Game of Thrones 8.06 The Iron Throne

And… this is it. The final entry on our eight-year-long Game of Thrones watch. As always, I’m joined by the brilliant Grand Maester Christopher Lockett, who has been doing these with me right from the beginning. At the end of this week, I’m going to post an archive post where I’ve gathered links to all of our GoT posts right from the beginning, in case, like me, any of the rest of you decide to do a rewatch and want to see what we were saying at the time (though I’m sure we had a lot of predictions in there about things that never came to fruition!) This is the toughest episode to write yet, because it’s the last one—and I need to warn you: prepare thyselves for some sentimentality to follow. Chris and I have already talked about possibly doing one more wrap-up post when we’ve properly wrapped our heads around this finale, but we’ll have to find the time first. Also, most of you probably know this already, but this Sunday is a special documentary about the making of Game of Thrones that looks pretty great.

This was an episode where I cried, laughed, was a little confused, wasn’t quite sure what I thought at times, but I have a lot to say about it (of course). I will say, one thought kept running through my head the whole time: oh Ned and Catelyn… if only you could see where your children ended up. ♥

And now, for the last time, I say… take it away, Chris.

Christopher: Well, here we are at the end of all things … and I just want to start by saying, Nikki, how much of a joy it has been writing these reviews with you for the past eight years, and how much I will miss it. For those just tuning in to these co-blogs, Nikki (who, when she’s not protecting Gotham, is a mild-mannered freelance editor named Jen) and I have known each other for twenty-three years, having met during our MA at the University of Toronto in a class called “Victorian Fiction and the Politics of Gender.” We bonded during a conversation that, as conversations often did in the 90s, became a lengthy series of Simpsons quotes. This would not have been remarkable in and of itself were it not for the fact that most of our grad student peers took hipster pride in ignoring popular culture. Meeting someone who was not only willing to admit to watching television, but was positively enthusiastic about it, was not at all unlike finding your long-lost twin with the other half of the amulet you’ve worn all your life.

And if that sounds like an exaggeration? Really not.

But of course, there’s more to friendship than just a shared love of The Simpsons. We’re lucky to have people in our lives with whom time and distance don’t matter, and when you see one of those people in person after months or years, it’s as if your conversation picks up where it left off. I’ll miss writing these GoT reviews in part because I’m going to miss GoT, but really, I’ll be missing the back-and-forth with a dear friend whom I don’t see nearly often enough. (Seriously, Nik—time for that family vacation to Newfoundland).

End of sentimentality. On with the review.

I have, unsurprisingly, been thinking over the last few days a lot about final seasons and final episodes. Which ones worked, which didn’t? Which series stuck the landing? Which ones managed to piss off a critical mass of fans? Even just a glimpse at social media in the hours following the GoT finale makes it obvious that the most vocal fans hate the way the series ended, but that is hardly surprising, considering that those same voices have been declaring this final season an irredeemable dumpster fire for several weeks now (and I just hasten to point out that “the most vocal fans” on social media does not necessarily translate to “the majority of people” more generally).

I suspect Nikki will have a lot to say on this topic, as she is one of the few stalwart defenders of the series finale of Lost—an episode, it doesn’t hurt mentioning, that was slagged by none other than GRRM.

Payback’s a bitch.

Ending a TV series is a fraught affair at the best of times—the “best of times” meaning that you’re bringing the plane in for a landing when there is still a critical mass of love for the show. (I suppose, then, when you end a TV series at the worst of times, nobody really cares). But that also means there will inevitably be upset people.

Given that I devoted a lot of words in our last post complaining that Benioff & Weiss did not give this season enough episodes to breathe and properly develop character arcs and narratives, I won’t rehash that here. That being said: my first thought on watching this, the last new episode we’ll ever watch of GoT, was that it followed pretty closely on the last one. The previous episode might have needed an awful lot more in the way of lead-up to be properly comprehensible, but the first part of this episode made total sense so long as you don’t question the last one.

Which is to say: Daenerys is now the Mad Queen and has gone the way of her predecessors, and thus everything that follows her sack of King’s Landing makes sense in the context of that fact.

Are we all on board with that? At least provisionally? Good. Then, if you’re seated comfortably, we’ll begin.

Oh, wait—one last thing: a professor at UWO, whom I TA’d for in my first year there and who has become a good friend was interviewed on CBC the other day. John Leonard is a brilliant Milton scholar and also a Colbert-level Tolkien nerd, and has for several years been teaching a course on A Song of Ice and Fire. His thoughts on Game of Thrones coming to an end are unsurprisingly insightful.

But now, on to the episode.

Let me start by saying I completely whiffed on everything I’d suggested in the first episode, re: the new credits. OK, so no new dragons, no clutch of eggs beneath Winterfell. Given that we end the series with a single dragon who decamps for parts unknown, the promise of the many dragons on the third armillary sphere band now seems like the deepest crimson of red herrings.

On the other hand, I totally called two key points, though neither quite unfolded the way I expected: Drogon melting the Iron Throne to slag, and Jon Snow returning to the North to be reunited with Ghost.

The episode begins with Tyrion (re)entering the city, registering anew what Daenerys visited on it. We see the burned corpses and the devastated city, and Tyrion’s distraught expression as he registers the destruction that he, despite all his best efforts, helped create. Behind him walk Jon Snow and Davos. The three pause around the incinerated corpse of the little girl still clutching her toy horse, whom we saw in the previous episode, and who—as someone Arya attemped to help—functions as the metonym for the thousands killed by Daenerys’ rage. “I’ll find you later,” Tyrion tells Jon and Davos, and when Jon tells him it isn’t safe and offers to send men with him, Tyrion insists, “I’m going alone.”

Where he is going isn’t clear at first, and my initial assumption was that he was going to confront Daenerys—and that Jon’s warning and offer of a bodyguard was a recognition of their erstwhile queen’s state of mind. But no—he’s going into the bowels of the Red Keep, presumably to see if Jaime and Cersei made good their escape (and possibly to escape himself?). I’m being charitable in that reading: what is communicated is that he has somehow intuited that that is where they met their end, and he finds their remarkably intact corpses under what seems like a rather shallow amount of rubble. (As Tyrion entered the space of their demise, my girlfriend muttered, “What, is he going to see a golden hand sticking out of the rocks?”, and moments later—a golden hand sticking out of the rocks. Not the subtlest or most believable moment in the episode, however well Peter Dinklage played Tyrion’s grief).

Meanwhile, Grey Worm’s execution of surviving Lannister soldiers is interrupted by Jon Snow. “It’s over,” he says. “These men are prisoners.” To which Killy McGhee says, “It is not over until all of the Queen’s enemies are defeated.” Davos, ever the voice of reason in a crazy world, demands “How much more defeated do you want them to be? They’re on their knees!” But of course Grey Worm is implacable. Daenerys has commanded him to kill all who followed Cersei, and he’s going to carry out her orders. “These are free men,” he points out, and therefore their choice to follow Cersei makes them culpable—a callback to Daenerys’ riposte to Tyrion that the people of Meereen rose up against their tyrants, while the people of King’s Landing willingly submitted to Cersei’s rule. When Jon holds Grey Worm back, there’s a brief standoff between the Unsullied and the Northerners; Davos tells Jon that they should speak with the Queen, which is more or less the equivalent of saying “we’re telling Mom!”, but it’s hardly as if the matter has been tabled—as soon as Jon and Davos walk on, Grey Worm proceeds to start slitting throats.

After Tyrion uncovers the weirdly peaceful-looking bodies of his siblings, we shift to Jon and Arya arriving (separately) at Daenerys’ triumphant address to her troops, which looks and feels uncomfortably Triumph of the Will-ish.

What did you think of the finale, Nikki?

Nikki: Triumph of the Will indeed, my friend, right down to that Targaryen banner (seriously, did someone bring that with them to the battle?!) in the Nazi colours. Why have I never noticed that before?

I will similarly become sentimental about the end of this show, and what a joy it’s been working with you on it, but since I have the pleasure of going last, I’ll save my blubbering until then. What I do want to say at the outset, if y’all will indulge me for a moment, is to pause for a moment to mention something that has happened in the real world we live in. I’ve been involved in fandom for many years now, as long as Chris and I have been friends and I first got an internet connection when we were doing our MA together. And among the very first fandoms with which I connected was Xena: Warrior Princess. I was writing my first book about it, and reached out to fans on various mailing lists and listservs (remember those?) and among the many amazing fans who got back to me, one in particular stood out. Over time, Kim and I became very close friends, emailing each other several times a day—she called herself my #1 fan when my first book was published—and the first time we met was to share a hotel room at a Pasadena Xena convention where we saw Lucy and Reneé. (Probably not the smartest move on either of our parts, but this was before people were aware of catfishing on the interwebs and, luckily, it worked out.) She travelled from Arizona to Toronto to see me, and we continued to keep in touch for many years, and then, like most friendships, the emails were further and further apart. Just over a week ago I saw something I wanted to tell her about, but since I hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of years, I did a quick google search to make sure she was at the same place.

And that’s when I found her obituary, from 2018.

I managed to contact her workplace and someone there contacted me back (she had no real family to speak of), and generously explained what had happened. I’ve been heartbroken for a week to know that the world no longer contains Kim, one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever met. She was someone I met through fandom. And, like Chris expressed above, we fans are a very specific kind of people; we find our tribes and stick to them. Kim was such an important part of my tribe, and I miss her so much. This final blog post is dedicated to you, my friend. I’ll always be your #1 fan. Love you.

Anyway, back to the story. My overview on the finale: the moment it was finished, my husband turned to me and said, “Thoughts?” and I thought for a few moments and simply replied, “Satisfied.” And I am. I remain committed to loving last week’s episode, and thought the writers made all the right decisions. I also remain convinced of what you pointed out, Chris, that the timing is what’s working against them this season, that it should have been drawn out over a longer period. But for that, we can probably blame HBO: no TV writer is offered 10 full episodes and says no, so I’m assuming it was the network stupidly putting a severe limit on a final season of their most successful show ever. As John Oliver said two weeks ago, “In two weeks this network is fuuuuuucked.” (Note how many ads ran right before the episode basically begging subscribers not to leave and showing all the great shows coming up…)

All week long, my mind has been racing back and forth over various storylines from the past eight years, thinking of plot points I hadn’t thought of in a long time, considering the number of times we joked about who we want to win the game of thrones. I think it was pretty evident by this final season that no derrière was ever going to occupy the Iron Throne again (to be honest, I just assumed it had been destroyed last week, and even this week when we got that iconic moment in the throne room I was shouting, “Hurry up and sit because it’s the only chance you’ll get!!”) We said we’d love to see Tyrion ultimately in charge, or Sansa, or Arya, or Jon and/or Daenerys. And in the end… a bunch of them are indeed in charge. Not in the ways we’d considered, but I’m actually pretty happy with the way things ended up. But more on all of those points later as we hit them. Let’s get back to where you left off.

(Our readers are now thinking good LORD this is going to be the longest blog post ever…)

I stand by my assertion that the end of Jaime and Cersei was a deeply affecting and poignant one. I know a lot of people this week have been complaining about it, saying Cersei deserved to be tortured or worse. Maybe they’ve never been a parent, but I don’t think there’s anything you could do to Cersei that would be worse than holding her child in her arms while he chokes to death… only to have another one poisoned because of something she had done, and the third one commit suicide just to escape the world she’d created. She’s made so many errors, and lost all of her children along the way. And Tyrion wasn’t blowing smoke when he said she was a devoted mother: she truly loved those children. Cersei tortured and killed, and she’s been tortured back… it’s over. I thought Dinklage’s performance when he finds their bodies was beautiful, I agree with you 100%, Chris. Just as Daenerys was (until Jon’s revelation) the scion of House Targaryen, so too is he the last of House Lannister.

As Daenerys prepares to give her Hitlerian speech to the troops, I was amazed at just how many Unsullied and Dothraki were still there. I thought most of them had been wiped out at the Battle of Winterfell, and I’m certain she set more than a few of them on fire last week as necessary casualties, yet it looks like there are more now than were at the beginning of Winterfell. Which was a little odd.

Daenerys says something in thanks to everyone who aided her:

To the Dothraki: “Blood of my blood. You kept all your promises to me. You killed my enemies in their iron suits. You tore down their stone houses. You gave me the Seven Kingdoms!” Drogon roars.

To Grey Worm: “You have walked beside me since the Plaza of Pride. You are the bravest of men, the most loyal of soldiers. I name you commander of all my forces, the Queen’s Master of War!”

To the Unsullied: “All of you were torn from your mothers’ arms and raised as slaves. Now… you are liberators! You have freed the people of King’s Landing from the grip of a tyrant! But the war is not over. We will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all the people of the world! From Winterfell to Dorne, from Lannisport to Qarth, from the Summer Isles to the Jade Sea. Women, men and children have suffered too long beneath the wheel. Will you break the wheel with me?”

It’s a powerful speech, and if you listen to it and imagine yourself one of the people she’s addressing, you’d follow her to the ends of the Earth. She liberated everyone in front of her, and they’ve followed her this entire way. They’ve seen her at her very best, and they saw King’s Landing as a place of rot. If some innocents got killed along the way… oh well; it’s a sacrifice for the greater good. Having a queen who would take the throne and liberate all of Westeros is more important than a few measly lives.

Her idea isn’t a new one. And historically, it’s not always seen as a bad one. Do you think the British troops in WWII made sure not a single German civilian died in the war? That the American troops in Vietnam made sure there wasn’t a single innocent casualty? Last week as Drogon was immolating most of King’s Landing, I said to my husband, “It’s like napalm.” And guess what? Napalm was invented—and dropped—by the Americans, the “good guys,” during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and as far back as WWII. They did it in an effort to quash Communism, and killed untold numbers of innocent people along the way.

Oh well; it’s a sacrifice for the greater good. And it’s OK that the Americans did it, because, you know, freedom and all that. But Daenerys? First of all, she’s a woman, and secondly, she speaks some foreign tongue. Better do away with her then.

I actually love how the writers frame this, because in the end, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that what ultimately happens to her was the right thing; it’s all about perception. Arya and Jon saw people being burned alive in the streets in a single day in a horrific act; Daenerys and the Unsullied and the Dothraki have seen people live their entire lives in chains, and have liberated them. When she says, “You have freed the people of King’s Landing from the grip of a tyrant,” we’re supposed to think, “Um, look in a mirror!” She talks about liberating people across Westeros, and says, “From Winterfell to Dorne,” and a dark cloud goes over the faces of Jon and Tyrion. They read that as, “Because that tyrant Sansa Stark is keeping people under her thumb” when the Unsullied see it as, we were just there, and there are a lot of people being treated badly in Winterfell; did you see the way they treated those servant girls? Of course, Dany very much could have meant, we’ll unseat that tyrant Sansa Stark. We’ll never know.

Side note: throughout this scene, I kept thinking, Tyrion and Jon don’t actually speak Valyrian; we saw how badly Tyrion bungled it last week trying to see Jaime, and there’s no way Jon is fluent in anything beyond his own language, nor has he been given the opportunity to become so, since even the wildlings speak the Common Tongue. So… how do they understand a word of what she’s saying here?

But anyway, this is a very complicated scene because of the way one speech is interpreted by various people. And the reason it works so well and makes us so angry is because it mirrors what’s happening in the world today. Fans have wondered why Game of Thrones has changed so much. But it’s always been a kind of reflection of our own world, and the world has changed very much from 2011 to now. Could you imagine your 2011 self being suddenly zipped to 2019? You’d be reeling from how different the world is politically and ideologically. And watch Dany’s speech, as the woman speaking for the people. She says something that the progressives behind her don’t like, and their faces are nothing but scorn. But the people in front of her hear every word differently and are willing to overlook the bad things she’s done. Nah, that doesn’t look like a certain rally that we see regularly done by a certain politician who doesn’t seem to get that he’s already won an election and can stop campaigning now. Many people actually love him, and they’re not all morons, despite what you might think. They’re people who are desperate, who feel like their leaders have never helped them no matter how many times they’ve appealed to them. They didn’t get what they’ve been promised, so they vote in someone who looks like a monster to some people; a savior to others.

As Dany makes her speech, the camera zooms in on Tyrion, who slowly walks forward. My heart stopped; I was so worried he was going to do something stupid in front of too many witnesses. She looks at him with scorn. “You freed your brother; you committed treason,” she says.

“I freed my brother,” he concedes. “And you slaughtered a city.” And with that he rips the Hand of the Queen brooch off and tosses it down the stairs. Dany’s face is a bundle of emotions. Deep down, she knows what she did, but she has to remain stone-faced… “Greater good, greater good, greater good” she must be saying to herself. Jon watches Tyrion escorted away as prisoner, and then realizes she’s watching him. He says nothing, and neither does she.

As she walks away, Jon turns to see Arya suddenly standing beside him, creepily appearing out of nowhere, as Arya brilliantly does. Arya immediately refers to her as “your queen,” and he says, “She’s everybody’s queen now.”

“Try telling that to Sansa,” says Arya. And with that, she turns the screw a little deeper into Jon. Torn always between the family he loves and his loyalty to his queen, he knows that one is in serious danger from the other. But as Arya says next, Sansa’s not the only one in danger; Dany knows that Jon has doubts, and she won’t abide a threat to her regency. “I know a killer when I see one,” Arya says.

Jon goes to see the imprisoned Tyrion, who immediately asks for wine (a Lannister through and through). Tyrion has been sitting and thinking about how he’d betrayed Varys and watched him burn, and that Varys must be thinking, “TOLD YOU SO” from wherever he is. (Interesting side note if you don’t follow me on Facebook: my friend Mary pointed out an awesome tidbit from Reddit that had gone right over my head, but last week when Varys was talking to kitchen girl Martha about how Dany wasn’t eating, and he said we’ll try again later, it seemed like such a throwaway scene; except what many of us missed is that he was actually trying to poison Daenerys, and she wasn’t taking the bait. When he removed his rings, that was likely a payment to Martha, who would collect it later. BRILLIANT.)

Tyrion asks Jon if there’s any life after death, and Jon says there wasn’t in his experience. Tyrion is thankful for the oblivion that awaits him, and says he asked for this fate: he’d strangled his lover, killed his father, betrayed his queen… and he’d do that last one again. He is where he is as a result of a series of choices; the people of King’s Landing weren’t so lucky. Jon reassures him that the war is over now. Tyrion says, “OH REALLY?!” and reminds him of the war speech (that, again, I don’t think either of them fully understood, but perhaps they were going on body language alone, which was pretty telling). Tyrion gives that flip side perspective I was talking about earlier, saying she “liberated” the people of Slaver’s Bay and King’s Landing, and will go on doing so until she can rule over everyone that’s left. Jon reminds him that TYRION was the one counseling her, until today.

I LOVE the back and forth that happens next, which pretty much mirrors the fandom battles I’ve seen all week: Jon is the apologist, explaining exactly why Dany did what she did: she saw her best friend beheaded; her child had been shot out of the sky. She’s not her father, and shouldn’t have to bear the banner of her House just because her last name is Targaryen, no more than Tyrion should have to apologize for the sins of Tywin Lannister. Tyrion counters: my father and Cersei killed a metric shit-tonne of people in their lifetimes, and still didn’t come close to what Dany did in a single day; the city burned for her grief, and they didn’t deserve it.

“It’s easy to judge when you’re standing far from the battlefield!” says Jon. But Tyrion says, “Would you have done it?” knowing the answer to that question, just like he and Varys knew the answer to that question two episodes ago. Jon says he knows nothing, but Tyrion doesn’t accept it. “Does it matter what I’d do?” asks Jon.

“It matters more than anything,” says Tyrion. Tyrion reminds Jon, as if he’d read my words in the blog last week, of all the people she’s burned in the name of them being evil, but once they were killed no one could argue they were anything else. They “stood between her and Paradise,” and she killed them, Tyrion says. Jon is devastated. He knows the truth, but he loves Daenerys. And Tyrion concedes that. “I know you love her… I love her too. Not as… successfully as you [ha!]…” but he believes her. And he says love is more powerful than reason.

“Love is the death of duty,” says Jon, such a brilliant little parable that even Tyrion asks if he came up with that one himself. No, Maester Aemon said it. “Sometimes,” Tyrion says, “duty is the death of love.” He says Jon’s entire life he’s tried to protect people. He’s never been the sword; he’s been the shield. Who’s the biggest threat to the people now? Shouldn’t he be doing his civic duty?

Tyrion knows what he’s asking, and he apologizes for it, but just as Arya had said earlier, Jon is a threat to the Iron Throne, and she won’t leave him alive. “That’s her decision,” says good ol’ Jon, “she IS the queen.” And Tyrion stands there, wondering if he’d been speaking gibberish this whole time. So he tries one more thing:

“And your sisters… do you see them bending the knee?”

Jon pauses, looks stricken. He says they’ll be loyal. “Why do you think Sansa told me the truth?!” Tyrion pleads. Jon says they don’t get to choose, and Tyrion says, “No, but YOU DO. And you have to choose now.”

And Jon leaves to go see his queen.

Christopher: Before I continue with the recap, I need to correct you on a specific point: Benioff & Weiss were not forced to bring GoT to a quicker conclusion than they would have liked. HBO was happy to let them do two ten-episode seasons for seven and eight, but they made the choice to condense them. I bring this up because I’d also assumed that the studio execs were repeating what they’d done to Deadwood and Rome (and the ghost of Firefly haunts us all), but no—the choice was artistic rather than fiduciary, so I’m not overly sympathetic to B&W’s blunders.

As Jon walks purposefully to see Daenerys, we have what is, on rewatch, the most comical part of the episode: the pile of snow shifts and moves and Drogon emerges. Presumably the attack on King’s Landing really took it out of him, enough that he fell asleep long enough to become covered in snow. But the erstwhile Targaryen scion’s approach is enough to wake him (or perhaps he’s just standing guard) and he turns to regard Jon quite closely.

This moment is very interestingly shot: we do not get a close-up, as we have in the past, of Jon facing the dragon from just a few feet away. Instead, the moment unfolds from a distance. Drogon stares at Jon for long enough to make it anxious, but then curls up again in his snowdrift.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now: dragons are just giant cats.

Jon enters the Red Keep, and in a transition that is both symbolic and quite nicely done, disappears into darkness as Daenerys emerges from it—him descending into the dire task he must perform, her seeing for the first time the light at the end of her long tunnel. She emerges into what remains of the throne room, which isn’t quite as she saw it in her vision. There is more roof and walls missing, for one thing. But sitting (miraculously) intact is the Iron Throne itself, and Daenerys walks slowly toward it as Lord of the Rings-esque music plays. The music is a nice touch, as it evokes precisely the kind of generic clichés we expect from traditional fantasy—the Chosen One approaching the throne of destiny, etc. One imagines that that is the narrative unspooling in Daenerys’ mind as she regards the object of all her labours. She approaches the throne; she touches it; but, crucially, she does not sit in it. Either sensing or hearing him, she turns to see Jon Snow standing in the entrance. And in that moment, just briefly, the Music of Destiny switches to a few notes of the GoT theme. I missed that on my first viewing; whatever else one might complain about the final season, the scoring of this show has never been anything less than top drawer.

Daenerys regards Jon, then turns back to the throne, and tells a little story. “When I was a girl, my brother told me it was made with a thousand swords of Aegon’s fallen enemies.” This, indeed, is the story of the Iron Throne as told in the novels: the swords of defeated enemies, forged into a throne by dragon fire. (Devotees of the novels like myself cringed the first time we saw the series’ version of the Iron Throne: it was too perfect, utterly unlike the mass of misshapen steel and iron described in the novels, with points and edges protruding so that an unwary monarch might cut him or herself; Aerys the Mad King was described in his later days as always having scabs on his hands and arms from these hazards, and in a key scene King Joffrey cuts himself while in the midst of a tantrum while sitting on the throne). Daenerys continues, with childlike wonder, to remember what it was like to try and imagine what a thousand swords might look like. And now I’m here is the obvious end-point of her narration, but Jon doesn’t let her get there. “I saw them executing Lannister prisoners in the street,” he practically spits at her. “They said they were acting on your orders.” “It was necessary,” Daenerys responds, obviously a little irked to be distracted from her reminiscence, but Jon is having none of it. “Have you been down there?” he demands, outraged. “Have you seen children—little children!—burned!” Daenerys’ response—that it was Cersei’s fault for using them as human shields—is of course weak tea. She is similarly unsympathetic to Jon’s plea that she forgive Tyrion, reminding Jon that he, too, has been ruthless with people who betrayed him.

I kind of wanted Jon, in this moment, to give her an itemized list of the people he has executed. Did he behead Janos Slynt so as to make an example and cement his authority as Lord Commander? Well, yes, but the man was a treacherous cock napkin. He killed Mance Rayder as an act of mercy. And the others he executed? THEY MURDERED HIM. Nothing really in the realm of “I let my beloved brother escape and he ended up dying anyway.” Duty is the death of love, indeed.

He pleads with her to forgive everyone, and in this moment we see how, had he been able to see past the incest ickiness and marry her, he might just have been an ameliorating element in her reign. But, having burned an entire city to the ground, Daenerys is at her Macbeth moment: “I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er.”

Her initial response to Jon is one of the most interesting lines from the episode, and indeed from the entire season: “We can’t hide behind small mercies.” It evokes what she said in the previous episode, about how Cersei saw mercy as weakness, but Daenerys’ rule will be all about mercy—for future generations. The “greater mercy” becomes synonymous here with “the greater good.” Jon doesn’t see or accept the distinction. “The world we need won’t be built by men loyal to the world we have,” says Daenerys. “The world we need,” Jon counters, “is a world of mercy. It has to be.”

This episode, and the season leading up to it, will be justifiably pilloried for lacking nuance and subtlety, but this moment is an exception … alas that we don’t get a more sustained argument on these points. Because both Daenerys and Jon are right. Daenerys’ Nuremberg speech was chilling in the way it spelled out precisely the kind of utopian vision that can only be realized through blood, and which quickly becomes the opposite of what it intended. But she’s not wrong here when she says that change cannot be effected by people invested in the status quo. At the same time, Jon articulates one of the most basic principles of any just society, which is that “cruelty is the worst thing we do.” Small mercies in his perspective are not qualitatively different from large mercies, and that foregoing small mercies and small-g good in the name of the Greater Good is ultimately self-defeating.

Daenerys promises that the new world order will be one of mercy. “It’s not easy,” she says, “to see something that’s never been before.” This line made me think of our long-standing fascination with post-apocalyptic narratives: from The Road to The Walking Dead, one of the key points of these stories’ appeal is our inability to think outside of our current system, making the prospect of burning it all to the ground appealing (which I’d also argue is one of the biggest factors in Trump’s election, but that’s a WHOLE nother blog post); that Daenerys quite literally burned everything to the ground is a key element here, as is what follows on this argument between her and Jon.

Jon Snow may know nothing, but he’s not a complete idiot. He’s loyal and honourable to a fault, but also recognizes megalomaniacal delusion when he sees it. When Daenerys promises him that her new world order will be good, he asks her how she can be sure. “Because I know what is good,” she says.

Yeah. A shiver ran down my spine when I heard that too, dude. All that was missing was her adding “Believe me!”

“What about everyone else?” he asks desperately, still hoping for a lifeboat. “What about the other people who think they know what’s good?” And, reading from the tyrant’s handbook, Daenerys replied, “They don’t get to choose.”

Well, that tears it. Daenerys implores Jon to help her build this world and break the wheel with her, and he says, “You are my Queen, now and always,” but “always” in this instance means “for at least the next twenty seconds.” They kiss passionately, but are interrupted by the inimitable schhhkk sound of a blade being slid home … at which point we have our answer to the question of who would be the one to kill Daenerys. Jon of course weeps over her body, and in the background we hear Drogon’s perturbations as whatever psychic link he had with Daenerys is cut. 

I want to say that the true grief in this scene belongs to the dragon: Jon might have loved Daenerys, but it is the moment when Drogon nudges her inert form—and makes little mournful sounds—that made me cry a little.

Drogon then rears up over Jon and screeches his grief and rage more loudly, and for a few moments we wonder if this is the end of Jon Snow, too—will he be immolated, in spite of his Targaryen blood, for the murder of Drogon’s mother?

For a moment it looks like it, as Drogon opens his maw wide and we see the tell-tale signs of fire at the back of his throat … but instead he lets loose not on Jon, but on the Iron Throne itself, melting it down to molten metal.

As I mentioned earlier, I called this moment, though not in this particular way: I’ve been saying all season that an appropriate and satisfactory end to the question of “Who sits on the Iron Throne?” would be (á là the Faceless Men) “no one,” and that the best way to accomplish that would be having Drogon burn that damned thing to slag. But I’d always imagined Daenerys being the architect of that choice … unlikely, but a more radical way to conclude a fantasy narrative (or perhaps not that radical, as it would be of a piece with Frodo tossing the Ring into Mount Doom—the destruction of power). Instead, it is the dragon that makes that choice, which is … well, interesting. One of the funniest things I’ve read about this episode suggested that Drogon is either extremely intelligent or just kind of dumb—either he recognized that the Iron Throne was the object of his mother’s desire that corrupted her and perverted her good nature, or he saw the dagger sticking out of her chest and thought “DIE, YOU CHAIR OF KNIVES!”

Whatever his motives, he tenderly picks up Daenerys and flies off, leaving Jon Snow looking more bewildered than usual.

Fade to black. And then we’re back to Tyrion, lying in his cell.

Nikki: I’m with you that Drogon is the true sympathetic character in this scene, and he made me well up, too (made worse when my husband quietly said, “He’s… sad.”) And it didn’t surprise me that he intuited that the throne was the cause of all of this, that, as I said last week, they could have stayed across the sea and have been perfectly happy, three dragons and their mum, but she wanted that damn throne. After all, as you and I have insisted from the beginning, the dragons are very, very large cats with wings. And anyone who thinks a cat doesn’t walk into a room, immediately intuit the situation, and show its utter disdain or delight based on a number of complicated machinations in their brains… doesn’t own a cat.

One question I have about the section you covered: You mentioned that Drogon is covered in snow and rises up out of his snowbank, but do you think that might be ash? After all, just earlier that same day the sun was shining and it was hot out, based on the clothing the people of King’s Landing were wearing, and I don’t think winter came that suddenly to King’s Landing… (especially since we’ll see three weeks later it’s hot again). But I wondered if it was supposed to be an indication of just how much stuff Dany burned, that there was that much ash still floating around, enough to entirely cover Drogon.

But now our queen is dead, and I’m in mourning along with Drogon. I adored Daenerys, right from the beginning, and had pledged my loyalty to her House, and despite everything, I miss her already, and I’m gutted to see the end of her. She could have been so amazing for Westeros before things went wrong. And as my husband said, he thinks if a man had made those decisions or said the things she did leading up to the penultimate episode, they would have listened, but he thinks in the end, Varys didn’t want a woman on the throne.

I will admit… during the scene where Jon shivved Daenerys, I was convinced it was Arya wearing his face, thinking there’s no way Jon could actually do this. But it was Jon. I keep thinking we’re going to get a callback to the Faceless Men, but there’s a reason we don’t: Arya doesn’t think of herself as no one anymore.

But oh my god, what a beautiful corpse Dany made. :::tears::: I cried a lot as we saw Drogon flying over the sea, Daenerys clutched carefully in his left claw. She was born in the middle of a great storm, and now she returns, disappearing into a stormy sky. It was so beautiful and sad and I can’t believe her story is over.

And then the screen goes black. And then it opens on Tyrion, who looks like Tom Hanks in Cast Away and I was like wait, what? What’s happening? 

(I guess if you’re going to do this in six episodes—and wow, thank you for clarifying that bit about it being B&W’s choice, which makes it even more aggravating—you have to skip over some finer details to move this story along.) It’s a few weeks later, and Grey Worm shows up and lets Tyrion out of his cage, and takes him to a council meeting at the Dragonpit—ironically an area built by the Targaryens as a place to keep their dragons, and famously the place where all of this bloodshed could have ended if only Cersei and Daenerys had managed to hash out a deal last season.

Sitting there are the most powerful people in Westeros, all united in one council. I wasn’t 100% sure who everyone was there, and perhaps Chris can chime in on his pass to fill in the blanks, but here are the ones I knew:

The first three were Samwell Tarly (obvs), someone I didn’t recognize, but who might be associated with Highgarden? His outfit was a little flowery. Beside him is Frank Edmure Tully, that dipshit brother of Catelyn’s who, unfortunately, is the Head of House Tully, I presume, and whose sentences are always cut off when he’s trying to do something noble (see below). I poke fun, but I was THRILLED to see Tobias Menzies appear one last time on the show!

Next, House Stark is super-represented in Arya, Bran, and Sansa.

Next, we have Brienne, who doesn’t seem to be representing a House, per se, but is definitely one of the most powerful people in Westeros (to which I say… YAY YOU!); Ser Davos Seaworth, who isn’t exactly from a great House either but having served as such an important advisor, I’m glad he’s seen as being a VIP; Gendry Baratheon; and some other dude I couldn’t place, perhaps from a House loyal to House Baratheon, which, until Daenerys recently legitimized Gendry, had been an extinct House.

Next is another person I don’t know, but I will presume he’s from the North given his fur collar; Yara Greyjoy, looking fierce; and another unknown whom I think we can safely presume is the Prince of Dorne, given the golden robes and the fact he looks exactly like the other Dornish princes.

Finally, as I exclaimed on Facebook… ROBIN ARRYN looking shockingly good-looking after an entire run on Game of Thrones looking vaguely inbred, here to represent the Vale as the head of House Arryn; Yohn Royce, whom we all remember as the advisor to Robin, given that Robin was… vaguely inbred; and another man I can’t place but who looks sort of familiar: I’m assuming he’s a Northman and we’ve seen him at Council meetings at Winterfell? Or maybe he’s just Kenny Rogers, not sure.

And of course, we have Tyrion, last of the House Lannister, and Grey Worm, leader of what’s left of Daenerys’s followers.

ANYWAY… suffice to say, these are some important folks. But before anyone can talk about Tyrion, Sansa wants to know one thing: “Where’s Jon?” He was supposed to have been brought out along with Tyrion, presumably to represent House Targaryen, although it’s not clear who actually all knows that fact (or if they want anyone knowing that). Grey Worm explains that King’s Landing is now the city of the Unsullied, and they decide what happens to Jon. Yara Greyjoy speaks up and says the Ironborn do not give up their loyalties lightly: they’d pledged fealty to Daenerys Stormborn and Jon Snow killed her; he should die. Arya tells her to say one more word and she’ll cut her throat. It’s an interesting back-and-forth, given that Yara let her brother go to defend the Starks and die with them at Winterfell, but the Starks don’t know that about her. All they know is Jon Snow did what he did to save his sisters.

Thankfully, Ser Davos is the reasonable one (natch) who stands up and says let’s stop all this talk of slitting throats, and he thanks the Unsullied for fighting with them in the North against the Dead, and for sacrificing so many of their men in that battle. He suggests the Unsullied go to the Reach and start their own House. He calls for an end to war. Grey Worm argues that they don’t want payment; they want justice. Jon Snow took the life of the woman who liberated them.

Tyrion cuts in and says it’s not for him to decide. Grey Worm shouts at him, but Tyrion keeps going. He says it’s up to the queen or king to decide. Kenny Rogers says they don’t have one, and Tyrion says, “You’re the most powerful people in Westeros, so choose one!” Grey Worm tells them to go ahead. Everyone sits silent, and looks at one another, or faces the floor, and of course, the absolute most qualified one stands: Edmure Tully.

It’s an extremely funny moment, as he stands and begins to speak with such gravitas about his experience in two wars (where he spent one as a POW, but he doesn’t mention that) and his experience in statecraft (which is negligible at best) and at this important juncture—

“Uncle… please sit,” says Sansa, cutting him off mid-sentence. Edmure looks at her with surprise, and, rejected, turns to sit, banging his sword against a pole. It’s a fantastic moment, and Menzies is SO good in this scene. (You can actually see Maisie Williams looking like she’s trying not to laugh once he’s sat down.) Yohn says they have to choose someone.

And that’s when Sam stands up. He explains that whoever is king or queen will rule over everyone, so shouldn’t the decision be up to… everyone? And for a moment, I thought oh my god please don’t make this a cheesy moment where they break the wheel by embracing democracy and changing everything in one fell swoop—

But the supporters of the Vale all begin laughing, and Edmure asks if they should give the dogs a vote too. If you listen closely, you’ll hear, “cough Trump cough gerrymandering cough electoral college” and the laughter continues. Whew. They want to move forward, but not THAT far forward.

Grey Worm asks if Tyrion wants the job, and he says no, of course not. He steps forward and asks, “What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags?” No. “Stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it, and who has a better story, than Bran the Broken? The boy who fell from a high tower and lived. He knew he would never walk again, so he learned to fly. He crossed beyond the Wall, a crippled boy, and became the Three-Eyed Raven. He’s our memory, the keeper of all our stories. The wars, weddings, births, massacres, famines. Our triumphs, our defeats. Our past. Who better to lead us into the future?” He’s right. Think of how many people in your Facebook or Twitter feeds whose politics are the opposite of yours, but who watch all the same shows, read all the same books.

Sansa looks shocked. She points out that Bran’s not interested and he can’t father children. Tyrion says that’s what makes him the perfect choice. They all know what the children of kings can do, and “his will never torment us.”

He turns to Grey Worm. “That is the wheel our queen wanted to break. From now on, rulers will not be born, they will be chosen. On this spot by the lords and ladies of Westeros, to serve the realm.” He approaches Bran and says he knows he doesn’t want it, nor does he care about power, but if they choose him, will he wear the crown? The camera pans in, and Bran says in that infamous monotone, “Why do you think I came all this way?”

I will admit, it’s only on thinking about it later, he seems like the perfect choice: someone who doesn’t want war, who isn’t power-hungry, who barely speaks, who knows everything that has ever happened in Westeros and why, and what’s to come so he can avoid the bad and focus toward the good. But, in the moment, I went, “BRAN?!” Ahem. Yes, Bran. And with that, we get a Stark on the throne. Not Robb, not Sansa, not Jon Snow… but Bran. And everyone else sitting there agrees. Except, of course, his sisters, who are like, “Mom always loved you best and now this godDAMmit.”

Sansa turns to her brother and tells him she loves him, and will support him, and he’ll be a great king. But the people of the North have seen too much to ever bend the knee to anyone ever again. “The North will remain an independent kingdom, as it was for thousands of years.” Bran quietly nods, in complete agreement as a Northman himself.

“All hail Bran the Broken, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.” To which Bran says, “Um, thanks, but… could we discuss this whole Broken nickname?”

He immediately tells Tyrion he wants him as his Hand. Tyrion very quickly turns it down, saying his counsel was terrible when he was Hand. Bran refuses Tyrion’s rejection, Grey Worm disagrees and refuses to hand over his prisoner, and Bran reassures him Tyrion will spend the rest of his life trying to redeem himself. Nope, says Grey Worm, not good enough.

And so, in a scene I swear was filmed last—note how Kit Harington’s hair is about six inches shorter in this scene than it is in the very next one—Tyrion goes to give Jon Snow the bad news.

Christopher: I will confess that I am ambivalent about how all this falls out. On one hand, we’re witnessing incremental progress: kings or queens whose rule is established not by patrilineal descent and divine right, but by being chosen by the representatives of the kingdom’s power brokers. A number of reviews I’ve read have suggested that Westeros is inching toward parliamentary democracy, but really, it’s more of an extreme version of the electoral college, with the executive’s term limit being his or her lifespan. And keeping the title of king or queen is not just a misnomer, but misleading. I wasn’t expecting the kind of pure democracy Sam proposes, but perhaps something more along the lines of pre-imperial Rome would have been workable.

Also, Tyrion’s rationale for Bran as, essentially, the “keeper of the stories,” only works for Bran’s reign … unless, at some point in the near future, Bran trains a new Three Eyed Raven to take his place, at which point the principle of the monarch selected by the newly struck electoral college falls apart.

(Also, I’m with you on being delighted to see the return as Tobias Menzies as Edmure, though for me he’ll always be Brutus from Rome).

There is also the rather sticky question of why the North gets to be its own kingdom, while the other six don’t seem to be particularly concerned about submitting to the rule of King Bran. When Yara first pledged her loyalty to Daenerys, she hedged—would the Iron Islands be forced to bend the knee, or could they be their own fiefdom? As I’ve mentioned previously, Daenerys was far more elastic on that question than she ever was with Jon or Sansa, but then that was back when she was still in Essos and needed a fleet of ships to bring her home. Yara’s loyalty to Daenerys in this scene is quite staunch, but one wonders whether the notoriously independent people of the Iron Islands would be quiescent about surrendering their sovereignty when the North refuses to do so. The same goes for Dorne, which in the novels is characterized as almost as reluctant as the Iron Islands to suffer the rule of a king or queen not of their own.

(Again, questions that could have been answered with world enough and time).

When Tyrion gives Jon the “bad news” that he has to go back to the Wall, Jon asks the question that I think most people watching had: “There’s still a Night’s Watch?” Because … well, seriously. Why is there still a Night’s Watch? The ancient enemy that first prompted Brandon the Builder to raise the Wall is no more, and the lesser enemy that had become the Night’s Watch’s primary foe (i.e. the wildlings) are now something resembling allies. So why in the name of the old gods and the new do we still have a Night’s Watch? “The world will always need a home for bastards and broken men,” says Tyrion. Seriously? So this is basically now a make-work project? Will we at least be changing the terms of reference for the men in black? Perhaps they can be something like the Peace Corps now? “I am the shield that guards the realms of men” doesn’t have quite the same resonance when there isn’t really anything to guard AGAINST.

Perhaps the Night’s Watch functions in this way just as a means of saving Jon: the Unsullied want him dead, his family want him freed, but this is a useful compromise, even if the actuality of “taking the black” isn’t really a thing any more (you’ll talk about this in your final pass, Nikki, but my own sense of that last scene when Jon rides north of the Wall with Tormund and the wildlings was that he wasn’t going to return—he was heading north to live as he did for a time with Ygritte). It hasn’t escaped many commentators that Tyrion’s observation “No one is very happy” could easily apply to fans of the show.

“Was it right—what I did?” Jon asks. “It doesn’t feel right.” Tyrion gives what, in my professional opinion, is a very professorial answer: “Ask me again in ten years.” Which is to say: in this moment, I have no idea. Let’s let time and the consensus of history have its say, and I’ll get back to you. Tyrion places a comforting hand on Jon’s shoulder, and turns silently to go. “I don’t expect we’ll ever see each other again,” Jon rasps at Tyrion’s back. Tyrion pauses, and replies, “I wouldn’t be so sure. A few years as Hand of the King would make anyone want to piss of the edge of the world.” I rather loved this line, as it’s a callback to the first season: Jon, frustrated by his status as a bastard and inspired by his Uncle Benjen, decides to join the Night’s Watch; Tyrion, in Winterfell with the king’s retinue, doesn’t return with them but heads north to see the Wall and “piss off the edge of the world.” He ends up in the group traveling with Jon.

From there, we follow Jon’s sprung-from-prison steps down to the docks, where he suffers Grey Worm’s hateful gaze, glaring down at him from the poop deck of a ship—we learn through some brief exposition—bound for Naath. Missandei might be dead, but the dream still lives: having turned down the offer of lands and titles in Westeros, the Unsullied are making like trees and getting the fuck out of the continent. It’s uncertain whether their arrival will be welcomed by the peaceful inhabitants of Missandei’s home island, but presumably future slave-catchers will have to negotiate with the business end of a shit-ton of spears.

Jon carries on to where he meets up with his siblings. Sansa is apologetic about the deal that was struck. “Can you forgive me?” she asks, and for a long moment it seems … maybe not? But then he says, “The North is free, thanks to you.” “But they lost their King,” Sansa replies, albeit with the slightly smug tones of someone who no longer has to kowtow to whom she’d once understood as her bastard brother. Jon observes something we’ve all known for a few seasons now: that Sansa is the best the North could ever ask for. They embrace. When Jon tells Arya she’s welcome to visit him at Castle Black, we learn her plan: to sail west beyond what has been mapped.

Not sure what I think of Arya’s ending … I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense, as eight seasons’ worth of learning to fight and kill has rendered her unfit for any role besides hired assassin—which, of course, being a basically decent person and having rejected her membership in the Faceless Men besides, is not really a career option. So … she now means, like Tennyson’s Ulysses, “To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths /

 Of all the western stars, until I die”? Or is it meant more as an evocation of the end of The Lord of the Rings, in which Frodo, too marred by his experiences as the ring-bearer, departs for the west across the sea? I suppose it’s a sentimentally symbolic choice, which means it’s entirely out of step with the sensibility of GoT.

And then, he kneels before the new King. “Your Grace,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.” “You were exactly where you were supposed to be,” Bran replies, in that cryptic monotone that, I’m predicting, is going to drive his royal subjects a wee bit batshit in the coming years. Jon then walks down the pier to where his tender awaits, and his siblings watch him go … the remaining trueborn children of Ned Stark watching their erstwhile bastard half-brother, actually their trueborn cousin, take his “punishment” and head north.

(I just want to ask: are we supposed to believe that Jon is genuinely aggrieved that he has to go to the Wall? He doesn’t seem happy, but it made me think of Ricky Gervais’ bit of stand-up about the Book of Genesis, when God’s punishment for the serpent is that he has to crawl on his belly for all eternity. “But … Oh, no. Wait. Yeah. You got me. Crawl on my belly? Is this how I do it? I wish I could fly, like normal”).

From that scene we cut to what is my favourite moment of the episode (though it goes without saying, it would have been infinitely more affecting if we’d had time to see Brienne and Jaime’s relationship properly disintegrate). Brienne—now the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard—sits with the book in which the Knights of the Kingsguard’s exploits are chronicled, and she turns to the entry for Jaime Lannister. We’ve been here before, back when Jaime was the Lord Commander; his paltry entry was given more weight in the novels, but also played in the series. Now, Brienne looks at the scant text, which reads:

Squired for Barristan Selmy against the Kingswood Outlaws. Knighted and named to the Kingsguard in his sixteenth year for valour in the field. At the Sack of King’s Landing murdered his King Aerys the Second at the foot of the Iron Throne: pardoned by King Robert Baratheon.

And then in a different hand, Jaime’s own: “Thereafter known as the Kingslayer: After the murder of King Joffrey by Tyrion Lannister, served under King Tommen I.”

Brienne, being Brienne, reads this laconic entry, and starts to write—as is one of the duties of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, to faithfully record the exploits of his or her fellows. She fills the rest of the page, and turns the leaf over. (And just for the record, Brienne’s penmanship is ON POINT). She details everything Jaime did, from his capture at the Whispering Wood to his oath to Catelyn Stark to the bit of misdirection that sent the Unsullied to Casterly Rock while he took Highgarden.

And his last deed—which could not have been easy for Brienne to write—was “Died protecting his Queen.”

After she finishes writing, she has a moment in which it seems tears might come, but they don’t quite, and she closes the ponderous tome. It’s our last real Brienne moment, and can I just reiterate now and for all time just how much I love Gwendolyn Christie? She has been SO GOOD in this role.

And then we shift to the true downslope of the denouement, with Tyrion as Hand of the King essentially re-enacting a scene from several seasons ago as he fussily shifts chairs around the Small Council table. But I will hand off the final commentary on this episode to you, Nikki … bring us home.

My watch is ended.

Nikki: Now I’m gonna cry. (Hold it together, Nik, hold it together.) I too loved Brienne’s moment, it was so quiet and lovely, and like you, I commented aloud that clearly, at some point in her childhood, her father must have given her calligraphy lessons in order to try to make her more “womanly.” I also wondered if she’d write something like, “Slept with another knight after the Battle of Winterfell, but then fucked off to King’s Landing to screw his sister, whom he’d been shagging all along.” But no, our Brienne rose above it (she’s better than I am) and I felt like this was the ending her character deserved.

But now onto the Small Council meeting. As Chris said, I loved Tyrion shifting the chairs, and then muttering grumpily when everyone comes in and bangs them around. And to be honest, it’s been so long since we’ve seen a proper Small Council meeting, it was like we were back in an early episode, and it made my heart swell.

And then Ser Davos enters. I love that he gets his due for all the honest counsel he’s given over the years; who would have thought Ser Davos would outlast Stannis, the Red Woman, Varys, and Daenerys. He’s a man with reason and love, and I’m happy he’s here. He’s the Master of Ships, which is a perfect position for him.

But he’s with Bronn. Now, I understand for many, this is going to be a shrewd decision on Tyrion’s part: making him the Master of Coin makes sense on the one hand, because no one can negotiate a bargain better than Bronn. Keep your enemies close, and all that. But it’s freakin’ BRONN. Of all the other people in the series who have been reasonable, good people, HE is the one who gets a seat on the Small Council? A guy who, if he went to Braavos to secure a loan for Tyrion, and they said, “For double what he’s paying you, we’ll pay you to put a knife through Ser Brienne,” he’d do it. Only if Tyrion didn’t offer him double that to NOT put the knife through her. He’s a backstabbing blackmailer, and while he’s been great for one-liners, he’s about as trustworthy as Joffrey running the King’s Landing daycare.

Sam Tarly is there, in the white Grand Maester’s robes, a position that he’s clearly gotten through taking some quick online Coursera courses and some string-pulling on Tyrion’s part. The Grand Maester is seen as the most senior of all the Maesters throughout the kingdom, and Sam isn’t exactly… senior. However, I don’t think it would be a stretch to think that possibly, all the Maesters in the kingdom have been wiped out, and that Sam, having studied the texts of the Citadel, would know more than they do. Besides, Bran is a walking Citadel library, with all of the books in his head, more or less, so they don’t need a senior member.

But here’s why Sam as Grand Maester works for me: I think this is yet another example of breaking the wheel. Why should the most important Maester position in the kingdom go to the eldest? Pycelle was an old fart who didn’t care about the laws as much as currying favour with the Lannisters. Why not make it a meritocracy? Not the eldest Maester, but the most qualified, the best one for the job. Tyrion’s known Sam long enough to know he has no designs on power, and is wise (he found Jon’s true heritage, as well as figured out how to cure greyscale). I think he’s perfect.

He hands Tyrion a massive book: A Song of Ice and Fire. How… meta. (My favourite bit here is where Sam says, “I helped him with the title,” and then looks at the others, beaming with excitement, darting his head from one face to the other, while they just stare back. Oh Samwell, how I adore you.)

I don’t know how much time is supposed to have passed, but I think it’s safe to say… quite a bit? The Red Keep is looking like it’s been mostly fixed, the floor of the map room is still broken but cleaned up, the place is livable again. (Of course, some of this could have happened while Tyrion and Jon were still locked up.) There’s been time for Tyrion to assemble a Small Council, and for Samwell to rise to the position of Grand Maester. But even then, I would say it’s only been a few months? I say all of this because I’m trying to figure out how Maester Ebrose found the time to write that entire MASSIVE tome in a matter of months when we’ve been waiting approximately 143 years for GRRM to write volume 6 of HIS version of events. (For those keeping track, Archmaester Ebrose was at the Citadel, and was played by Jim Broadbent last season.)

But let’s look past the quickness of writing by hand 1,500 giant pages in perfect calligraphy (cough). Tyrion immediately begins flipping through the book with the same concern anyone has who finds out a friend of theirs has written a memoir: what do they say about me in it? (I will admit to always flipping to an index of a pop culture academic book to find my name, and it’s often there, but mostly so the academics can disagree with something I wrote in my books. I also had an acquaintance write a memoir and found my name in the index, and what he wrote was neither good nor bad, it just was. Which was disappointing; we kind of hated each other, and I wanted it to be horrible, which would have been far more interesting. But the rest of the memoir was shite, too, so what can ya do. HA.) Like me, Tyrion wonders if he’ll be criticized. Or maybe he’ll be kind? Tyrion begins flipping pages. “I… I don’t believe you’re mentioned,” stutters Sam.

HAHAHA! Frankly, this revelation made this whole meta silliness worth it, mostly because it’s a perfect representation of the history books: Tyrion was behind the scenes at every turn, and is arguably THE star of Game of Thrones in a story with about 65 other people vying for that position. But throughout history, it’s not the kings and queens making decisions, changing the course of every day: it’s their advisors, the people in backrooms, the people in the kitchens, the people hiding in alleyways. Their names don’t end up in the history books, but they were the catalysts for so many things along the way. Queen Cersei and King Joffrey will be all over the pages of Grand Maester Ebrose’s book, but it’s Tyrion who was doing the real backroom deals, making the decisions. It was Littlefinger and Varys who were changing the course of history. It was Olenna Tyrell who was ordering the deaths of people who got in her way. They won’t be listed in the book, either, or, at best, they’ll be footnotes. The beautiful thing about Game of Thrones is that it showed the people who play the game aren’t necessarily the ones who want that throne. I loved this little tidbit.

And, side note, when the episode was over, I immediately went over to my first Game of Thrones book and flipped it open to see if Tyrion was actually, in fact, the first perspective chapter of the entire series… but it wasn’t. It was Bran. Of course. (The answer was there the whole time, Dorothy!) And then it flips to perspectives of various Starks before the first non-Stark entry: Tyrion.

Bran enters, wheeled in by Brienne. He begins speaking in that monotone that yes, I agree with you, Chris, will drive the citizens of Westeros (and mostly this poor, wretched, Small Council) completely batty in the coming years. Could you imagine him doing the King’s Speech? “Hello. It is Christmas. Snow is falling. Falling like ash. Ash upon the fields. Fields of the dead. I have seen the dead.”

Meanwhile, people across Westeros are wondering why the hell Samwell Tarly invented the bloody wireless radio so they have to listen to this shit every year.

Anyway, he immediately notes that they’re missing a Master of Whisperers, a Master of Laws, and a Master of War. Tyrion reassures him he’ll be looking at suitable candidates for all those positions, and it made me wonder who they would be? I suppose even after a wheel has been broken, you’ll still need a Master of Whisperers because people continue to conspire. The other two are necessities, although frankly, Bran could do all three: he can see everyone at all times (ew) and would know who’s conspiring. He knows all the laws of the past, present, and future, and he already knows what wars have happened, what ones are coming, and what would be the best strategies for each.

Seriously, how are they going to deal with this guy in every—

Oh wait, he’s leaving Small Council to go warg into Drogon and figure out where he is. You can just see the “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” looks on everyone’s faces. (Note that “Ser Podrick” comes out of the shadows to wheel Bran away—he’s a knight!) I guess one good thing about Bran is, he doesn’t need an Iron Throne because he’s got a cool chair of his own.

Before I forget, though, I just wanted to call back to one character I don’t think has gotten her due: Meera Reed. Remember her? Along with Osha and Meera’s brother Jojen, they’re the ones who accompanied Bran through a large part of his story and him becoming the Three-Eyed Raven, and for, like, three seasons she dragged that sled with Bran on it. I’m thinking he owes a lot of his survival to her. I hope he sends her a Christmas ham on the day of his next speech.

As Bran leaves, Tyrion ham-fistedly bids his king adieu with the proper honorifics, ending with “Long may he reign” and the others, scattered, say it with various levels of conviction. “That will improve,” Tyrion says sheepishly as Bran is wheeled out of the room. Ha!

Now Tyrion reveals that Bronn is Master of Coin (look at Ser Davos’s unconvinced face when he does), and asks if the Crown’s debt has been paid. In full, he says. After all—say it with me—a Lannister always pays his debts. And Tyrion begins conducting business. After listing all of Bronn’s titles, he asks about securing more money for the kingdom to rebuild. Then Tyrion tells Ser Davos that they’ll need to rebuild the ships as well. Davos says he can do that, once the “Master of Coin and Lord of Lofty Titles” secures the money. Bronn snarkily responds that first he has to ensure they’re not wasting coin, “or soon there won’t be no more coin.” “Any more,” corrects Davos. “Oh you’re Master of Grammar now too?” Bronn says.

At which point I sat up and said, “OMG there’s a Master of Grammar?? I COULD TOTALLY BE ON SMALL COUNCIL.”

“Grand Maester!” shouts Tyrion to try to move away from the little toddler boys fighting at the head of the table. He asks about water purification, and Sam begins to speak before Bronn cuts him off, and instead wants to discuss reconstructing the far more important brothels of King’s Landing. (Seriously, someone shoot this guy with a crossbow NOW.) Sam doesn’t agree with this, and Brienne says the ships should take precedence, as the camera slowly pans out of the room, showing us that the Small Council is a new world… and much of the same one it’s always been.

I feel your pain, Tyrion. 

 And then Tyrion says, “I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel…” I laughed out loud. This is an onrunning joke and a callback to previous seasons, and it’s the third time Tyrion has begun to tell this joke but WE HAVE NEVER GOTTEN THE PUNCHLINE. In season one, standing before the horrid Lysa Arryn, Tyrion is asked to confess his sins, and he begins telling one lewd story after another, nearly every one involving his penis. When he gets to, “I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel…” Lysa shouts for silence.

Again in season six, he’s sitting with Missandei and Grey Worm, and they’re drinking wine and laughing. Grey Worm is looking at Missandei with so much love (sniff) and she’s giggling and begging Tyrion for jokes. “I once walked into a brothel with a honeycomb and a jackass,” he begins. “The Madame says—” and then they’re interrupted. Since then, fans have tried to come up with the ending of that joke, and a fan on Reddit came up with a BRILLIANT one that I wish the writers had incorporated into this episode:

Tyrion walks into a brothel with a honeycomb and a jackass.Madame: What can we do for you?Tyrion: I need a woman to lay with, for mine has left me.Madame: Whatever for? And what's with the honeycomb and the mule?Tyrion: My woman found a genie in a bottle, and he granted her three wishes. The first was for a house fit for a queen, so he gave her this damn honeycomb. The second wish was that she have the nicest ass in all the land, so he gave her this damn donkey...Madame: And what about the third wish?Tyrion: Well... she asked the genie to make my cock hang down past my knee.Madame: Well that one's not so bad eh?Tyrion: Not so bad!? I used to be six foot three!

Seriously, how Tyrion is that joke?! I’m convinced that’s where he was going with it.

And… our watch ends at the Night’s Watch and Castle Black. We see Jon Snow approach the gates, like he did in season one, for a life of celibacy and isolation, for… what, exactly? I’m with you, Chris, to me, this was the least satisfying bit of the entire finale. Tormund stands on a parapet looking down at Jon as he enters the grounds through the gate, and like you I was like, what, exactly, do they do at the Night’s Watch now?? The wilding is RIGHT THERE inside the grounds. And seriously, the only reason Jon is there is because Grey Worm has demanded it. And as you pointed out, Chris, he’s fucked off with the rest of the soldiers, so why didn’t Jon just go North to Winterfell and be done with it? Is it because Sansa could feel threatened by his presence? She knows as we all do that Jon has zero designs on the throne, so I have no idea why he did the good thing and continued to the Wall. Other than the fact he’s Jon Snow and has always done exactly what he’s been told.

But at least I was going to get the reunion with Ghost. And then… the screen went black. OH COME O—

Oh, it’s not done yet. The next scene opens on the hilt of Jon’s sword, and that little direwolf head that always looks a wee bit comical to me in a war scene. And from this point, as the staggering music of Ramin Djawadi—the true MVP of the entire series, who has NEVER let us down—plays, we get a montage of where everyone has ended up. Sansa is suited up with an utterly stunning new dress that has the red leaves of the weirwood tree on it; Jon walks up the steps of Castle Black; Arya rolls up her maps and her telescope and walks onto the deck of her ship.

(And I know this is a deadly serious and beautiful montage, but I started singing, “Arya Arya Arya the Explarya!” and my husband joined in. I do hope her cartographer is a flamboyantly gay man who sings, “Here’s the map, here’s the map, here’s the map, here’s the map, HERE’S THE MAP!” while First Mate Boots looks on.)

ANYWAY BACK TO SERIOUSNESS NIKKI. Arya is the commander of her ship and watches the action around her, as Sansa walks majestically down an aisle flanked by northerners (you deserve this, Sansa), and Jon walks through the grounds, flanked by wildlings to see… YES it’s Ghost, minus one ear and looking a little scuffed around the face but it’s Ghost oh yes WHOSAGOODBOY and Jon FINALLY crouches down and gives him the big pet he’s deserved for eight years, and the one we all wanted a few episodes ago. I’m so happy to see this reunion.

Back to Arya’s ship, now revealing a massive Stark direwolf head on the prow (OMG tears) and Arya looking calm, happy, and in control for the first time all season. 

The gorgeous, small crown is placed on Sansa’s head and she sits on her throne, to shouts of “Queen of the North!” by the Northmen who crown her. This is such a sublime moment, because it takes us all the way back to the first time we saw Sansa, sitting in a window and sewing with the ladies. Her obsession with Joffrey wasn’t so much that she was smitten with him, but smitten with the idea of one day being queen, being led around on the arm of the King of the Seven Kingdoms, with people bowing down to her because she was married to the king. This youthful fantasy soon turns into an absolute nightmare for her, and she’s tossed around from one man to another and mistreated again and again until she decides to own herself, own her fate, and show others who Sansa Stark really is. And now men are bowing down before her NOT because her husband is the ruler, but because SHE is. What an incredible journey Sansa’s has been.

Arya has been someone who’s roamed around Westeros, has seen and met so many people, all with one reason for moving forward: to kill the people on her list. But now there’s no list, there’s no vengeance; only peace. And it’s left her content—her brother is on one throne, her sister on another, and at the moment there’s no danger of anything happening to them. So she can go back to her wandering ways, but since she’s been along every road in Westeros, she’s now branching out to discover America, apparently, since she’s going west of the very British-seeming Westeros. If Drogon is flying east and she’s moving west, perhaps they’ll somehow meet in the middle. (Unless GRRM is a Flat-Earther, in which case they’ll just fall off the edges when they get there.)

And we end with Jon Snow. The man who would be king, who’s been the main character of the story all along. Who couldn’t die because he was integral to the ending. He ultimately broke the wheel, has devoted his life to peace and protection, has never done a single bad thing… and now he’s exiled to the Wall. But in the time he spent up North, he met Ygritte, and as you say, Chris, that was where he actually felt like he was at home, among the wildlings. I’m with you. The way he looks back at the closing gate indicates to me that he’s not returning. Jon Snow will go and live up in the far north among his people, and he’ll probably never see his family again. But he has his new family, the people he managed to bring into the fold for the first time in the history of Westeros.

And as the Game of Thrones theme song rises up, we see him, and Tormund, and Ghost, and the free folk on foot, as they disappear into the trees of the North. And I don’t think it’s an accident that as they first set off, the camera is filming from the ground, where we see a green spring plant sprouting up from the snow.

Summer is coming, and with it a new hope for the future of Westeros.

And… that is it. The end of easily the most spectacular-looking TV series of all time, a sweeping epic that was so far-reaching it often required multiple viewings, books, guides, and Christopher and I recapping along the way.

And now that my watch, too, has come to an end, I wanted to send out a huge thank-you to Christopher Lockett, my Brother of the Night’s Watch, my fellow knight, my associate Keeper of the Book, who has studied at the Citadel far longer than I have, who shares my passion for the humour of Lord Homer and Lady Marge, who has joined me week after week for eight years to bring his knowledge of the books and his knowledge of pop culture to all of us, enriching our experience of watching this show.

And I’d really like to thank all of you, who somehow make it to the end of these posts every single week (my husband constantly says, “NO ONE reads all the way to the end, you know that, right? We live in an age of soundbytes and your posts are too… wordy” and I just have to show him the comments to prove otherwise). You read, you comment, you offer corrections and more insight to what we said here, and when we were late, you would send notes saying, “Where’s that post?” which was so flattering. It wouldn’t have been worth missing work two days a week for the duration of the seasons and massaging sore fingers without knowing all of you were reading what we said.

I feel like I now need to go and rewatch the whole series in light of the ending, and probably will. Until the next great TV show comes along, I say to you:

The day is bright and full of hope.