Yeah but 90% of the shows out there are daytime reality tv that nobody would be comparing this show to anyways. This isn’t airing on the history channel after Ice Road Truckers. This is an HBO show, it’s supposed to be a cut above regular television.
I mean this show was initially pitched as ‘The Sopranos with swords.’
So if you wanna say it’s better than 90% of the other shows out there then I’d counter and say it’s on the lower end of the 10% of shows that attempt to tell a serious serialized story over several seasons.
So yes while it is a cut above shows I wouldn’t spend any time on it stands out to me as low quality among high quality television. And in this day and age, 10% of shows is a massive amount of content to watch and compare this to. So why shouldn’t there be criticism for it? It’s not like it’s the only serious drama on tv, it just has the most money thrown at it.
Combine that with a community that is highly dedicated to the books which often places character and drama over action and the reason for the hate for D and D becomes obvious. They aren’t focused on the same themes that some fans in this sub are. And to be fair, general audiences are mostly on D and D’s side.
Personally I hate the “enjoy the ride” stance, though, as it encourages consumption without analysis. When I enjoy something I want to know why I enjoy it. Similarly when I don’t enjoy something I want to know why I didn’t. Analyzing the reason why I like something helps me pick out why I don’t like things and vice versa.
Art is meant to be critiqued and analyzed. Every story has flaws, it just comes down to an individual on how many flaws it takes to ‘break’ the story for them. And once that happens it’s hard for the magic of the story to come back. When that story happens to be an adaptation of an incomplete book series people are highly invested in, then you get people who no longer enjoy the story that’s being told but are too invested to convince themselves not to watch out of a sense of obligation.
This turned into a bit of a rant but I hope it provides some insight on the frustration of some people leading into season 8.