GoT spoilers incoming.

Unpopular opinion: while the Battle of Winterfell was an incredible technical and artistic achievement, it represents one of the biggest failures of the television adaptation of ASoIaF (and maybe the series itself, who knows)

While the books are astounding entertaining, from the first sentence to the last, the reason they rose to prominence and achieved the culture importance to the fantasy genre they did is because Ned. Lost. His. Head.

It was stunning, it was unexpected, and it captured beautifully the problems that plague us as humans as a whole: our foolish shortsightedness, our dangerous obstinance, and selfish, always selfish ways

At the heart of this, was the refrain “Winter is coming”. And while the Starks were, sorrynotsorry, FUCKING IDIOTS they did at least have a sense that that was the real fucking problem the 7 kingdoms were facing

At the core of it, the major theme of the books were, “look at all these stupid fucking houses (Starks included) squabbling over these petty issues leaving themselves open to something far more terrifying. Something that can’t be reasoned with or bribed

The end of GOT, the end of the story that began with “Ned looses his head” isn’t “and then they go and fight Cersei and maybe Dani cause bitch is crazy and Jon the true heir of the throne gets crowned king”

GOT was a story about FAILURE. The failure of the Starks to adapt with the times (even failing to hold onto their vaunted honor while doing so), failure of the Lannisters to protect their legacy, Dani’s failure to enact any real sort of change, etc, etc...

The culmination of all of this isn’t triumphant. The culmination of all of this is at best a depressing return to the status quo of a mad king/queen, and at worst—apocalypse.

There’s still a chance for them to go for the downer ending, with Jon as Robert 2.0, a impotent and unhappy king in an incestuous Targaryen relationship—bringing us right back around to what started everything, nothing having mattered, lives lost and destroyed for nothing

But what would have reeeeally sticked the landing on this unhappy tale would have been the Night King showing up and fucking up everyone’s shit AFTER they all fell over one another killing each other in a pointless fucking war with Cersei

THAT aspect of the book’s theme is now gone, UNLESS there is some crazy ass pull “BITCH YOU THOUGHT” in the zero hour

It remains to be seen at this point, but either way I’m not holding my breath, but I also feel out of love with the series all the way back in, maybe season 3. So you know, take my opinion with a grain of salt