I just finished season 1. I don't understand the hype. I liked it and the cast is fantastic but so far I think that the plots, arcs, and dialog aren't anything special. Imdb says there are nine noble families. Nine? That a silly amount of stuff to keep track of. I feel like I'll need a conspiracy theory like board with red string so I can keep track of everything. But that's more of a commitment than I want to make.
And I was surprised that there's some formulaic stuff make reddit and reddit-like audience cheer. The fucking scenes seem almost funny to me. They are so fake and wooden. I assume the wolf dogs are in the books but in season 1 - they seem less scary and more like a cool plot device.
At Imdb it has a rating of 9.2/10 • 2.2m. I can't believe it has millions of ratings but it's still above 9. I think the series is has an effectively higher rating than The Sopranos which is 9.2/10 but it only has has 1/5th has many ratings.
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How can it be so highly rated?
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What would you rate the series as a whole?
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Why do people love this series so much?
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Is season 1 typical of the series? Worse? Better?
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How do you rank the seasons best to worst?
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Is there more dialog that needs subtitles? I don't like that at all. I don't want to read subtitles for a fantasy series.
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Is the finale even worse than The Sopranos'?
I think the show resonated with a lot of people because it didn’t fit into the stereotypical, moralistic good vs evil clash story that LOTR standardized for fantasy. The backstabbing, the realpolitik, the anti-fairy tale aspects, people liked that it put those prestige drama elements into the fantasy genre.
Overall, it’s stronger in the middle seasons, but loses itself once the show hits the point that they were past the novels and were working off of Martin’s notes on how he plans to finish the series. Both because they couldn’t crib from his writing, but also because the differences between the novels’ version of the narrative and the show’s version had digressed so much that they couldn’t reconcile the ending with where the show was, and their solution was, well, there’s a reason the last season got lambasted by the fans. So if it’s not appealing to you now, that’s only going to get worse by the end.