them to be, before being tossed away when it became difficult to block scenes for that many people. Why did they do what they did? Why were they who they are? Awful waste of characters there.
The 'Better Call Saul' Award for the character(s) who need a spin-off series: Davos and Salladhor Saan's younger smuggling adventures. Yara Greyjoy could even have the odd cameo.

Plot

The Most Satisfying Plot/Character Arc: Sansa's rise to being a scheming manipulator. Don't let her Season 8 pointlessness detract from that. Also great was Tywin taking away everything Tyrion ever wanted, before eating a crossbow bolt.
The Worst Plot/Character Arc: Anything that happened east of Westeros.
The Most Underdeveloped Plot/Character Arc: Has to be the Night King and his army. Who were they? Why were they? A throwaway line about wanting to erase human memory (ie. Bran - the three-eyed raven and his time-travel-as-the-plot-demands powers being a solid runner-up in this category) was totally insufficient to explain this one.
The Best Fight/Battle: Hardhome
The Worst Fight/Battle: Night King at Winterfell
The Most Shocking Moment: So I knew about Ned, Joffrey, and the Red Wedding before they happened. I've never avoided spoilers really. But Myrcella's death really caught me by surprise. Also Jaime abandoning Brienne, which actually rang more true than people give it credit for - Jaime was an addict, and that's what addicts do.

Conclusion

If you could change one thing about the show, what would it be?: I'd give a lot more lead-in to Danaerys losing her mind, so it didn't come out of nowhere. I'd also actually plot out the last two seasons, and explain more clearly what was going on, and what the stakes were. And I'd also make it so that the Incarnation of Death Itself didn't roll over in an episode, and took more than a light stabbing to beat down.

The one thing I'd change is that night king episode. Rather than keep alive the majority of the main characters, kill them off and you have the jeopardy related with the undead. As we learnt, dragon lady didn't really need an army so if she rolled up with hardly anyone, it could have been even more emphatic as she burned custard town down.

Just have the zombies kill everyone and end it there. That would have been a good ending.