Jon: “It doesn’t feel right.”
Tyrion: “Ask me again in 10 years.”
That may be a message to all the fans so angry about how Game of Thrones ended. For me, almost everything in Seasons 7 and 8 killed the show.
However, I invite you to try this little thought experiment.
Imagine that you never watched the 12 episodes starting with Season 7 Episode 2 and ending at Season 8 Episode 5.
Imagine a world where:
- You wouldn’t know that all the prophesies were ignored.
- You wouldn’t know that Bran had turned into an idiotic character with the power of omniscience, yet the inability to explain an ability that could be summarized in two or three sentences.
- You wouldn’t know that the smartest, most devious people in the GRRM universe would become complete morons and that their Queen would become so stupid she would follow their advice.
- You wouldn’t know that the Iron Fleet was equipped with teleportation devices.
- You wouldn’t know that Bronn was an Olympic swimming champion with gills instead of lungs, able to transport an unconscious man wearing heavy armor at least a half a mile away from hordes of murderous Dothraki horsemen.
- You wouldn’t know that six years of questions about the Others would be left unanswered.
- You wouldn’t know that medieval weapons could shoot with the accuracy and power of a laser beam.
- You wouldn’t know that a character whose eight year journey of personal redemption would inexplicably change course for no reason.
- And you wouldn’t know why Daenerys turned into a genocidal maniac because some bells rang.
What is seen may never be unseen, but in 10 years in might be forgotten.
The series finale returned to its original roots, acting as if the 12 episodes before never happened. I don’t know why Benioff & Weiss ruined the last two seasons, and I don’t know why they ended the show by returning to the world of the first six seasons. All I know is that the end, while not perfect, was consistent with almost all of the foreshadowing of the first six seasons.
