In hindsight, many fans view Game of Thrones as a slow and steady decline in story quality, but it didn’t really feel that way while it was on the air. In fact, at the time of the show’s unsatisfying ending, many fans still considered it an overall success up to the last season. With further analysis, perspective, and brutal honesty, we can now look back at this TV behemoth and judge each of its constituent parts more honestly, and even get an idea of the strengths and weaknesses that ultimately led to its downfall. Making sense of the madness can be fun, and can even create space for new speculation about the ending of George R.R. Martin’s novels, A Song of Ice and Fire.
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Game of Thrones had eight seasons on HBO airing over the course of eight years — a tall order for a production of this scope. At the time of the finale, Martin said that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had chosen to end it there, against the wishes of himself and HBO. Martin said he could imagine the show going as long as 12 season, but Benioff and Weiss “wanted a life.” Star Kit Harington elaborated on this in an interview last year, noting that the demands of the show were so great that it probably couldn’t have gone on any longer than it did.
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Of course, we all know the season count wasn’t the only issue with Game of Thrones. The story had its high and low points, and fans often trace those by when it was faithful to Martin’s books, when it strayed, and when it ran out of source material to adapt. The showrunners did break away from Martin’s story long before they ran out books to go from, and you’ll see below how this went wrong for them. Read on for all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, ranked.
8) Season 8
It’s probably no surprise that Game of Thrones Season 8, the final season, comes in at a firm last place. The show’s ending satisfied almost no one, and it broke a lot of hearts in the process. This season was trimmed down from the usual ten episodes to only six, and even if they were all longer than an hour, it was not enough to fit all the story that needed to be told.
The season was essentially split into two parts: first, a hasty conclusion to the White Walker story, and second, a hasty conclusion to the struggle for the Iron Throne. Both may have taken their literal plot points from Martin’s outline, but neither seems to match with the themes of the story up to this point. The magical nature and secret agenda of the Walkers was never explored — instead, this was the one fight that the TV show portrayed as unequivocally justified, with no political nuance whatsoever. From there, we get narrative whiplash as we rush down south for one of the heroes of our story, Daenerys, to be re-characterized as a villain and a tyrant as quickly as possible.
As if the big plot points weren’t enough, this season found time for some deeply disappointing character conclusions as well, including Jaime Lannister’s reverse redemption arc, “Clegane Bowl,” and the total sundering of Sansa Stark’s heart and humanity, among several others. I could — and have — gone on about Season 8 for thousands of words, and others have done so even better, but for the purposes of this list, it’s enough to call it the worst season of the show.
7) Season 7
Unfortunately, we can now look back and acknowledge that Season 7 was not much better than Season 8 at all. Again, the reduced episode count really hurt this show, and you could really feel the rush to get all the pieces in place for the planned finale. This season felt exciting when it was on the air simply because we didn’t know what the ending would bring, and we were free to assume that all the interesting set-up was going somewhere. Instead, we never learned more about the Walkers, their magic, or their effect on a wight dragon; we never saw the eldritch horrors behind Euron Greyjoy’s ambitions; we never got to ride along with Bran in the eerie shared consciousness of the Three-Eyed Raven.
This may be the season where we can see the effects of cut characters and plotlines the most, as well. For example, in Martin’s books, Beric Dondarrion passes his miraculous life force on to the corpse of Catelyn Stark and she becomes “Lady Stoneheart,” but since the show didn’t set that up, we get this odd ragtag band of men running north of The Wall for some reason. Martin’s books have another contender for the Iron Throne claiming he is Rhaegar Targaryen’s son Aegon, but since the show decided to cut him, any narrative utility he might have had is dispersed among characters like Cersei and Dany, while the absence of his story is conspicuous.
6) Season 5
It would be fair to rank these seasons in reverse order from how they aired, but let’s break the pattern here and discuss Season 5. By now, any resemblance to Martin’s books feels incidental at best, and I’m ranking this season lower than Season 6 because of one particular change I despise: Jaime and Bronn’s trip to Dorne. This bears no resemblance to the Dornish plotline in Martin’s books — if anything, it’s a mockery — and it also pulls Jaime away from the important storyline he should be exploring up in the Riverlands.
Of course, this season took a lot of heat for its gratuitous depiction of sexual violence when Sansa married Ramsay Bolton, and this was also a change from the books, where Ramsay married Sansa’s childhood friend Jeyne Poole, who was masquerading as Arya. What isn’t discussed as often is the beginning of the end for Jon Snow — the show’s overly stoic take on the character begins to come out here, and by the end of the season, the man bleeding out in the snow seems a far cry from the man who we last saw bleeding out in the snow in Martin’s books.
5) Season 6
The Game of Thrones ending caught a lot of fans off-guard because the show covered its growing story issues with visual spectacle, and no season did this better than Season 6. Looking back, you probably remember this installment for “The Door,” “Battle of the Bastards,” and “Blood of My Blood.” That’s no mistake, but when you stop and think about any of these plot points, they present some serious issues. Sansa rallying the Vale quickly and coordinating with Jon at the same time doesn’t make a lot of sense, and Daenerys’ second fireproof miracle is an egregiously missed opportunity for some reflection and character development.
4) Season 4
I wish I didn’t have to put Season 4 this low, because I really love “The Watchers on the Wall.” This season was already making some alarming changes from the books, but at the time it seemed like these were tactical decisions. There are a lot of highpoints here — Tyrion’s trial and Oberyn’s duel with The Mountain, Brienne’s duel with The Hound, and the Purple Wedding to name a few. As great as they are, they’re just short of the unforgettable moments in the next few seasons on the list.
3) Season 2
The narrative pillar of both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire is the “War of the Five Kings,” and for that, Season 2 is really as good as it gets. Here, we see the young King in the North Robb Stark outmaneuvering the seasoned Tywin Lannister, we watch Jaime tease us with a redemption arc he will ultimately double back on, and we watch Jon Snow discover the humanity of his supposed enemies.
If there’s one plotline this season couldn’t get right, it’s Dany’s. The dragon queen had some truly bizarre adventures in the far east at this point in the story, but the TV show didn’t really do them justice. This might be the first big hint that the show wouldn’t depict the magical elements of the plot satisfactorily.
2) Season 3
There are some great moments in Season 3, but at the end of the day, it’s high on the list because of the Red Wedding. This was the defining moment where Game of Thrones became a TV legend, and it’s hard to imagine any show pulling off such a surprise again.
That may be the crowning jewel, but this season is really non-stop action all the way through. We have Jon Snow climbing The Wall, Jaime rescuing Brienne of Tarth from a bear, and of course, Daenerys freeing the Unsullied. If there’s one scene that’s worth watching out of context anytime, it’s Dany telling the Astapori: “A dragon is not a slave.”
1) Season 1
Finally, nothing can match the promise and potential of Game of Thrones Season 1. The first ten episodes really demonstrated how great this format could be for an epic fantasy novel adaptation, even before the budget ballooned and the dragons took wing. This season also gives us the bait and switch that really sets this story apart from other medieval fantasies: Ned Stark’s death. Seeing the ostensible main character beheaded in the ninth episode might be the most powerful trick this show ever pulled off, whether we realize it or not. At the same time, watching another character go from a quiet, unassuming girl to a mystical dragon queen assured us that there was more to tune in for going forward.
Game of Thrones gets a lot of heat these days for its ending, but we can’t forget all the high points along the way. The whole series is streaming now on Max, and is also available on DVD and Blu-ray. Martin’s books are available in print, digital and audiobook formats, with the next installment expected any day now.
