Game Of Thrones’ Highest-Rated Episode Foreshadowed Season 8’s Problems

Game of Thrones season 8 is seen as the nadir of the HBO show, but there were warning signs years earlier. The backlash to Game of Thrones‘ ending was swift and vast, and still continues to this day. The finale remains a punching bag for how not to end a TV show; the mention of Daenerys Targaryen burning King’s Landing can spark outrage; some people can’t even look at a pile of bricks without being irate about Jaime Lannister’s fate.

Because the criticisms en masse didn’t really start until Game of Thrones season 8 (yes, there were dissenting voices, especially from some disgruntled book readers, but I’m talking in terms of the general audience), then it can be tempting to see these issues as coming out of nowhere. They were a late-in-the-game fumble, rather than a result of more system issues.

That, of course, is not the case: season 8 wasn’t made in a vacuum, and there were issues going back years. The biggest point of those is in changing, ignoring, and eventually overtaking the books, but problems can also be found in what’s often considered among Game of Thrones‘ best episodes.

“Battle Of The Bastards” Signaled Game Of Thrones’ Shift Into Good vs. Evil

Season 8 Suffered From This More Simplistic Dichotomy

Game of Thrones always had its clear heroes – mostly the members of House Stark and, for a time at least, Daenerys herself – but a huge strength of the show was that most people were not clear-cut good or evil, but somewhere in between to varying degrees. This not only helped make so many of the characters feel more complex (and often more human), but was a big boost to the show’s battles and overall narrative. Things like “Blackwater” (Tyrion vs. Davos) and “Watchers on the Wall” (Jon Snow, Ygritte) had people on both sides you cared about and wanted to root for.

“Battle of the Bastards,” the show’s highest-rated episode on IMDb, wasn’t the first battle episode to simply be good vs. evil, but is perhaps the most notable. After all, when “Hardhome” did it for the White Walkers, it wasn’t an even fight nor really a battle: it was people being massacred. “Bastards,” then, because Ramsay Bolton was so irredeemably evil, and because Jon and Sansa Stark were overwhelmingly the heroes, was very much the show pushing into this more binary territo

That worked very well for the episode, which is, without a doubt, spectacular. But is it as great as “Blackwater” or “Watchers on the Wall”? I’d argue not, partly because that does rob just a little something from it. Still, it’s not so much any perceived shortcomings as it is what it represents, which is that Thrones itself had to move further and further into good vs. evil in order to deal with both the Night King and then Cersei Lannister (who had been a complex character, but was full villain by the end).

When there’s a sense of season 8 “not feeling like Game of Thrones anymore,” a vague but common kind of criticism, I think this is one part of it. The White Walkers weren’t as interesting because they lacked complexity; Cersei was given a much shorter-shrift in season 8, essentially just an evil Queen to be defeated; even with Dany, her villain turn would have benefited from more episodes that forced greater understanding of her decisions and more difficulty for the viewer in which side to support.

It was all more simplistic, and while there are various factors in that and some mistakes were made (and, certainly, more episodes would have helped all of this a lot), it was also a direction the show had long been shifting in. I actually think this is one (of several) reasons The Winds of Winter is taking so long, because the story that was a subversion of so many fantasy tropes and purposefully not good and bad, black and white, has to become that to a degree due to the White Walkers as the overarching threat.

“Battle Of The Bastards” Was An Early Example Of Game Of Thrones Putting Spectacle Over Logic

This Became A Bigger Problem By The Final Episodes

“Battle of the Bastards” is not only one of the most incredible episodes of Game of Thrones, but also one of the most stunning battles ever put on a screen of any size. The sheer scale of it is astonishing, and the production work to pull something like this off, with such an intense shoot, so many extras, horses, visual effects, and complex choreography is an incredible feat. So much so, in fact, that the episode does get away a bit lightly with some of its storytelling choices.

There are a few issues to nitpick with the installment: much of it – certainly the outcome, including the Knights of the Vale saving the day – is more predictable. There are some holes that can be poked in the logic, too, whether that’s why Sansa doesn’t clue Jon in on the plan, or why Rickon Stark ran in a straight line.

Your mileage may vary on these and they by no means ruin the enjoyment of the episode, but they are a sign of the show prioritizing scale and spectacle over having a watertight script and character decisions that are fully understandable and true to whom those people are. All of those were major criticisms of season 8, whether it was people acting out of character (e.g. Jaime’s cruel betrayal of Brienne of Tarth) or leaps of logic (e.g. Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet).

Because the show got bigger and bigger (and bigger), and gained so much attention for being epic, event television, then that was what it leaned into harder. “Battle of the Bastards” is the show’s most celebrated outing, so it’s no surprise they very clearly worked to try and clear that bar. That’s fine, but those episodes need the quieter ones around it to underpin the character work and narrative drama, which season 8 was lacking (more like “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” would’ve helped massively), and you can begin to see that taking root back in season 6.

“Battle Of The Bastards” Is Still Great… And Season 8 Is Good Too

The Ending Of Game Of Thrones Has Flaws, But Plenty Of Merits Too

I want to be very clear that the points aren’t intended to bash “Battle of the Bastards” too much, because it’s an episode that was – and still is – breathtakingly good in its best moments. Jon facing down the army is one of the show’s great hero scenes, and director Miguel Sapochnik does a fantastic job of following him through the battle. It all looks incredible (and rightly without any glamor; this is dirty, gritty, horrible stuff and better for it), and seeing Ramsay get beaten then eaten is extremely satisfying.

There are, however, some issues with it – for those reasons I’d put it behind “Blackwater” and “Watchers on the Wall” in terms of Game of Thrones‘ best battles – and it’s one of a few places where you can see things that would go unchecked; cracks that widened into bigger problems. But it certainly doesn’t stop it from being great – and in a sense, I feel much the same about season 8 too.

Certainly, Game of Thrones‘ final season has some glaring problems, particularly when it comes to pacing. But on the whole, for as much as the criticisms are very understandable, a lot of what’s there is good, and it delivers a lot in terms of payoff and being emotionally satisfying alongside delivering some grand spectacle, which is exactly what “Battle of the Bastards” does too.