So the dust has settled, and it’s all over. Game of Thrones has finished but the question remains – what on earth happened? Game of Thrones is surely the most spectacular TV programme in history, but the final season, recently shown, left most fans and critics cold. It wasn’t helped by the fact that it had slowly declined in quality and changed in nature since season 4, the high point in my view. If you watched the first season immediately before the last, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were watching another programme entirely. That’s not necessarily a judgement, unfortunately the rest of what I’m about to write most certainly is.
So…what on earth did happen? It’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll jump in at what they did with the end of the Night King, and the battle against the army of the dead. Bear in mind that this story had been building since literally the first scene of the entire show, and that we had been repeatedly told that this was the real war, far more so that the squabbling over the Iron Throne. There was a spectacular battle, however the makers made the peculiar decision to shoot in darkness, so it was impossible to see most of it. Then a young girl stabbed the main baddie, and the whole thing was over. Sometimes I have to remind myself that this really was how they chose to end it. The entire army of the dead immediately disintegrated, and that storyline was done and dusted. Finished. Arya had spent what felt like a long, long time training as a face-shifting assassin, but for the climactic scene she was just herself. So…why?
So next, onto King’s Landing and the fight for the Iron Throne. You may remember that before this, we had the revelation of Jon Snow’s birth, i.e. that he was a Targaryen and so had always been wanted, and never a bastard. More to the point, he also had the strongest claim to be the ‘legitimate’ King. The revelation was actually done in a moving way and seemed to be signposted as a major plot twist affecting the entire series. So what did they do with it? Well, nothing. It served to get Daenerys angry, and really nothing more than that. Jon insisted he didn’t want the Iron Throne, so he didn’t get it. He then went to re-join the Night’s Watch, despite it having no reason to exist anymore.
And as for Daenerys, well. Her storyline ended with her sort of going mad and incinerating endless innocent civilians, with nary a whiff of conscience, in direct contrast to everything we knew about her from 8 seasons of storyline. Then she was killed, and her dragon flew away. It was said in the show that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. Unfortunately in this case, it feels like that’s what the writers did as well. And speaking of the death of Queens, I would have loved for Cersei to get a better ending. She’d been a central figure since the very beginning, but went out with a whimper here, in a death that wasn’t even confirmed until the next episode.
So inevitably, we have to talk about the finale, in which the barely-human Bran was made King, because Tyrion (a prisoner) said so. Because, what, he had the best story? What?! Bran’s story weighed down the whole programme whenever it was shown. He sat out the battle (literally), when surely his warging abilities could have helped in some way? A person completely unable to relate to other human beings in a normal way is probably not a great choice for a ruler. The North was also able to secede from the Seven Kingdoms, with no objection from anyone, because Sansa said so. The same Sansa who had shown only the dimmest flicker of personality throughout the whole thing? Yes, her.
Remember all the words about ‘Winter is Coming’? Probably, since it was said all the time. I know it was the official motto of House Stark, but it did feel like it really meant something. Winter did in fact come, but that was that and I’m not sure it ever did mean anything.
So did it get anything right? Well, yes. Brienne’s final scenes were extremely moving, and well-earned from a character who often seemed to be the only one who took all the stuff about honour and duty seriously. I was glad to see Theon’s story end with a heroic death. In fact, Theon’s whole storyline is one of the highlights of all eight seasons for me. He probably has the strongest story arc of all the main characters, except perhaps for Jaime Lannister (who also deserved a better ending). The general spectacle of the battles was way ahead of anything I’ve seen on any other programme, and in fact most films.
I’m not sure who to blame for all this. We know that the writers of the programme had been given the main plot points by George R. R. Martin, but we won’t know until he releases the last books, which is by no means certain to happen. Either way, it was undeniably a poor ending for what, at its best, was a true high point of the Golden Age of TV. Game of Thrones had the rare ability to pull off magnificent battle scenes as well as truly moving intimate scenes with equal skill. So I don’t take any pleasure in writing this – I’d much rather be able to write about how they managed a perfect finale fitting for the previous seasons (or certainly the first four, anyway). What is it about the final season of gold-standard TV programmes? I’ve already covered the relatively poor final season of The Wire on this blog, as well as the bizarre ending to Breaking Bad. The Sopranos mainly succeeded, but Mad Men felt like the creators had lost control of it. Perhaps we just expect too much of programmes nowadays?
I suppose it’s testament to the quality of Game of Thrones that so many people cared and were invested enough to get so angry about the finale. And it’s probably true that many people would have been up in arms no matter what they’d done. But I’d be surprised if anyone could watch the full series, from season 1 onwards, and not notice the drastic drop in quality in the last season.
Wilson Picked It 