(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/SortIntrepid9192]

What perplexes me is why WB didn't just... give the show to another showrunner. Like, seasons 7 and 8 weren't bad because D&D took some creative risks which didn't pan out, they were bad because they rushed through pre-production and basically wanted to tell 40 episodes' worth of content in 15 episodes so they could go and do Star Wars. HBO apparently wanted 10 seasons of 10 episodes each, and the actors were down for it. None of them had some kind of career waiting for them after GoT which would have kept them super busy, and GoT probably paid great.

D&D were the weakest link here. When they said "hey, we want to do two more half-seasons so we can do Star Wars" why didn't HBO just say "OK, go do Star Wars, Bryan Cogman is gonna be showrunner from S7 till S10" or something like that? Surely the risk of another writer taking up showrunner duties was lesser than the risk of the showrunners absolutely rushing through the plot in 1/3 of the episodes?

[u/McFlyParadox → u/SortIntrepid9192]

IIRC, Dipshit and Dingleberry themselves have some kind of direct "ownership" of the rights to TV adaptations. Something about them talking with RRM directly to secure the rights that he had refused to license up to that point, and knowing the released source material well enough by heart that RRM trusted them - and only them - to do the adaptation.

Unfortunately, it turns out that memorizing the source material doesn't mean you can write good fan fics of it over your TV show catches up to where the books had left off (surprise!) So there very likely wasn't a way for HBO to drop in a new show runner. I'm sure they could have probably paid D&D to go away, but they probably wanted too much money and HBO after a certain point was probably like "whatever, its your reputation", because they had secured the rights to do some spin-offs.

[u/Gr8CanadianFuckClub → u/McFlyParadox]

The worst part is, they wrote amazing scenes, and a few parts of the show, like Arya with Tywin, are better than Arya with Roose in the books imo.

But for every good scene, theres about 10 things they did worse than the books.

[u/Western_Chest_4688 → u/Gr8CanadianFuckClub]

The classic Cersei "Power is power" scene is show original too, and its still one of the best scenes of the entire show.

https://youtu.be/ab6GyR_5N6c

[u/s00pafly → u/McFlyParadox]

Didn't they figure out Jon's heritage or something

[u/Alaus_oculatus → u/s00pafly]

That's the story. But it was/is a well known theory even 26 years ago. And I am keeping it as a 'theory' since it technically hasn't been confirmed in the books yet, even though 16(!) years have passed since the last book came out.

[u/SortIntrepid9192 → u/Alaus_oculatus]

Yeah, people are acting like figuring out Jon is a Targaryen is some kind of amazing feat of deduction, but it's actually pretty obvious if you read the books. I take that story less as "George realized these two were geniuses who figured out his secret plot" and more as "George realize these two actually read the books, unlike the previous people who pitched him stuff."

[u/SignificantPaper1760 → u/s00pafly]

They browsed a few forums, the dedicated fan base had that figured out ages ago. It’s pretty clear they never actually read the books themselves. The actors that had read the books were having to constantly correct them.

[u/RogueAOV → u/SignificantPaper1760]

That's what bothers me with 'thats why they got to do the show' the fanbase had the theories and the three possible choices were, random prostitute, Ashara Dayne or R+L=J.

If Jon's mother was a random prostitute, it literally has zero impact to the story. If it was Dayne, it literally changes nothing. If it was Lyanna then it changes everything, it's the only possible choice.

So if GRRM asked, who is Jon's mother, then it must matter to the story, so it absolutely has to be Lyanna.

[u/SirBiscuit → u/SortIntrepid9192]

While much of this is true, saying the actors were down for it is rewriting history. Some of them were, but a lot of them were EXHAUSTED by the time the show ended. It was a complex and tiring show to shoot.

[u/Nadare3 → u/SortIntrepid9192]

I recall an actor saying that on the contrary, the actors were not down for it, they had already devoted a good part of the last 10 years to the show and were very exhausted

[u/creepykreme → u/Nadare3]

Yeah, everyone was over it. Filming was grueling and a lot of the cast and crew were ready to be done.

[u/forlorn_hope28 → u/SortIntrepid9192]

And then they lost Star Wars too. Truly a massive L to destroy the popularity of one IP while simultaneously getting fired from another before they could damage that one any further as well.