Sometimes, when a TV show is almost complete, I write up how I would end it. Then I watch the final season or episode, and compare. Usually the show is much better! But, in my personal opinion, I prefer my own ending to Game of Thrones, and that is what is written up here.

Why am I writing this now? Game of Thrones came up randomly yesterday in a conversation with my nephew and brother. I ended up in something of a rant, I’m afraid… Turns out the feelings from 2019 were only forgotten, not lost. So here they are.

I solemnly swear that the ideas below were written by me right after S8E1 aired in 2019, that is, after the first episode of the last season. I have edited and elaborated, but added nothing new. (That may seem hard to believe at one particular point below, but it is true!)

My 2019 Ending

Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow arrive in Winterfell.

  • Jon learns he is a Targaryen. “This changes nothing, I don’t want the throne.” But it does change one crucial thing: Jon can ride a dragon, which matters later.

The Battle of Winterfell:

  • It goes very poorly for the living!
    • Melisandre tries many things, but all fail. (see below)
  • Jaime Lannister dies saving Bran Stark (ironic as the show began with Jaime trying to kill him).
  • Arya Stark slays the Night King by backstab. Yes, I swear I predicted the show on this! But, hear me out, for these are my reasons:
    • Arya was trained as a Faceless Man, a servant of the Many-Faced God and that god uses her as its agent now. The Many-Faced God is the god of Death, but importantly, death in the natural sense: a part of life, sometimes necessary in an assassination, but still, death in its proper place and amount (one life for another - remember Jaqen H’ghar’s counting). On the other hand, the White Walkers are a corruption of death, the dead returning to life without limit and extinguishing the natural order. At Winterfell, Life failed to stop Death, and so Death steps in, using Arya.
      • This is why the Many-Faced God allowed her training and granted her the ability to take faces and shrug off injuries.
  • With the Night King gone, the Army of the Dead falls.
  • But! Another White Walker raises all the newly dead - plus the recently-dead from the Battle of the Bastards, Stannis, etc. - and the fight is truly and utterly lost.
  • Winterfell falls. The North falls. The survivors flee south.

The Battle at the Neck:

  • The survivors regroup at the Neck, Moat Cailin, the last place where they can possibly stop the dead from overrunning all the rest of Westeros. Their numbers grow with some forces that didn’t reach Winterfell in time, and nearby forces from the Riverlands.
  • A second “final battle” commences with the Army of the Dead.
  • Jon and his dragon sacrifice themselves to slay the last of the White Walkers.
  • The Army of the Dead is finally defeated for good.
    • Or is it? A mysterious figure is seen in the dark of night, going through the remains of the Walkers and wights. (see below)

Politics:

  • A bittersweet victory, but short-lived: Cersei Lannister approaches, bringing her own vast Westerosi armies plus the Golden Company.
  • The battle is a close one, as Dany is loath to risk her one remaining dragon. But, finally, needing Jon’s sacrifice not to have been in vain, Dany burns her enemies to ash.
  • Cersei flees, and Dany + allies follow as soon as they recover (days).

King’s Landing:

  • The City’s own defenses are not all Dany finds at the capital: There is also ANOTHER Army of the Dead, for Qyburn has continued “The Work” he began with dubiously-alive Gregor Clegane, finally finishing it with samples from the Battle at the Neck. Cersei, through Qyburn, commands wights alongside her living troops, and can raise any that die on either side.
  • Dany intends to burn King’s Landing to the ground - the only way to stop the undead once and for all - but Arya gets her to delay.
    • We see “Jaime” (who, recall, died at Winterfell saving Bran) return to the city.
    • “Jaime” kills Cersei, repeating history, now as a queenslayer and not kingslayer. This is Arya using Jaime’s face, which she took from his corpse earlier. She leaves the face on as she does the killing, so Cersei believes her brother killed her.
  • The living Lannister soldiers and allies are in chaos after Cersei’s death, but Qyburn’s wights are the real danger.
    • Qyburn does not care if no living person remains in King’s Landing, so long as he has power and can continue his sick experiments.
    • Dany orders her troops in (wisely? foolishly?), hoping to restore order and stop Qyburn.
  • Qyburn and his evil are ended by Melisandre, finishing her quest of Life against Death, aided by Arya (who, again, acts as the agent of the Many-Faced God against the corruption of Death):
    • Melisandre finds Qyburn using what she sees in the flames. But! She was shown a different place. That is, she is shown place A, and infers that is not where Qyburn is, and goes to the most different but plausible place B; she does the opposite of what she thinks her god wants. Melisandre has realized that - as Davos told her after she burned Shireen - her god is evil:
      • “In Winterfell I saw the truth, when all my efforts failed. The Red God, we call our Lord, and R’hllor, but the more true name is the Lord of Light, and it is the pale, colorless illumination that shines over the endless ice to the north of this continent. The color of snow, and of the White Walkers.” (strongly hinting that what Melisandre thought were her god’s communications were from the very evil she was trying to fight)
    • Qyburn’s death destroys all the remaining undead, and Melisandre burns whatever notes he wrote about the process of raising them. She is, finally, done.
    • Or is she? Nearby, the Many-Faced God is not finished with Arya: she has taken many faces, too many (several just this day, to infiltrate King’s Landing), and becomes more and more “no one” - a pure agent of the god, and no longer a Stark girl. Arya thought she got away with all the powers but none of the costs, but it was not so.
      • Melisandre saves Arya (perhaps attempting to make up for killing another girl, Shireen): She holds Arya’s face very close to her own - exactly as she did in that scene from season 3 - and calls Arya back to herself. “No more faces, girl!”

Epilogue

  • Dany sits the Iron Throne.
    • She finds old documents mentioning a prophecy about a horn that can bring down the Wall (the Horn of Winter; in the books but not the show), which would be the end of all life. Rhaegar Targaryen’s scribbles suggest that the prophecy’s “horn” was meant to be the horns on a dragon, and believes that explains why older generations would not fly over the Wall (again, in the books but not the show); the dragons knew that the evil beyond the Wall desired one of them, and Rhaegar - alive after the dragons vanished, but having seen signs they might return - (re)discovered that truth.
      • Tragically, that familial knowledge was lost with the slaughter of almost all living Targaryens (the conflict that forms the backdrop to the entire show), and Dany the orphan never learned it, leading to countless deaths, including Jon’s.
  • Minor stuff:
    • Tormund and Brienne marry. (With Jaime dead, she is free.)
    • Arya sails beyond the western sea
    • Dany may be pregnant with Jon’s child(ren)
    • Tyrion is Hand of the Queen
    • Sansa is Wardeness of the North
    • Sandor refuses to be knighted
    • Final scene: Drogon has 3 eggs.

My 2025 Thoughts

I don’t like “Tormund and Brienne marry” and other minor epilogue details in my 2019 sketch. Kind of predictable. I prefer that the show avoided some of those obvious things.

What about Bran ending up on the Iron Throne in the show? Well, you can see from my notes that I didn’t know what to do with him at all! I like that the show wrapped his story up in an alarming, shocking manner, that is nonetheless consistent. I wish it had been better prepared - some hints during seasons, rather than a big jump in his behavior between seasons - but it’s a very good idea. In fact, it’s the most “early-season Game of Thrones” part of the last season: something truly unsettling that is not overdone and that feels inevitable in retrospect.

But, apart from those things, I still prefer my 2019 sketch of an ending to theirs.

For example, “undead Gregor Clegane” is definitely cool. But was that all it was? Was it not hinting something about Qyburn, who seemed incredibly fascinated by the wight that was brought down to King’s Landing..?

“Arya shapeshifting and surviving mortal wounds” is cool as well. But is there no dark side to her new powers? Did the religion of her teachers not matter? Was “Jaqen” (who does not really exist!) just fond of Arya and glad to teach her his order’s secrets, expecting nothing in return?

I just feel far too much was left hanging. Not everything should be answered or should “fit”! But on balance, I feel the show focused on the big action scenes and less on the larger themes. My largest complaint is about the quick ending to the White Walkers and the Army of the Dead: The undead are the very first scene we get in season 1, and they terrify us til the last season. But in the show they are dispatched in the course of one episode (called by some the Short Evening, rather than Long Night). That felt far too easy.

And Qyburn was right there! Well, not there at Winterfell, but you know what I mean: The perfect person to dabble in raising the dead, keeping this theme going. The dead should be a very big part of the last season. If the dragons feel like a symbol for a weapon too dangerous to exist, then raising the dead feels like another. Showing that evil proliferate feels right, to me: The Children of the Forest were wrong to create the White Walkers, and the Valyrians (and specifically Targaryens) were wrong to use dragons.

I also feel the larger themes should tie together. The White Walkers and Arya: Is there not a natural way those two fit? Death (the god behind Arya’s training) vs undeath (White Walkers); death as a necessary part of existence, vs death corrupted to consume all. Those are natural enemies. We heard about both for seasons. That is why I put Arya as killing the Night King. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I predicted that part right, and I would not be surprised to see something similar in GRRM’s future books. I know many people expected Jon to kill the Night King and not Arya, but I agree with the show’s choice. I just think the show didn’t develop the thematic reasons for why it has to be her.

The last season was also very short on lore, by which I mean, we learned little about the larger mysteries in the setting and the plot. Bran is the big exception, and the show did well there, but that’s it. Nothing about whose voice it was in the flames. No new revelations about the Targaryens, like the causes or consequences of their downfall. Maybe my sketch’s answers to both of those aren’t great, but at least I tried…

Anyhow, in conclusion, the show did some things well, particularly Bran. But I still prefer my ending to the show’s.

And I hope to love GRRM’s much more.

Comments

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