A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons, the five published novels in George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, are about a great many things. They are about the effects of royal scheming and plotting on the smallfolk. They are about the danger of infighting in the face of collective annihilation. They are about the devastating effects of war, on both people and the land. They are about “the human heart in conflict with itself,” as Martin himself has so often said. Increasingly, the novels were also about change itself – about the slow march of history, about the endless journey toward an uncertain destination. Especially in the most recent novels, one got the sense that Martin’s story could never have a true ending. Even after the war is over, life continues on.
Journey, not destination. If there is one mantra to sum up the difference between A Song of Ice and Fire, the books, and Game of Thrones, the show, that’s it.
Increasingly, Game of Thrones has been all destination, no journey. This was inevitable in some respects. Martin’s focus on the journey has stymied him for going on eight years, with the next book always just over the next horizon. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, otherwise known as DnD or David and Dan, did not have a writer’s luxury of spacing the ending out until they’d worked out all the kinks. They instead have a showrunner’s constraints. Actors have contracts, sets are expensive to maintain, and HBO likes to make money, so the show pressed on even after it had run out of material to adapt.
David and Dan are remarkable showrunners, when they have the right source material. The early seasons of Game of Thrones are justifiably looked upon as some of the best of any television series in the last decade or two. It is on the back of those early, landmark seasons that Game of Thrones’ legacy was built. And it is important not to discount David and Dan’s contributions: some of the best moments in those early seasons were entirely invented by the showrunners (remember Cersei and Robert, sharing a glass of wine and commiserating in a sequence that humanized both characters? Remember Arya in season three, sharing the screen with Tywin Lannister, a pairing that never existed in the novels but works beautifully in the show?). Through four seasons, they adapted well, keeping the best and most important bits, consolidating smartly where necessary, and cutting only that which needed to be cut for the sake of an at-the-time more modest TV budget.
Things began looking grim in season five. One episode in particular stands out for its sheer awfulness on almost all fronts: “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” single handedly ruined the entire Dornish subplot by making it look cheap and insignificant, while Sansa’s arc was nearly derailed by an unnecessarily graphic rape that not only undercut her character but also managed to privilege the perspective of the men in the scene over hers. It was in season five that the world began to feel smaller, and the lack of a roadmap for the future most keenly began to make itself felt. The story became more muddled, character motivations became harder to track, and “shock for the sake of shock” became more and more prominent.
Season five was not all bad, of course. There were genuine bright spots. Cersei’s arc, taken mostly from the books with some adjustments, was excellent, culminating in a walk of shame that represented the last of what Martin gave David and Dan for the character. Meanwhile, the showrunners’ main addition to the season — the battle of Hardhome, which is only alluded to so far in the books — was genuinely thrilling and terrifying. Dany and Tyrion meet for the first time this season, something that still has not happened in the books but which in the show portended a momentous turning point: now characters from both sides of the narrow sea will finally begin to mingle. The story was beginning to coalesce. For the first time, an end to the journey appeared to be in sight.
We would need to wait three more seasons for that end, but it is telling that the issues plaguing certain plotlines in season five eventually, like greyscale, infected the entire enterprise. By season seven, Game of Thrones had more or less abandoned the journey and become nothing but destination: a series of events that felt more like bullet points that the genuine evolution of a story.
This should not be surprising, given that by all accounts bullet points are precisely what George R.R. Martin gave David and Dan. Though they have in the past proved themselves skillful adapters of an existing story, they had a much harder time stitching together a series of preordained events.
This leads, inexorably, to my thoughts on the final episode, and the final season as a whole. To begin with, let’s play a thought experiment.
Imagine, if you will, an alternate world. In this alternate world, George R.R. Martin completed his books in a timely fashion. Perhaps he even waited until they were all done before optioning the story for TV. In this world, David and Dan have existing source material to work with. Let us also imagine that the writers were not in an ungodly rush to end things as quickly as possible, and instead of two truncated seasons to end the series, we got our customary ten episodes each. Perhaps we even got a third season to wrap things up, actor contracts notwithstanding.
In this imaginary, better world, David and Dan take their time to chart the story that Martin gave them. They allow the Long Night to last a little longer, though, as I’m sure Martin mandated, it proves to not be the real climax to the story. They more carefully — much more carefully — chart the emotional devolution of Daenerys Targaryen. They bring in a bit more of the wild magic that George R.R. Martin imbues almost every page of his novels with, for instance by bringing to life a Euron that more closely mirrors his counterpart in the books, or by introducing LADY MOTHERFREAKIN’ STONEHEART (for those not in the know, this is a resurrected, vengeful Catelyn Stark). They maintain some of the more complicated and complicating plots of the novels, from the supposed surviving Targaryen prince Aegon (not Jon — a different Aegon) to the more machiavellian plotting of the Prince of Dorne, both of which, now that we know the broad strokes of the ending, are seeming more and more instrumental. They also avoid the kinds of shortcuts that made the quick-fire bullet point pace of the past two seasons feel like such a radical departure from the rest of the series, avoiding in the process the endless, annoying fan outrage about plot contrivances and characters with jetpacks (I’m as guilty of this kind of complaint as anyone, but it gets depressingly tiring when it’s the only way many fans seem to engage with the show any more). Perhaps in this scenario they also have a head of continuity to take out that Starbucks cup before it winds up on air.
Imagine, though, that the broad beats are the same. Jon learns he has a claim to the throne. Daenerys helps beat back the white walkers, but loses everything, including her perspective on right and wrong, in the process. Her campaign in Westeros shows her to be just another conqueror, and ultimately Jon is forced to kill her. Bran is set on the Iron Throne, an all-seeing wunderkind whose access to the past means that past mistakes may, for once, not be repeated. Bran cannot have children, so instead of an arbitrary bloodline deciding the fate of the country, the lords and ladies of Westeros will choose their leader moving forward. Jon returns to the wall, Sansa rules the north, and Arya sets out to find what’s west of Westeros. Tyrion takes his place as Hand of the King, a position he has held before to some success. The realm returns to a version of normal, life continues on. The journey continues.
The ending David and Dan gave us was a satisfying one. It has the whiff of Greek tragedy in the fate of Daenerys, a character who spent so long planning her invasion and conquering of Westeros that she never stopped to really consider why she should be the one to sit the throne. That blasted throne is finally melted down, a symbolic gesture toward all the pain and suffering caused by the pursuit of power. War, even a righteous one, led by a righteous queen, is always — always, always, always — sick and violent and wrong. All of this feels right to me in a way that is incredibly satisfying. All of it feels of a piece with the tone and themes of the story Martin began with A Game of Thrones.
Most importantly, the selection of Bran, and the establishment of a new rule for succession, is a genuinely huge move. Earlier this year, George R.R. Martin did release a new book — Fire and Blood, a history of the Targaryen dynasty. Because I am an addict, I read that book, and the one recurrent theme throughout is that however good a king is, his legacy is writ in the hand of his successor. By far the greatest number of ills in the history of this part of Westeros come from wars of succession or from poor kings who ascended the throne only because their father ruled. A bloodline of such rigid purity could only ever end in madness, but in truth, as long as the king (or queen!) is chosen by blood, and not by ability, those wars will never end.
Will this new system be perfect? Of course not. No system is perfect. Representative democracy is about as good as it gets, and a system like that elected Donald Trump. Not every king following Bran will be wise and good, just as no king after him will have the ability of the Three-Eyed Raven to see and know all. But maybe, just maybe, in his time as King, Bran will look to the past, learn from it, and, through his capable Hand, enact laws that make it harder for the next king to rule as the Targaryens did: with fire and blood.
This is George R.R. Martin’s ending. It is a good ending. It is tragic, but also hopeful for the future. It is, as he always said it would be, bittersweet. I am content with how “The Iron Throne” ended things for Westeros and for our characters.
I am not content with how we got there. If anything, this ending is all the more frustrating for what could have been. My laundry list of grievances these past four seasons would be longer than I care to type here, but suffice to say I do not believe they earned the final turns here.
Daenerys, in particular, is ill-served by the pace of this last season. The signs of her turn have always been there, but, as someone on one of the forums I frequent put it, foreshadowing is not character development. We needed to believe that Dany would turn on the whole of King’s Landing, and I never for one moment did. Her lack of screentime in the last two episodes was particularly egregious on this front, but in truth David and Dan would have needed an entire, full-length season to sell us on that choice. As it is, they gave us three episodes and some bells. Shame.
Other turns were no less inexplicable. I cannot fully account for Jamie’s arc this season, nor Arya’s decision to find “what’s west of Westeros.” Bran, for all that I am happy to see him King, has remained a cipher, showing little of how he plans to leverage his knowledge of history to help others. The breakneck pace meant fast travel, but it also meant that certain developments — like the deaths of Dany’s dragons — bordered on the nonsensical. It was all too much, too fast.
Perhaps if the series had always been this way. Perhaps if they had begun with this pace, this level of disinvestment on character, this level of blunt awkwardness, we could have stomached this ending a little more easily. But those of us who read the books would always have known that there was a better way.
“Journey before destination,” as another fantasy series I quite like puts it. Martin prioritizes the journey. In the end, David and Dan prioritized the destination.Where they got us was good — great, even. The final episode, if it existed as is in the alternate reality I surmised above, would have been an exceptional ending to the show (though Tyrion, in chains, convincing everyone to vote Bran to the Iron Throne would always have been a little goofy). As it stands, it’s an appropriate ending that doesn’t feel earned.
To be clear, I believe I liked the finale more than many, maybe even more than most. I felt the tragedy of Dany’s fate, and got actual goosebumps when Drogon burned the Iron Throne (good riddance). I find the choice of Bran to be King an appropriate one, and enjoyed tremendously the great gift of every moment after that choice. Brienne writing Jamie’s entry in the White Book got me all misty-eyed. Jon Snow saying goodbye to his family was heartbreaking, but right. Sansa ruling in the north is better than I ever dreamed for her when the series began. And then there’s the new small council, which managed in minutes to remind me of how truly great this series could be when distilled down to its essence: people in pretty rooms having conversations.
I am as surprised as anyone by how gratifying this finale ultimately felt to me. It also leaves me excited. After all, if David and Dan could get me to feel content with a rush job, how impactful will it be when I read Martin’s version — a version that, whatever its other faults, will almost certainly take its time?
There’s only one way to find out. Write, George. Write like the Wind.
criterion / watch 