“Why do you think we came all this way?” Game of Thrones Finale review — The Iron Throne
The Jokerside review
Episode 8.6: “The Iron Throne” | Directed by: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss | Written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
What can end a Game of Thrones? There’s fire, there’s ice, there’s a sprig of spring on the way. Other than that, it’s not exactly what you may expect — but a fine send-off for the television phenomenon of our age that leaves a lot of crucial ambiguity even its a bit too modest in its delivery. Set sail for the West!
*Send in the Maesters: A spoiler-filled review. I mean, this is it. The end.*
AKA: Did you bring any wine?
“That will improve”
It’s been a tough week in the run-up to the 73rd episode of Game of Thrones, concluding the eighth season, the Game and as it turns out, the Throne itself. After years of going nowhere, the shortened final season that’s been everywhere has riven the realm of fans. Has the arcane magic that creates TV programming really failed, betraying its characters to pack the show off in double-quick time? Sod the money, huh? Has George RR Martin really finished the two outstanding novels, waiting for Jon Snow to ride off North of the Wall before publishing them? Sod the money — George I’m joking, I’ve ready your emphatic blog. Has The Last Jedi completely ruined creativity for all time as Petititionist replaces Jedi as top-genre religion? Don’t get me started.
Fortunately, we don’t need to go into any of that because Tyrion and Jon do it for us in one of those pivotal scenes only finales are made of.
One Imp-ortant player
“I know a killer when I see one”
The opening four minutes of The Iron Throne see Tyrion walking through the utter devastation of King’s Landing with Jon Snow and Ser Davos behind him. Quick reminder: Last week was a bloody and flambéed disaster. Brace yourself. The capital is a mess of dead children, where shocked survivors amble past on their way to a bit-part in the Thunderdome, or fade into the drab, grey brick of what was once the greatest city in the land. The episode’s title sequence beautifully reconstructed the ruins in their final clockwork flourish, but that’s not the reality. It’s not ash from the Pompeiian destruction that’s landing on slumped shoulders — although it could have been, just as the Iron Throne really could have been a monstrous construct too painful to sit on. Nope, the air’s filled with pathetic fallacy because Winter has come to King’s Landing. He’s called Jon Snow, and all he needs is a little chat from the one character who can truly recognise and change the future.
Mistakes
“He’s made many terrible mistakes. He’s going to spend the rest of his life fixing them.”
No surprise the episode starts with Tyrion Lannister. He’s always been a crucial character, Tyrion. Peter Dinklage’s performance is a considerable factor in the show’s success and his name was duly bumped up the titles in its formative years. The Iron Throne takes his point of view more than any other character’s, from his stumble past a wrecked bell of the week before to his killer final line. The look on the Imp’s face when he’s sentenced to life as King’s Hand is priceless, and there’s a crucial hint from the afterlife to guide him there. Before Ser Jaime’s history is nobly recorded by Ser Brienne, it’s his golden Lannister hand sticking out from the rubble of the dungeons of the Red Keep that guides his younger brother. Poor old conflicted Jon Snow provides an argument to Tyrion up to a point, but he’s mainly his weapon. One that’s “exactly where it’s supposed to be”.
“It’s not over until the Queen’s enemies are defeated”
She’s the baddest of the bad. A mean one, this Queen Grinch. Last week we saw the tyrant unleashed in the air, her army’s savage devotion unleashed on the ground. This week double-downs on her uncompromising regime through Grey Worm’s unflinching loyalty, the unruly Dothraki, and the speech that calls for a continual war to break the wheel. As Tyrion eloquently translates it, “she’ll go on liberating until the people of the world are free… And she rules them all”.
Tyrion sets Daenerys higher on the evil scale evil than either Cersei or Tywin Lannister after just one day’s work. In the context of the past two weeks, he represents the writers, spelling out what’s always been scrawled on the wall for some time. On the other hand, Jon’s the disbelieving fans, signing petitions through hopeless loyalty to their queen, parrying every criticism even though the evidence and destiny is unavoidable. It’s an analogy that wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the vocal fans the show’s unwittingly cast off over three episodes. But Jon and Tyrion are our everymen. Just like the audience, they’ve been through the build-up, bought into the hype, and only just realised they’ve been backing a tyrant all along. You don’t have to like it.
The turning point for Jon is one of the episode’s excellent callbacks. How could we have forgotten old Maester Aemon of Castle Black? He’s the great-great uncle of Dany and great, great, great uncle of Jon who quietly declined the throne generations ago and receded to such old age that his dragon-blooded heritage was lost. It’s a fitting time to remember the late, great Peter Vaughan who played him as much as the killer line from the Targaryen who outlived his dynasty. “Love is the death of duty,” remembers Jon, “Sometimes duty is the death of love” updates Tyrion.
“I Came to kill Cersei, your Queen got their first.”
More succinct is Arya, whose stumble through the broken city parallels Tyrion’s grim discovery under the Red Keep. Fortunately and mysteriously estranged from the pale horse that taxied her off at the close of last week — let’s just say that was a dream born out of trauma and not Bran’s rescue warg — she’s less loquacious than Tyrion, but as crucial in convincing Jon.
Killing the Red Queen
“Will you break the wheel with me?”
What’s the Harvey Dent cliche from The Dark Knight? You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Daenerys manages to both die early and become a villain to half the world. That’s Game of Thrones for you. Still, Dany gets what she’s always craved before her death. On her arrival, she’s gifted worthy wings by her trusty Drogon. During her speech, she’s composed enough to reveal she knows all about Tyrion’s treachery. For a fleeting second in the broken Keep, she’s there in front of the Iron Throne and she’s won.
Unfortunately, she makes two tremendous mistakes that we’ll just have to put down to fiction. She has Tyrion locked up rather than slaying the imp in a crowd-pleasing style there and then on the steps of the Keep. Then, with a look at her lover-nephew-rival, makes the mistake of thinking that she’s truly won unassailability through fear. Two errors that quickly take her from the reverie of the Iron Throne to a hubristic and fatal attempt to win over Jon. While the music throughout The Iron Throne is utterly superb it reaches hauntingly beautiful during the final scene of the Targaryens.
“You’re my Queen now and always”
Dany’s death is tough. It packs a wallop whether you want it to or not. We don’t see the aftermath as Drogon picks her up (it was not the beast killed the beauty) and presumably sweeps her back to Old Valyria, giving Bran a good test for his wandering, warging eyes. But her death is equalled by the demise of the Iron Throne. Drogon’s response is astute, melting the Throne’s swords into one molten mass. I wonder what it became of that metal…
Politics
“We need to find a better way”
The Game we all know dies with the Iron Throne. The final half of the episode is coda spilling out from Jon’s inevitable deed. A surprising addition is a vastly over proportioned swipe at politics. The search for a new leader has never been wider and a jump of a few weeks brings the big cheeses of Westeros to King’s Landing, with some reunions to whoop and gasp at. Edmure Tully as useless as ever (always worth going back to the scene of him and the flaming funeral arrow in Season 3). Sansa Stark is as sharply ambitious and true North as ever. Robin Arryn has grown but still in the thrall of the Vale Lords. There’s even a Prince of Dorne who seems to have given up his state’s independent status — surely not an indictment of the show’s treatment of the principality…
“Think about our bloody history”
Tyrion’s earlier reasoning hinged on populism and the rise of a dictatorship. It’s a twist on Niemöller’s confession of cowardice that rose as a poem in English in the wake of the Second World War. “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist”. As Tyrion explains it, wherever Dany goes, “evil men die and we cheer for it and she grows more powerful and more sure that she is good and right”. It’s enough to get through Jon Snow’s well-built skull.
Just as Bran’s knowledge is the culmination of the past, Tyrion’s wisdom is based on the future. Of course, the real world hardly packed off tyrants as the Age of Discovery arrived, as Westeros may no doubt discover. The worst of dictatorships would come well after the Middle Ages, so this polemic is a little on point. But aside from the satire, it’s also readymade for criticism levelled at the show. Fan response to this season has been very modern. In the less febrile or connected political climate of ten years ago there would have been fan letter writing and disagreements, but not an entitled fan-base turning on creators for betraying their interpretation of characters as we’ve seen in the past few weeks. While the effect on Thrones’ legacy is yet to be seen, I suspect we may owe it a debt for driving this tyranny of the minority out of the woodwork so creativity can tackle it head on.
But back to the story and the humour that makes a welcome returns once Daenerys has fallen. Fortunately, before it all gets far too political, Samwell’s call for democracy is laughed out by the elite. Softly, softly now.
A Song of Starks
“It’s where the map stops. That’s where I’m going”
The individual domination of this episode may be Tyrion’s, but the House rule is the Starks. It always has been. Far removed from their first season diaspora, they’re now at the heart of the Great Council, cousins on either side. They deliver the new king, an independent North and perhaps even the wealth of the New World to the west. We follow the Send off of the Starks — as Jon departs for the Black Watch — with the Stalking off of the Starks — as each member heads to their destiny. Sansa as Queen of the North. Jon Snow as (presumably) Commander of the Black Watch. Arya as No One the Navigator. There’s a different emotion and element of surprise attached to the final filmed journeys of each of the remaining youngest members of the Starks. That’s no mean feat and tremendously rewarding.
A happy ending?
“Our Queen’s nature is fire and blood”
But for all the reward, nothing is perfect. There are plot holes and ambiguity — the domains of fiction — as the show that’s experienced success above all expectation tries the impossible: to please everybody. Journey’s are incomplete. Sanza does rise to her rightful place as Queen of the North, ironically the only part of the wheel Dany’s short reign left unbroken as she leaves behind a king and an incomplete small council of men, bar Brienne who’s knighting was an acquiescence to the patriarchy. But other journey’s are left in cruel disruption.
Grey Worm’s development is stunted. He’ll never regain the emotion that was ripped from him in warfare as he and the Unsullied head off to the Isle of Naath, where the inhabitants worship the God of Harmony and butterflies repel invaders. His final sight of Jon Snow more than hints at unfinished business. It’s a curious place to leave a curious character. The state of the kingdom is hardly ideal either. This is the worst small council in history and an end to the age of successors is a bit overstated considering that was also promised by Daenerys. Then there’s the rather smug king who would rather head off for a warg.
What does it all mean? Well, for me it’s a deliberate and terrible break in the narrative that Thrones deserves. We’re seeing the compromise — as Tyrion says, a good one leaves few happy — that meets the needs of the many while proving that it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen at all. It’s a rather sadistic ending, befitting the eight years that went before. The burning Targaryen in Jon knows it, even if it’s trapped behind his stoicism. He and Dany really should have broken the wheel together. But Game of Thrones is better served that they didn’t.
Compromise
“The world will always need a home for bastards and broken men”
Compromise isn’t a new addition to the closure of sprawling genre stories. There is a hint of Matrix-truce in the alliance formed between the Westerosi and Essossi. But the sting in the tale is in the ambiguity. Oh sure, there’s the weight and lifetime of misery for Jon Snow ahead, the cost of being the “shield that guards the realms of men”. A silent Tormund shaking his head next to him is punishment enough. But when Brienne delicately completes Jaime’s history, it’s not hard to spot a reminder that Robert Baratheon pardoned the previous Kingslayer. This can’t be Jon Snow’s fate, but it’s not clear if that impossibility and “good compromise” is a sign of progress or a step back? I suppose that’s life.
Purposefully denied its proper ending, Thrones closes with the best alternative the future-thinking of Tyrion and the past-knowledge of Bran can conjure up. Jon’s actions are the miserable triumph of nurture over nature for which we have to thank Ned Stark. Props to Benioff and Weiss for being bold enough to let that happen. If there’s a lesson to be learned from the sprawling narrative it’s that the world of men is flawed and far more weight should be put on the animals of the main House sigils.
It is, after all, Drogon and Ghost who show the best grasp of romantic justice.
Star Turn of the Week
Drogon’s Godzilla moment. If only someone had done that when he was just a fossil of an egg. Burn the Iron Throne and be done with it. We’ll never find out if Jon’s resilient to fire, but my guess is that he is.
Question of the Week
Bran the Broken, first of his name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men — was he the obvious choice to be the game’s number one dude? To him, perhaps. Is it compromise? I wasn’t as sure the throne was as signposted for the show’s prophet as he smugly was — but as his predecessor became a tree it’s a step up. He’s certainly not the Emperor who’ll turn his Empire to the Lord of Light. After eight years we leave the politics slightly moved, and religion where it always was. It’s a wonderfully chaotic and human place to leave things. Perhaps we really do need to catch up with Tyrion in a decade’s time.
Farewell of the Week
If you don’t count the collapse of democracy before it’s begun, and a pride of Lannister soldiers, there was only ever going to be one farewell that mattered. The Dragon Queen, the Breaker of Chains, the stabbed in the heart. Lovers of Dany should take solace that she beat all the odds to achieve what she’d always wanted before she died.
That look, that music, that hope in her vision, that final journey. It’s a wonderful send-off even as the story delights in confounding destiny.
Rating: A
“Was it right what I did? It doesn’t feel right.”
A send-off that lets eight years of build-up carry the weight. What’s the answer to the Game of Thrones? Turns out it’s the satisfying, the obvious, the unpredictable, and the strangely preachy political, all mixed together in a way that’s deceptively neat.
Has Thrones done itself a disservice by making its many layers so easy to dismiss? By polarising the game of rule with the game of love? I’d say not. It’s been a pleasure to watching the rise of the villain, and thrilling to realise it in the company of characters like Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. Characters we’ve seen develop from dopey youth to the most important martyr in the kingdom and from and brothel dweller to pining for brothels, jackasses and honeycomb respectively.
Thrones has been a phenomenon. Even Avengers Endgame, oddly completing a decade-long cycle of similar zeitgeisty proportions this spring could keep spoilers at bay. Not so the Game, where plot points made headlines before episodes had even aired in the US.
The pressure was great, but Thrones refused to serve up the easiest route even if some of the steps it took to get there were less than perfect. There’s the hint of real progressiveness in its willful breaking of of narrative. Not everyone’s going to see its determination to leave many of its characters in uncertainty that way but it looks like a fitting achievement to me. This is how an extraordinary journey ends, not with a bang but a whimper. That said, for all its success, the finale never reaches the elegiac heights it should.
Closing where it all began, with a journey north of the wall, a sprig of a shoot heralds a little bit more than A Dream of Spring. That’s the title of the final and as yet unwritten book of Martin’s series. And that should be proof enough that The Song of Fire and Ice, whether breaking the fourth wall of the King’s small council, winning plaudits and ratings for HBO, or continuing to forge its own path on the page, still presents plenty of alternatives for its characters alive, dead and undead.
If there’s anyone who doesn’t believe that what unites people is a good story, that should ease the pain.
There we go. game over. Catch our full set of Season 8 reviews by warging over to our GoT Season 8 review page.
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