(Hated Trope) Endings so awful they completely destroy the legacy of the media.

[u/MeepMan324]

1. Two and a Half Men's final episode teased Charlie Sheen's character coming back and going to harm the other characters whilst also having insults to his character and Charlie Sheen himself. It's clear the director had a grudge and the ending where his character comes up to knock then get crushed by a piano before it cuts to the director before he says "winning" before getting crushed by another piano
2. This was an upbeat animated show about a magical teen princess. The writers desperately wanted a romantic endgame for her and her best friend, but the way they got there was essentially multiversal omnicide. To stop a villain, the main character unilaterally decides magic is the root of all evil and destroys it entirely. By doing this, she casually commits mass genocide against every purely magical being in the multiverse. It also triggers a massive apocalyptic event that violently crashes different dimensions together into a chaotic hellscape. But the show frames this horrific, mass-extinction catastrophe as a sweet, triumphant ending just because two teenagers get to hold hands in the rubble (Star Vs The Forces Of Evil)

[u/Winjin]

I remember GoT merch being EVERYWHERE

Everyone was invested. It was on tracks to become an absolute gravy train

And the thing is, the legacy was basically erased. It's like it almost did not exist, and it was so bad, that even the spin-offs, while they exist, are barely relevant. They are just... there. Sort of.

I see almost no merch, barely any cosplay, games, etc

Hell, The Witcher LARP event had like 2,000 participants a couple years ago. THOUSANDS of people dressed up and showed up to play as regular folks, because there were like what, maybe thirty witchers in the entire thing. Warhammer LARP events in Moscow have had 1k+ people since 2018 or something similarly wild, excluding the Covid times

Last big GoT game was had before season finale, there is basically zero interest in larping them. I'd say that seems like a pretty good indicator of the fan response being like "eh, we're not interested enough to throw together costumes and camp for a week"

[u/ebietoo → u/Winjin]

What about all those poor little girls named Khalissi? Go through life like that, or change your name? I know what I’d do, even if it made home for the holidays hellish.

[u/kevinspaceyiskeyser → u/ebietoo]

They will be ok for the first 4 seasons even 6 but after that who knows

[u/RA576 → u/ebietoo]

I mean, that was stupid even before the show shit the bed. That was a title, not a name. "Dany" would be a slightly unusual, but still acceptable name for a girl, like you don't even need to change it.

[u/Turbulent_Lunch4548 → u/ebietoo]

Poor Khalissi, their parents didn't even spell (title not a name) 'Khaleesi' right.

[u/ebietoo → u/Turbulent_Lunch4548]

No that’s my fault. Transcription error.

[u/Naive-Vehicle-6845 → u/Winjin]

I live in Northern Ireland where GoT was partially filmed. It was huge for little rural towns because they'd have loads of tourists coming through to see filming locations where previously these towns were barely on maps. I drove through one 10ish years ago and they had Stark banners hanging outside the Tesco because the tourism they were getting was insane. That is how big GoT was, and then it all just vanished after the finale because it was so bad

[u/Winjin → u/Naive-Vehicle-6845]

Oh man and imagine how many folks made extensive repairs\repaints in preparations for the finale and the incoming boom of tourists after that... Poor folks must have lost quite a lot of money when the tourism fizzled out.

[u/revanisthesith → u/Winjin]

That's something I often mention when people talk about how the cultural impact just died. I think there are still GoT tours in Dubrovnik, Croatia, but they already had a lot of tourism.

I particularly feel bad for the places that didn't have as many visitors who invested in it and had it just die.

People still do Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand and probably will be for a very long time. There's a market for things like that. But not much for GoT.

[u/MrNotEinstein → u/Naive-Vehicle-6845]

Also from Northern Ireland, its kinda crazy how big it was at the time. I remember planning family outings based on the filming schedule of the show. We had a picnic while watching them film parts of the battle of the bastards.

I was also part of a funeral that happened to be going past them filming something in county down. Everyone who was there for the show stopped and stayed quiet until we were well past them, which i thought was very sweet. Im not sure what scene they were filming at that point but I do know Kit Harrington was there and I think Sophie Turner. I wish I had been able to stay and watch but unfortunately I had to go and sit in the cold while they buried some great uncle I had met once when I was 3

[u/MF_Bfg → u/Naive-Vehicle-6845]

Pretty sure Dubrovnik still has a thriving GOT tourism sector, but that tracks.

[u/dino_spice → u/Winjin]

I feel like GoT was the last show we had that was remotely close to monocultural in terms of its popularity. I don't know whether I'd go so far as to say that its decline was a major contributor to the death of the monoculture, but I don't think there's been another TV show that's totally consumed society the way GoT did since it ended.

[u/Winjin → u/dino_spice]

I agree that I feel it was, actually, too. It was one of these giant things that burned out thousands of people. No one wants to commit to yet another epic story that will end with a wet fart. I can't think of a single show that gripped so many people at once.

Like all the merch I see now is kids merch, as it always were. Bluey for kids and teen-sized Kpop Demon Hunters all the way. Adults don't really have anything they are ready to trust again so far

[u/noahsense1 → u/Winjin]

House of the Dragon isn’t as relevant in pop culture right now, but Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was hella popular when it was airing. I’m sure the next season is going to blow up quite a bit when it comes out.

[u/alurkerhere → u/noahsense1]

Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is excellent! It's a lot of fun and very entertaining. They hit it out of the park with that one.

House of the Dragon... yeah I stopped watching.

[u/Fargoth_took_my_ring → u/noahsense1]

Genuinely never heard of that one

And I read the Dunk and Egg stories

[u/noahsense1 → u/Fargoth_took_my_ring]

I highly recommend watching it! Very down to earth midieval vibes as you probably know fron the books

[u/Zykium → u/Fargoth_took_my_ring]

It's pretty great, casting is amazing and GRRM has given them the outline to Dunk and Egg stories that haven't been published.

[u/CometGoat → u/Winjin]

It was funny going to Dubrovnik in Croatia, where the old town was used to film kings landing. I completely forgot about kings landing until I saw magnets for sale

[u/Bloodyjorts → u/Winjin]

I remember maybe like...a year or two after it ended, I saw a reddit post from a person who said their job was directly connected to licensed merchandising and whatnot. They said that while the show was airing, GoT Merchandising was an absolute juggernaut that you don't often see from a franchise meant for adults. But after the finale, it near immediately fell off a cliff. They couldn't give the stuff away, and nobody wanted to partner with HBO to make GoT merchandise. Usually even when a series ends, the merch sales will coast for a good long while. Not GoT.

Now, I know it's the Internets and people lie, but what this poster was saying DID line up with what I was hearing from people I knew in real life, who ran stores that sold fandom merch or worked in places that made it. HBO had to be freaking out, because they made so much money off of merch.

GoT merch sales never really recovered. With HOTD, the show isn't consistently good, and they cannot figure out what the fandom actually wants (it's not cringey Rhaenyra quotes on a teeshirt, my guys), and I don't think I've seen anything made for AKOT7K, despite how well received it was. The illustrated editions of the books did pretty okay, until the publishers decided to go with obviously Gen-AI (with a sloppy paintover) for AFFC.

[u/Winjin → u/Bloodyjorts]

Yeah it's not like anyone did show us sales numbers but there's a lot of indications that the ending was so bad, it just fizzled out both nerds and pop people alike, even a lot of fans were no longer interested in being associated with it. 

[u/UtterlyInsane → u/Winjin]

The Americans could have taken that spot in the cultural zeitgeist, it has the quality and the drama and sex/intrigue that sold so many on GoT. Also the ending was fantastic.