The cultural endurance of any story has much to do with the desire to retell it, despite knowing how it ends. Breaking Bad is not devalued by knowing the ending; The Sopranos is not devalued by knowing the ending; Romeo and Juliet tells you the ending at the beginning of the play ... making a case not just for this tragedy, but for the endurance of tragic stories in general. Romeo and Juliet, Orpheus and Eurydice—we tell and retell these stories despite knowing how they're going to end. I bring this up because knowing how the show ends, are you going to begin to watch it again? What is the legacy of Game of Thrones going to be?
Because there are endings that ruin a story in hindsight. I used to watch and rewatch the earlier seasons of the show, but now, knowing how it ends, knowing what they're building towards, knowing how nihilistic and stupid and mean it ends up being, there's just no enjoyment in the journey even anymore. Even in the very long process of making these two episodes, rewatching Game of Thrones was just an exercise in frustration, because you know now that the build-up they're going towards has little or no payoff. The enjoyment of experiencing a story should not be ruined by knowing how it ends.
I think that after the dust settles and all the hot takes are taken—and I recognize I'm probably at the end of this train—the answer is going to be no. It's not going to be remembered for the journey we all undertook. It's going to be remembered as a thing that was ruined by its ending—one of the greatest examples of that... maybe ever.
—Lindsay Ellis,
"The Last of the Game of Thrones Hot Takes"
[Viewer discretion is advised; it's GoT clips after all]