In a time of hyroxes and ultra marathons, it is easy to diminish your achievements to meet everyone else’s standards of hard work. However, I will not fall victim. I am proud to say that my biggest achievement of 2026 (so far) has been dedicating over 4,200 minutes to finishing all eight seasons of the most controversial show of the 21st Century. Was it worth it? Absolutely. My biggest praise goes to the writing of the characters. I’m very appreciative of character writing that doesn’t try to produce the perfect protagonist or antagonist. Stories are so much easier to consume when they capitalise on the realism of complex characters. We are pretty accustomed to the idea that a purely evil character will ultimately get their comeuppance, and it’s boring. What Game of Thrones does well is creating dislikable villains who you want to see retributed, but you also dread the consequences on the characters surrounding them. Equally, GoT’s writer knew no such thing as a “good” person (aside from Brianne of Tarth, she’s perfect). In a show about constant war and conflict, a perfectly peaceful and innocent character couldn’t exist in the way most heroes are written, and for that I am so grateful. One of the most redeeming qualities of the show’s main protagonists is that they are all incredibly flawed, and for that they become even more respectable.

GoT’s most notorious feature (or flaw to most people) is its final season. Before even getting to the closing episodes my concerns were already starting with the drop from ten episodes- the final season having just six was not a good sign. Typically a change like this takes hard hits when the writers begin to cram ten hours worth of material into a measly six hour slot. However, I hold my hands up and say that maybe I am not a very good critic, because I saw no outward flaws with the final season. My main criticism is the pacing, it’s clear that ten episodes would have felt much more cohesive, instead we got two major plotlines (the Night King and Cersei) tackled in a short succession when they both could have benefited from a less rushed conclusion. That said, I believe that the main hatred of the show’s conclusion was purely from a place of loyalty to the books in addition to the legacy of the show. Eight years of a strong adaptation gained the show a pretty devoted fanbase, it also set a strong expectation on how the ending would be written; I wholly believe that any ending would have been met with the same level of criticism since its common practice that big-budget shows can never meet the standard they initially set. It is unsurprising really, Game of Thrones broke expectations time and time again with the Red and Purple Weddings, the Great Sept of Baelor, the War of the Bastards- their own strong writing set the bar to a high standard. This creates an almost impossible scenario, the ending had to exceed these previous events but also not cross the threshold of unrealistic. On top of this, fans argue the book would have never ended that way- however had writers waited for the ending of the books or chosen to not conclude the show then they would have been criticised for a lack of creativity.

Ultimately, the writers couldn’t win. Also, the ending wasn’t even bad! Each character had a logical resolution that was inline with their existing development. I see people say “The show was ruined when the child killed the Night King.” Claims like these prove how miserable some people can be; we watched Arya train to be lethal right from the onset. In my mind it made perfect sense, she was a fan favourite whose storyline aligned perfectly with the death of the overarching villain- in my opinion the main criticism of the death just stems from the male heavy audience who refuse to view a strong female as anything other than the child we were introduced to. I will die on the hill that the ending, whilst I’m sure could have been improved, was in no way the catastrophic conclusion that people like to make out. Whilst I may be tankling any chance of ever being considered a good television critic, I will revel in my stubbornness as a Season Eight defender.