Promotional material for Game of Thrones Photo: IC

After eight epic years of chivalry, sex, death and dragons, Game of Thrones fans worldwide got their final fix in one of the most hotly anticipated events in TV history.

The blood-spattered tale of noble families vying for the Iron Throne ended on Sunday in a ratings juggernaut that has demolished audience records like a Dothraki barbarian finishing off a skillet of horse meat.

"We want people to love it. It matters a lot to us. We've spent 11 years doing this," Dan Weiss, who directed the 73rd and final episode with fellow showrunner David Benioff, told Entertainment Weekly. 

One of the darkest and most controversial primetime series ever made, GoT has been the target of criticism over the years for senseless violence and its repeated use of rape as a dramatic device.

The scriptwriters have brutalized women, killed children, depicted graphic sex and had their characters hacked, stabbed, flayed, poisoned, decapitated, burned alive, eye-gouged and eviscerated - all in glorious close-up.

Even principal character Jon Snow (Kit Harington), whose fellow Night's Watch troops would chant "And now his watch is ended" at comrades' funerals, suffered the indignity of being briefly dead after a particularly violent quarrel.

The adult themes have not deterred fans, however, nor the industry itself, which has seen fit to make it the most decorated series in history, with 47 Emmy Awards.

Airing in 170 countries under its portentous tagline, "Winter is Coming," the show is also the most expensive ever, with a budget of $15 million per episode in its final run. 

The season seven finale set a US record for premium cable TV with 16.5 million people watching live or streaming on the day of transmission and 15 million more tuning in later.

Season six was the first to move beyond the source material, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, and carve its own path.

Critics said it marked a return to form, with the narrative allowing female characters to demonstrate complexity and moral agency lacking in some of the earlier seasons.

The shortened final two seasons have been more of a mixed bag, with many fans furious over what they consider poor writing.

Most controversial has been the rapid descent into mass-murdering madness by Emilia Clarke's fan favorite Daenerys Targaryen, arguably the lead character in an enormous ensemble that has called on the talents of such luminaries as Charles Dance, Sean Bean, Jim Broadbent and Diana Rigg.

"In the 11th hour, Game of Thrones turned Dany not just into a Mad Queen, but into a crazy ex-girlfriend - the laziest of sexist tropes," remarked Daily Beast writer Melissa Leon.

A change.org petition called "Remake Game of Thrones Season 8 with competent writers" had comfortably passed 1 million signatures by the time of Sunday's finale. 

The divisiveness of the show has always been part of the fun, according to James Poniewozik of The New York Times. 

"What made Game of Thrones emblematic of its time is how it divided its audience from start to finish, right down to the matter of what a happy ending would even constitute," he wrote. 

"It gave its intense fandom multiple angles to debate as well as to enjoy."