It's been four years since Game of Thrones ended, and yet a lot of fans still refuse to accept that the HBO series concluded its story so abruptly and in a polarizing fashion. Out of its many questionable decisions throughout the series run, here's why Game of Thrones Season 8 remains controversial to this day.
Game of Thrones Season Finale Robbed Their Characters' Rightful Ending
The whole point behind Game of Thrones is that every House in Westeros gets its rightful ending, whether it be politics of war or ruling the Seven Kingdoms.
All these great characters that George R.R. Martin built from scratch in his novel series up to debuting their adaptation on the small screens - had their own path to follow and lead the end to.
However, everything admittedly went downhill when the highly anticipated series finale came.
While Sansa Stark got to be Queen of Winterfell and Arya Stark got to trod her own path outside the lands of the North, not many fans would agree with the ending of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion, Cersei, and Jamie Lannister, and more.
Jon Snow ending up right back in Castle Black would have been a great way of circling to where he first found leadership and built himself from being Ned Stark's bastard to becoming the Lord of the Night's Watch.
Jon Snow's blood relations with the Targaryens barely matter in the storyline at all.
As for Daenerys, she was completely out of character. Instead of sparing the innocent people as she had always done in the series, she used the power of her dragons to wreak havoc among the people, thus not justifying why she still found rage in spite of Cersei yielding the throne.
Tyrion, well, even his actor, Peter Dinklage, was visibly disappointed with how the wits of his character turned to mush.
Jamie threw his character development out the window and returned to Cersei, both deaths that would have seemed endearing had they had a different intention from the beginning.
Not to mention, Bran Stark, of all people of Westeros, to take the Iron Throne is a complete stab in his back for everything he stood against.
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Game of Thrones Season 8: What Happens When the Series Gets Ahead the Books
Martin went into helping with Game of Thrones prior to writing the ending of the book series.
Although this fact has always been brushed off and turned into an inside joke even for the fans, the truth remains that nothing good ever happens when the author is out of the way.
Essentially, the series has always been on track with the books up until Game of Thrones Season 6, the story in which it surpassed A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
While Martin did provide a story outline for showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to work on, Martin's representative, Paul Hass, revealed that the helmers were no longer following his tracks (via CBR):
"George [Martin] loves Dan and Dave, but after Game of Thrones Season 5, he did start to worry about the path they were [going down] because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, 'You're not following my template.' The first 5 seasons stuck to George's roadmap. Then they went off George's roadmap."
Martin's ongoing writing process for the sixth book, The Winds of Winter, got trampled over before he could have the chance to right the wrongs of the showrunners on time for the series finale.
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How Game of Thrones Could Have Ended
We may never know who truly deserved to rule the Iron Throne.
To this day, Bran Stark ruling the Seven Kingdoms, all the while scrapping his three-eyed raven ability, is a stake to the hearts of fans all over the globe, when Jon Snow could have taken the Iron Throne.
Though the North remains independent, what of the Seven Kingdoms in the hands of the three-eyed raven?
However, fear not, since a Jon Snow spinoff is potentially on the way sometime in the future, where we could either explore his past as a child growing up in the Stark household, or his present occupation of working Castle Black.
The most that the franchise could do at this point is to flesh out the story of Westeros throughout their spinoff series, or with the extension of House of the Dragon Season 2.
Additionally, The Tales of Dunk and Egg is one of the future series that Warner Bros. is working on. According to Variety, the new series will be titled A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knights, which will be based on Martin's novellas, Tales of Dunk & Egg.
As for what the series will be about:
"A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered in Westeros. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight will follow a young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall (aka Dunk), and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends."
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