So everybody and their mother is very upset with the second to last episode of the last season of HBO's Game of Thrones. Unlike most pieces of pop culture, I actually like this show.

Well, I watch the show. I really liked the books, and have given up on seeing them finished. The show stopped following the books closely at the end of season four, and that is when the show took a dip in quality. It butchered some important plotlines and characters like my favorite, Stannis Baratheon.

One could argue that, ahem, spoilers, Daenerys Targaryen lost it and destroyed a city with her dragon even after her enemy surrendered.

Now many people have argued that the show has been laying the groundwork for this for years, and they are right in my opinion. Dany's breakdown has been a long time coming.

This just enrages people because something something identity politics something something misogyny. I forgot depicting women as human beings is incredibly sexist.

We also live in an intellectually devoid age where people compare fiction to real life because it feels good. Trump is, as we all know, Voldemort, Emperor Palpatine, Sauron, Joffrey, etc. and Daenerys is Hillary Clinton.

Comparing fictional characters to nonfiction is infantile and unhealthy. Not only that but it lulls you into a false sense of security. Voldemort gets defeated, good conquers evil, etc.

If you want to make the world a better place it requires more than just the hope that good will win inevitably.

I suppose the funniest irony here is that all of these liberal comparisons are close to being true in Daenerys's part. Her activities in Essos during seasons 3-6 shows the "white savior" trope. And her "liberation" and occupation of Meereen was almost exactly like the war in Iraq. Yes, the government there was bad, but Dany's rule led to instability and terrorism just like the US occupation did.

Anyway, almost all fiction is bad nowadays because people writing these TV shows, movies, teen book series, or whatever it may be no longer care about telling a good story. They're all about subverting your expectations. Game of Thrones started this trend when it killed off its "main" character in season one. However, Star Wars made it popular when The Force Awakens set up a bunch of plot points that were just erased in The Last Jedi.

Writers have given up on writing interesting stories and just want to lazily throw in gotchas at the ending. And audiences end up feeling disappointed in their favorite movies and shows, and this is why. They're giving you a mediocre plot with an ending they did not do anything to establish or set up and we just munch down on it.

Because we are living on a dying planet, and we need our distractions anywhere we can get them.