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After eight seasons and 73 episodes, HBO’s long-running smash Game of Thrones came to its conclusion on Sunday night, with one more shocking demise and an unlikely character named as king.
With its last episode, which ran roughly one hour and 20 minutes, the medieval fantasy series, based on the novels of George RR Martin, wrapped up the storyline for more than a dozen characters and intertwining plots.
The show’s fierce competition for the fictional Iron Throne ended first with a death, and an unexpected choice to rule the show’s fictional kingdom of Westeros.
It brings to a conclusion a show that became the cornerstone of HBO’s primetime offerings, but its final season was also its most divisive, with both fans and critics finding specific plot developments troubling.
The final season has broken records for HBO, which says it has so far averaged 43 million viewers per episode in the US alone — an increase of 10 million over Season 7 in 2017.
Most notable in fans’ criticism was the malevolent turn by Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen, the “Dragon Queen,” who used her dragon to lay waste to the show’s fictional capital after her enemies had surrendered.
The move angered fans, as the episode, titled The Bells , currently garners the weakest ratings amongst all episodes in the show’s eight-season run on Rottentomatoes.com, which aggregates critics’ reviews.
Clarke’s character had engaged in brutal actions in previous seasons, similar to other leaders depicted in the story, but the decision to kill tens of thousands of innocent people was viewed by many as too drastic based on the character’s previous actions.
From its ragged beginnings — the show’s original pilot was never aired, instead undergoing substantial re-shoots and re-casting of several characters — it became a cultural phenomenon. Its budgets grew, with a per-episode cost in its last season running as high as $15 million per episode, according to Variety . It also won numerous primetime television Emmy Awards, including three awards for “Best Drama.”
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