It's one of my favorite shows, though like many people I was disappointed with how they ended it. I feel like if they had taken their time (even George R.R. Martin said he was imagining like, 12 seasons I think?) and handed off the reigns to producers who still wanted to do the project (supposedly Dave & Dan wanted to hurry up and finish so they could do other projects; instead they flubbed the landing and their future projects got canceled), it could have been much better, but oh, well. 95% of the show was great. ;)
I watch a lot of historical-based shows (The Tudors, The Borgias, that kinda thing) and any time someone tells me that they couldn't watch GoT because of the violence, I'm like ...oh ...don't watch the historical shows, then. xD They can be worse, especially since you know it's based on truth (though George also was inspired for a lot of GoT by historical events!). Once you see Henry VIII sentence someone to die by being boiled alive in oil, you're kinda like ...yeah a little violence doesn't shake me in a show. 😅
!BEER
Endings can be hard and there will be all sorts of constraints on a production like that as so much money is involved. Adapting books is always a compromise. It has to appeal to people beyond the dedicated readers.
You can look at Shakespeare for stories of war and ambition. Those were grim times that make today look civilised, but we still have some similar conflicts driven by people who want power.
Yeah, but they ran out of books to adapt for GoT; the last two books still aren't out. Apparently George is having difficulty finishing it, too.
The story goes that he told them the major plot points, like who ends up on the iron throne, but they made up all the filler on how it gets there.
Directors can't resist messing with stories anyway as they need to tell them in different ways. Peter Jackson did it with the Tolkien movies too.
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