r/TopCharacterTropes • u/hiiloovethis • Jul 31 '26

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) TV endings so awful it completely ruins rewatchability of the entire show.

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Game of Thrones - Entire season 8 and finale completely ruins the entire narrative and show ends in the worst way possible. It kills desire to rewatch the show.

How I Met Your Mother - Show ends such awful they kill the... the mother. After spending years growing into a loyal partner and father, he instantly reverted to his old womanizing behavior after his divorce. Also he ends up with robin randomly.

The Boys - While not as bad as GOT but the worst aspect is the cheap Vought Rising spin-off tease, pointless storylines and rushed ending which leaves a sour taste. Despite hitting the right points... it feels cheap and not satisfying.

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516

u/SpendLiving9376 Jul 31 '26

People joke, but it really did feel like the showrunners wanted to wrap up as fast as possible.

116

u/MorbidMan23 Jul 31 '26

One of the few times where studio interference would have been the right way to go. They needed to hand the series off to a new team of writers. The quality probably would have suffered anyway, but it could have avoided that insane nose dive.

36

u/nick82614 Jul 31 '26

The problem beyond was all the actors were burnt out too.

13

u/BirthdayHeavy2178 Aug 01 '26

The actors could have been burnt out but after they were handed that script? Footage of the writers room is out there, they knew it was bad before they even started filming. Why put it more effort when you know the fans are gonna crucify it?

4

u/RoseWhiteRedBlack Aug 01 '26

The actors have expressively said that they were reacting to the series ending, not the quality of the scripts.

5

u/FireZord25 Aug 01 '26

Even then, I'm sure they could've come up with a way better ending in this timeframe.

-8

u/No_Blacksmith_2591 Jul 31 '26

fuck em, if they don't want the money they can be recast... at that point in time any actor would have given their firstborn to be in it

2

u/coatimundos Jul 31 '26

The actors also wanted iut

2

u/miasanmike Aug 01 '26

Wish I could say to my boss “hey, I’m tired of this, I’m spending way too much time working, let’s just cut this one last job short, we can do a shit job and you pay me a ton of money”

16

u/papayacreamsicle Aug 01 '26

I mean Emilia Clarke’s doctors told her to stop working full time because she survived two brain aneurysms during the show and was categorized extreme risk. Sophie Turner wanted to stop because she wanted to start a family and was trying to get pregnant. Isaac Hempstead Wight said he wanted to go enroll in university pre-med, he joined the show at 11 years old but his dream was never to be an actor it was to be a neuroscientist. Kit Harrington wanted the time off to do a long term rehab program because he was a severe alcoholic. Phrasing it all as “im too tired to work” is a little reductive.

-5

u/MorbidMan23 Jul 31 '26

I'm sure they could have worked out an acceptable deal for a couple more seasons.

1

u/TheReaderDude_97 Aug 04 '26

So the story is that it was actually one of the few times when studios offered more money to make a few more seasons because GoT was really huge and bringing in crap ton of money and deals. They even offered them upto 10 seasons.

D&D, on the other hand, were a greedy duo. They were successful so they had a big bucks offer from Disney to make a show in Star Wars universe. So, they tried to end the show as fast as possible. Ironically, they faced so much backlash for GoT ending that they ended up losing the Disney deal as well.

295

u/DatNewNewD Jul 31 '26

It was the show runners the cast, and crew, at least. 

Kit Harrington has spoken on how everyone involved was just exhausted and he personally didn’t have another season in him.

HBO was offering basically unlimited resources for more seasons.

225

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

Something else to keep in mind is that most of the people involved were not fans of the show. Several of the actors openly said the whole concept was stupid and Stannis's actor was so sick of having to deliever llines about dragons and magic he asked to be killed off as quick as possible. Ian McShane joked about how the show was nothing but tits and dragons.

People who are fans of fantasy saw it as this epic story about politics and magic and the human condition. Most of the people working on it saw it as a silly fantasy show for loser nerds and thought their characters were stupid. Robb Stark's actor said he'd never agree to do fantasy again because he felt silly watching his scenes.

267

u/kaimcdragonfist Jul 31 '26

And yet he did The Eternals, an arguably dorkier fantasy movie than GoT ever got lol

15

u/Material-Coffee1029 Jul 31 '26

He was also Prince Charming in the live action Cinderella, although icant recall if that was before or after GOT

3

u/kaimcdragonfist Jul 31 '26

I think by that point Robb was dead, though I’m not gonna Google it lol

2

u/TheZigerionScammer Aug 01 '26

It was definitely after Robb was killed in the show.

16

u/dylanalduin Aug 01 '26

Actors, as a rule, are not the brightest people.

8

u/Ganadote Jul 31 '26

And Cinderella.

43

u/Kammander-Kim Jul 31 '26

But it was part of the mcu which meant potentially future roles and a steady paycheck and the chance to work with big names both on screen and off screen.

Potentially, as thye movie flopped and basically sweeped under a rug and it took many years until the events were mentioned in another mcu property (the latest captain America movie)

44

u/lord_james Jul 31 '26

> But it was part of the mcu which meant potentially future roles and a steady paycheck and the chance to work with big names both on screen and off screen.

But that’s the sort of thing GoT could give you, if your character isn’t killed off.

9

u/BarfMacklin Jul 31 '26

Or if the showrunners aren’t rushing to finish it so they can get to their shitty inevitably cancelled Star Wars trilogy

4

u/imjustbettr Jul 31 '26

But that’s the sort of thing GoT could give you, if your character isn’t killed off.

I mean Eternals was only one movie and I assumed he knew he was going to die at the end. That's a few months work on something you don't give a shit about for potentially a huge career afterwards.

GoT was years of his life.

7

u/RA576 Aug 01 '26

I mean Eternals was only one movie and I assumed he knew he was going to die at the end.

I mean, he knew that about GoT as well unless he did literally no research. Robb Stark was killed off in Storm of Swords over a decade before the first season even released

1

u/BenKen01 Aug 01 '26

But getting killed off freed him up for the potential MCU payday.

8

u/IcyDev1l Jul 31 '26

The typo got a chuckle. “As thy movie flopped”

3

u/RavenCyarm Jul 31 '26

So he’s a hypocrite then. Nice.

6

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

At the same time in that movie it looks like he's acting at gunpoint and seems outright embarrassed to be there. I think he just wanted the paycheck.

2

u/Xclusivsmoment Jul 31 '26

He was barely in that, im guessing he did it more for the paycheck

1

u/crustyrobots Aug 01 '26

And it was a nuclear bomb at the box office

1

u/Aesthetik4v Aug 02 '26

He also did snow piercer which is scifi 🧐

1

u/Unpopular_Outlook Aug 03 '26

Superheroes is more sci-fi than fantasy.

106

u/Soyyyn Jul 31 '26

This seems odd to me since Robb barely interacts with anything magic or too fantasy-like. Guess it must have been the made-up names of people and the setting itself, i.e. a fictional medieval world instead of real history. That seems like an odd issue to have, really.

14

u/TheZigerionScammer Aug 01 '26

They even toned down Robb's interaction with fantasy elements compared to the books. In the books it's obvious that Robb is a warg and despite the show spending a lot more time with him we never see that part of him with Grey Wind.

5

u/Jagvetinteriktigt Aug 01 '26

A warg and possible under the influence of a love potion.

12

u/Blackstone01 Aug 01 '26

Yeah, the most fantastical thing in the show that Robb ever interacts with is a dire wolf.

1

u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins Aug 02 '26

not the legion of reanimated dead & dragons?

1

u/Blackstone01 Aug 02 '26

We are talking about the character Robb Stark. He died back in Season 3. He, Robb Stark, the character, did not interact with the White Walker army or any dragons.

11

u/EndOfTheDark97 Jul 31 '26

Robert Pattinson also felt silly in Harry Potter, which is why he held his wand like a gun lol

11

u/Cold-Iron8145 Aug 01 '26

This is somehow dorkier than playing pretend wizards.

70

u/bentbabe Jul 31 '26

The Robb one is so weird because his storyline is one of the best in the entire show. 

52

u/GrimaceGrunson Jul 31 '26

It’s also the least ‘fantasy’.

69

u/Farraddaayy Jul 31 '26

Robb is crazy because there was almost nothing magical about it, he was just a Medieval noble in a rebellion

Like would he not do a braveheart style movie? Its like the same thing

28

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

He seems to have stuck to only modern-era movies and TV since doing the show, other than one quick job as the Prince in a Cinderella movie. So he might not do any medieval work at all.

8

u/GrimaceGrunson Jul 31 '26

I can kind of get wanting to avoid doing that genre in the future after having spent a few years in GoT (you might feel you’ve “done enough” of that style), but I also think people are overstating the cast’s antipathy towards it.

172

u/Dragon_Of_Magnetism Jul 31 '26

Wow, that hurt. Can’t believe people still can’t take fantasy seriously no matter how well written, just because it has magic or dragons in it. Especially that professional actors said it…

158

u/omgitscolin Jul 31 '26

Right? Like, weren’t you a theater kid?! Your whole job is playing make-believe and you think other people are dorks? Come oooonnnnnn

83

u/Dragon_Of_Magnetism Jul 31 '26

Yes but they want to play in GroundedTm and SeriousTM make-believes

16

u/JesusSavesForHalf Aug 01 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/3oEduVofsHEFy34Fu8

Sir Christopher Lee's look of disapproval.

8

u/Proper_Story_3514 Aug 01 '26

Also with how fucking good the cgi in GoT was. We had never seen better dragons than that before.

1

u/rainSerotoniso Aug 02 '26

I mean.... I kinda get it? Acting is a job as much as it is a hobby for a lot of actors. You get the roles you get, sometimes you get one that becomes a generational landmark. Most actors (although they won't say it on set to maintain professionalism), if one of the roles they don't really believe in became absolutely massive and iconic, probably wouldn't be big fans of how they'd be known for that role. It's the acting equivalent of hating your biggest hit song as a musician because it's a style you don't want to or never wanted to make.

29

u/FrozenSotan Jul 31 '26

If true, pretty odd of them to not want to be a part of a series that at its height was one of the highest viewed shows and arguably had a huge impact on pop cultural at the time.

17

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

Maybe but a lot of the side character's had actors who were in the industry for decades. They weren't getting recognized for their talent or decades of work, they were getting recognized for playing a character in a show they thought was silly.

There's a reason that Alec Guinness hated Star Wars despite making a boatload of money and being iconic for generations.

47

u/ASpaceOstrich Jul 31 '26

Odd sentiment for someone who literally plays make believe for a living to hold, but sadly I believe it

36

u/Jotsunpls Jul 31 '26

Ouch. This is… yikes. These ones *hurt*

5

u/SootSpriteHut Aug 01 '26

Ian mchane was a main character in American Gods. I don't really believe he doesn't respect fantasy as a genre.

8

u/Longjumping_Share444 Jul 31 '26

I'm sure they were ready to move on to other things. Most actors are deathly afraid of one role defining their entire career and being typecast forever.

10

u/AlleRacing Aug 01 '26

Source for any of that?

7

u/EndOfTheDark97 Jul 31 '26

Tbf a lot of actors don’t watch the stuff their in because they’re critical of their own work.

5

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

It could be that I am mixing two quotes. I've looked back and the only recent stuff he's said about GOT is that he A) never watched the last season and based on how he phrased he never watched it after he was killed off and B) that he was "sick of playing morally good Romeo characters who have bad things happen to them."

10

u/samurijack Jul 31 '26

Source on Robb’s actor saying that? It interests me because his character was only prevalent during some of the least fantastical parts of the show.

5

u/yungScooter30 Jul 31 '26

Robb Stark's actor didn't even do anything within the realms of fantasy outside of own a Direwolf. His entire tenure on the show is as a commander of medieval war.

2

u/Jagvetinteriktigt Aug 01 '26

Of course, Ian McShane went on to a show that had far less nudity and fantastical elements.....

wait

2

u/k_GOBL1N Aug 01 '26

Tbf to the actors and crew, D&D were highly incompetent. Scenes that could have been shot on a sound stage were shot in almost below 0 weather, stunts that almost killed people that could have been done using CGI, them acting like creeps to the women in the cast just because they allow nudity in their contracts, and they of course wanted to end the show instead of passing it onto more competent people. Almost all the most critically acclaimed episodes were made by people who knew what they were doing. When D&D were directing, the pain was immense. Giving two idiots infinite money isn’t a great idea. I’ve been rewatching the show and there’s so many great lines used word to word from the books that I bet they took at face value instead of the complex meaning behind said lines. Seasons 1-4 are made of material about smart characters trying to outsmart each other written by someone smart. Seasons 5-8 are smart characters being written by dumb idiots who are just hitting keywords and shit to make the characters seem smart. The characters were no longer trying to outsmart each other. They were trying to “outsmart the audience.”

6

u/theMightBoop Jul 31 '26

I hate when actors have this attitude. Fantasy/sci-fi shows have hardcore fans who will follow them for life. If the actors career doesn’t end up going anywhere they can do cons and at least earn some money that way.
Other TV is not necessarily like that.

4

u/Ok-Somewhere-2325 Jul 31 '26

It weird , I only watched it for tits and magic and over all it was lacking both. Kinda hard dragons tho. Tho its pretty funny knowing that the not so great actors though playing pretend was silly.

3

u/KruleDiablo Jul 31 '26

I mean they're actors at the end of the day they're not beheld to be fans of the things they're doing. Fandom really ruined people's brains with stuff like that though. You don't expect a cashier at your gas station to be a huge fan of the nutrigrain bars.

1

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

I agree, I'm just pointing one of the reasons most of the cast was ready for the show to end. They were sick of it and would have not agreed to another 3 or 4 seasons just to wrap up the story.

1

u/timbasile Jul 31 '26

Sean Bean has vowed never to be in anything where his character is killed off.

1

u/Rufus_Rucus54 Jul 31 '26

And Ian McShane was in American Gods...

1

u/t3h_shammy Aug 01 '26

Robb Stark's actor had literally 0 scenes related to fantasy other than maybe him having a big puppy

1

u/Double-Evidence-1354 Aug 02 '26

Robb Stark actor later did more fantasy because the ending went so horrible it ruined the career, momentum and reputation of almost everyone involved!

THE MORE YOU KNOW!

2

u/DisMFer Aug 02 '26

Robb Stark left the show years prior to that. Jon Snow's actor outright said he had a blast working on the show (he met his wife there so that might help) and seems to be into playing fantasy heroes.

2

u/Double-Evidence-1354 Aug 02 '26

While this is true, the also sad true is that pretty much everyone was screwed because of GoT ending.

Hell even Peter Dinklage who was becoming a pretty requested actor and then...and then he didn't.

3

u/DisMFer Aug 02 '26

Dinklage has been in a number of films since that, most are highly regarded art. He's made his money so he wants to act in higher-level projects.

Sophie Turner was a major part of the new X-Men films and is going to be Lara Croft.

Lena Headey has gone on to mostly be a voice actress but she was mostly a character actress for most of her career and just went back to doing that.

Emilia Clarke's career has slown down, but given the quality of work she was in prior to GOT ending I think it's more about her being really bad at picking roles.

I'm not really totally sure where you get the idea that GOT ending on a shitty note has derailed careers. Pretty much everyone has had the same career trajectory they had leaving the show. Some of them were just not great actors to start so they didn't get a lot of roles anyway.

1

u/Double-Evidence-1354 Aug 02 '26

Sorry, i mostly got it out of not seeing most of the actors and the writers. But yeah, you are right. Probably it is because they weren't that good to begin with (Well we already knew that with the writers.)

1

u/wwwyzzrd Jul 31 '26

Christ, and he wasnt even in the bad seasons.

1

u/wraider84 Aug 01 '26

Idk I read that and I’m kinda like… tough shit, a lot of people hate their jobs, that’s what the money is for, if they thought the show was stupid too bad

0

u/platysoup Aug 01 '26

  tits and dragons.

But that’s what I’m here for, sir

-1

u/Vhozite Jul 31 '26

Ian McShane joked about how the show was nothing but tits and dragons.

As if that’s supposed to be a bad thing lol

25

u/dtbberk Jul 31 '26

Imagine if he had to be in a show with more than 8-10 episodes a season! He might not be cut out for acting if he can’t handle that.

5

u/mk1317 Jul 31 '26

Another way to frame the production timeline-it was almost always 5-6 months of intensive shooting, likely 12+hour days  the entire way through, and having to travel to multiple different countries during the process to boot. Yes it would burn most people out. 

You’re being disingenuous by framing it as “only” 8-10 episodes. 

8

u/MooseFlyer Jul 31 '26

There isn’t a direct relationship between the number of episodes in a season and the amount of work an actor is putting in. Doing a sitcom on a soundstage in LA is obviously going to be a lot more chill than flying around the world to film Game of Thrones.

Also, they were long fucking episodes, so it’s not like the amount of footage filmed was actually a lot less than your average TV show.

9

u/coatimundos Jul 31 '26

Sitcoms actually tend to be a lot more demanding than dramas due to more episodes, and due to comedic scenes normally requiring more takes than a dramatic scene, as even a slight slip up or delay in timing ruins jokes.

With that said it is easier to film in LA than in remote Iceland like GoT did:

6

u/Verizon-Mythoclast Jul 31 '26

Television isn’t the only kind of acting, and he’s had multiple roles since GOT ended.

2

u/ElMatadorJuarez Jul 31 '26

This is pure guesswork, but I don’t know if GOT is a whole lot like other shows that got 20something episodes a season. The production values were something else. Not to mention beyond tired they all prob just wanted to do other projects, and a show that involves that much travel isn’t going to free them up to do that.

1

u/Tiny-Speaker-4470 Aug 01 '26

He was shooting for 12 hour days 6 months at a time for 8+ years, probably having to travel to remote locations and be in full gear, it's not like shooting some soap where the set is fixed.

0

u/Warmbly85 Aug 01 '26

Maybe the crew worked those hours but even the main cast weren’t shown for much more then 10ish minutes an episode outside of maybe one episode per season that focused on them. 

10

u/systemic_booty Jul 31 '26

I don't blame them. Even GRRM is exhausted and doesn't have another book in him

3

u/nick82614 Jul 31 '26

Hes so old and rich now he cant force himself to care. I wish he would still do the smart thing and find a top notch ghost writer to do his dirty work. Cant hurt to have fuck you amounts of money to flow back in again, well if they ever stopped( they didnt)

5

u/DisMFer Jul 31 '26

He has also written himself into a corner which there isn't actually a way to plot his way out of.

1

u/Jagvetinteriktigt Aug 01 '26

Oh no, the problem is that there are too many ways for him to plot his way out lol

2

u/LoseNotLooseIdiot Jul 31 '26

I think that's just something you say when you're reading the scripts and realize that no one in charge had any coherent direction for either any of the characters, or the overarching plot itself.

Of course you don't have anything left in you when you're looking into the future and see nothing of interest to work with as an artist.

-1

u/StatusSociety2196 Jul 31 '26

I don't even understand how that makes sense. Blockbuster movies are shot in like 3 weeks, double it for rehearsals, double that for an 8-10 episode season, and he's complaining about working 3 months out of the year.

No one behind the scenes needs to stay on for even an entire season.

24

u/Dan-D-Lyon Jul 31 '26

It's cool how HBO was able and willing to put out a season every year in this era of "the next season comes out when it's fucking ready", but maybe for Game of Thrones they should have let things take a bit longer

7

u/Longjumping_Wolf_912 Jul 31 '26

They did exactly that for the last season.

37

u/ItsMrPerfectCell Jul 31 '26

I’m pretty sure it was because D&D were going to work on a big Disney movie (don’t remember if it was Star Wars or Marvel), and they ended up getting let go from the project anyway lol

Edit: It was Star Wars

7

u/ashez2ashes Jul 31 '26

It’s amazing to think there’s a dimension out there where there are even worse Star Wars sequels.

12

u/Faeruhn Jul 31 '26

It's actually a lot funnier than 'ended up being let go anyway'.

Disney offered them the position to write the next big Star Wars project, but only if they wrapped up GoT in a certain (generous) time frame.

So they tried to finish GoT as quickly as possible (way faster than Disney's asked for time frame) and thus treated the show like crap and as we all saw, basically destroyed it.

So Disney, seeing what they had just done, responded like "ye know what, something came up, we're going with other people", and dropped them.

Personally, I find that hilarious.

3

u/Delphin_1 Aug 01 '26

one of the few times where i fully support Disney screwing someone over xD

22

u/eagleblue44 Jul 31 '26

Because they did. They wanted to start working on their star wars trilogy so they rushed finishing it. Jokes on them because their star wars trilogy got cancelled.

15

u/Marlowe126 Jul 31 '26

That was so satisfying. They also REALLY wanted to do a “What if the slavers won the US Civil
War?” alt-timeline show. Glad their careers are in cold graves

6

u/Miserable_Spell_2964 Jul 31 '26

Well yeah, D&D were hoping to get in on the Star Wars sequels and thus wanted to wrap up GoT any way they could, they had been given a full 10 episodes to do the final season and they were like "yeah nope, we're going to wrap this in 5" and then did everything possible to destroy their brand

2

u/MagnusRusson Jul 31 '26

They absolutely just wanted to wrap it up quickly. HBO offered them multiple full length seasons to finish out after s7.

2

u/SaconicLonic Jul 31 '26

If the last two series were 10 episode seasons I think it actually could have worked. Granted a lot of characters were just poorly written that I am better the writers felt they couldn't do that. Also they should have brought GRRM to actually come and write for the show again. It was obvious that he didn't like the departures they made from the books he wrote but I think there could have been some kind of resolution made there. Granted if they actually followed his books it would have taken like 8 seasons just to get to the end of A Dance with Dragons.

2

u/Legomaniac91 Jul 31 '26

They wanted to wrap up the show so they could work on a Star Wars show...that wound up getting cancelled, likely due to how bad the final season of GoT was.

2

u/darkwai Jul 31 '26

I heard they wrapped it up quick cause they wanted to work on their star wars thing, but then the final season of got was so bad they lost their star wars movie? if that's true then that's hilarious lmao.

2

u/Independent-Couple87 Aug 01 '26

I also think that George R. R. Martin used the showmakers as scapegoats for unpopular decisions.

2

u/AggressivePiccolo77 Aug 01 '26

They thought they were about to write a Star Wars trilogy, they totally raced to the finish line

1

u/Chance5e Jul 31 '26

The budget wanted to, at least

1

u/Pocketfulofgeek Jul 31 '26

We don’t joke. Thats exactly what happened they wanted to go play Star Wars.

1

u/KitchenFullOfCake Jul 31 '26

I do subscribe to the theory that having star wars dangled in front of them made the showrunners rush the show.

I also believe that the tanking of the show made it so they couldn't touch star wars.

May or may not be true but the drama of that arc is more entertaining than the last season.

1

u/LoseNotLooseIdiot Jul 31 '26

Which is insane because everyone forgets it took them two years to make that final season (back when every show, including GoT, would release a new season every year without exception).

Two years to release a 7 episode season that had zero thought or planning put into it.

1

u/skoomski Aug 01 '26

I’d wager after he passes away they will admit they got tired of Martins bullshit and not holding up his end of the handshake deal to finish the series and provide guidance for the show to adapt his material

I remember some people saying they shouldn’t have given him more time after a decade of low production. 7 years later it seems like an even crazier idea

1

u/Worldly-Hospital5940 Aug 01 '26

They had a Star Wars trilogy to write and direct...! Until S8 was so bad it cost them their trilogy.

1

u/Tweed_Man Aug 01 '26

That literally was the case. They'd been offered to do the next Star Wars trilogy and wanted to get on that asap. But in doing so trashed their own reputation so bad it doesn't appear to be happening anymore.

1

u/ClarkKentsSquidDong Aug 01 '26

They did. They were offered more seasons to do the story in but the showrunners wanted to ditch GoT quickly cause Disney gave them an offer for something Star Wars related and they wanted to move onto that immediately.

Then Disney took away that offer when the ending of GoT tanked from how they'd handled it.

1

u/MonkeyBoatRentals Aug 02 '26

I think people ignore the natural story acceleration when all the characters get together. GoT had more space to tell stories when it was following four or more entirely seperate stories. When everyone was together they have to do something, so it is going to feel faster.

It was also why it took longer to film fewer episodes. They couldn't film with separate groups in parallel. If they had stretched it out the complaint would be the opposite, essentially the complaint many have with House of the Dragon.