It’s been over two years now, and it’s fairly modest to say people have had strong feelings about Game of Thrones’ ending. With HBO’s peddling spin-offs on the horizon and 10th-anniversary box sets in the present, I believe it is time to reflect honestly on this show.
In our “worst” category, not all the episodes are necessarily “bad” all the way through. Even some of the worst episodes have good scenes that are simply undermined by some terrible moments and miserable writing decisions.
#9: Sons of the Harpy [s5e4] – The Unceremonious Kill-Off
It’s important to emphasize that there were plenty of good moments in this episode. The uncomfortable moments were meant to be uncomfortable, such as King Tommen’s clear weakness as a boy king (we all know how Joffrey would have addressed the situation). There was also good banter between Jamie and Bron on their adventure to Dorne (which hadn’t started sucking yet), and there even a nice scene with Stannis bonding (as best he can) with his daughter Shireen. There was even a cryptic scene where Little Finger tells Sansa about how Rhaegar “kidnapped ” Lyanna, then following Daenerys talking to Barristan about Rhaegar’s true nature to the contrary. For the most part this was not a bad episode, until the ending.
It’s debated among fans as to when the show’s quality began to fall. Some say it’s at the last season; others say season 7 because by that point, they ran out of books to work with. Others, including myself, believe the quality of the show started to dip in season 5. Despite having one more book, Dances with Dragons, to adapt from, this was when the show started to deviate into its own story, with characters and plot being rewritten. Part of this meant killing characters that have not died off in the books.
Among them was Barristan Selmy. In the books, he’s still alive and was left in charge of governing Meereen when Daenerys disappeared. This was the role Tyrion played in the show. I’m fine with changing character storylines, but how they chose for Barristan to be killed to make Daenerys angry and burn some of the city’s masters only to be forgotten in the next episode felt very insulting. It seems very out of character for a Barristan who has a long history of protecting bad kings would just walk in the streets.
Furthermore, this is the only time we get to see Barristan fight, and all we get is another badly shot fight scene in an alley. It looked like the harpy guy was about to cut his throat before Greyworm saved him before both collapsed. Only in the following episode (the preview spoiled) do we find out Barristan dies. Why would you make a cliffhanger ending only to show he’s dead in the next? When characters die there meant to drive a plot or give closure to characters. Barristan’s death left neither.
For the most part, this season 5 was simply an empty downer.
#8: The Red Woman [s6e1] – A Season Premier of Nothing
Season 6 is among the better of the latter seasons, but it still had struggles. This was a slow premiere of virtually nothing happening. Why do we have to see an old naked Melisandre? Couldn’t you have done that without taking off her clothes? There’s also a stupid scene where Ellaria Kills prince Dorain and that awesome-looking big ax guy (who did nothing), making Ellaria and her Sand Snakes the leaders of Dorne. (do they not realize they would have created a real-life power vacuum?) Oh, and Sand Snakes can now teleport, only to kill that prince’s son that no one cares about. We will get to them soon.
#7: The Queens Justice [s7e3] – Enter Tyrion, the Dumb
This is on the list because this was when Tyrion, the most popular character in the earlier shows, began to fall, making questionable decisions that made no sense. This was the only time we saw Castlerly Rock, and “it’s only a model”. Oh, and Euron’s fleet appears to have come out of hyperspace for a counter-siege that is never resolved. It will not be the last time Tyrion is made to look like a moron.
#6: Beyond The Wall [s7e6] – Supersonic Dragons
Ah, “The Fellowship of the Wall”. This episode is the closest we get to “standalone side-quest” in the series, and it does have its moments. We have seven characters we have followed for the past several seasons suddenly teaming to capture a white and show it as proof of the coming threat. It was almost like the Avengers. Some of them have histories with each other you completely forget about, such as the fact that Jorah and Thoros were the first through the breach during the Greyjoy rebellion, as well as some classic Tormund lines. There’s also a great conversation between Beric Dundareon and Jon as both characters have been resurrected by the lord of light.
“Death is the enemy, the first enemy and the last. The enemy always wins, and we still need to fight him.”
So what is the big problem? This was when the laws of the Game of Thrones world died. By “laws” I mean “physics”. When Jon’s company faced an army of Whites, he ordered Gendrey (whom these two just met the last episode) to run back to Eastwatch because he is the “fastest”. That line alone is stretching it since Gendrey’s a short dude. But to add on top of that, sending a message to Daenerys, who is an entire continent away, while Jon’s team became trapped on a frozen Island, hoping for Daenerys to rescue them with her dragons.
There is no way they would have done all of this in the time frame established in the previous seasons. In the earlier seasons, it often took characters several episodes to get to their destination, which added to the grounded realism of this show as the only way most people could travel was by foot or on horse. For example, It took an entire season for Arya and the Hound to get from the Twins to the Vale. Sometimes when characters travel, they don’t appear again for several episodes, further illustrating how much time goes by. In the later ones, however, characters almost seem to get to point A to B so fast it’s almost like they have teleported. As much as I complained about the previous episodes, at least they remained relatively grounded within their own reality.
There are also several other points too numerous to write that made no sense which I will simply list here:
- What reason does Jon have to bend the knee now? You’ve already convinced Dany to fight by your side.
- Why didn’t the Night King go for the dragon flying and not when they were hopping on?
- Sansa keeps ordering Brienne around to do nonsensical odd jobs.
There’s also a contrived subplot between Arya and Sansa bickering for reasons that make no sense. There was even a scene where Arya straight-up threatening to remove Sansa’s face, WTF. I know they’ve had a rocky relationship growing up, but not to this extent.
#5: The Dance of Dragons [s5e9] – Anyone Remember?
There is usually a tradition for every episode 9 (or before the finale) to be a WTF experience. Either it is a big twist or a big battle. This “niner” had none. I could see the parts that were meant to be shocked a mile away. When Stannis burns her own daughter Shrieen, I saw it coming since season 4 when Melisandre tells Shrieen’s mother, “It’s important to bring your daughter”. Given what we already know Melisandre is capable of, would you be surprised? It’s a sad scene, but some of that is undermined when it was so heavily foreshadowed.
And there is the Arena fight. While it was one of the better action sequences compared to earlier fight scenes (I can see the choreography this time). The rest felt underwhelming. It was an inevitable cliché for Dany’s dragon to come and save the day when she’s surrounded by the Sons of the Harpy, and that scene where she’s riding looked a little too green-screened. Also, this could have been the moment to kill off Barristan Selmy.
It is not the worst episode but the worst of the “niners”.
#4: The Long Night [s8e3] – One Night of Power Levels
It cannot be ignored that so much effort was put into what was essentially the Avengers Endgame of the series, with nearly every character we know facing a zombie apocalypse. The opening long takes switching from Sam to Tyrion to Bran, who are the most vulnerable characters, reminding us that everyone’s lives are at stake. Ramin Djawadi’s score in the episode’s climax is also one of the best he is ever put in the show. It took 56 days of night shoots to make this battle possible. Such efforts are reserved mainly for big-budget films, so much so that we had to wait two years. Unfortunately, this is on the worst list, so I must give what is due.
I’ve ranted about this before in another article, but it must be stated again. I cannot see a damn thing. I understand what they are trying to do to make this battle into a horror film. Later on, as we see more fire inside Winterfell, we do see more, but this can only be fully experienced on a large 4k TV with full Blu-ray/wifi capabilities, oh, and a dark room. Most people just do not have that. Whenever I have to look at a clip on YouTube, I have to look through my smartphone, and all I see are shadowy blobs.
All this chaos could have been worth it if we had figured out what Bran was up to. Remember, this whole series was building something big between Bran and the Night King, but we never see what that big thing was. the only thing Bran did in the entire battle was warg into ravens, and that’s it.
As for the Night King’s demise, I did like the twist with Arya being the one to do it as she always had this obsessive relationship with death. My problem was that it should have had more of a resolution with Jon. There was a clear confrontation brooding between them, and aside from their dragon fight, which again, it is hard to see they’ve done nothing. They tried to repeat that magic hands raise from the dead trick like in Hardhome, but it did not have the same impact cause we’ve seen it. Having Jon face the Night King in person, realizing he could not beat this, and perhaps accepting his second death before being saved by Arya could have been powerful. Instead, we just get Jon yelling at a dead dragon.
Once again, here’s my problem list:
- How did Sam survive after being swamped by whites?
- Bran says “Im going to be going now” go where?
- Why was Ghost joining the Dothraki and Jorah? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be with Jon?
A further problem is that too many of the characters had plot armor. The only ones that did die, like Jorah and Edd, are sacrificable. Personally, I believe Jamie, Podrick, and Davos should have been among the dead. Their purpose has been fulfilled I think would have ended their stories very well. Even the characters in the crypt (the worst possible shelter, by the way) survived; couldn’t one have eaten Craster’s kid at least? I cannot believe this was the same director that gave Us Hardhome and Battle of the Bastards, but you know what even good directors flop occasionally. There is a really stupid moment for every cool moment, and having too many stupid moments prevents you from enjoying the good.
#3: The Last of the Starks [s8e4] – Episode 1.5
Set right after The Long Night, we get to see the aftermath of how it impacted all these characters. I love seeing everyone in the great hall at first eating silently, knowing the fact they just survived a zombie apocalypse. What do you do? Party like you survived a Zombie apocalypse. Again, it is cool to see all of our characters just having fun. We even get some nice closure among characters who haven’t seen each other in a long time. My favorite is the one with the Hound and Sansa (despite some controversy with Sansa’s remarks).
After their apocalypse drunk party, our grand ensemble parted ways, and it is then that we start to see the show begin to jump the shark.
My major problem with this episode is that it feels like two episodes sloppily edited together. We have Jamie sleeping with Brienne (which always felt like fanfiction) and Him at first staying in Winterfell, only for Jamie completely abandon her and go back to his old self, “Cersi’s Hatful, and so am I”. I think they were trying to show that Jamie’s relationship with Cersi was so toxic that it was impossible for him to break mentally away from Cersi, even if he tried. If that was the intention, they needed more time for Jamie to contemplate his decisions. That, it needed to be split into 2 episodes to get the full idea.
Another list
- Dany goes “I’m not loved? Therefore, I’m crazy now.”
- How did Ghost Survive? And how dare Jon not say goodbye?!?!??!?!?!
- “Half are Gone”?
- This is also where Jon’s arc plummeted in freefall – “She’s muh Queen.”
There was also the infamous scene where Dany was ambushed by the Iron fleet with Rheagal just randomly killed off. This could have been a good spot to end the episode, but instead, it just keeps going. Furthermore, somehow Dany did not see that Iron fleet, or rather, “Dany kind of forgot the Iron fleet.” That was a quote from D/D, the showrunners. This is another problem with this finale season. The writing is so bad and behind the scenes never makes clear what these characters’ plots and motivations are supposed to be. It got so bad that there were no behind-the-scenes interviews with D/D and cast members with regard to the series finale.
At this point, it becomes clear that even the showrunners had no idea what they were doing. The complete distance that Dan and Dave have taken to not give any clear answers following the end of the show did not help. D&D was good at adapting Martin’s written work onscreen, but without it, they just made stuff up as they went along. It’s almost like they abandoned their baby when it was about to finish high school and did nothing when it had a failing grade.
#2: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken [s5 e6]
When I first saw this trainwreck, I thought it would permanently stay on the top of my “worst” list (I was wrong). It was an episode that remained the most controversial of the series, and not for the usual “it’s HBO” reasons.
Chief among these reasons is its portrayal of the Sand Snakes, the vengeful daughters of Oberyn Martel, one of the most badass characters in the show, who got brutally killed the previous season. Despite being hyped up as “strong female” warriors, The Snakes instead came across as cringy in both their acting and their fight scenes. There is a scene where they are fighting Jamie and Bron looks so staged and badly edited that it turns the “warrior girls in” the books into a complete joke.
In fact, the entire Dorne subplot felt like a waist in this season. The princes bodyguard Areo Hotah looks like a real badass with that axe (that they keep mentioning). This would have been the perfect scene they could have used him in, but just swings once that is it. However, it is not the biggest reason this was the list.
Now we come to the most controversial part of the episode, if not the entire series. Sansa getting raped by Ramsey Bolton. Compared to other such scenes in other media, like Handmaid’s Tale, it wasn’t graphic as it was done off-screen with only Theon’s expressions to understand what’s happening. The problem for me is that they were trying to build up Sansa as a new character being mentored by Little Finger. One that’s more cunning and manipulative. After several seasons of her being essentially the damsel under Joffrey, there is an opportunity to finally do something different with Sansa’s character. Instead, they did nothing with it.
It is important to emphasize that this did not happen to Sansa in the books. Something similar did happen, but it was another book character, lady Jane Pool, a friend of Sansa’s whom the Boltons disguised as Arya to legitimize the Boltons’ hold on the north. I believe they made this change because while the other characters’ book stories were still being adapted, Sansa’s story was completely caught up. This has left the writers in a bit of a problem. With no book material to work on, they decided to replace a fake Arya with a real Sansa to raise the stakes and to do something with this character. The problem is they did nothing with it.
Another problem I have is they did not need to rape Sansa to show how evil Ramsey is. He’s already evil – they have shown what he’s capable of for two seasons. Why could they not have done something different with both of these characters? They could have Sansa manipulate Ramsey, feeding his fears about being de-legitimized again. Perhaps manipulating him into killing his psycho girlfriend or his father? They could have done something to show that would make Sansa as an intelligent and complex character. Instead, they moved Sansa from a high tower to a higher tower.
Now sexual assault is a very serious issue that needs to be discussed honestly, especially in this medieval-esque world where this stuff was common. But this seems to have been done as more of shock value than furthering any story. Despite trying to remedy Sansa’s story arc in the later seasons, I felt this has put a major wrench in this show as a whole and, in the end, served as a warning sign of what’s to come.
#1: The Bells/Iron Throne [s8e7+8]
I had no choice but to lob these two together.
P1. The Bells
This was the ending that, for many fans, killed the series outright. On paper, it has all the elements for a finale that would perfectly fit the show. It has betrayal, massacre, dragons, and morally grey choices all fit within the frame of Game of Thrones. A bittersweet hollow ending would be a very fitting conclusion for this show. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got. Instead, we get a confused and jarring mess that completely went against these characters at the beginning of the series
Some are more explainable than others; among them was the resolution of Jamie. There is debate among the fan community about Jamie’s “I never really cared for them, innocent or otherwise.” Many believe that line Broke Jamie’s character arc for good in that it destroyed the redeeming qualities the previous seasons have built him as. “I’ve sworn to fight for the living,” said earlier this season. In the defense of the show Jamie never explicitly said he cares for the common folk. He was bound more by devotion to honor than genuine care. That said, they needed more time to clarify this part and that’s not what the show gave.
Furthermore, It was implied in the books that it would be Jamie to act on the Valencar (little brother) prophecy, which means Jamie would have to be the one to kill Cersei. A lot of us believed at the time Jamie would do it to save King’s Landing as Cersei had used wildfire in the same manner as the mad king did 20 years before. And none of that happens. In terms of Cersei and Jamie’s demise, it is fitting to have both of them die together with the walls collapsing on them, but the process of getting there felt unsatisfying.
The bigger controversy, however, came from Daenerys and her moment where she suddenly turns on King’s Landing’s citizens going full Mad Queen that seems to go completely against her character. The problem was when she did similar actions (burning men alive) it was against people who had betrayed or wronged her, burning them made total sense as it was self-defense or a means to an end. She never deliberately turned her dragons on civilians unless she had no choice. Here, however, Daenerys had a clear choice, and she decided to burn the citizens first. When she landed on the wall staring at the red keep, I thought she would fly right to the Castle and burn Cersei out after the city surrendered. If she did that first and developed a blood lust, she could turn on the citizens. The only scene that gave any hint of this was when Daenerys was talking to Tyrion about how the people should have risen against Cersei like they did for her in Mareen, but that was just a one-off scene, that is not a motivation that is an afterthought.
Any sense of strategy that the show’s previous seasons prided on was also gone. Daenerys and her last dragon inexplicably dodging ballistas, despite the previous episodes to the contrary. And burns those ships (like all 1000 of them), and they’re all just gone. “All we needed was one good shot” even Cersei didn’t by this logic. Furthermore, Dany’s army should have been depleted at this point; after all, they survived a whole battle with the Night King. They never made clear how many Dothraki survived the Long Night, and there really be only a few hundred Unsullied by this point. So how does a depleted rage tag army able to storm the Lannister forces? Again, the show doesn’t clarify their exact numbers or how long they get there. Finally, the Golden Company, one of the best mercenary armies in the world with a long, complex history in the books, was utterly annihilated in just 10 seconds.
Just struttin’ in with the bois.
I feel bad because most actors, especially Emilia Clark, were giving their all. Even some of the Ideas in this episode are not bad. The Idea of Daenerys finally going mad, even flipping the script making Cersei and the Lannister soldiers the victims, really fits with the show’s narrative. It’s also poetic to have Jon snow walk the same path his adopted father walked 20 years ago when the mad king was overthrown. They were all great ideas, just badly executed.
Part 2: The Iron Throne
And then the next and final episode. To Its credit, it did give most of our characters closure. There was a great scene in the movie with Jon and Tyrion talking in his cell about love versus duty. It is also poetic to have Daenerys look at the iron throne like it was in her vision and get to touch it but never sit on it. Even though many of us wanted and expected Jon to be king by the end, there was a good alternative ending for Jon to leave the rest of the world behind and start a new life north of the wall. In truth, there were positive endings for all the stark children. The scene where they part ways is a visual reference to Lord of the Rings. Jon wasn’t the Aragon of this saga; he was Frodo all along.
There were great scenes, but once again, more bad moments outweighed good. Daenerys became Wig Hitler with a communist speech proclaiming that they would conquer the world like a fascist egomaniac.
Then we get the dragon pit meeting where Tyrion and all the remaining lords declare Bran to be king.
Wait, what the what? All because Bran had the best story? So, Jon Snow, whose entire story arc we followed from growing up bastard to a noble house, to be Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, betrayed, and stabbed to death only to come back, take back his family home then discovered he is the True heir to the Iron throne the embodiment of Ice and Fire, all meant nothing. Following the show, Jon was one of my favorite main characters, then has become reduced to saying “She’s ma Queen” every other scene.
Yeah… Bran had a much better story sitting in a damn chair doing nothing but getting high on time-travelling drugs.
Again, there were good ideas and themes in this episode. The Iron throne is like the one ring, so it makes sense to destroy it. The willingness to choose your leaders instead of following one’s noble heritage is also a good idea to explore, and I think that was the theme that the later seasons were building towards. Both Jon and Daenerys became leaders in their own right because they were chosen for their valor and strength of character and not just their family names. But BRAN? There are so many problems with this finale that It’s worth a more in-depth article for another time.
Conclusion
To what extent did the finale reflect Martin’s intended story’s for these characters we may not fully know. It is unclear when his finale two books will ever get published. As much as we rip on D&D delivering the ending we got, they at least gave us an actual ending. Martin’s next book was promised to us every year for the past decade – who’s truly to blame?
