How Avengers: Endgame Delivered A Satisfying Ending (But Game Of Thrones Failed)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Game of Thrones are two of the decades' biggest pop culture phenomenons and both came to conclusions within a couple of days. Avengers: Endgame concluded the Infinity Saga at the end of April and a month later, Game Of Thrones ended.

Avengers: Endgame was a satisfying - if imperfect - ending to the saga, wrapping up over a decade's worth of storytelling while simultaneously setting ground for the MCU going forward. It brought many character arcs to a close in a way that pleased fans and critics, and we all loved it 3000.

Game of Thrones, on the other hand, failed to stick the landing. The final season was plagued by a whole myriad of problems with some frankly terrible writing decisions. It wasn't all bad (and Endgame wasn't completely flawless) but it failed to please many fans and critics. The petition demanding a remake of season 8 is an extreme overreaction, but there's damn good reason why people are pissed.

So how did one deliver a satisfying end to a long-running series while the other failed so spectacularly?

Obviously, spoilers ahead for both Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones season 8.

How Endgame Delivered: As the culmination of 11 years of storytelling, Endgame had a lot to wrap up, and it did so successfully. The stories of the original six Avengers were wrapped up nicely, but that discussion will be saved for a later entry on this list.

The film paid off Ant-Man's role in the wider MCU with the quantum realm being a central plot point, and the return to the battle of New York in 2012 came with excellent callbacks to The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and even Doctor Strange, and reminded us why we love this interconnected series.

And of course, Cap was worthy of wielding Mjolnir, which was teased all the way back in Age of Ultron. Oh, and he finally said "Avengers assemble". About time.

How Thrones Failed: Remember how Jon was revealed to be Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and the rightful heir to the throne? Yeah, that meant nothing.

Remember how Arya spent years(?) training to be a faceless man in Braavos, a skill that would have been really useful this season? Yeah, that was completely dropped.

Remember how Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven, and he's all-knowing and has mind powers that would have been quite useful in fighting the White Walkers or Daenerys? Yeah, he was completely useless and mostly spent the season just being creepy.

And the White Walkers had eight years of build-up only to be defeated by a stab wound in the Night King halfway through the season.

It's baffling how Game of Thrones had introduced so much for so little to actually matter. So many viewers followed this story for years, and for them to sit through so many plot lines that ultimately didn't matter was insulting.