Cersei blew up the sept after two seasons worth of interaction with the High Sparrow and nearly four years (in real time) of sparring with the Tyrells. Jon Snow became the King in the North after nearly five seasons of coming off as the person most well equipped to guard the realm against the threats to come. Hodor was just a guy with a mental illness for six seasons until Bran found the depth of his powers. Jorah was a hero, and a traitor, and an anti-hero, and a tragic figure just through Dany's eyes alone over eight seasons.


This show built its fanbase on actions carrying consequences, but those consequences being doled out over what felt like long stretches of time. The Freys ruled over their lands same as they ever had for several seasons before Arya fed Walder his sons. It's not that the season is more or less brief than previous seasons in terms of on screen action, it's that decisions are being made that provoke actions not just a handful of episodes later but sometimes from scene to scene. Dany's relationships always made sense before this season but her romance with Jon Snow is the equivalent of an arranged marriage between a priest and a burlesque dancer. Tyrion's judgements always carried an air of knowing more than the show was letting the audience in on but now come with an apathetic sigh from that same audience more often than not.


It's not an episode-to-episode problem that this show has, but rather it's asinine compulsion to be over while people were still very, very into the show. I'm on the side of people who think Benioff and Weiss started getting the offers to do other shows, passed the books by and saw a definitive end statement as a way out of Thrones, but I also think they were coming off the heels of two critically acclaimed shows that pretty publicly stated they had fixed endpoints in Breaking Bad and Mad Men and figured it wasn't just a smart move for them business wise but a move that would garner them tons of critical acclaim once they pulled it off. The problem is they aren't, at all.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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