Game of Thrones just ended for good, and there were two things you had to know to expect: Backlash, and backlash to the backlash. We are nothing if not predictable. The Season 8 finale was met with swift criticism from Twitter -- which criticizes everything, so no one should feel special -- with some defenders jumping in for the show.
One such defender was The Red Viper himself. Game of Thrones alum Pedro Pascal played the popular Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones Season 4 (the best season, in my own opinion) and he reached out with a brief message to the vocal critics:
Loyal to the end! Or well beyond the end, in his case. Oberyn Martell certainly knew about loyalty, waiting many years to get justice from The Mountain for the deaths of his sister Elia Martell and her two Targaryen children. He was killed during that attempt, but he got his poisoned shots off. Still, it would take until Season 8 for The Mountain to truly die.
The reaction to the Game of Thrones finale actually seems pretty mixed, which is what the stars were predicting. Some fans are satisfied, some are not, some are mixed because there are dozens of characters and a few had solid endings while others maybe not so much.
We put up a poll last night about fan reactions to who was picked to rule, and so far that poll is pretty much right down the middle -- 33% Yes, 34% No, 33% Meh.
We've shared the most disappointing parts of the finale, and the best parts, from CinemaBlend writers' perspectives.
The title of the finale episode was "The Iron Throne" and it left fans with a lot of unanswered questions. There's no Game of Thrones Season 9 -- or even planned sequel spinoffs -- to answer anything. There's always George R.R. Martin's upcoming books, though, so he might fill in some of the gaps.
Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had said they planned to go into hiding on finale night, and would come back out when it was safe -- when any furor had died down. Someone was going to let them know the mood out there. At least Pedro Pascal has their backs on Twitter. Others also defended them in the wake of that viral petition wanting a remake for Game of Thrones Season 8. That petition topped 1 million signatures before the finale, and it's still going strong.
The showrunners had previously said they did care what fans thought and they wanted fans to love the final season. They were hoping for a finale reaction close to what Breaking Bad got at the end of its run. As they knew, there was no scenario where everybody would say "I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this." But I do wonder if they knew the final season as a whole would be so divisive (and have so many coffee cup and water bottle gaffes).
So now what? Now we talk about the finale, because this is the next morning, but there's nothing we can really do to change it. Book readers can see what GRRM has planned and others can wait for the prequel series to show up. And then we move on? If you want to stick with Pedro Pascal, he has The Mandalorian series coming to Disney+ and Wonder Woman 1984 coming to theaters next year. If you don't like those projects, I think you can already guess his response.
