The Iron Throne (806)

[P-90_177]

GoT is in the elite league with LOST and BSG for the three worstly written series finale ever. All 3 had good points and parts, but the final judgements are still huge disappointments.

I'd actually put BSG on my list of excellent finales, albeit a mediocre final season as a whole. On the whole I don't think the GoT finale was bad. I think the season as a whole has been bad and clearly terribly rushed but as finales go it was simply mediocre.

To be fair I don't even think there's really anything wrong with how the episode developed. Dragon melting the Iron Throne and carrying Dany's body away is a bit eye rollingly convenient but otherwise it's all fine. Where it falls down is the dialogue. GoT is effectively a show where people talk. It's never been about battles and sword fights, it's about the intrigue and how the characters are still affected by everything that has happened to them before whereas this season and particularly these last few episodes have only really scratched the surface of why the characters do what they do. Nothing any of them has done has been out of character, we just needed a little more richness to add a little depth to what was happening.

[Skydiver]

It could have used a couple more hours to flesh things out. Like Grey Worm’s intense anger and thirst for revenge. As someone that had to reconcile his youth and what happened to him all of a sudden go all ‘jaffa revenge’ seemed a bit off.

Jamie leaving Brienne to go to Cersei when he seemed to genuinely care for Brienne. Arya giving up her revenge to save her own life. Bronn going from ‘pay me’ to being on the small council seemed to just happen.

There is a lot that just happened with no real explanation (honestly some of this is very much like the books where it was quite common to read the end of a chapter, think a character si dead, to see them come back 18 chapters later fine and well.

Honestly I don’t think anything they did would have met folks’ expectations.

[Gen. Chris]

It's not about meeting expectations, though. It's about writing the conclusion to an eight-year long show in a competent way.

They failed.

The final season had great directing (for the most part), cinematography, acting, CG/sets/costumes...etc. Hundreds of people giving it their all for this show. And they were all let down by the writers in a season that cost around 15 million dollars per EPISODE.

What a missed opportunity.

[Dael]

I was not iimpressed with the ending. It was a real let down. Cersei is dead, nobody killed her, Kingslanding fell on her & Jamie (Where does this valonquer come in to it?)

.....

Jon is banished to the Wall because Grey Worm says he should be? Who died & made him king?

Valonquar prophecy, from what I've seen around the web, wasn't made in the show - just the books. I wasn't watching at that time to know, so can't confirm.

Grey Worm DIDN'T want Jon to go north - he wanted to kill him for treason. And to be fair, this isn't him acting entirely on his own initiative - Dany was clear about the punishment for treason. If anything, being willing to bring Tyrion to a council meeting was slightly odd - since the queen wanted him dead as well, Grey Worm would have been logical if he had carried out the sentences immediately. Not right - but logical. It would have been his queen's command.

[lopo30]

Btw the part of the last episode where Bran have been a king for a week and have a meeting with the council.

Then Bran ask about Drago and say i will see if i can find him. Like for what you need to find the dragon for ?
That part of the episode was just useless. Why mention dragon and then not show what was it up to and so on in the end.

[P-90_177]

Btw the part of the last episode where Bran have been a king for a week and have a meeting with the council.

Then Bran ask about Drago and say i will see if i can find him. Like for what you need to find the dragon for ?
That part of the episode was just useless. Why mention dragon and then not show what was it up to and so on in the end.

I don't think it needed explaining. It was Bran's way of having a slight dig at the Small Council by just saying "Well you guys go ahead and start running the country, I'm gonna go Warg for a few hours... Cos like... I can do that. And you guys can't... Just in case you ever think I'm not watching." To be honest I kinda felt like that was part of the whole conversation of having not having a Master of Whisperers and a Master of War, because who could you possibly find who would be better at gathering intel than the King himself.

Don't get me wrong. I think adding a quick scene of Drogon laying Dany's body down somewhere in Slavers Bay or such where she's still adored would have been nice. For all the bad she ended up doing it would have been a nice rounding off to show her somewhere where she will still be mourned. But I feel that's a separate complaint to the Small Council scene.

[SoulReaver]

so turns out the leaks for the last half of the season were legit so HBO has a mole

question is why would an employee do this? disgruntled? didn't get a raise?

[Teddybrown]

Wanted to warn us how bad it would be? We waited almost 2 years for this...

I joke, I joke, but when you have 2 episodes where things are just left (coffee cup episode 4, water bottle episode 6) you wonder where the care went for these things?

In my opinion although I enjoyed this last season while watching and think there were some awesome scenes/moments, now that its over I kinda feel a bit deflated about it. Its just not been up to the standard of previous seasons.

[Darren]

Well, it's the end of one of the greatest and most ambitious series in television history. Game of Thrones will be remembered for its sprawling world (which is still just a sliver of GRRM's books) and its high points. It won't be remembered for its ending, which by the time we got here kind of had to go down the way it went down.

Dany is the Mad Queen, and Jon is the only one who can stop her (and her armies) from striding across the world. And note that he's only in a position to do so because they have fallen in love, and she (and Drogon) trust him enough to let him in. So at least in that regard the past two seasons have paid off, and were not squandered by a sudden left turn in the narrative.

Really, I think viewers and critics should regard the series finale as #805 and 806. The climax of the story is #805; episode 806 is "What do we do now?" and tons of (I think largely needed) denouement. And as a two and half-hour series finale, it's pretty epic and gut-wrenching. The hero becomes the anti-hero; the liberator becomes the butcher. Everyone else is left to pick up the pieces.

The theme of the show has been whether or not we can break out of the larger systems in which we find ourselves: houses and inheritance, family and legacy, prophecy and destiny. This is what the Iron Throne represents. Will Daenerys become like her father? Will she "break the wheel" of houses fighting over the throne, trampling the common people in the process? Turns out both of these are true: she did become the Mad Queen, and she also did break the cycle -- by pure force.

Until the next time. Until the next Robert's Rebellion deals a blow to her new Targaryen empire. In the end Dany embraced the throne because she hasn't broken the wheel at all; she's only managed to get on top again. She is a tragic heroine, in the classical sense of tragedy.

Dany's death is finally what breaks the wheel. Drogon's destruction of the Iron Throne symbolizes that the game is over.

There is now no heir -- no children, no legitimate heirs for Robert or for Cersei, and no way in hell that the Queenslayer is now going to be made king, even if he wanted it. There is no heir. The next king, and all future kings, will be chosen by the nobles. No more blood succession. No children born to rule. No long-standing family dynasties. That is a massive political shift in the history of Westeros. (If you know the history of western civilizations, you'll recognize this change as one of the primary signals for the end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the modern world.)

Of course there will continue to be power plays, alliances, subterfuge, and betrayal (and in this respect the game does go on). This is still a monarchy. But the rise and fall of houses, and the domination of Westeros by fire and by sword, has ostensibly come to an end. The Game of Thrones is over -- tragically, despite Daenerys Targaryen and not because of her.

I find that satisfying enough.


Some other scattered thoughts:

• Jon didn't desert the Night's Watch. He's no oathbreaker. I think he's just helping the Wildlings to resettle north of the Wall.
  
  
• Jon living out his days at Castle Black is fitting. Putting him on the throne would have felt wrong, somehow. Exploiting his lineage to win support of the noble houses would have felt out of character. Either he ends the story by taking the black, or he ends up dead on the floor alongside Daenerys (and we have a truly Shakespearean tragedy).
  
  
• #VarysWasRight T-shirts, please.
  
  
• Grey Worm is on point here. He is loyal enough, and furious enough, that he's not going to walk away and have Jon and Tyrion simply have their victory because they murdered their own Queen. He's in control ... but he's also not going to force military rule, and regard himself as some sort of logical successor to Dany. He has all the might -- yet he still recognizes that the military needs a legitimate ruler to take orders from.
  
  
• Uncle Edmure, sit the F down. We didn't come all this way for you.
  
  
• While the choice makes sense, Bran didn't get enough post-Raven character work for his becoming king to be satisfying. He'll be a wise ruler ... and how do we know this? Because he's a cripple? Because he has the history of Westeros downloaded into his brain? Because he'll be incredibly difficult to fool and manipulate?
  
  
• The people left sitting on the Small Council are a bit too convenient, a bit too "cute." All the characters we know and love. I understand the TV need for this sort of payoff, but find it unrealistic that the kingdom will now be governed by this group of numbskulls. I know most everyone else has been killed off by this point, but it makes the world of the show feel smaller.
  
  
• And there's no way in hell that Podrick is named to the King's Guard. He's only been able to fight competently for what, a few months? Maybe I buy this if they specifically named him King's Guard In Charge Of Pushing The Wheelchair In Times Of Peace.
  
  
• Water bottles! Come on, guys. Finish strong.

While on the whole I am satisfied with the final two seasons of the show, there's no question it felt extraordinarily rushed (especially in comparison to the pacing of Seasons 1-6). It feels as though D&D decided they were done with the series, had bitten off more than they could chew (who says No to infinite network renewals?), and looked for an exit strategy.

In the end, it's made me want to go back and finish reading GRRM's books. I suppose that's a win for an TV series -- to make you want to invest hundreds more hours in the world and the characters. But I'm also going back to A Song of Ice and Fire because I want to see that world and those characters given the full due they deserve. I'd like to see this story -- and this ending -- done in a way that is not merely satisfying, but right.

[DigiFluid]

In the end, it's made me want to go back and finish reading GRRM's books. I suppose that's a win for an TV series -- to make you want to invest hundreds more hours in the world and the characters. But I'm also going back to A Song of Ice and Fire because I want to see that world and those characters given the full due they deserve. I'd like to see this story -- and this ending -- done in a way that is not merely satisfying, but right.

Take your time. It's been nine years since book 5 came out and we're still waiting on 6 (with no end in sight), never mind book 7.

[Skydiver]

Take your time. It's been nine years since book 5 came out and we're still waiting on 6 (with no end in sight), never mind book 7.

Yeah, I honestly think fanfic will close out the series before GRRM will, but time will tell on that one. I honestly think he’s finished with Westeros and just doesn’t want to admit it. He got his fantasy of his books becoming a tv series and I’m sure is quite nicely rewarded with the royalties.

I didn’t think it was dire, perhaps rushed and hurried. It was no Avengers Endgame. It was no Big Bang Theory - who just had their great series finale by the way.

[Chaka-Z0]

Yeah, I honestly think fanfic will close out the series before GRRM will, but time will tell on that one. I honestly think he’s finished with Westeros and just doesn’t want to admit it. He got his fantasy of his books becoming a tv series and I’m sure is quite nicely rewarded with the royalties.

Agreed. I know he claimed otherwise but the way I picture it is *Martin applies dot on line, there! finished!*

I didn’t think it was dire, perhaps rushed and hurried. It was no Avengers Endgame. It was no Big Bang Theory - who just had their great series finale by the way.

People keep using this as an excuse for the mediocre last two seasons we've been served, I don't think it is personally. It was clear as day that the show would take over the books considering Martin's trademark i take my sweet time. Why was it rushed in that case?

It was planned, foreseeable that this show would need some serious creative support for whatever came after S05. If the plan was to end it at season 8, as I'm sure it wasn't, S06-S07 should've set up the table for the finale season which wasn't by a long shot.

To me it looks like D&D woke up one day and either realized they couldn't do it or rather didn't feel like doing it anymore and decided to abruptly end this series in 6 eps. Platschu correctly mentioned Lost and (not sure I agree but I guess it fits in there) BSG finale as comparison, he's right except for one thing, Lost & BSG might have had bad endings but it was at least coherent (in a certain fashion).

There was no rush, no networks pulling the plug, etc. The fate of this finale is solely on the hands of D&D and their incompetence. That's probably why as a fan of both the show and the books I am so angry towards them. I honestly wish mercy upon all SW fans if those two clowns are to direct the upcoming SW movies.

[Platschu]

Since 4 more spinoffs are coming maybe we get a direct continuation...

* * *

The best part of the episode was the shots when Dany looked like she has got wings.

The worst part was then Tyrion has found his siblings. If not the whole cellar has collapsed then Jaime and Cersei could have stood a few metres away. Not like this rubbish and they are killed by bricks, but there were plenty of place where they could have hidden. This is simply bad.

Not to mention Jon. What has he got at the end? Nothing. No reward... No family heritage, nothing. Okay, he and his parents played a major role in Dany's madness, but then this is all?! He goes back to the north. Meh.

The costume of Arya was ridicolous. Why would they make a cape which can not cover her in the front? Stupid design.

Bronn. Why would Bran keep that promise what the Lannisters brothers have made for him? How has he got High Garden? Even Sam would have more right as his family served the Tyrells.

Sansa has got her own kingdom. Meh. This was also weird. So basically the Starks siblings has won everything.... 1+6 Kingdoms + 1 Beyond the Wall. Brrr.

Talking about Wall. There is no Wall. And why would the wieldlings go to the tundra if the Winter can last for years? I know I can understand they don't like civilization and they want to be free and independent, but North is enough big to settle them down until spring arrives... So why would they suffer at a frozen wasteland? Even if there is no Night King, their survival should be more important then their pride.

* * *


By the way there would have been some other ways to create a WTF moments for the end:
- Arya takes her face off (Waif or Jaquen) so she has died long time ago
- Bran could stand up from the wheelchair and he was just playing it for the power
- Dany the Dragon really reborns as a dragon (as a mate or child for Drogon)
- or Dany could be resurrected by the other Red Priestess
- Or Dany could be brought to north where she turns to be the new Night Queen
- same goes to Jon : his eyes could have glown into blue while he is riding north
- Westeros is part of WestWorld
- the giant really dreams the whole series and it played in his eyes (they talked about it in season 1)
etc.

[Chaka-Z0]

- Westeros is part of WestWorld

*Bran rips mask off, Anthony Hopkins rises*

Ha ha ha my dear Bernard.

[Platschu]

Imagine a mega-crossover between Game of Thrones, Rome and WestWorld. GoT could be the Mediaval World, while Rome could be the Roman park. Even the re-used actors could be easily explained.

Like this classic meme....
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