RJ Writing Ink

Game of Thrones, “The Iron Throne” Series Finale Review

After eight years, 73 episodes, and too many deaths to count, Game of Thrones is over, and our watch has ended. It redefined what can we can do with a TV show, influenced a decade of pop culture, and became the most popular show in the world.

It’s so popular, that economic experts are saying that millions of people will either were going to call out sick on Monday or be less productive. It’s going to cost the economy millions.

I’m going to write something that looks back on the series as a whole, but this will focus on the finale. So, did it end up being everything we hoped for? Laura Prudom of IGN noted that it ended up being as bittersweet as George R.R. Martin said it would. The end of a good story’s often bittersweet, though it feels more bitter than sweet, in this case.

Picking up after Daenerys has burned King’s Landing, Jon and Tyrion try to come to terms with what they saw. They’re both wracked with guilt and grief, but it’s Tyrion who gets the message across. Peter Dinklage gave his last performance as Tyrion everything he had, the grief he feels very visible. It’s not until he gets to the crypts that we see his best performance. Digging through the rubble until he finds the bodies of Jaime and Cersei, Tyrion breaks down in tears.

No matter how much she hated him, Tyrion could never bring himself to hate his sister. The bitter irony to this scene is that, despite all the times his father and sister tried to get rid of him, Tyrion was the last one standing. The last of the Lannisters; he was alone.

And now the rains weep o’er his halls, and only one soul to hear.

Daenerys, meanwhile, revels in her victory. In the Red Keep, she tells the Unsullied and Dothraki that they’ve “liberated” King’s Landing. Now, she intends to do the same to the rest of the world.

Say what you will about the story, but everything about this scene was flawless. The cinematography was perfect, Emilia Clarke was giving her all, and the whole thing drove home the fact that Dany has become that which she swore to destroy. The fact that it reminded me of a Nazi rally only drives that fact home.

When Tyrion resigns as Hand in disgust, Daenerys arrests him for treason, and he spends what he thinks are his last hours trying to convince Jon that she must be stopped. Jon tries to remain stoic and say that she’s his queen, but we know he’s lying to himself. He still wants to see the good in her, but Arya and Tyrion point out that if he does nothing, then Daenerys will eventually kill him and Sansa.

Even though Jon knows he has to do it, he makes it a point to ask Daenerys one last time to stop this madness. It’s who he is. But this is what Daenerys has become. The Game has corrupted her, twisted her good intentions. The only reason people let her get away with it, us included, is because we saw the people she burned as jerks. The Warlocks, the Slavemasters, the Khals.

I had made peace with what happened next, but on the inside, it still broke my heart when Jon stabbed Daenerys in the heart. Sensing his mother’s death, Drogon comes in the throne room and tries to nudge her lifeless body in vain. Everyone expected that he would try to kill Jon, but instead, he turned his on something else: the Iron Throne. Where Balerion the Black Dread forged the Iron Throne, Drogon the Winged Shadow reduced it to molten metal.

This was a powerful moment for me, one of the best in the series. People have said dragons are as smart as humans, if not smarter. And in this moment, Drogon was smart enough to realize that while Jon may have been the one to do it, it was the Iron Throne and all it stood for that killed his mother. It was like a curse that had torn Westeros apart, and the carnage we’d seen in the show was only a fraction of the bloodshed. Homes plundered, dominions in ruin, all to grasp at the Throne. Drogon made the smartest decision out of anyone in the show, and decided that no one should have that power. Then, he took his mother’s body, and flew away from Westeros, never to return.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 3 Review

Again, I have to apologize for this. You’d think with how much I love Game of Thrones, this would be the highest priority. But then I worry that I won’t write it right, stuff piles up, and this happens.

More to the point, I needed a couple of days to process what happened. The show had been building up to this moment since the very first scene. Then HBO said that this was going to rival the Battle of Helm’s Deep in the Lord of the Rings films. That this was going to be the longest continous battle in television history. Game of Thrones had a lot to ride on. The question is, were they able to live up to the hype?

The short answer is, yes and no. To better explain, let’s head back to the start of “The Long Night”.

As stated last episode, the army at Winterfell can’t win a head on fight. Numbers aside, the enemy has no fear or rational thinking. The plan is to lure the Night King to Bran, then Jon and Daenerys will swoop in on Drogon and Rhaegal and kill him.

Right away, things don’t go the way I expected when Melisandre shows up. I had a hunch that she would show up, but instead of bringing a couple thousand Red Priests as help, it’s only her.

I wanted to see the Red Priests play a role in the Great War since they talked about fighting the darkness. In the end, though, I had to settle with Melisandre lighting all the Dothraki’s swords on fire, which was awesome.

For a brief moment, I thought that things would work out as the Dothraki charged at the enemy. Then I remembered that this was Game of Thrones.

This is what I thought when I saw the Dothraki’s swords go out one by one:

Then the plan falls apart when Daenerys charges into battle anyway. We all get where she’s coming from, but she has a history of letting her emotions get the best of her.

When the Wights appear out of darkness, I thought it was like watching a wave of evil crashing on a shore. It was terrifying to watch, but it would have been scarier if we could actually see them!

I don’t know if they wanted to make the moment even more terrifying, but it was pointless if we couldn’t see a thing. I hope HBO fixes that in future releases. Thank god we had Drogon and Rhaegal to light it up. But then the dragons and their riders got caught in a snowstorm the Night King created.

From that moment on, the battle turned into a scene from hell. Fires burning in the distance, the dim lights, and the snow looked like ash. That was a good way to use the low lights; it conveyed a sense of terror, a feeling of true hopelessness.

When faced with despair, the cast reacted in different ways, but the one who took it best was Arya Stark. She was by far the best fighter in the episode, killing dozens of wights, sneaking past them, and being a master assassin. Then the one moment when she almost gave up, all it took was Melisandre reminding her what Syrio Forel said.

What do we say to death? Not today.

There were plenty of awesome moments in this episode, but aside from Arya proving she was co-mvp, the biggest was the fight against the Night King. In the series’ lore, the last time the world had seen dragons fight each other was in the Dance of Dragons 150 years ago. The fight, while short, didn’t disappoint, and the heroes almost beat the Night King.

Then we saw that it was all a red herring. As it turns out, not even dragonfire can stop the Night King, and seeing him just smirking in the flames scared me. A LOT. Then when I saw Jon chasing after the Night King, I thought, like many people, that this was it. the fight between Jon and the Night King that we had waited for all this time.

As much of a buzzkill that was, I have to give the show props for making the Night King smart enough to not fight Jon. Jon would need one hit to end him, and with him pinned by Viserion, that wasn’t happening.

Despite all their efforts, it looked like the Night King was going to win. The heroes were on their last legs or too far away from Bran to save him. Then I realized something: we hadn’t seen Arya in a while, and I realized what was about to happen.

A master assassin only needs one moment to strike. And while the White Walkers were focused on Bran, Arya reminded us what we say to death: not today.
Just like that, it was over. With one lightning stike, Arya had slain the Night King. It’s ironic that she used the blade that had caused her family so much.
I hereby dub Arya “Arya Stark the Nightkiller”.

As the credits rolled, so many thoughts raced through my head. I loved seeing Arya become the Nightkiller, but it also felt a little anti-climactic, and disappointing that we didn’t get an epic sword fight between Jon and the Night King. Then again, this is Game of Thrones, and Game of Thrones is all about taking the medieval fantasy and throwing it on its head. So, it makes sense, in a way. And it cements Arya Stark as one of the best assassin’s in fictional history.

So in the end, was this the battle that HBO promised us? It did live up to the hype at times, but it was also hindered by the poor lighting, and the ending seems anti-climactic. But let’s not forget that while the White Walkers were always going to be a major plot point, they weren’t going to be the end all for the show. This show has always been about one thing: the Throne and who sits on it. And while I may have some issues with the episode, I will not deny that I was entertained from start to finish.

Valar Morguhils

I Give “The Long Night” A 3/5. Fix the darn lighting already, and give me the head of Cersei

Stray Observations

• Just once, couldn’t we just let Ghost fight in a battle? For god’s sake, we don’t even see him again
• A lot of people agree that the “tactics” the living used were idiotic.
• I’m almost tempted to just bail on the show now that the White Walker’s are dead. Only thing keeping me here is the hope of seeing Cersei dead.
• RIP House Mormont, Beric Dondarrion, Melisandre, Dolorous Edd, Qono, and Theon Greyjoy. You didn’t die in vain.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 2 “A Knight of the Seven” Review

The stillness before battle is unbearable. Such a quiet dread.

-Chief Arnook, “The Siege of the North, Part 1”, Avatar: the Last Airbender

I must apologize for the fact that this is coming out just hours before the premiere of episode three. Sometimes, it can take a while to figure out what I want to say. And considering what happened in Episode two, I had a lot to think about.

The above quote comes from the Season One finale to my favorite cartoon as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. All the heroes are preparing for a massive invasion by the oppressive Fire Nation, and one of them remarks on how quiet it gets before battle. It’s that gnawing sensation that sharpens people’s nerves as they prepare to fight, knowing in the back of their minds that they may not live to see another day. That’s what this episode comes down to, in the end.

Tormund, Eddison, and the remaining Free Folk and Night’s Watch get to Winterfell and let everyone know: the Army of the Dead is coming. They have less than a day before they arrive. And so, Winterfell prepares for battle, even though they know that not all hands are on deck.

After showing up at the end of the last episode, Jaime lets everyone know that Cersei hopes they and the White Walkers kill each other, save her the trouble. Daenerys is livid that Tyrion messed up again, but her bigger focus is on Jaime. Despite knowing full well that her father got what he deserved, it seems like she wants to punish Jaime for killing Aerys Targaryen. Not to mention his transgressions against House Stark. The only reason that Sansa doesn’t try and kill him is because Brienne vouches for him and how he saved her from the Bolton’s, twice.

While two of the most powerful women in Winterfell may not be able to forgive Jaime yet, Sansa seems willing to forgive another new arrival: Theon Greyjoy. He took a handful of Ironborn and came to the sight of the worst mistake of his life to fight for the living, and Sansa hugs him for it. They will need all the help they can get.

The Night King’s goal isn’t just to wipe out humanity: he wants to erase all memory of the world and the people in it. That’s why he was hellbent on killing Bran Stark before: as the Three-Eyed Raven, he holds all the world’s history in his head, and is the Night King’s biggest threat. Against his family’s wishes, Bran opts to wait for the Night King in the Godswood as bait. Theon and the Ironborn will guard him, and Jon and Daenerys will use Drogon and Rhaegal to destroy him.

And with that, the rest of the episode is essentially the surviving cast preparing for what’s to come, knowing full well they may not survive. It’s an emotional time, both for the people in the show and for the people watching this on TV. We know, just as the cast does, that not everyone at Winterfell is going to survive what happens next.

The thing about the prospect of imminent death is that it makes people reflect on their lives up to that moment. The entire cast starts talking with each other, swapping stories and bonding over the events that brought them to this moment. And I will be going over them in my list of favorite moments for the episode

The one that may end up having the biggest impact, though, is the meeting between Jon and Daenerys in the Crypts. Daenerys has heard so many good things about Rhaegar from the people who knew him, so the fact that he kidnapped another woman doesn’t make sense to her. Then, Jon tells her the truth: that Lyanna and Rhaegar loved each other, and that he is their son, and thus a Prince by birth.

I think it’s telling that Daenerys is less concerned with the fact that she slept with her nephew, and more about the fact that this makes Jon the King of the Seven Kingdoms by birth. I would freak out, too, if I learned that the dream that I had all my life may not even be mine to begin with. If it weren’t for the fact that Westeros is facing Armageddon, this might be more important an issue. But like I said last week, Jon doesn’t want the Iron Throne. If Daenerys really wants that thing so badly, I don’t think Jon would care.

The only reason I’m brought this scene up here rather than my list (which will be shorter this week) is because I think that only one of these two Targaryens will survive to the end of the show. There’s even an algorithm made by German students that says that Dany has a 1% chance of dying in the final season. I’ll believe it when I see it, and the next two episodes may decide who lives and who dies.

There are only a few hours left before the Battle of Winterfell begins. The Night King is upon Westeros once more, and whatever happens tonight will make TV history. Given the fact that so many people are going to die, I think it was smart for the show to take one final episode to breathe and let us say our goodbyes to everyone. Because tonight, the bodies start dropping

I Give “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” a 5 out of 5.