I can tell you that Game of Thrones is phenomenal, visual beautiful, fantastic, exhilarating and action-packed thrilling rollercoaster that in many ways has not been seen yet in a tv show. I could say that and be absolutely right about it, but unless you have been living under a rock without an internet connection for the past 2 years than no doubt you already heard, seen or read for yourself what a masterpiece the books and/or this tv series is.

Game of Thrones is exactly like the title says: A game for the throne. Played by the people who think its their right to claim, conquer or inherit it. They all have different goals and different ways of getting to that point, but their goal is in essence in one way or another the same for all of them: to be recognized and remembered for their deeds. Off course that is not so weird since everyone in real life at some level thinks like that. But the main characters in Game of Thrones are different, either through noble descent, the power and money they have, intelligence or sheer luck they have become a member of one of the noble houses that rule the countries and can decide the fate and lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people within the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos.

The story, setting and characters are all taken from a broad range of European history. Most of what we see of the continent Westeros (castles and tournaments) is taken from High Medieval Western Europe from around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. But the story takes bits and pieces from other time periods as well. For example the wildfire that was used in season 2 in a brilliant strategic move of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister during the Battle of the Blackwater is in fact Byzantine "Greek fire" which was invented and first used in the 7th century during battles between Muslims and Byzantines. This and other historical events, devices and characters based on real people out of history are all as it seems perfectly interwoven into each other into the fictional world of Game of Thrones by the author of the books George R. R. Martin.

For the actors who play the characters i have nothing but utmost respect. The performance they manage to show episode after episode is definitely what makes this tv show so popular. There is one in particular that without a doubt is one of the more popular stars of this tv show: Peter Dinklage who plays the role of "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister. In the 1st season he was portrayed as nothing more than someone who took advantage of his noble status and money to do whatever he wanted. But in season 2 (and hopefully the next seasons too) he transformed despite his disadvantage of being born as a dwarf (who during medieval times and in this fictional world are considered "lesser" humans) into a brilliant military and political strategist and someone who can very good and enjoys as he so very accurately said himself "play the game".

Game of Thrones is without a doubt the hit tv show of this decade. It started out with a story about medieval times, but slowly with every episode we see the world of the Seven Kingdoms transform into a place where mythical creatures exist, magic and dark powers are used as a weapon against enemies and where the dead are once more walking again.... Winter is coming, and i have no doubt it that it will be as spectacular and story-wise phenomenal as we have have seen in the previous seasons.

Funny, in case of Breaking Bad I am actually one of those people claiming it's sort of the best drama in television history and can't understand most of the criticism that it gets from the "haters" (you know the drill).
While in case of Game of Thrones I am on that other side, the "haters" side, I assume.

Generally spoken, I am genuinely interested in plot driven shows where you have a complex society and their circumstances explained to you. In lack of a better example, I enjoyed the anime MAOYU (Maoyuu Maou Yuusha) a lot. It focused on the improvement of society in a middle age like time. That involved for example trades for profit as well as for political pressure or education for the common men to improve the live of all. Compared to GoT it was obviously much simpler but you hopefully get the point that I am not condemning GoT for what it is or tries to be.

I just can't get into this show. I get where it is coming from, the scenery is actually really good, costumes are very well made, some likeable characters but all that is left after watching an episode are the basically countless breasts, some pointless violence, profanity and a lot of confusion due to the cutscenes that you see in every episode and the sheer endless amount of characters. Cutscenes from one house and plot to another. Because of that it feels like it's not moving forward at all and as a watcher I feel tortured and bored to death with all the unnecessary anecdotes, side characters and sideplots not bringing anything to the table.

The whole show tries way too hard and puts too much into the pot to attract as much people as possible. Sex, nudity, portraying women almost only as whores or otherwise pleasure material, incest, profanity, violence, partly even gore, all kinds of characters mixed together, great scenery, outstanding props/environments.
As soon as something starts to make just a bit sense another cutscene and you're left hanging in the air until you forgot where you were or what happend before until you get back, resulting in you not caring for a single or at least most of the characters.
Having partly awful actors doesn't help this show either (the guy playing Viserys Targaryen for example, wow is he bad). Actors who rigidly recite their text with almost no (plausible) emotion in voice or facial ex-pressi-on (basically every private scene of Eddard and King Robert).
In addition it seems like this show is on of those where you have to prepare before watching it to be able to follow it, like reading up on Wikipedia, the books, searching for a relationships chart (which I did, cause I lost track of all the connections pretty fast) and the like.

Concluding I must say as a TV show this one fails big time (for me). It's bad. Really bad.
After watching 5 episodes, that are roughly 5 hours, a sixth of the whole show for now I can't watch another episode.
Getting back to the hater thing, I can't leave this being unsaid: It's a hilariously overrated show.
Maybe I am going to take the risk and read the books instead, in some years when the hype is over. Instead of watching this I rather waste my time on Homeland that picked my interest from the start and was actually able to make me care about the characters.

Out of all the fan theories that circulated over the years, you would be hard pressed to find one that was dumber and more disappointing than what the actual final season turned out to be. You would be better off watching Cats the movie in its place, because then you would at least be able to laugh and cringe rather than feel immeasurable disappointment and emptiness.

If you can stop yourself from watching the entire show, you might do well watching seasons one through seven and picking your favourite fan theory to close out the series. Truthfully, even seasons five, six and seven were weaker than the first half of the show, but at the time it seemed forgivable because of the show's strong beginning and the expectation that everything would tie together nicely at the end.

Those foolish enough to watch to the end will be faced with an experience similar to the five stages of grief and loss as they make their way through the final episodes. Denial that this episode is actually part of the series and not an out of season April Fool's joke. Anger that you let yourself get so invested in this show after refusing to get on the bandwagon for so many years. Bargaining, that these were fake episodes to "subvert your expectations", or that the season could be remade. Depression, that this is actually the real thing and it somehow turned out so poorly. Finally, acceptance. Just an empty feeling, no anger or sadness over increasingly stupid and illogical scenes and outcomes. Just coming to terms with this really being the end of the show and this somehow managing to get released.

It comes together about as well as a project finished in the last hour of the last day before a deadline, despite having had vast resources to pull from over the two preceding years. The only remotely redeemable aspect of the final season is the endless amount of hilarious critical reviews and memes that come at its expense.

As for the rating, it would be unfair to give a give a 1 the entire series as a whole because of the incompetence of the writers in the final season. The series did start strong and everyone involved in the project aside from the writers obviously invested a lot of time and quality work into the show. The acting, music composition, cinematography, editing, visual effects, etc. all ranged from great to amazing.

This series starts off like some of the best out there. Although it makes some minor adjustments, it follows the story from the books quite faithfully for the first 4 seasons. And adds a twinkle of big budget movies, and great cinematography. Truly awesome. Up until this point, I was in love with the series, a 10/10. I quickly read all the books, and re-watched all seasons before a new one would come out.

However, from season 5 and onwards, it starts going downhill. They ran out of book-material, and it shows. Everything starts focusing on the big set-pieces, characters become extremely bland and predictable. From here all major characters receive plot-armor, which was one of the things it didn't have before, and that made it interesting to watch. Of course they want you to think that they will still kill some of the main characters, but they're just teasing.

The last few seasons I've only been watching to see what the conclusion to this story is, but I cringe and writhe during every episode I watch. What a pitiful way to go out. Hopefully the books finish the story in a more interesting and believable way.

**The Greatest Story Ever Filmed**

It's nothing new that HBO always have the most ambitious projects around, but from 2011 to 2019 they gradually built what I consider the epitome of quality television, and made history. The highly talented show-runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss took the unadaptable giant books by George R. R. Martin and transformed them into this beautifully constructed show, that something of it's kind was never done before. There are so many layers to this story, so many characters and story arcs intertwining with each other that it seems impossible to grasp one man came up with it all.

The story Martin created is probably one of the better and most detailed and well-crafted stories of all times, and David and Dan's transformation of the story to the TV medium was beautifully handled. There aren't that many shows when you sit and watch an episode and savor every single scene, if it's the content itself or the many small details that were precisely designed for every frame you watch. It takes a little time to get into the show in the beginning, just because it's very different from what we are generally used to. It's one of those shows that from the very first episode until the last it's just one big story so you just need patience to get used to everything that's going on in there, and after that enjoyment is guaranteed. Above all, the thing the show benefited perhaps the most of is the fact that ever since the day they started writing the first script- the complete story from start to finish was compiled in George's head. Not all the details and specifics of course, but the outline and major plot points were invented years ago when he started working on this huge book series, therefore the production knew exactly where to start, where the story is heading and where it ends, which gave consistency to the story from episode 1 to 73, without getting lost in the way with loose threads.

The show gets plenty of criticism for its deviations from the source material season 5 and onwards, but if you just think for a second how enormous this story is it's pretty easy to realize a lot needed to be altered to fit the TV medium, and David and Dan managed to do so while preserving the original essence of Martin's creation, keep the story well constructed and coherent and keep dozens of millions of viewers satisfied, and not only a handful of hard core followers that wanted it to be a page- to-page adaption of the novels. While I enjoyed all the books and didn't agree with a few of the changes they made for the show as well I can see why a lot had to be cut, things don't work the same in books as in television. Considering they knew the ending from the start and the huge amount of details you have to alter just from omitting one storyline if you want to reach the same final goal as the books, I believe it was overall for the best and they knew what they were doing, the story didn't collapse under their hands- at least as far as I'm concerned.

One of the most prominent aspects of this show in my opinion is Ramin Djawadi's masterful score which must be one of the most brilliantly unique works ever for a series (whether it's a series of movies or TV series) not only because of the compositions themselves, which are exceptionally beautiful, but also for how the music evolves throughout the seasons and builds the world of the show hand to hand with the writing, the characters and the setting as the story progresses. Also, the way each motif of the music identifies with a certain aspect of the story, though mostly noticeable in later seasons, tells a complete story on its own. Never seen anything like it.

All these wordy descriptions couldn't however describe the experience of watching this show live as it aired. The thrill, the off-season anticipation and continuous speculations, the satisfaction of watching a new amazing episode after waiting for so long, the 8-years-long water-cooler talks and the overall influence GoT had on pop culture in the time it was on TV- I'm sure many of us will always remember how it felt, and I'm not sure if we'll get to experience something like that anytime soon. I already watched each season several times, probably more than any other show or movie, and I never get tired of any of it, if it's the well constructed dialogues or blood pumping action sequences. I definitely see myself still constantly revisiting seasons every once in a while from now until further notice.

I think the success of the show speaks for itself- the countless awards, high acclaim from casual viewers and critics alike, the major fan following, it's influences on the television landscape and on culture in general- it's a winner in all fronts. In my personal opinion it's the greatest television series ever made, but generally speaking I think it's safe to say this show is for the ages and I think it will be remembered for a long time as one of the greatest cinematic works ever produced. Even almost 2 years after the show ended, it still remains one of the most popular and in-demand shows in the world, which I find pretty amazing. I just hope the uproar on social media will calm down eventually so we can once again all enjoy this show together. People tend to use this word too cheaply these days, but I wouldn't say Game of Thrones is anything short of a masterpiece.