The Beginning of the End of the Game
Tonight Game of Thrones returns for a final season. We will hopefully have someone coming on board to provide more in-depth commentary, but he won’t be able to start right away.
So as we go into the closing episodes of the series, its becoming more clear where we are supposed to believe its headed. A marriage between Jon Snow and Denarys, Cersei finally gets hers, the White Walker threat eliminated and the Night King slain. Peace and justice are restored.
I’m personally torn between believing that there is no way that it ends this tidily and wondering if the show is just tired of doing everything else. It would be perfectly in character to throw a few more wrenches and set up a perpetual civil war (with the lesson being the only thing constant is change) and less in character to have a tidy resolution. But sometimes, shows don’t know how to avoid the formula even if their original conception was to subvert it. So I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised either way.
If I’m guessing, I’m guessing there will be a tidy-seeming ending and then a little nugget at the very end to say “Nope! Haha, but you’re done here. Enjoy the ambiguity.”
But that’s just a guess, and you all may know more spoilers than me.
What do you think is going to happen? What would you like to see happen? What do you want to not see happen?
I dunno if it’s obvious that Jon and Daenerys get married. And there are plenty of substories that could go bad or good, depending: Bronn, the Hound, Brienne and Pod, Tormund, Jaime, Tyrion, Sansa, Arya.
For example, watch the early episodes and it’s clear the Hound was very protective of Sansa. Will that ever be resolved? Jaime has left Cersei. Remember when he said he hoped to die in the arms of the woman he loves? How will that play out. Will Tormund and Brienne find happiness if Jaime dies?
I’d be very disappointed if Jon and Daenerys end up together. In fact, since technically Jon Snow is the legit heir to the Iron Throne, I think it would be a bold move for Daenerys to end up dying in the battle against the White Walkers. Who is going to carry on the Stark name? Presumably Sansa–ok, then who does she end up with? Technically, she’s still married to Tyrion.
Do you remember The Princess Bride, when Grandpa tells the Boy that Prince Humperdinck doesn’t die at the end, and the boy is outraged? Cersei is horrible indeed, but if they think outside the box they could maybe defang her and let her live.Report
I am kind of leaning on the “supposed to believe” with that. It could go any number of ways. I could definitely see Daenerys ending up dead. Or Jon.
Most of my predictions are based on the idea that I think the show is tired of being contrarian. At the least, I think it fell into the familiar narrative style it had always lacked for a reason. I lean towards it wanting a more traditional ending after all (with that last-second nugget of a field of dragon eggs or whatever). But it could just be setting us up all over again.Report
So I asked myself: “When did Dance with Dragons come out?”
2011. ED Kain reviewed it here, back in 2011.
We were so young.Report
I read the first book freshman year, right when it first came out in paperback.
I read the second book senior year just as I was graduating.
I got the third book shipped early from the UK during my first month of grad school.
I read the fourth book in hardcover. while I was putting the finishing my dissertation.
The fifth book I got on Kindle immediately and enjoyed reading it in my new house.
I’m looking forward to buying The Winds it Winter with my first Social Security check.Report
Can’t wait to read Brandon Sanderson’s A Dream of Spring, which he’ll write over a long weekend and will be blessedly free of references to fat pink masts.Report
You’re such an optimist. I’ve resigned myself to the books never being finished. Ugh, and that’ll leave us with the excreable television plots as the resolution. If I could send a warning back in time I’d seriously consider warning my teenage self off the books.Report
I lived (and the authors lived) long enough for both of Zelazny’s Amber series and for Weber to finish his side of the Honor Harrington books (rather abrupt, apparently due to health issues). I hope to live long enough for Eric Flint to finish up the more interesting side of that saga. Ditto whatever demi-god finale Butcher does with Harry Dresden, and Jacka’s Alex Verus series. I figure I’ve run out of luck on Ice and Fire, and either Martin or I will die before they’re finished.Report
Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgIReport
I know GoT is not nearly as tight plot-wise as it was, but I have struggled to put my finger on when exactly it changed. Not that there was a “jump the shark” moment or anything, but there was a lot of treading water interspersed with some really amazing moments. But the whole episode of “dirty dozen” going north of the wall to capture a wight might be the closest. It was cool, but seemed forced and very much a “so what do we do now for 90 minutes” sort of thing. I’ll watch, and GoT stands above everything else television has ever done in scope and scale, but it is definately time for it to end, hopefully on a high note.Report
I knew things were going to hell when the Bolton Bastard became such a central all powerful monster. There were warning signed well before that but the fabulist exaltation of Ramsay was the diversion to me.Report
Yes and his marriage to Sansa. I’m much less invested in the show after that. I guess I can be thankful that last season was mostly fan service episodes.Report
I’ll put my money on lots of other people making the noble sacrifices (or having noble sacrifices thrust upon them) and Tyrion winding up with throne.Report
I admit that part of my rooting for Tyrion is because I want the last shot of the series to be bearded Peter Dinklage scowling on the Iron Throne.Report
I’m hoping that the final episodes make heavy use of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and the rest of the Avengers, because GoT doesn’t have nearly enough characters left.
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I agree that the Ramsay plot is really obnoxious. Like Joffrey, the other uber-villain, he was all-knowing when convenient and stupid the rest of the time. It would have been just as effective to have Roose Bolton be the betrayer who fought against Jon and Sansa.
Also: Gendry is back, and he also has a claim to the throne. The legitimate grandson of Aegon, vs the bastard son of his successor, Robert Baratheon.
I think the last time the show did something “contrary” was when it killed off Shireen, which I think they did because well, they like doing cruel crap, but also because it leaves Gendry as the last Baratheon.
The reason they’re doing less unexpected stuff is because they’re running out of people to kill. Speaking for myself, I never really liked the unexpected stuff. I didn’t even start watching the show until Season 7, precisely because it so wantonly killed off people to create capital D Drama.Report
GRRM has said the ending of GoT would be ‘bittersweet’. I can’t imagine Jon and Daenerys both live. Jon seems like the obvious candidate to die since he has, on multiple occasions, remarked that he is tired and unhappy that he is best at killing.
Some have speculated that the women will mostly emerge as the winners. Sansa, Breanne, Arya, Yara…so many strong females. The men are all flawed in some way, either as a character or physically (or both).
Episode 1 was great, although I thought the reveal of Jon’s heritage was tainted by Sam’s anger. Didn’t like seeing Sam as a political actor.Report
I’m roughly at this place — the women have shown strength in ways the men have not (including Cercei! Yes I know it’s evil strength) and that matters. A theme early on was “all the right people die and all the wrong people get power,” which kind of makes sense when you think about Martin’s Vietnam-era sensibility. And the alloy of that notion and what we’ve seen tonight convinces me that the marker on Dany was a good bet: we have some reasons now to think maybe she isn’t the best choice to sit the Iron Throne after all.Report
I’m perhaps most interested to see the outcome for Sansa. She’s not necessarily my favorite character but she has been the best groomed for leadership.Report
Sansa has been my contrary favorite since I first read the books. Martin so obviously loved Jon and Arya that I found myself gravitating towards Sansa and Rob partially out of sheer contrariness. Interestingly Sansa actually got made a little less idiotic in the show than the books* (though got treated even worse, see the idiocy of Ramsey). That is, alas, partially because Martin basically stopped writing pretty much exactly as Sansa teetering on the edge of hopping out of the nest to apply what she’d learned about intrigue.
But I’m quite fond of show Sansa and hope she can carry on the Stark name since Bran clearly won’t and Jon obviously can’t.
*Book Sansa was integral to Ned Starks downfall and I don’t believe that made it into the television series.Report
I agree – Sansa has grown on me more than any other character since the beginning. I’m absolutely rooting for her to rule the North at the end, because I don’t think the job will go to Jon.Report
I haven’t watched today’s episode yet, so I want to pre-register a prediction. A Song of Ice and Fire is a deconstruction of fantasy as it was when Martin started writing it. That means I can’t see “Evil King is replaced by good King and now everything is fine” as a reasonable end for the series. Think a key part of the series is that the Iron Throne was a mistake and one way or another it won’t exist by the end of the show.
I think an apocalyptic ending is a possibility, with a few survivors felling Westeros as the White Walkers consume everything.Report
Man that’d be one hell of a twist. Probably too dark, though, as it’d render too much of the story as pointless. I could very easily see Westeros splitting into its component kingdoms. Then again dragons are back and dragons welded Westeros into a single kingdom in the first place.Report
I keep thinking that Westeros will separate into kingdoms too, but the question is how they would be ruled with so many of the great houses gone (or likely to be gone at the end). I guess they could go to the lesser houses, but that seems kind of boring. And so many of the would-be rulers left are either not fit for the job (ex. Sam would probably not be a great lord of the Reach.) or have other jobs (Tyrion – Westerlands). I think it’s most likely the North would split off and the rest of the kingdoms remain under the Iron Throne.Report
I haven’t watched it, and I stopped reading the books at… four I think? In any case, I am fully confident of my prediction.
I will be as satisfying as the Sopranos finale.Report
Maybe he’ll end it like Lost and reveal that all the characters actually died in season one.Report
Here’s my prediction: the walkers win and the north falls. The stragglers escape south where there’s a three-way battle lined up until, at the end, Cersei joins the escapers, they win, and there’s immediate haggling over who rules the remains. Probably John, since he seems to be invincible.Report