Do you like Game of Thrones?

[McNeil]

Its a great show, but even I get tired of all the unavoidable hype. I started watching when season 5 ended and binge watched till the end of season 6. I've thoroughly enjoyed the show untill season 5 where which felt like a huge decline, the whole Sand Snake plot was just utterly stupid and killed so much of my interest. Season 6 was better but it still felt meh compared to the first 4, the Battle of the Bastards was some great stuff though. I think season 3 and 4 are my favorite seasons.

Something I've always liked about this show is that there's almost no one who's 100% save from ever dying, no annoying plot armors or anything where the good guys always have to win. The villains have all felt actually threatening so far, which you can't say for a lot of other shows. I can also give credit to the geography, the costumes, CGI and all the battles. The story and dialogue is hit & miss. I don't mind all the sex and gore either, I can't see enough of them.

[Allybeboba]

It is fair to Midland.

[Linri]

I like the story a lot, I think its really intricate and fun to see how it turns out

however, some chapters or sections of the show were purely awful

[Jastall]

I love the books and like the show, despite both having their own set of flaws.

The show is particular in how unequal it is. It has some great actors, and some pretty bad ones. It has some amazing scenes, and other times you wonder what the hell the writers were smoking and you don't even want some (Dorne says hi).

I still watch it because the good outweighs the bad.

[Champagne Supernova]

If you don't like Game Of Thrones...

[FobaBett]

I love GoT and I never expected to. I was one of those that kept hearing about it and wondering how it could be that amazing, in the end I gave up and bingewatched it with my gf, hooked now and excited about the new season. I'll admit that there were lows in the show where I almost fell off, but interestingly it caught up again for me imho.

[Tommy T]

It's heavy. I understand why some people don't like it.

I love the series and the books. I've never been at awe at the sheer size and scale of a series / fantasy world before.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To be honest, I don't think Game of Thrones has earned the pedestal popular culture has placed it on, but I don't think it's "bad".

Before I get into my gripes, I would like to say that the show is at least good enough to warrant me following it, and given my standards for what I want out of a show for me to spend my time watching it, that says alot. There are things I do legitimately like about the show.

The set design and costuming is superb, second only to Marco Polo. Some of the actors command a presence on screen that leaves me in awe, and the cinematography is handled better than most television series I've seen of this type. Ramin Djawadi's score is a mixed bag; there are fantastic pieces like "The King's Arrival", "The Throne is Mine", the Stark theme, "Don't Die with a Clean Sword", "Stand and Fight", "Rains of Castamere", "Let's Play a Game" and ofcourse "Light of the Seven". Sadly, the music for GoT is most of the time just bland and forgettable, which is a shame because there was so much potential for using music to expand upon the world. Giving certain places like King's Landing, the Dreadfort, towns by region and so forth their own leitmotifs using instruments from that region's culture could have helped fleshed out the world and given the places we visit an identity.

Now, to my gripes:

It as you said OP: Game of Thrones (the adaptation) is literally a high budget soap opera, dressed up with buzzwords like "dark", "mature", "epic in scope", and "unconventional" that millennials like to label it as. It's got edge; it's got gratuitous cursing and sex, and a ludicrously high body count. Being set in a medieval setting that is rarely seen in modern television helps too. It's similar to Attack on Titan in many aspects, where I feel that the younger audience wants in on it because it "for adults" and makes them feel that way since they can "endure" it's graphic content or "understand" it's themes. Plus, it's popular ofcourse, so there's tremendous peer pressure to watch it, and they are at risk of feeling out of the loop with their friends or behind with the times for not watching it. Not helping matters is the rabid book fandom, which says it's a massive universe and "it's deep and thought provoking" and so on and so forth...

I actually find Game of Thrones to be an immature television series; it handles it's subject matter with little seriousness, with many of the cast indiscriminately murdering people for often times childish reasons, or casually betraying their loved ones. I don't care for immoral characters, and oh boy most of the cast fall victim to this. The world is underdeveloped, and for a show that claims to be about politics, there's sure very little of it. The only "politics" I saw in the show was when we were shown a brief glimpse of Ned managing the kingdom as Hand, when Tyrion was talking to Tywin about the crown's debt, and a brief glimpse of Tyrion managing Mereen. Instead, the so-called "politics" we see are bunch of spiteful lords making alliances to kill their common enemies for revenge. Their motivations for dragging tens of thousands of innocents into this bloodbath are underdeveloped, in most cases just being spite or petty want.

Furthermore, the story doesn't feel like it's the grand, medieval world war it claims to be: the story is focused on the top rulers (who we don't actually see do that much ruling) and their advisers, and a few select side characters involved in a fantasy adventure. We could have seen how the choices of the heroes/generals/lords affected the world if we had civilian characters to follow (as the LoGH did). We don't even get to see the differences between each kingdom's policies, and only see surface elements of what each kingdom's culture was like. LoGH was a fairly low budget OVA, and yet they've shown greater scope and depth than GoT did with it's 60 million dollar seasons.

Perpetually killing off likable protagonists to keep up a supposed sense of urgency or threat isn't genius writing; it's just shock value. No, I'm not going to accept the rabid fandom's "but it was meticulously planned out and progressed the plot in a meaningful way!" argument. Ned Stark's death was great; it set up a little bit of uncertainty, made the audience's gripes with Joffrey personal (even though there were FAR, FAR better ways to accomplish that) and somewhat justified Rob embarking on a rampage of revenge. It was also a possible parallel to Rob, showing that it might be impossible to win without comprising on some morals. After that it started getting pointless; "oh, I found this new interesting character that I want to stick around watch as he struggles and develops! Oh, they killed him, wasted potential. Oh, my favorite character may finally progress his storyline forward! Oh, looks like I have to wade through another twenty episodes before he gets another chance". When the vast majority of your surviving cast comprises uninteresting characters and your few remaining protagonists hardly to ever actually accomplish anything, I'm more inclined to say "I don't care what happens to these people" and just turn the show off, which I have at times. The events of season 6 don't feel like a hard earned victory in the face of incredible adversity like it presents itself as; it feels like the writers simply relented on the protagonists just to relieve the darkness-induced apathy in the audience. Some of the characters few like they being rewarded for doing literally nothing.

Spoiler: 

]when Dany isn't saying some edgy trailer line, her magical dragons and expert advisers are ROFLstomping any and all opposition, the other half the time people bow down and worship her on the spot as their messiah. I have seldom seen her take active steps to better the people she claims to rule over. (I don't think she's a mary sue, since that would imply she actually did something). She had a very intriguing character premise, and it was squandered.

Stannis had a genuinely interesting character idea of being the reluctant ruler who fought on out of obligation, and was on the road to becoming the best of the possible rulers when he prioritized the zombie threat in the north... only to squander that by burning people at the stake after buying into a witch's prophecy. Then he was killed off just because.

Robb could have had an intriguing character story about trying to be as righteous as possible in a harsher than normal reality, but I genuinely believed he screwed over for anvillicous reasons.

Bran becoming a wizard who will play apart in the Northern war? His character has been made into an idiot, barely characterized, and his companions were so disposable that one was reduced to an exposition device, another as a meme character, and the third has so little development she mind as well be an after thought. The idea of him struggling to come to terms that he would never be the knight he wanted to be was completely glossed over.

Littlefinger was changed from a genuinely mysterious chessmaster to a one-trick mustache large ham. I do like him; he could've been so, so much more.

Varys is just there to be philosophical and pull plot conveniences out of his back.

Arya's just a serial murderer; I'm surprised the fandom glorifies her as much as they do.

Davos, Jorah, Jon, Bran, Brienne, Tommen, are the only actual people in this tale I care about. Notice how only ONE of them is a main. That says alot about my opinion on how the show handled it's dozens and dozens of characters.

GoT had the opportunity to be the LoGH of the west (I'm serious folks!), and it squandered it.

I'M NOT HATING ON GoT; if I did I wouldn't have even bothered typing this, since I wouldn't have even considered it worth my time. The very fact that I've posted as much as I've had here over the past few years shows how much I am intrigued to see at least how it ends. I love the set and costume design - second to Marco Polo (which was sadly cancelled) - and there are a few characters I care about. There was just so much potential here, and I'm disappointed in the sheer amount of missed opportunities, the poor execution of certain aspects of the tale, underdeveloped ideas, and how the fandom has overblown it.

[Jastall]

As for killing characters, we kinda have to lay this on GRRM's feet. Most of the dead characters, apart from a few that died in later seasons, are also dead in the books. And let's just say a lot of people share your opinion of Dany's poor plotline, but that's also in the books.

I do agree that some characters should have stayed alive. Oberyn is the absolute best example, in both book and show. Especially in the show, Pedro Pascal did a great job, the character had presence and charisma, and an ongoing plot yet to be resolved. He dies, and who replaces him? Doran who doesn't do shit? Mad Queen Ellaria? The Sand freaking Snakes that have less depth than Fast and Furious-esque B movie bad girls? For frick's sake, the best thing about the entire Dorne plot since S5 was Tyrene's nice rack.

Barristan dying to some no name mooks also sucked, and this time it's a full on show invention.

[PersephoneDankles]

I don't enjoy it. I only made it to season 2, but I didn't care for the wanton cruelty.

[Santura]

I didn't care for it. Take out the constant killing and sex/rape/incest and you just have a really boring show. I'm not into drama and that's the only other element GoT has.
I don't shy away from sex or rape scenes in movies or shows but GoT over does it and doesn't seem as if they had any other ideas to keep the show moving.
And then suddenly, dragons.
:| Iunno, people lose their shit over it but I never saw the appeal, that's the way it is with most shows though. People really like DW, OITNB and RaM but I think all those shows kinda suck.

[WhiteEagle888]

Update: Just watched the first episode of season 7 and its still shit:

Only 1 scene with dragons, only 1 scene with undead marching the two combined make up for roughly 5 minutes of fantasy and the rest 39 minutes is a soap opera - bickering on about shitty politics only character who is not ugly as fuck is that Jon Snow guy and the dragon girl the rest are a fucking eyesore.

The whole thing is just shitty to watch and in literally ever new scene the phrase "winter is here" is mentioned its even more overused than the "you are not prepared" bullshit by Illidan - it feels like it caters to autist who are only triggered by that single phrase - the writing is shit and it feel like you are watching grass grow every plot development could mean nothing in the next few episodes since the character can just be killed off every second.

It's just a shit show to watch overall if you want fantasy you woudl watch LotR instead and if you want soap opera then a better one - but the two combined just a pure waste of time.

[matt4pack]

I loved the first 2 seasons just like the walking dead but then it just started getting stupid with killing everyone off for shock value and throwing in pointless sex scenes to kill time so I gave up on it.

I don't care if these shows are based on books and comics. Killing everyone off doesn't translate to TV. It would be like if Breaking Bad killed off Walter White at the end of season 1.

[WhiteEagle888]

I don't care if these shows are based on books and comics. Killing everyone off doesn't translate to TV. It would be like if Breaking Bad killed off Walter White at the end of season 1.

Exactly this.

- - - Updated - - -

If you expect D&D movie quality then, quite frankly, GoT is well beyond your intellectual level.

Even DnD was better than this asspull excuse of a show where literally nothing happens.
you sure are one of those "special needs guys" who love watching turtles fight over a pile of sand since that was the actual inspiration for it.

[Deleted]

Can't tell - I've seen a few episodes only and they didn't make me want to watch it. They were extremely boring - murdering, sex, walking, more murdering, more sex, a little bit of talking... and yet people are crazy fans of this show. Well, to each their own.

[Metallourlante]

I've watched many things. But since you're unable to list one of those quality shows you speak of, I get the message

Well, is not that I'm unable. I probably think it's not worth it you get the idea? I mean, if you think GoT is the best show ever nothing I can do about it. Peace

[Sorshen]

Not so much after season 3.

[Sorshen]

May I ask why? I personally wanted to stop watching near the end of season 3, but I think everyone did. Season 4 is where it's at though. 10/10 season!

That's when Benioff & Weiss are starting to put a bit too much 'artistic freedom' on the source material to my liking.

[Stormcall]

Never seen the show, never read the books, so I have no opinion one way or the other.

[ramayana1423]

Update: Just watched the first episode of season 7 and its still shit:

Only 1 scene with dragons, only 1 scene with undead marching the two combined make up for roughly 5 minutes of fantasy and the rest 39 minutes is a soap opera - bickering on about shitty politics only character who is not ugly as fuck is that Jon Snow guy and the dragon girl the rest are a fucking eyesore.

The whole thing is just shitty to watch and in literally ever new scene the phrase "winter is here" is mentioned its even more overused than the "you are not prepared" bullshit by Illidan - it feels like it caters to autist who are only triggered by that single phrase - the writing is shit and it feel like you are watching grass grow every plot development could mean nothing in the next few episodes since the character can just be killed off every second.

It's just a shit show to watch overall if you want fantasy you woudl watch LotR instead and if you want soap opera then a better one - but the two combined just a pure waste of time.

This is proof that opinions can in fact, be wrong.