Before we go anywhere…

This will contain major spoilers, both for Season 8 as it has aired so far and for leaks regarding the last episode of the series.

As such I do not recommend reading until after the series has concluded, unless spoilers are ok for you. I also suggest having watched the season so far, as I will not explain what has happened this season, I will only be addressing what I think should have happened.

Fair warning, now let’s get into it!

The end of an era…

Game of Thrones is a cultural phenomenon. No matter how you look at it, it is one of the most viewed, most talked about, and most expensive shows ever made. Not since Dallas has living memory given us something so wide spread in effect and well looked forward too. Viewing parties are regular for the show, and it’s influence on us all is evident.

However, as you’ve perhaps gleaned from the title of this blog post, I have some issues with this latest season of Game of Thrones. It has nothing to do with the actors, composer, costume designers, cinematographers, none of that. My gripe lies solely with the show runners Dan Weiss and David Benioff, who write and produce this fantasy epic.

As always, everything I am about to say is purely my point of view, and should not diminish your enjoyment of the season. If you have loved everything so far in the season, I am glad! I think it would be a big waste if no one liked the season so far, and I myself enjoyed a lot of this season up until The Long Night.

However, enjoyment of something does not mean the content we’re consuming is well done, or well written, or executed in a way which makes sense. I myself have enjoyed many a flawed piece of content, and I have a full understanding that it could be better, while still appreciating it as is. Examples of this would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which while progressive for it’s time has not aged well, or Gilmore Girls, which has the same aging problem, Voltron, which has large plot holes and loose strings, etc.

I also think it’s good, and perhaps important, to be critical of the content you’re consuming and to consider how it can be better. I not only understand that this content is flawed, but how it is flawed. As a writer, I also think it is important for my personal growth to think about what works and does not work in a story, and I believe it’s good as a viewer to keep that in mind as well.

When we stop being critical of the things we consume, we leave ourselves naive and vulnerable to the negative aspects of media consumption. Which is a topic all on it’s own for another day, but I will touch on it here just so you understand why I look at the show this way. It is because I look at every show this way.

Lastly, I think that sometimes, flaws cannot be overcome, at least for me. That a story can become so flawed, that it can become bad. A lot of flaws can be overcome with a satisfying ending, and in many cases I have loved a flawed show because it had a wonderful ending, but when there is a massive amount of flaws in combination with an unsatisfying ending, I struggle to find the point in a show.

We deserve good quality content as a viewer, content that is well thought out and comes to a good resolution, and we especially deserve it for a TV show which we pay additional fees to have access too, and which we have spent so long watching and following and buying merchandise for.

We deserve that, as consumers. We deserve to be satisfied at the end of a show which has cost so much money to make, and which we have been looking forward to.

So this is where my gripes begin.

I hope that this post doesn’t kill your enjoyment of season 8, but instead allows you to see how the season could have been better than it is, more universally enjoyable, and entirely more satisfying.

With that in mind… Let’s get into it!

P.S. - I know I am the biggest of Turbo Nerds for writing this the morning after the episode aired, and for getting so fired up about it. But let’s be real, we’re all just a little bit of a Turbo Nerd on the inside.

If you just want to see how I would have done this season, skip to the section labeled, “My Dream Season.”

To Start…

So, as you can see, I have some issues with Season 8 of Game of Thrones.

It is a fantasy epic which has been adapted for television, and as such is prone to problems which are common with any adaptation. They sometimes leave out important information from the books, or alter important scenes for the worse.

Sometimes they even write out whole characters or plot points to accommodate for time constraints.

With Game of Thrones in particular, I feel they have made a lot of missteps when adapting this tale, even in the segments of the show where they had source material to draw from. Although I won’t be getting into previous seasons today, I do feel as if it’s important for me to note this.

The show also faces the unique challenge of being ahead of its source material, which means the show writers must display a lot of strength on their own as creatives, without the backbone of George R.R. Martin’s books behind them. They need to fill some considerably large shoes, while already facing significant challenges.

From any angle, it’s a tricky situation to be in, even before you consider the rabid fan following for the show, and people like me who will analyze every step they make.

I myself love a challenge when writing, but even I find this to be a daunting task, and they should be commended for even coming this far, and accomplishing all they have. While I may take issue with some things they have done, there are some undeniably great moments in Game of Thrones which we will talk of for years to come.

With that said, I have some beef with the decisions they have made in this final season. Big Beef. I have no doubt that they have done what they perceive as best, and I am positive there are a million and one things going on behind the scenes of the show, but the knowledge of this does nothing to assuage my disappointment and dissatisfaction.

My dissatisfaction stems from one thing - that even with the ending of the show going the way it is, even if they had changed none of what has happened so far, this last season feels badly paced and rushed for what they are trying to achieve.

This is a huge sin and something they should have avoided at all costs.

Pacing is the most critically important thing in a TV show, or any kind of media. It’s what keeps your viewers engaged, it directly impacts viewer experience in the most fundamental way, and is the difference between something that is thrilling or suspenseful, romantic or confusing, and from making sense or not making sense.

You can make any change you want to in a TV show, change the characters however have anything happen, but you have to take the proper steps to get there, and you have to pace it well. The pacing and the journey is what makes watchers buy into what you’re portraying, and it’s what creates believably, or breaks our suspension of disbelief. The audience needs to move with the character.

This is not to say that plot twists are impossible, but twists must be explained after the fact. If you do not give the audience the information before the plot twist, you must give it to them after. Otherwise, a plot twist is just confusing. You rush too fast on either side of the plot twist, and you never have enough time to explain anything, even if you want to.

This lack of communication is at the heart of my discomfort with the direction the new season has turned. The bad pacing in season 8 of Game of Thrones has resulted in the destruction of character growth, the casting aside of whole arcs of the show, and has left me wondering, “Why is there a show in the first place? Why did I watch all of that only for them to renege in the last three episodes?”

To help me come to terms with what I feel like is the death of one of the great fantasies of our time, I’ve decided to do a little bit of what I think of as Plot Doctoring - A general editing and analysis of how the overall plot of just the last season could be improved and altered to make a better show overall.

This isn’t an entire script doctoring session, not nearly as detailed, but much more general and over-arching. I tried to not be nit-picky, just point big changes I feel should have been made in the script before they went into production of the last season. I feel these changes would have made for a better TV show over-all, which would have made our decade of dedication and viewership worth it.

With this doctoring, I’ve also done it in a few different sections to accommodate multiple possibilities as far as show constraints are concerned:

An outline which address the pacing of the last season so far, without changing anything that has happened, only the order.
Addresses the still unreleased last episode and my thoughts on the conclusion and how it could have been done better.
My ideal dream Season 8 outline, with major changes to plot and the outcome of the show for a more satisfying and fulfilling ending.
Other endings I think would be more effective than the one the show is allegedly planning.

Each of these will have some similar overarching themes - namely pacing and satisfaction levels for the resolution, but I’ve broken it down to hopefully show how there are so many possible endings for this show, but that they have come upon an ending which is the most unsatisfying and not suited for a fantasy epic. Out of all of the possibilities I could think of, the season finale of Game of Thrones they have planned is perhaps the least interesting, most boring and pointless ending I can perhaps think of.

For my first two edits, I will assume that the ending of the show is fixed due to forces out side of the writers, either George of some kind of Studio Exec somewhere determining the ending for them. I feel as if it is more likely the show runners, Dan and David, or D and D as they are called, and not George, given George does not seem happy with the show’s ending either.

The last two will be my exploration of other directions I feel the show could have gone, and the kind of ending I wish they had done.

The Pacing of Season 8 - So Far

It’s no secret that this show is expensive to make. With a budget in the hundreds of millions, Game of Thrones is unprecedented in it’s access to resources, with a reported budget of fifteen million dollars per episode for it’s final season.

That is a lot of money.

Additionally, Game of Thrones has one of the largest audiences in the world, with an avid viewer base that has been there through some major things during the show’s run.

We watched the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding and the Battle of the Bastards. Every second in between was spent following characters such as the Starks from childhood and into adulthood. We were with them as they found themselves and ventured out into the world, endured horrible things and came back from them, stronger and more determined.

Arya alone left home and became one of the most proficient assassins in the Seven Kingdoms, and her journey as a standalone tale is epic (until this last episode, but we’ll get there).

Many of the characters are very well developed, and have grown and changed a lot from their season 1 roots. Everyone has endured some hardships, and every step of the way has been carefully crafted and well timed.

Through this, we’ve become emotionally invested in these characters. We’ve spent so much time with them, rooting for them, and being let down by them, but always building towards something.

Because of all of the varied characters, and the sheer scope of the world building, there are a lot of loose ends to tie up in this final season. We saw some plot points get resolved in meaningful ways, like Theon and Melisandre, and we saw some loose ends get let go without a real conclusion, like Ghost and Sam.

With that in mind, I think season 8 should have been ten or even twelve episodes, if possible.

There is too much ground for this show to cover in only 7 or 8 hours, too many threads which need to find a home. Additionally, the show also has to contend with it’s past unresolved business, and with the new plot threads they’re creating at light-speed. Game of Thrones is charging forward without addressing the past in any meaningful way, and with how quickly they’re pressing forward it gives the viewer a cognitive whiplash.

Adding a few more hours would have solved a lot of problems with the pacing in season 8. It would have allowed them to better explore the changes in character they are just now creating in episodes 5 and 6. More time would result in a character shift which is both understandable and digestible, even while changing nothing about the show, most notable with how they are having Daenerys act in the final season.

I understand that D and D are the ones who decided to cut the season lengths short, so I feel as if this is a fault squarely on their shoulders.

However, even without adding more run time to the show, there are some things which could have been done to improve the season by a lot, namely the layout and use of time in episodes 1-5. Here is how I feel the season so far should have been laid out, without changing any of the major plot points, and without changing the total run time. This is purely re-arranging and moving some segments around, editing the overall plot in a way that improves the pacing and created a greater sense of build up.

I am positing this with the assumption that with this shuffling of points around, the writing in general would be made to accommodate these changes, and smooth out any hard edges. This is how I would have structured the season as a a whole.

An Improved S8 -

Episode 1 - Winterfell - The beginning of the episode as aired actually works very well to set up the new season, with one huge flaw above all others, it needs more romance! Dany and Jon’s relationship is said to mean a lot to her, but not enough time is spent developing this romance and showing it to the viewer. There are some long looks and kissing, but not enough sweet nothings and actual communication and relationship building. They’re together but they aren’t together in the kind of way that matters to an audience. There is no heart in their romance.

I would have done the following in this episode -

Open with Dany and Jon traveling north together from Dragonstone, with a sweet scene that shows them together on the deck boat (we got such a moment with Grey Worm and Missandei, why not Jon and Dany too?).
Euron arrives in King’s Landing with the Golden Company.
Jamie leaves Cersei and heads North.
Winterfell Reunion with Jon, Sansa, and Arya
Jamie is brought before Dany, Brienne vouches for him.
- As a bonus, Dany is more visibly unhappy about this. Tells Tyrion, “If he turns, it’ll be your fault. No more chances, no more room for mistakes. This is it.”
Jon discovering his true identity as Aegon Targaryen.

Episode 2 - The Last of the Starks - I think at this point in the season we should be concentrating on the more-easily-defeatable of our villains, Cersei. She is human, and while she is a terrible person, cruel and ruthless and awesome, she is still human. She has flaws and relatable points, and is not a supernatural metaphor for death. Her defeat makes more sense as a stepping stone towards the Night King, a trial run which should have tested them on their way to the Great War.

In this episode, I think that it should be decided that part of the Army will remain in the north, and that while the Night King is still some time away, they should tackle Cersei first, since they know she had betrayed them. This would make the travel pace of the walkers much more believable in Westeros as well, adding to a better sense of time. We all joke about the Westerosi ravens, but I had also wondered how the walkers had ever moved so fast? It seemed that Westeros was either always bigger or smaller than I thought, and spacing out the breaking of the wall and the arrival of the army in Winterfell makes sense to me.

I felt this episode should have gone roughly as follows -

Theon rescues Yara, returns to Winterfell.
Jamie and Brienne become lovers, and perhaps are not drunk when it happens. Instead they have a short scene about how Brienne taught Jamie the meaning of honor, but that he isn’t sure he is honorable.
The war council meets, and takes stock of the situation. Dany pushes for a march on King’s Landing, as she has been for some time, and help smooth the season out, she does not let Tyrion sway her from it this time.

With the Iron Islands recaptured, they decide to venture south again, stopping at Dragonstone first, where Euron ambushes them.
Rhaegal is killed.
Missandei is captured.
Jamie returns to King’s Landing, leaving Brienne behind. He is determined to save Cersei once he hears about how she is no longer listening to Tyrion.
Dany advances on King’s Landing, Missandei is killed.

Episode 3 - The Bells - This episode was very effective at showing how mad Dany is, and I think pairing the sacking more immediately after Missandei is killed, and not allowing there to be a time gap in-between would have been a more accurate showing of a character snapping, with a distinct cause and effect.

The problem I have with Dany, is right now she appears to be acting out of character. While I could see how she could have gotten to this point, I think we missed a step that she took. By pushing the sacking closer to Missandei dying, the loss of her best friend becomes the catalyst for her burning the city.

This also lends more weight, given Missandei’s last word being, “Dracarys.”

This season of the show relies too much on people remembering little nit-picky bits of foreshadowing from nearly 5 or 6 or even 10 years earlier in the show, and it is most obvious in this episode. They’ve lost the threads of her madness in too many moments of her being good, so they got lost. They should have made a bigger deal of her being pushed to the edge, and then over. Missandei, for me, is the most obvious solution to this, in addition to adding a scene where she openly defies Tyrion.

Good writing should not rely on someone remembering a short scene from season 1 to explain something in season 8.

This episode would have been better like this, I believe -

First, the Sacking of Kings Landing - unchanged and placed immediately after Dany loses her best friend.
Cersei and Jamie die in the crypts.
Dany’s decision when the bells toll… She pauses for longer, waiting. And then she hears Missandei’s voice again in her head, and she burns the city down. Jon shouts at her to try and get her to stop, but she ignores him.
Meanwhile, in the north, at the end of the episode, Sansa sends scouts to Last Hearth, and discovers the message from the Night King.

Episode 4 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms - Addressing the obvious first, Jamie is dead at this point, and has already betrayed Brienne. Which is heartbreaking, but if they are going to have Jamie go back to Cersei anyway, and effectively make his entire character arc meaningless, I think is it actually better to have someone else knight Brienne. Someone who doesn’t betray her, give her everything she wants, and then abandons her to die.

In my mind, that renders her knighthood hollow, and for something so important to her as a character, I think she deserves better.

My pick for this replacement is Jon snow. Who at this time, is King in the North, and should be more than able to Knight her. I would say Dany should do it, but with her impending madness, I think her being sullen at the feast, now held to celebrate the defeat of Cersei, is more important. In fact, I would have her be more sullen than portrayed in the show.

After the sacking, I imagine Dany sitting on the Iron Throne, and they would host a feast in the remains of the Red Keep.

She would be a Queen surrounded by ashes. A self fulfilling prophecy, she has become the thing she said she would not. Throughout the frivolities, she can glower and be mad when people do not congratulate her, and we can reinforce the idea that people fear her, and respect Jon.

Towards the end of the feast, Jon would receive a raven letting them know that the walkers were spotted south of the wall, that they have a dragon, and winter is coming imminently. Before Jon and Dany can address her sacking the city, or sort out any of their personal problems, they would fly north, both of them together on Drogon, and the troops would follow.

Ideally, I think the episode would fit well like this -

First, the great feast - much frivolity by all.
Brienne is made a Knight - but by Jon, and not Jamie.
Gendry is made Lord of Strom’s End by Dany. Immediately after this, she returns to glowering, trying to smile, but failing. Tyrion looks concerned, and is seen whispering with Varys.
Gendry and Arya sleep together in celebration.
Arya turns Gendry’s proposal down.
Jon and Dany share a moment, she he holds her as she cries about losing her friend. Jon tries to talk to her about the sacking, but she says only, “It had to be done.”
Dany and Jon and co. return North after the feast, towards the end of the episode.
When they arrive north, Bronn threatens Tyrion, holds him responsible for Jamie’s debts. Tyrion respects this, and agrees to pay.
Jon tells Dany his true identity, and she is fuming.
He swears to her that he would never betray her, and that she is his Queen. Dany tells him to keep his identity a secret, but he says he has to tell Arya and Sansa.
The episode ends with her warning him that if he tells Sansa, it will be the death of them, and then the warning bells tolling, sounding just like the bells in King’s Landing.
The walkers are assembling.

Episode 5 - The Long Night - This episode contains the battle we all deserved to be the climax of the show. The epic fight between the ice of the Night King and the fire of Dany’s dragons. The cosmic battle determined by fate, which our heroes have been working so hard to make sure is the last clash of ice and fire.

I think it makes for a much better climax to the show, and is epic and worthy of our waiting. It gives Dany a chance to show both her redeem-ability, and her final switch into madness. She is irrational for the whole episode, distraught about her friend, about the knowledge of who Jon is.

She is quickly tipping past the point of no return, and every time she and Drogon are together, the audience is left wondering whether she will fire upon the walkers, or on the Northern Army. It adds tension to the episode and imbues the audience with the sense of fear that the characters in the show feel for Dany.

The Battle of Winterfell - mostly unchanged.
Jon and Dany spend the first part of the battle on the hill, where she tries to ask him to not share again, and he says he doesn’t know, claims they have bigger problems to worry about. Daenerys would insist that they don’t and that none of this matters if he won’t keep his mouth shut, if she can’t go back to her throne after this.
Because of his refusal to talk to her. Dany determines that Jon doesn’t love her, but fears her.
- Dany delivers her “Fear it is then.” line.
The battle commences, with the Night King slaughtering most of their forces.
Daenerys rides Drogon on the field, firing on the walkers, but she looks crazed on his back, glancing at where Jon is on the hill, and where the Night King is on Viserion.
They fight the Night King, with Theon losing his life to protect Bran in the Weirwood.
Arya Kills the Night King in the turn of the century.
The episode ends with every character turning to look at Dany, who lands with Drogon in the field, looking down on the body of Jorah.
She loses it entirely then, having lost her long time protector and her best friend and her lover, what little of her was left after the sacking of King’s landing is gone. She screams into the night.
Fade to black.

In essence, I think the season so far should have started with defeating Cersei, and ended with the battle with the Night King in episode 5.

We’ll get to episode 6 here in a moment.

This revised and altered progression of events would have provided a more clear escalation in the action, building on bigger and bigger battles, and given more opportunities for us to see a shift in Darnerys’s demeanor.

Rather than her burning a city, which seems out of left field, we can see a clear snap in her character, and have the chance to follow that up with additional acts of madness. This would have made for a better ride, and allowed one last great betrayal, Dany’s betrayal of herself, to actually be seen as a betrayal, and not as a left field character shift.

Additionally, it allots more time to see her and Jon talking, with him trying to reason with her, calling her back from the edge of madness, working with Missandei and Tyrion to keep her grounded.

He could temper her just enough, succeed in holding her back just a little, try helping her be better. Their romance would be richer and more developed, and make us all hurt for Jon when she decided to destroy King’s Landing. This would have the added bonus of also making her love proclamation to him make more sense, and his rejection of her sting all the more.

I will admit, that her madness was hinted at earlier in the show, but just as equally, we have seen her be merciful and redeemable outright, with a strong will to do good and be good. To move beyond the actions of her father and his father before him, and to be a queen who saves people. She does not want to be Queen of the Ashes.

Effective, good foreshadowing gives hints to the reader or watcher of what is to come, and those hints have to be picked up on and make you go, “Ohhhhhhhhh.” They are big enough to actually be noticeable, not so small that a good chunk of your fan base misses it. And I missed it, and i wasn’t the only one, in fact, I would go far to say that so many people missed it, that they foreshadowed badly. It was bad writing.

Because of this not-firm-enough foreshadowing, she was made to be entirely redeemable, a woman fighting against her instincts and against her family legacy to be better. Daenerys is doing something we can all relate to: Her best. While the show had tried to foreshadow her shift to madness earlier in the series and to be clever, that work and cleverness doesn’t pay off, because they still blindsided us.

Daenerys was the underdog we were all rooting for, and at the end she was taken away from us, in a move that does not feel well planned, or even explainable in post. They haven’t left enough time to explain this plot twist even after the twist has happened. Such a huge, monumental shift in character should be a MAJOR undertaking, not something you pepper in little hints and then blindside everyone down the line and call that success. And you especially don’t do that when you dob’t have time to give them closure after.

Confusion is not success, anger is not success “Wow! Holy crap I didn’t thinks she would actually do it!” would have been success.

With the above layout, we’re given some buffer time to adjust to this new Dany, and to see her lose more clearly those who matter to her and her intimidate reactions to that.

The other advantage to this route would have been more screen time and build up to the Night King. It also makes the Night King a proper villain, and also prevents the killing of the Night King from being a Shark Jumping moment.

The Night King is SUCH a good villain, he’s magical and so powerful he appears to be unbeatable. He is a much more fitting main villain for the show. Instead, he was basically used to Nerf Dany and reduce her dragon count and the extent of her armies, which seems like a waste of a lot of world building if he is just made to provide a handicap.

Daenerys was clearly going to sack King’s Landing one handed anyway, why does it matter if she had one dragon or two or three?

In fact, I think it would have been much more clear how dangerous she is, and shown just how mad she had become if she had used all three dragons to attack King’s Landing. Framing her fall with three dragons would add a lot more violence to the show, but at this point there is already so much violence, at the very least the violence could have a point - showing us more clearly and understandably that Dany has snapped.

The only other reason I can see for killing off her dragons is to hint at how she is a woman pushed to the edge, but again, Dany does not have much on screen time, and does not appear to mourn her children in any significant way.

But more on that in my dream season section.

In conclusion, The shift could have been executed way better, and paced out to be a longer road from kind, good Queen, to Mad Queen Dany.

Additionally, it would have allotted more time to see her and Jon talking,. Their romance would be richer and more developed, and make us all hurt for Jon even more when she decided to destroy King’s Landing. This would have the added bonus of also making her love proclamation to Jon make more sense, and his rejection of her sting all the more.

This is not what we received, sadly, what we did receive was a character assassination for the sake of shock.

The Big Fall

This is the part where it gets irredeemably spoiler-y, s look away now if you don’t want the last episode totally spoiled.

There is one glaring omission from the above, the consequences after the fall of my favorite character, the woman we have been encouraged to root for for almost a decade, Daenerys Targaryen. Her character arc is clearly set up to be resolved in the final episode of the final season.

Which brings me to Episode 6, which I will call The Death of the Queen.

A week ago, a leak from Spain outlined the contents of the last two episodes of Game of Thrones, and last night that leak was proven to be 100% accurate, so I will be working off of the assumption that it is 100% accurate for the final episode as well. The spoilers are below, and I will tell you, they are… something.

The Death of the Queen

So now that you’ve had a chance to absorb the above, or perhaps re-familiarize yourself with the lack-luster plot outlined for us, let’s chat about this…

What the fuck?

Really, that is all I could think at first. I felt angry and hollow, like I had had everything taken away from me, like the show had sucked out my soul and given nothing back. All of the characters I loved, done wrong in some way, all of the emotional energy I had invested in these characters was wasted.

Not only did Dany fall into madness, but she is killed by the man she supposedly loves, but this happens after Jamie abandons all of his character growth. Arya kills the Night King, but then sails off into the sunset and has no other part to play? She just rolls over and leaves?

The fact that Arya gets written off is part of the reason I feel the Night King should have been at the end of the season. She is a good character who deserves better, not to fade into the distance as if she has no sense of honor. She would never abandon Bran and Arya like that.

For me, the only redeemable part of this plot is that logically, it makes sense for the man who can see the future to be the leader. But, if they are going to stray that far from the line of succession, then Dany’s upset over Jon’s lineage becomes even more not understandable. They’ve made the succession of the throne a non-issue.

A big point in the show is that, “Power is where men believe it is.” and they certainly prove this by appointing Bran head of the council, the de facto King.

All Dany had to do was make them believe in her, something that she has proven over and over again that she is willing and able to do, happily even. Yes, she is a flawed character capable of cruelty, but in the end, it would have been much more satisfying if she had been redeemed and broken the wheel herself.

Why did I spend 10 seasons rooting for her, only to watch her fall? Where is my reward, the satisfaction I deserve?

If you buy into the idea that foreshadowing in the show was good, it still happened too long ago. Expecting an audience to remember a nuanced phrase or small plot point from almost a decade ago is too high of an expectation.

Effective good foreshadowing gives hints to the reader or watcher of what is to come, those hints have to be picked up on and make you go, “Ohhhhhhhhh.” It is big enough to actually be noticeable and so the reader feels included in the story, not so small that a good chunk of your fan base misses it.

Especially when it comes to Dany’s death and fall into madness. Such a huge, monumental shift in character, and a betrayal by the one person who supposedly loves her should be a MAJOR undertaking, not something you pepper in little hints and then blindside everyone down the line and call that success.

Confusion is not success, anger is not success “Wow!” would have been success.

In all honesty, out of any betrayal I thought would happen, I thought Jamie was going to kill Cersei, which would have been a fantastic conclusion to her story. I thought Jon might kill Dany, and I still think with how they have things set up that this is the best way for Dany to die, but I am still surprised that this is how they set it up.

An ending like this feels like a waste of money. George so desperately did not want this last season to be as hollow as the last season of Lost, but it is.

The show became lost after the death Night King. They lost their driving force.

Even if they had done none of what I outlined above, and just had Dany overcome her dark instincts in the last episode, and grow to become better, with Jon’s support and love, with the love of her friends, the show would have felt like it had a point.

We would have seen ice and fire come together (Jon and Dany) we would have seen good win over evil (the defeat of Cersei and the Night King), and we would have seen love help someone grow as a person (Jamie and Dany and Jon). The show was so close to being poetic and wonderful and worth the time.

Instead, I’m left disappointed and angry.

At least we have the comfort of Emilia’s acting.

Her performance this season should really be commended, and I think it is a shame they didn’t give her more screen time and a better showing of her character’s descent into madness. I think Emilia would have done an excellent job at it, and given wings to fly, could have made the audience feel the same fear of her that Jon apparently feels.

Since this was the route they insisted she go, they may as well let Emilia shine and help carry the narrative.

I won’t dwell on this too much, because it has yet to pass, but moreover it makes me sad and mad and all kinds of upset to think about for too long. I wanted so much better than this.

My Dream Season

Call it fanfiction or whimsey or whatever you want, my dream season would have been both more romantic, and more satisfying. And I don’t think I would be the only one to enjoy my interpretation more.

While I think the above doctored plot outline could have made for a quasi satisfying ending, which culminates in something both interesting to watch and emotionally fulfilling, I wanted something even more than that. That was just what I think should have been changed with the pacing to smooth out what was already planned.

Now, I want to explore what I think should have happened, a no holds barred look at how this show could have been.

It’s more than likely the writer in me, always striving for the perfect story, but when I think of Game of Thrones, I think of wasted opportunity and bad pacing and unnecessary foreshadowing. I think of a show that got in it’s own way, and in the end couldn’t figure out how to go out gracefully.

They put too many oars in the water, and got too clever for their own good.

Ironically, being too clever is a trait they have punished over and over again in their characters, but they couldn’t see it in themselves.

Here’s how I think the last season should have played out. In this vision of an oasis in a desert of D and D trying to be cool and edgy, the characters are not forced into the plot of a show. Dany is not made to burn a city down, just because they want her to. Jamie does not go back to his sister just because it would be poetic if they were crushed together (despite the fact that he has cast her aside and abandoned his old self).

In my utopia of a season, we tie up some major plot points which the main show left lingering, and experience a fantasy epic worthy of ten years of your love and attention. Many I think will feel this is too romantic, or unrealistic. But this is a TV show with dragons where love has always been a central theme. If mine is too romantic, then I would assert that D and D’s final season is too violent.

I grew up reading fantasy novels with long and winding paths, and in all of them, the romance aspects have always been the parts which made it worth the journey, and it’s something GoT is desperately missing in it’s final season. Which is strange, given that season seven was fairly romantic.

It’s a general outline overall, but it should give you a good idea of what I had been hoping for.

Episode One - Reunion at Winterfell

In this episode, we open first on a boat again, with Jon and Dany holding hands, ready to land in the North, and the travel to Winterfell, there is a short montage of Jon and Dany being happy together on the road, sitting by the fire together and

Jon, Arya, Sansa, Sam, and Bran all reunite in Winterfell. The Stark children come together, and Jon tells them all about the Night King, getting Arya up to speed, and reveals to them all that he died and came back to life.

This is something the show never shows weirdly, and given coming back from the dead is a pretty big deal, it would be nice to see someone’s reaction to this revelation. Dany asks about it several times, but there is never a scene where we see her discuss it with Jon outright.

Meanwhile, Sam and Daenerys have their encounter, and Sam discovers that he is now the only Tarly left.

After discussing her technically-undead status with his siblings, and giving extra hugs to them all Jon, tries to go find Dany, but is stopped by Bran, who asks him to wait. Sam and Gilly join them in the Weirwood, and Jon discovers his true identity. He is conflicted about it, and has a discussion with them all about what this means and about how he does not want to be king.

Sam, distraught still from the news that he is the last Tarly, then reveals that Dany killed Dikkon and Randyll to Jon, who is understandably mad. Sam uses this anger to try and press Jon into claiming the throne, but Jon refuses and swears them to secrecy, asking for time to deal with things, to talk to Dany.

Jon and Daenerys are horribly in love, and after Jon discovers his true identity from Sam, and it is revealed that she killed Sam’s family, Jon confronts her, fighting for his friend, as he has always done.

He is calm but firm with her, and in the end, she agrees that she should have spoken with him first before killing them. She acknowledges that what she has done cannot be un-did, but she vows to try and make it right by Sam. They kiss. Jon almost tells her who he is, bur refrains, kissing her again instead.

In King’s Landing, Cersei sends Bronn out to kill her brothers, and sleeps with Euron, promising him the kingdom. Qyburn appears suspicious but supportive of whatever she wants. We leave King’s Landing with a panning over a warehouse by the docks, where forge after forge has been stuffed inside, with grizzled and dusty, soot-stained men are working on bolts for scorpions.

The episode wraps with Bran and Dany meeting. Bran waits for her inside of the war room, calmly sitting in his chair, waiting. He speaks to her briefly of the prophecy of her future, and lets her know that Drogo would be proud of her, and hints at the idea that he would have killed them all too, as would her father.

This news troubles her, and as Bran leaves, she looks heart-broken.

Episode Two - A Lannister Always Pays

Jamie arrives in Winterfell right at the beginning, and Dany first wants to toss him out, but in an effort to please Sansa, allows him to stay.

Insististing he is there to help, Dany grants custody of the defunct prince to Brienne, who is all too pleased with her charge. The honorable Brienne gives Jamie a talking to about how she believes in Daenerys, and questions him fiercely about his intentions in coming north.

Jamie looks at her and says, “Where you go, I do. That’s how I know it’s right. I may be the dumbest Lannister, but I know one thing, and it’s that you’re an honorable woman, Brienne. I pledged myself to fight the walkers, so I am here to fight the walkers, as a Lannister should, but more than that I know this is right, because you’re here.”

After allowing him to stay, Daenerys speaks to Sansa, one on one on the ramparts. She asks Sansa about her time with Brienne, and why Sansa trusts her so much. Dany is trying to learn about the North, the people there, the people she loves without knowing them, and whom she is determined to love more for knowing them.

As two women who have endured great hardships, they both allude to past troubles, and praise the people in their life who helped protect them from any further abuse. They become closer, which makes both Jon and Dany happy. We see them sharing a room at the end of a long night, and they lay in bed, facing each other and talking, the framing very similar to scenes we have seen with her and Daario.

Sam begins to research the Night King, reading the books he stole from the Citadel, and meets Bran in the library. Bran is fascinating to him, a font of infinite knowledge. The pair of them begin to talk about the past, Maesters they both know of, and then of more. Of the origin of the world.

The scene of Bran and Sam in the library fades to black with some cinematic music, and when we can see again, it’s Bran laying in bed, his eyes popping wide open, warging.

In the night, Bran has a vision of the Night King on his dragon, and his ravens return with word that Cersei is preparing to move north. Jamie fills the war council in on what he knows of her plans, but admits he has no idea how her plans have changed. Only that she likely has the Golden Company, and Euron will be sailing north.

Episode Three - The Mother

Cersei, beginning to visibly show, rides north with the Golden Company and all of the men she can find. The Mountain looms behind her like a shadow.

She leaves King’s Landing behind with some basic protections, but intends to prevent the leftover walkers from coming south to her, and to eradicate the leftover Northern forces when the fighting is done. Qyburn and her look mighty satisfied, but Euron rides with them as well, with no body of water close enough to Winterfell, he is delegated to ride alongside Cersei, and he is not pleased about it.

As they travel, the frost begins to move in, snow beginning to fall. Euron complains about the dry cold air, and about how it is nothing like the Sea.

They press ever north, the Golden Company perfectly disciplined as they move, much like the Unsullied.

In the north, Sansa watches Jon and Dany closely, and notices that Jon smiles, that he is happy. Arya reveals to her sister where she has been all this time, talks about the faceless men, and how if Dany didn’t make Jon happy, she would take care of that problem… But then confesses that she thinks they’ll be happy, no matter what.

That night, Jon reveals who he is, talking Dany through who his mother was, and what her story means to them both. They walk together down to the crypt, Jon talking calmly, but when they arrive and Dany sees her, she is heartbroken. She thinks about how they loved each other, about how much she loves him, and asks Jon what this means to him.

He tells her he does not want the throne, and tells her he loves her. They kiss, and Dany sighs, leaning into him.

She stays there a moment, and then asks him, softly, “Will you stay with me?”

“I will,” he says, his eyes watering.

“Will you marry me?” She asks.

He looks at her surprised, but Dany explains that he is the best of her, someone who knows these people and loves them. How she appreciates that he would fight for them, and that as she values honesty in Varys, she too honors the honesty in Jon.

They kiss again, and the scene fades to black.

When it comes back, it shows Daenerys standing at the edge of the window, thinking hard. She repeats aloud the prophecy, “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves, when your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child.”

She laughs, and then looks down, “She’s been wrong before.”

Episode Four - The Father

Sam is a smart lad, and he has discovered a lot in his time in the Citadel. In coming to Winterfell he has also unknowingly encountered the smartest person in the world, or even the universe. The one person who knows all truths, and he befriended him.

Sam is not dumb, so he asks Bran to double check some facts for him.

First about the First Men.

Then about Dragon Glass.

And then about the Night King.

Bran just answers calmly, smiling serenely.

“You were always good, Samwell,” he says, and then Sam smiles, satisfied.

Bran then leans back and wargs to his ravens, which take flight out of the Weirwood, flying north over sweeping cold. We briefly see a scout in red on the north side of the castle, before we come upon the Night King, who looks right into the raven.

The camera doesn’t stop with the raven, and instead pulls up closer and closer to the Night King, before we go right through his blue as blue eye, seeing a blizzard and then a spring.

We see again the flashback to the Night King’s origins, the man being stabbed in the sunlight. We’ve seen this scene before, in a previous season, but now we see more than that.

Then, we see the origin of the Three Eyed Raven, and how the whole memory of the world came to be contained in one person, and how important the raven is to the entire world, how he is the world. We see other Greenseers and how the burden of the world was once shared, but now is only inside of Bran.

If he dies, the history of the world goes with him. Not just a record of the history, not just the idea of history or an oral representation, but actual history. Killing the Raven means disrupting time itself, and destroying their reality.

Swooping again over now, we move forward in time. Bran reveals the origins of the Night King’s deal with the Craster’s, which was what had kept him at bay all this time. However, with Craster’s last son given up to the king, there is no one else to keep him at bay. We see Benjen Stark, in the wilderness, trying to find the Night King, to offer himself. He knew of the Craster’s sacrifices, and tries to continue to keep the treaty alive.

He fails when he rescues Jon from the walkers, and the Night King now has no one trying to appease him, so he ventures south, looking for more men to talk, for worthy stock to add to his ranks of generals.

Bran also shows us the origins of Valerian steel, steel tempered and imbued with dragon glass, making it able to kill wights.

At the end, we see the Night King goes through Last Hearth, destroying the Umbers, and turns his attentions to Winterfell, looking directly into the camera.

Episode Five - The Lover

The clock is ticking, Sam tells Jon and Dany of what he and Bran have discovered, and the Night King is close, much to close to be fighting Cersei now.

Tyrion and Varys try to talk to Cersei, to appeal to her again to join them, to protect her and her unborn child, to live.

She refuses. She wants Daenerys destroyed, and she wants Jamie back.

This does not make Euron happy, but she tells him to be quiet, and that he is no king.

In the course of discussions, Cersei finds out Jamie is with Brienne, and snaps, attacks too early, determined to wipe them out. The Lannister archers fire on Tyrion and Varys, and Grey Worm and the Unsullied engage with the Golden Company and the remnants of the Lannister Army.

She and Qyburn have been planning, and she is determined to fight as smart as she can, and as ruthless as sh can. She will not take risks herself, but she is willing to gamble with her soldiers lives.

The Hound comes out from the fort, and immediately spots his brother, and the two engage in battle, Sandor cutting down anyone who gets between them. Everyone fights around them, but their fight is huge, with both of them landing blow after blow.

As Grey Worm is occupied, Jon comes running out of the keep shouting for the men to form ranks, that the walkers had been spotted.

The walkers advance, and the Northern United Forces come to meet them.

Around Sandor and Gegor more bodies pile up as they fight, wights and human alike.

Euron is caught off guard by one of the White Walkers, and the pirate-esque man turns just in time to snarl at the unemotional rider, only to be speared by a javelin made of ice.

Euron dies dramatically, trying to speak, but then dying on land, alone. No sea to embrace him.

The walkers step over his body and turn to the walls of Winterfell, ready to take them down.

Sandor kills Gregor, and then stares down at him, unsure of what to do next. Arya shouts for him, and they make their way into Winterfell, headed for Bran.

Outside, the Northern Army fights the Army of the Dead, fighting in the trenches, using fire where they can, but the dead are absolutely slamming into them. The remaining men from the Lannister Army and the Golden Company turn coat and begin to fight against the walkers, working alongside their former enemies to try and fend them off.

The battle begins to seem hopeless, with the army of dead people doing an excellent job at taking down.

Dany and Jon on Drogon and Rhaegal begin to take out ranks of the walkers, running through them row by row, working together in a pattern, but it’s not enough. They manage to hurt Viserion enough to take him out of the battle, but the king is immune to dragon fire and is left whole and alive, advancing to the Weirwood on foot.

The king raises the dead again as he goes, commanding them to join him, and all seems lost.

Cersei flees to high ground, away from the battle, Qyburn with her.

Episode Six - The King’s Arrival

Picking up immediately where the last episode left off, the Night King is in the Wierwood, ready to go after Bran and to end the living memory of the world. He is ready to wipe away all traces of fire from this earth, and will start first with Bran, and then move onto Dany and her Dragons, ensuring that no one can un-do what he has done.

Daenerys is atop Drogon, trying to make her way over to Bran, but she and Jon are both busy dodging icy javelins from the other walkers, less powerful than the ones from the Night King but just as deadly if they hit their mark.

The men in the weirwood begin to fall, one by one, and Bran watches, waiting.

Bran is soon the only one left.

In a flash, we see Arya running, grabbing something off of the ground.

Flashing back, the Night King smiles at Bran, the only emotion we have ever seen from him, and then advances towards him.

Before the Night King can read Bran, and cause the end of the world, Arya stabs the Night King, and he shatters, the White Walkers and wights shattering with him.

Bran tells his sister that she save the world, the future and the past, but that doesn’t matter to her.

“No,” she says, “I saved my brother.”

Episode Seven - The End

Dany and Jon, along with Sansa and Arya work together to clean up the dead. Bran tells them that this is the best ending for them all, and that the Night King really is gone for good, but he’ll still keep an eye out, just in case.

If you’re is looking for a sequel, this would be the perfect time for him to allude to another magical force out there, lurking in the Always Winter.

Dany and Jon have a moment where they determine that they are both okay, and they kiss, relieved the other is still alive. Their dragons loom behind them, looking on the scene, content. They know they have won.

Cersei crawls out of hiding, coming down from the hill with Quburn helping her. Cersei is enraged, and sees this as an opportunity. While the Starks are occupied cleaning up the dead, she can kill Dany, end this war.

Sansa stops her before Cersei can even find where Dany is. Brienne kills Qyburn for her, and Jamie kills Cersei. The three of them stand over her for a moment, an then retreat into the castle.

The next morning, after we see the pyres have been made and lit, everyone gathers in the hall.

Daenerys is now Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Her and Jon reveal that they are engaged, and expecting, everyone is overjoyed.

Sansa pledges her loyalty first to her, thanking her for her help in saving them, for trusting Jon, for helping the North when they needed it the most. Bran agrees to travel south with them to King’s Landing, and to act as an adviser.

Daenerys knights Arya for her accomplishments, as well as officially appoints Sansa as Lady of Winterfell and The Warden of the North.

Tormund tells them that he will watch the land beyond the wall, and that now the Wildlings might interact more with Westeros, but mostly the North. Jamie and Brienne agree that perhaps their roles are done, and agree to sail across the sea.

Everyone has a place to go, a home to go to.

And they have won.

Episode Eight - The Future

An epilogue, short and sweet.

The episode opens with Jon and Dany getting married. She wears a bright white gown, with dragon scales at the shoulders and her three headed dragon brooch. Sam serves are the minister for the occasion, and he is referred to as a Maester, and Gilly is pregnant with their child.

As King and Queen, they throw a huge celebration in the city, with people cheering in the streets and throwing white confetti. The food is abundant, as Dany struck a deal with Dorne to bring in grain for the time being as they built up their stores again. The new prince there is grateful to have the surviving Sands returned home.

Varys and Tyrion talk about letting the public know about the walkers, and how they proved to be grateful in the end after all. It helped that Bran personally saw each and every nobleman in King’s Landing, and proved to them that their claims were real.

The episode ends with Jon and Dany sitting on the throne, which they have altered to seat two people. She is very pregnant, and they are happy, ready to take on anything the world has to throw at them.

And so goes my perfect, ideal, romantic, dream season. I feel as if this allots the proper importance to the Night King, allows characters to develop and then stay developed, shows depth and compassion for the people of Westeros, while also facing down the very real danger of a supernatural force.

It also shows Cersei as I feel she is, a woman who is angry and desperate, who wants to live, but does deserve to die, and it gives her an ending suiting to her character.

While this is a very general outline, I hope that you took some enjoyment in reading it over.

It is not hard grizzled no-hope fantasy, but I don’t think Game of Thrones is that, as it’s heart.

Ned loved his children, his wife, his sister.

Rhaegar loved Lyanna.

Cersei loved her children.

Dany loved Drogo, and then loved Jon.

The whole show is about love, about living life and fighting for peace and a better world for all.

And so I think it is best suited to an ending which reflects and carries on these themes.

Other Good Possible Endings

Just briefly, I would be remiss if I did not speak to some of the fan theories out there, who try and ferret out all of the obscure foreshadowing in the novels and show and tries to guess the ending. Some of the endings they have predicted would have been very interesting, and a number of them would be more interesting than the ending we will be getting. I assembled a couple of them here:

There Must Always be a Night King/King in the North - Where in Jon sacrifices himself to replace the Night King, because even without a king, the dead will still rise, so someone has to try and control the dead.
Jon and Dany become the Night King and Queen. Together ruling over the wights and trying to hold onto their humanity however they can.
Dany becoming pregnant, but then dying in childbirth, leaving Jon and their baby to rule over Westeros.
Everyone dies, but Sansa and Arya, Arya becomes Sansa’s hand and they rule the Seven Kingdoms.
Jamie and Cersei are secretly Targaryen bastards, and each of them has a claim to the throne. Cersei dies, and Jamie becomes King of the Seven Kingdoms.

These I think are compelling and interesting, and while a number of them are sad, I still find them to be sad-but-satisfying in a way the written ending is not.

I think this goes to show that there were so many paths open which GoT could have gone down, but they blew a three dragon lead and rushed it, right at the end. So close to greatness, and yet so far from good.

So was the point of Game of Thrones?

So now, with all of this laid out, my preferences known and explained, my vision of a better final season shared, I have to ask… Why?

This last season D and D have shown us that character development in this show doesn’t matter, and therefore the journey they take doesn’t matter. In the end, the characters will go back to being the same person they were before, or decide to just suddenly be someone else entirely.

Was the moral of the story that monarchies are bad? But then why is it a fantasy?

Was it to show that happy endings are pointless? But then again, why are there dragons?

What is the point of going on the journey? It can be said that the journey is the good part of life, and perhaps that is true, of life. This is not true of TV and of books and of movies.

Because we have limited time on this earth, the small journeys we take matter, and where we end up matters. The journeys we go on, even in the movies we watch and the books we read matter, and it matters because we devote our most precious resource, time, into these things. We give them the one thing we can never give back, and in return we end up somewhere we don’t want to be.

In conclusion, I feel as if Game of Thrones, while culturally significant and enjoyable and memorable at times, has shot itself in the foot right at the end of the show. Which all things considered, is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like a waste of a good story to me.

I think perhaps that Game of Thrones would have worked better in the end as a historical political drama, as opposed to a fantasy, given the ultimate insignificance of the Night King, and how the dragons proved to be very cool, they did not accomplish anything a human could not. They did not kill the big bad Night King, they did nothing other than efficiently raze buildings, and execute a person or three.

HBO has a good history with those kinds of dramas, and I think it would have been a great show if they had gone that route. There would not have been these fantasy elements to deal with, and instead they could have concentrated on maintaining their character’s growth and giving us a better ending.

I do think they should try fantasy shows again, but only after learning these lessons Game of Thrones has taught them. Might I suggest Tamora Pierce, Holly Black, Alison Goodman, or Cinda Williams Chima, for a new (and perhaps better) source for ideas?

Phew, with all of that off my chest, I feel like now I can actually watch the last episode and not drive those around me crazy with my ranting as it airs. All of the proper kudos to you if you made it this far.

So how about it? Are you happy with the last ep, with the season as a whole? What does your Dream Season look like?

I would love to hear!

Plot Doctoring Game of Thrones - Season 8