100 Favorite Shows: #2 — Game of Thrones
“I know death. He’s got many faces. I look forward to seeing this one.”
At the beginning of 2006, a kernel of change popped in the world of television when David Benioff and D.B. Weiss met with George R. R. Martin, the writer of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, and correctly answered the question, “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?” From there, development and production began on what would become the biggest television show of all-time, curving through a tug-of-war between cinema and television, an engaged top brass at HBO, and a botched first take at the pilot. Eventually, Game of Thrones debuted on April 17, 2011, slowly building up its following over the course of the next eight seasons. HBO aftershows, devoted fan podcasts, merchandising and fandoms and conventions on the scale of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. They all helped define the Thrones era of television, which came to an end in the middle of May in 2019. The conclusion came after tens of millions of viewers of the series and the most Emmy nominations of any drama series ever made. Set across Westeros and Essos in a medieval/fictional realm, Game of Thrones followed a jockeying for power to sit on the Iron Throne from numerous players like Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), as well as a marching army of undead “wights” and “White Walkers” that consumed Jon Snow (Kit Harington) from beyond the continent’s icy wall. Multiple spin-offs are in development, but we’ll never again experience the specific feelings conjured by Game of Thrones.
(Spoilers for Game of Thrones are present to all who enter this essay. The show goes beyond the books, too. So, you know, double spoilies!)
“At the beginning,” Shireen Baratheon (Kerry Ingram) reads while leaning into Ser Davos Seaworth’s (Liam Cunningham) cell at Dragonstone. She points to a word, “Aegon,” and explains how the ordering of letters produces the specific sound that defines the conquerer in Westeros lore who inadvertently set the story at the center of Game of Thrones in motion, before continuing her reading of the story to her friend. Neither Shireen nor Davos has particular cause for hope at this juncture of the story as the “Red Woman,” Melisandre (Carice van Houten), continues to poison Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) against them in the name of the Lord of the Light. But in that brief moment, Shireen is just a friend teaching another friend how to read because he never had such a privilege before. It’s a crucial piece of humanity situated in the middle of season three’s “Kissed by Fire,” promptly overshadowed by the episode’s more iconic moments.
To be fair, it’s not my favorite moment in the episode either. (My eyes weakened in most Stannis and Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) scenes — everyone had their own relationship and preferences with Thrones.) But it is a scene that clearly delineates how vital Shireen is to Davos, and vice versa. Together, they endure the feelings of betrayal, isolation, and otherness inflicted upon them by those they felt they could trust.
The bond between the two is so strong that it persists in the character arc of Davos (and Gilly (Hannah Murray), who also learned how to read from the little Baratheon girl with greyscale), even after her horrific burning at the stake from Melisandre’s prompting. As the series was winding to an end, the second episode of season eight, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” featured a quiet moment between a different little girl in Winterfell (Bea Glancy’s Teela, who also had greyscale and spoke with Shireen’s spirit) and Davos and Gilly.
When Teela expresses her desire to fight in the Battle of Winterfell, Davos and Gilly find a tether to Shireen within her. Rendered speechless, Davos can only affirm Gilly’s understated request for Teela to keep her and her baby safe in the crypts of Winterfell. Teela isn’t Shireen, but she is a reminder of the humanity that often broke through the gray, gloomy world of Westeros; she’s a reminder of why they’re fighting on the side of the living in the first place.
This episode presents such an issue through Teela, through every hug, tear, and vow of protection for characters, even through Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) bestowing his family’s sword, Heartsbane, on Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) in the name of Jorah’s father, Jeor (James Cosmo), who fought for Sam seasons ago. It’s a move that comes just episodes after Jorah passed Longclaw onto Jon Snow and it’s a decision that eliminates any twisted notions of familial loyalty and shame. It’s a gesture that shows how we’re impacted by the people we held dear in the past and the ways in which we pass those same sentiments down to others.
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is filled with these Davos-Gilly, Jorah-Sam type interactions that introduce moments between characters who were major aspects of Thrones and had hardly met beforehand. There’s one particular scene in this calm-before-the-apocalyptic-storm episode which features the entire cast (sans King’s Landing players) gathered around a table and developing a strategy for fighting the Army of the Dead. It’s just one moment, but it’s almost hard to take in what’s actually being said because the collection of characters in one frame rivals the “Portals” sequence from Avengers: Endgame. After eight years, characters from the south, north, east, and west had all gathered — every journey led to that moment.
We see Jon Snow delivering a very Captain America-esque inspirational speech (“Our enemy doesn’t tire,” he implores), Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) infuses the debate with his own battle experience, Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) provides his Three-Eyed Raven foresight into the Night King’s intentions, and Samwell is the one to ask why the Night King wants Bran (because “Death is forgetting” and Bran is the memory of the living). Across the table, we see Theon and Tormund (Kristofer Hivju), Beric (Richard Dormer) and Arya (Maisie Williams). All the various perspectives and histories we involved ourselves in for countless sprawling hours had all converged and come into play for this moment. Isn’t that astounding?
It’s a testament to how much work Game of Thrones put in to earn these pay-offs with major ensemble pieces starring characters dialoguing with one another. All the time we spent beyond the wall with Jon and Tormund made us care about and root for them as vital characters in the story, just as all the time we spent traveling across a continent with Jaime and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie). It’s important to understand the perspectives of all characters, so we can feel that conflict within us when they clash.
Take the aforementioned “Kissed by Fire,” for example. The episode begins with Beric dueling The Hound (Rory McCann) to the death, but we’ve seen both sides of their journey to that point and we’re not necessarily rooting for either of them to die. They possess two perspectives we truly care for. It’s the same thing with Melisandre, who kills Shireen and brings the beloved Jon Snow back to life. Or in “Beyond the Wall” when a ragtag group of fighters (Jon, Tormund, Jorah, The Hound, Beric, Gendry (Joe Dempsie), and Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye)) are assembled to retrieve a wight and bring it to Cersei as proof of the undead. Their initial bristling at one another (Jon v. The Hound, Gendry v. Thoros) is eventually replaced with Dungeons and Dragons type teamwork when Gendry slashes a hammer against a wight and Beric ignites a flaming sword, illuminating their various attributes.
Game of Thrones always possessed moments like these, when the enemy of one character was the friend of another. But ultimately, the characters who made it so far as to provide stellar turns in critical installments of the series were the ones who understood the value of a cooler head in Westeros. It’s depicted in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” when Brienne, Jaime, Tormund, Davos, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), and Podrick (Daniel Portman) sit around a fire and reminisce about all the battles they’ve survived and all the times they fought House Stark. Only to see their journeys wind up in the same castle at the same hearth, fighting for the same Starks they once hated.
This was Game of Thrones. It was one part fantasy epic with massive amounts of innovative world-building and one part political drama on par with any HBO walk-and-talk we’d seen before. Yet, this combination was wholly unique and will likely forever remain unparalleled. For every awe-inspiring set piece with dragons flying overhead, we had three scenes of delightfully clever and dynamic characters hashing out their perspectives. It could be a swords-and-sandals picture, it could be a fantasy lore deeper than Tolkien, it could be horror (a zombified Ned Umber still haunts me), it could be romance, it could be on The Soup, it could be everything a person could want from a television phenomenon built on appointment viewing and metatextual conversations on a weekly basis. (I partook in this, too, with my own series of Thrones power rankings for the eighth season.) And it was all unfolding on television, like no other global talking point on a Harry Potter-scale that we’d seen before for the medium!
Game of Thrones was mind-shattering brawls (like “Hardhome,” written by Benioff and Weiss and directed by Miguel Sapochnik), impossible bottle episodes (“The Watchers on the Wall,” littered with chills-inducing moments), satisfying developments (“The Lion and the Rose,” from Martin himself), and installments I’ve still shielded my eyes from after multiple rewatches (“The Mountain and the Viper,” from Benioff, Weiss, and Alex Graves). And none of these installments even came from my favorite season, the third, or my favorite writer, Bryan Cogman (who understands Thrones better than anyone). None came from Michelle MacLaren or David Nutter because the creative team on Thrones was so deep and well-established that even iconic moments could just spring up whenever; they didn’t have to be the culmination of a season-long build-up. They could just be the result of episodes moving the story one step further, with a slew of narratives playing out simultaneously, moving characters from location to location logically and devoting them to thematic conversations (about redemption, loss, revenge, and greed, among others) along the way. It belongs in the pantheon of the greatest stories ever told.
But of course, “when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” as Cersei enlightens Ned Stark (Sean Bean) in season one’s “You Win or You Die,” ahead of Ned’s impending, shocking death. Yes, characters can build bonds on roads that curve through Riverrun and yes, they can put aside their differences to capture a wight. Ultimately, though, they must be wary. You must always be on edge in Westeros because, like it or not, every character is in the game of thrones. Jon may not want the throne, but he’s playing the game. Tormund may not understand the throne, but he’s in the game. Always be on the lookout for the nefarious figures of the world because if you notice them too late (like Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) does in “The Winds of Winter”), you don’t get a second chance at survival.
It’s hard to trust people in Westeros, so when characters do find worthy allies, they must hold onto them like warmth in an icy field beyond the wall. As Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) gravels at the end of “The Climb,” chaos is no pit in their cutthroat world; it’s a ladder. “Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try it again. The fall breaks them,” Littlefinger says to Lord Varys (Conleth Hill), depicting his viewpoint of the world. “And some are given a chance to climb. They refuse. They cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.” He’s not entirely wrong; the world of Game of Thrones is rife with political posturing, maneuvering, backstabbing, and misguided power-grabbing.
However, his philosophy is not the only way forward in Thrones (after all, it eventually gets him killed). The true way to survive in Westeros is somewhere in the middle of Jon’s “let’s all come together and love each other” ideals, Melisandre’s devotion to the Lord of Light, and Littlefinger’s belief that we only climb upwards and eventually topple. Be wary, yes. Be ambitious, yes. But never let these virtues intrude on your loyalty, your love, your faith. The only way to win the game of thrones is to embrace the rare sentiments of Westeros that the throne dares to obliterate.
Of course, that doesn’t stop characters from embracing their own agendas. The characters occupying King’s Landing for the majority of the early seasons are engaged in a number of conniving plots with myriad moving pieces across the Westeros-themed chess board. The plots ranged from Tyrion’s “drink and know things” clever endeavors that involved heroics at the Battle of the Blackwater and tongue lashings that would soar over Joffrey’s (Jack Gleeson) head, clue Shae (Sibel Kekilli) into what others in the south knew of her loyalties, and deeply annoy his father, Tywin (Charles Dance), who always demanded impossible perfection from children disinclined to provide it.
In these early seasons, though, for as much as Tyrion is depicted as the wisest character in the show, it’s still Tywin running the politics of the continent. He is constantly arranging marriages and writing letters to faraway houses, but the audience is never privy to the endgame intentions behind them. With hindsight, we can see Tywin making a plethora of decisions as King Joffrey’s hand to ensure Lannister dynasties for centuries to come. However, we can also see that the constant impediments were people unwilling to blindly follow his bidding. Sometimes, that would come in the form of his children rebuking the Lannister way of life and sometimes, it would come as a result of a disruptive house, like when the Tyrells come to town and muck up the preordained hierarchy.
The matriarch of the House, Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns (Diana Rigg), matches Tywin’s cleverness and strategics every step of the way, but she’s never flustered by the ceaseless cruelty emanating from the Lions. Olenna understands who Tywin is and never mistakes him for a lesser threat (It’s a “rare enough thing” to witness a man “living up to his reputation,” she quips in the negotiations of house wedding), proving that experience still counts for a great deal in Westeros. Eventually, Olenna outlasts Tywin, but she never gets the better of the Lannisters. Even perfectly prepared characters who climb the ladder still manage to slip on a rung.
After all, in Thrones, experience counts for a great deal, but it’s also what pushes many in the series to advocate for a “breaking of the wheel,” changing the system so the immense failings of the houses in power are never allowed to suffocate those below them again. That’s an important part of the game, too. True-hearted characters grow weary of the ruling powers and seek out the leaders they believe in and want to fight for, rather than get conscripted to do so. As such, Daenerys Targaryen’s place in the game is a vital antidote to the cyclical selfishness at the top of King’s Landing.
Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney) is dismissed from his lifelong appointment to the King’s Guard by Joffrey in “The Pointy End” and, at first, he’s wounded by the disgraceful display. This rage eventually transitions to relief as he finds his way to Essos and Dany, a ruler he genuinely believes the virtue behind. His loyalty is supported by Jorah, another exiled figure in Dany’s orbit, because they can see the value in abandoning tradition in favor of righteousness.
Tyrion, too, is later swept up by Dany’s supposed quest for chain-breaking across the world. He spends the entirety of his post-season four tenure endearing himself to Dany and earning the eventual title of Hand to the Queen. On the one hand, it’s a satisfying pay-off, as Dany prepares to head west (Tyrion consoles her concerns with “How about the fact that this is actually happening?,” alluding to the lengthy tenure Dany embarked upon for the first six seasons), but it’s also a testament to Daenerys’ intoxicating power over those who view her as change, at long last, in the world. Barristan, Jorah, Tyrion, eventually Jon. They all shed their world-weary streaks of depression when they met Daenerys, a champion of peace they felt would improve the world. That pathos endured much longer than Tywin’s logos and ethos-centric strategies. (Too much pathos, though?)
Ultimately, I think the gravitation surrounding Daenerys is due, in large part, to her legacy beyond just seeking to reclaim the throne in the name of Tagraryen and in the name of prosperity for all. It’s also because she seeks to ensure that her years of legacy-building in Essos were not for naught. Moments before naming Tyrion the Hand, she breaks off her fling with Daario Naharis (Ed Skrein and Michiel Huisman) in order to ensure that the Second Sons he leads will keep the peace she established in Meereen while she seeks reclamation elsewhere.
Yes, Dany’s story is easily read as a white savior narrative (her Targaryen genes only occasionally impede her desire to free the Unsullied, unite the Dothraki, and learn the languages of every culture she encounters), but that doesn’t change the fact that she genuinely sought to change the wrongful way of life in areas removed from Westeros that she would never have been privy to without her prior exile. It’s a turn of the exiled leading the exiled, as Daenerys gathers her supporters through love (her initial relationship with Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) endears herself to all who suspect she might solely be invested in power) and through revision of tradition (Slaver’s Bay becomes the Bay of Dragons). The massive fleet installed behind House Targaryen indicates how powerful pure-hearted belief can be in Game of Thrones.
After all, Daenerys isn’t the only one who fields a team like the 2010–11 Miami Heat. In “The Winds of Winter,” Jon Snow is finally proclaimed the King in the North by the heads of houses that have stood behind the Starks for years. “True friends are found on the battlefield,” they proclaim, stating that Jon’s heroics in the Battle of the Bastards (in a moment of valor that is as admirable as it is hysterical, considering Jon’s supposed death wish) are proof that Ned Stark’s blood runs through him (in a rousing moment from Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey) and that he is the true King in the North. Jon has proven his loyalty to the northern cause and the Manderlys, Mormonts, Glovers, and more proclaim him their king because they believe in him — just as those in Essos believe in Daenerys. It’s a marked juxtaposition to Cersei’s eventual crowning as the ruler on the Iron Throne, which is proclaimed solely by Qyburn (Anton Lesser), one of the only men on Cersei’s side, save for the fealty of peasants.
No one believes in Cersei the way they believe in Jon and Dany. This would gnaw at her if she wasn’t primarily obsessed with power and careless as to how she got there. In “The Winds of Winter,” the opening (ominously scored by the always impeccable Ramin Djawadi) is a carefully plotted and clearly spaced sequence that depicts Cersei’s malicious intentions to clear the entire chess board of King’s Landing. From the meddlesome Tyrells to the obnoxious High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) to the old advisory guard traced within Grand Maester Pycelle (Julian Glover), the episode’s beginning eliminates them all in an explosion of wildfire (which also clears out some innocent civilians) vastly more harmful than anything the “Mad King” ever managed to accomplish.
As the green fire rolls throughout King’s Landing, Cersei smugly smirks (no one could grin and sip a glass of wine (she drinks because “it feels good”) in satisfaction quite like Headey) and basks in her newfound freedom from those who interrupted her path to power. To arrive there, Cersei felt the need to dabble in horrors Tywin was never quite capable of, but from her point of view, each rung must be conquered at any cost. Even if her beloved son, Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman), commits suicide as a result. Even if she is exactly what she accuses her enemies of being. Even if the episode ends with Dany and her team of all-stars finally sailing west, preparing to challenge a rule that only just begun, borne on the blood of the innocent, the Roses, and the ones who dared to eclipse Cersei’s own shadow of power.
The wildfire explosion was meant to vault Tommen (and, by proxy, Cersei) to power in King’s Landing, but it was also a means to revenge for Cersei, who desired nothing more than seeing those who upheld the cult-like religious sector, the High Septon, suffer. Beyond just the viscous, unforgivable revenge treatment ascribed to Septa Unella (Hannah Waddingham), her revenge against the High Sparrow inadvertently leads to Tommen’s death. Revenge is just disgusting. It’s disgusting how Cersei upholds it. It’s disgusting how Dany later usurps Cersei’s own cruelty in “The Bells” to seek revenge for Rhaegal’s death. It’s disgusting how Walder Frey (David Bradley) betrays the codes of invited guests in the Twins to murder Robb (Richard Madden), Talisa (Oona Chaplin), Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), and Grey Wind Stark in the infamous Red Wedding of “The Rains of Castamere” to get revenge on Robb’s Frey marriage double back.
And, of course, it’s disgusting how Arya later pays the cruelty back to Walder Frey (it has to do with pies and I don’t feel keen to discuss it further, but hey, if Lannisters can pay their debts, then the North can remember). Revenge is a massive theme on Game of Thrones (from the bombastic blow-ups to the careful plotting Olenna later devotes herself to, rather than mere survival for the Tyrells), but it’s never more distinctly depicted than in Arya’s repeated reading of her list of people in Westeros she wants to kill. Those who killed her father, those who kidnapped Gendry, those who kidnapped her. Arya has many people she seeks to kill (which also contributed to part of the show’s deliriously funny meme culture, as real-life Arya lists have grown in the past four years) and as the series progresses, she actually manages to check off a couple names.
I felt roused by many of Arya’s vengeful quests, feeling like the horrific deaths of many noble Stark men were avenged by her satisfying actions, but I was also concerned that she was dedicating herself to a path that had only ended terribly for every character who became consumed by revenge over the course of the series. As Arya is one of my favorite characters, I was truly heartened by her final moment with Sandor Clegane (the Hound) while the city crumbled in “The Bells.”
The Hound’s entire character arc was built around a confrontation with his brother, Gregor, the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Conan Stevens, and Ian Whyte), to get revenge on his sibling’s past abuse that left him scarred for life. When we meet the Hound, he’s seemingly a brutalizing thug who loves to kill peasants and then show frightened children his bloodied teeth. The more time we spend with him, though, the more we see the aching humanity beneath his terrifying veneer. While serving as Joffrey’s personal muscle, he goes to great lengths of personal risk to aid Arya and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) from the wrath of the Lannisters. Yes, the Hound is a grown man set in his ways who sees revenge as a concrete mission. But he also posseses a sensitive side that appears when he’s paired on a journey with Arya, undergoing a holistic redemption arc that elucidates the shades of grey throughout Thrones.
The only thing better than Thrones’ perfectly-executed (and multiple) redemptive character arcs was when these same arcs were brought to satisfying conclusions. When Arya and the Hound meet again before the Battle of Winterfell, she probes him and asks why he’s fighting for people who aren’t himself, to which he replies, “I fought for you, didn’t I?” (He also has a hysterical line when Beric, another “miserable, old shit” who was once on Arya’s list, arrives, prompting the Hound to growl, “Thoros isn’t here anymore, so I hope you’re not about to give a sermon.” (He’s referencing Thoros’ perpetual resurrection of Beric through the Lord of Light.) “Because the Lord of Light’s gonna wonder why he brought you back nineteen times just to watch you die when I chuck you over this fucking wall.”)
The Hound’s preceding sentiments are true, but not solely in the sense that he fought for Arya’s safety. He also fought for her innocence, protecting her from witnessing the horrors of her bleeding brother and the sliced neck of her mother. And he does it one last time in “The Bells,” instructing her to leave King’s Landing while she can. His vengeance against the Mountain is too far gone to rescue, but her desire to get retribution versus Cersei would only result in death and more Stark heartbreak. At a certain point, Arya’s need for revenge against Cersei became a mission for her own satisfaction, entirely removed from the need for justice for both Ned and Sansa. The Hound recognized it; he fought for Arya one last time.
All of these characters, all of these themes — they’re as timeless as Shakespeare. We still study Hamlet today because it has plenty to teach us about the permanent nature of humans across centuries. The same is true of Game of Thrones. These characters exist in a nonsense plane, but they’re just as human as those of us who will die having never seen a dragon before. The siblings on Arrested Development and Succession, for example, resent their parental figures just as much the Lannister trio hates how Tywin has corruped them into pawns for his purpose of power, rather than as children to love.
These shades of grey in Game of Thrones return at the end of “Kissed by Fire” (a crucial Lannister episode) when Tywin demands Tyrion marry Sansa and Cersei marry Loras (Finn Jones). As born into the conniving Lannister schemes as Tyrion is, he’s still regarded by many Houses for his loyalty, trustworthiness, and preeminent focus on kindness when engaging with others. That’s a Lannister who is more than what people hate the Lannisters believe him to be. And even though Cersei is a bottomless pit of cruelty, she’s also wounded by Tywin’s usage of her to continue marrying men from other houses rather than wielding power herself.
These Daddy issues are intrinsic to what it means to be a Lannister. It’s the birthright of the three siblings to be despised and used by Tywin Lannister. In “You Win or You Die,” Tywin guts a deer and espouses his belief of what a family is good for to Jaime, who has likely heard this speech before. Tywin directs, “Your mother’s dead. Before long, I’ll be dead. And you and your brother and your sister and all of her children.” He continues, “All of us dead, all of us rotting in the ground. It’s the family name that lives on. It’s all that lives on. Not your personal glory, not your honor, but family.” For the entire lives of Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion, they were told that their name matters more than their own lives and their own choices. The influence of Tywin is a palpable deciding factor for how many greet the initial side-character villainy of Jaime Lannister. But as we see with his siblings and with the Hound, the world of Thrones is never good versus evil.
The best moment of “Kissed by Fire” (as I mentioned before) comes when Jaime and Brienne take a bath together at Harrenhal. He’s missing his hand, he’s just made the choice to forego milk of the poppy during Qyburn’s surgery, and he’s still held prisoner by a woman who values oaths above all else. That’s a tricky dynamic for the man in Westeros most commonly associated with oath-breaking (he’s the Kingslayer, of course) after his stabbing of the “Mad King.” But as he slips into a humid haze, Jaime tells Brienne his story of why he stabbed King Aerys when he had previously sworn to protect him.
He’s bloodied and shaggy-haired as he regales Brienne with the story that fuels his character development throughout Game of Thrones. Coster-Waldau’s hushed, weary tones are utterly captivating throughout, drawing the viewer in closer as we hang on every word from his bitter retelling. He’s more than a Kingslayer, more than a Lion (judged by the Wolf), more than a Lannister even. “Jaime,” he whispers to Brienne when she catches his fainting body at the climax of the story and she calls out a request of help for “the Kingslayer!” “My name is Jaime.”
No redemption arc on Game of Thrones was better than that of Jaime Lannister’s (whose POV chapters in Martin’s books are also the best). Not only does he prove himself to be more than a villain to root against in the name of moralistic Starks, but he proves himself worthy of even piercing Brienne’s staunch armor of loyalty. This embrace in the bath eventually leads to Jaime’s knowing rescue of Brienne of Tarth in “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.” This, in turn, leads to Brienne vouching for Jaime when he arrives as a Lannister in Stark territory at the end of “Winterfell.” Daenerys is frustrated by indecision and Jon and Sansa are splitting with anger at the mere sight of Jaime Lannister in their family’s castle. But Brienne stands up for the man who made a pledge to “fight for the living” and it saves him. Jaime is the epitome of everything Game of Thrones stands for: characters shedding their preconceptions, making decisions to come into their own, building bonds across continents and years. It’s all right there in Jaime Lannister.
At his birth, he was fated to be a Lion, just as Robb was fated to be a Wolf and Margaery was fated to be a Rose and so on. But beyond this sense of fate, there is also the element of choice. Bran Stark’s arc, for example, in set in motion by Jaime at the end of the pilot, “Winter Is Coming.” After he pushes Bran from the window, Bran is forced to reconcile his lost dream of being a knight in favor of being the world’s memory and a seer into all timelines.
Jaime’s actions resulted in paralysis for Bran, but they also ensured that Bran became what he was always meant to be in Westeros. As Bran mentions, Jaime isn’t the agent of cruelty he once was, but he “still would be if [he] hadn’t pushed [Bran] out of that window.” And Bran would still be Brandon Stark, rather than the Three-Eyed Raven. Choice is vital as a disruptor in themes of fate and blind categorization based on identity. Just as Jaime proved himself capable of transcending Lannister delineations, so too do we see characters proving themselves to be more than what they’re initially depicted as. Gendry is not just a smith’s apprentice, he’s the son of a ruler with an intrinsic key for the Lord of LIght’s intentions. Tyrion is not just a dwarf hated by his own family, he’s a once-in-a-generation brain who is also capable of unleashing vitriol against blood-thirsty masses, ungrateful for his past service to them.
This idea that characters are more than what they’re initially fated and perceived to be is most gorgeously present in my favorite character, Jon Snow. At first, Jon is shown to be just another Stark sibling (“Ned Stark’s bastard,” in fact) who wants to head to the Wall and serve the rest of his days protecting the realm from the specters and ghouls that lurk beyond. By the end, he’s the reluctant King in the North who wants to serve his family and his folk as much as he wants to become the next Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds) and live out his days in northern solitude.
But what Jon Snow becomes is not the key to his character. It’s the truth behind Jon Snow’s identity that is intrinsic to the greater themes of Game of Thrones. Throughout season six, Bran flashes back to the youth of Ned Stark (portrayed in these sequences by Robert Aramayo) and slowly teases out the long-awaited reveal (especially for book readers, who long pondered the R+L=J (Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon) theory) of what transpired in the Tower of Joy during Robert’s Rebellion. In “The Winds of Winter,” the moment finally arrives as we see a grief-stricken Ned (who can potentially hear Bran’s calling) kneel by his sister Lyanna’s (Aisling Franciosi) deathbed. He comforts her and she whispers in his ear, “Promise me,” as a nearby attendant passes Ned a baby. The camera zooms in on the baby’s newborn face, Djawadi’s score swells, and we smash cut to the weary adult face of Jon Snow, sitting in the halls of Winterfell, prepared to be proclaimed King in the North.
That’s the whole story right there. That’s what Game of Thrones is all about and it transpires in the series’ greatest moment, which still sends a barrage of chills across my body whenever I watch it. It’s a moment that shows Jon Snow is the the ruler who was promised, the rightful king of Westeros, the heir to the Iron Throne. Above all, it shows Jon as the long-awaited bridge between ice and fire, direwolves and dragons, Starks and Targaryens. (Crucially, Rhaegar (Wilf Scolding) and Lyanna were in love with one another and they married before Jon (Aegon) was born, showing that the hero of the story was a product of love, rather than a product of kidnapping and rape.)
However, it’s not a moment that usurps the idea of “cripples, bastards, and broken things” at the heart of Game of Thrones (like how The Rise of Skywalker eliminated the idea that a hero (Rey) can come from anywhere). Jon Snow doesn’t know of his lineage. In that moment, he’s still “Ned Stark’s bastard” at heart and it’s “Ned Stark’s bastard” who is proclaimed King in the North by myriad Houses who ignore the tradition of bastards being unable to rule and instead unite behind Jon regardless. Jon is pure of heart and worthy of ruling (the White Wolf) whether he’s a Targaryen or not. That’s the crucial piece of this. Jon will not change based on his newfound lineage. He was anointed as the hero because of how he acts, not because of who he is. That’s what Game of Thrones is all about.
In most stories of high fantasy, Jon’s brother Robb would be the hero of Game of Thrones as the shimmering knight set out to defend his family’s honor against dastardly do-badders. His shocking mid-series death leaves us shaking our heads in retrospect (Robb, just get the fuck out of Riverrun and leave the Karstarks alone) because it’s hard for a good man to actually be the king. Only the ruthless ones are cut out for seizing power. Robb’s death (along with Ned’s) created an “anyone can die” mentality for Thrones that ultimately wounded the show in a counter-intuitive sense (it was unclear to me why people wanted Bronn (Jerome Flynn) to die), but it also created a sense that the heroes of the story were not who we expected.
Instead, the characters left by “The Winds of the Winter” are the ones truly central to the story of Game of Thrones. It’s a bit of subversion as the unexpected heroes of Thrones are actually Jon Snow, the bastard, Arya Stark, the overlooked little girl, Sansa, the superficial princess, Tyrion, the dwarf, Davos, the Onion Knight, and so on. They’re all more than what others perceive them to be initially and they’re all what the story of Thrones is about because the story of Thrones belonged to anyone.
Anyone could be a hero on Game of Thrones. Gendry rose up from Flea Bottom in a bit of medieval meritocracy. Bron sang “The Dornish Man’s Wife” and grew to care for Jaime and Tyrion, even though he mostly felt like looking out for himself. Samwell Tarly illustrated the need for different roles, aside from rulers and fighters, in Westeros as he grew out of the Night’s Watch (changing them with honesty, care, and an appreciation for venison stew along the way) to become the new Maester at the Citadel. After all, we need readers and scholars just as much as we need archers and swords.
For as much as Thrones belonged to the characters from all corners of the world, it was also, at its heart, a Stark story. (This was perfect for me, as I write this with an Arya action figure and Stark notebook in plain view, both gifted by a dear friend with whom I shared the finale viewing experience.) After all, the final, breathless moments of the series depict Jon venturing beyond the wall, Arya sailing west of Westeros, and Sansa being proclaimed the Queen of the North. But it was not an easy road for the characters to arrive at these points. Just like the series grew over time to tackle more daunting episode conceptions, so too did the Starks, who trained as walkers before they became the realm’s most dangerous sprinters.
Much of Bran’s early arc, even when he meets Jojen (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), is built around trying to get to the Wall to be with Jon because he believes the safest place to be is with his trusted sibling. However, the more Bran learns to accept that his destiny in Westeros is to “fly,” as the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow) proclaims, affirming Bran’s visions that grew removed from riding on horseback, the more he accepts the irrevocable change thrust upon his family.
The same is true of Sansa, who learns (partly through unspeakable acts of violence that will never be justifiable as “teaching moments”) the value of defending her family, her home, and her name. As she tells Littlefinger (whom she’s since grown wise to never trust) in the Godswood, she wishes she could think more about what she has in her life (siblings to fight for, Winterfell to defend), rather than what she wants (to be the prettiest queen in King’s Landing, a dream long since washed away). When Dany makes a plea based on feminism to Sansa to help her reclaim the Seven Kingdoms, Sansa is no longer the “little dove” who is fooled by smiles and rosy cheeks. Instead, she only replies to Dany with a demand for the freedom of the North.
And of course, the same is true of Arya, who trains in the art of discipline, balance, and skill beyond just ruthless sword cutting and arrogant arrow-based show-boating. At first, she trains with Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou), who instills the “Not today” refrain for the God of Death within her. En route to Braavos, she trains with Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha, even though “a man has no name”) to learn that the most biting attacks come from deception and masks. To become as skilled as she thinks she is, as she wants to be, Arya must learn to not only trust her eye, but her intuition (which also leads to her aligning with Sansa over Littlefinger at the end of season seven). It results in one of the series’ most satisfying pay-offs as she meets Melisandre (who once told her she’d close many eyes forever) again in “The Long Night,” which unfolds in three distinct sequences, each resembling a different genre of action). Then, the Red Woman reminds her that some eyes that need to be closed are blue eyes. Watching Arya grow from a little girl balancing on one leg to the one who ends the Long Night? That’s why I love this show.
For the most part, the Starks managed to rise above the corrosive, corruptible nature of power in Westeros. (Even though the Lord of Light is real and Jon literally died and was resurrected, he still struggles to convince people about the greater threat of the White Walkers. Sometimes, the laws of men take precedence over the laws of gods.) Many rulers in the series exist within echo chambers of assistants and loyal servants who assure them that they are the “true heir” to the Iron Throne. Melisandre convinces Stannis that the throne is his destiny. Viserys (Harry Lloyd) promises Daenerys that the throne will belong to the Targaryens once again. Robb is only ever propped up by the northerners as the one who must rule Westeros, rather than simply Winterfell. Of course, this power never works out. (Even Samwell’s proposal of democracy in “The Iron Throne” is met with laughter and dismissal, showcasing the elites’ disinterest in the common people. What was Hodor (Kristian Nairn) if not a brainwashing trial vessel for one of the Stark heirs?) Dany, Stannis, and Robb each end up dead, but they torch a violent path before they part the mortal realm. After all, history is made by a few shakers and travelers, but it’s often the “little birds” (as we see in Cersei’s plot to blow the Sept) who do the laborious work.
The fatal flaw behind each of their power grabs is that, when it came time to commit to their actions, they abandoned the humanity that got them there in the first place. In her youth, Sansa willfully trusted others solely because she was desperate for some sense of joy that she hadn’t felt since she pestered her father to take her south. That’s a history expressed emotionally in her gripping hug of Theon when he turns back up in Winterfell towards the middle of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” It’s also a history that Daenerys fails to understand when she operates in Winterfell as an outsider.
For the audience, the bonds of the Stark family were introduced to us from the very first episode, as they all spent time together. These bonds then stretched across seasons (one of the crucial relationships of the show, Jon and Arya, is depicted sixty-two episodes apart from one another) and anchored us in the seminal hope that they’d one day reunite. When Daenerys has to ask about Jon’s loyalty to Sansa, the connection to Theon, and the identity of Lyanna, it isolates her. She doesn’t fully grasp that a history was forged in Winterfell beyond the reach of the Targaryens.
By the time characters like Jon and Arya reunite, though, they’re aging into new positions on the series. The first season of Game of Thrones saw characters like Ned and Robert (Mark Addy) as the grizzled veterans of Westeros, but they’re not still kicking and drinking by season eight. Instead, it’s characters like Tyrion and Jaime who have aged into those positions, having lost a couple steps both mentally and physically. It’s Jon, Sam, and Edd (Ben Crompton) — no longer the young guns of the Night’s Watch — thinking back to where they started as a trio to become some of the last at Castle Black, like J.D., Turk, and Elliot rising through the Sacred Heart ranks. Even the youngest characters aged from the kids to the X-factors (Arya and Gendry sleep together after she quips that he “doesn’t know any other rich girls.” Podrick indulges in a full glass of wine, rather than just half a cup). Yes, characters could be absent for seasons at a time, but they would still grow and develop in the interim, occupying the roles the others possessed before them and striving to be better.
This sense of humanity is instilled in the prior heroism of (some of) these veterans. The honorable Ned Stark, of course, vowed to keep Lyanna’s secret about Jon’s identity (“Promise me, Ned”) because it was her dying request and he would never renege on that, even when it besmirched him in the eyes of Catelyn. It’s “the things we do for love,” after all. Jaime uses the one-liner for purposes of attempted murder and Bran uses it in a moment of acting oddly high school with Jaime, but the sentiment rings true when it’s harnessed sincerely. There’s genuine heroism in the things we do for love. Just as some rulers failed to see the humanity behind their thirst for power, so too does the Night King fail because he’s unable to grasp why his enemies are fighting. It’s not about their survival; it’s about their love.
However, this also depicts the tragedy of Jon Snow. His character is tragic because he so deeply wants to fight for love, but his honorable, wildling-trusting nature dictates his moral code and prevents him from doing so because he’s needed to fight for the world. It would be so much easier to stay in the hot springs cave with Ygritte (Rose Leslie) after they have sex and she gently suggests, “Let’s not go back.” It’s the only thing Jon wishes they could do when he holds Ygritte’s dying body in his arms a season and a half later. Their kiss at the top of the wall in “The Climb” remains a soaring, emotional highpoint of Game of Thrones, providing us a seminal moment of humanity amidst the tired chaos and bleary destruction. Jon would be so much happier if he could just stay in that cave and love a woman as she loves him for the rest of their days.
Which is why it’s all the more heartbreaking when he does leave that cave. He does abandon Ygritte. He does watch her last breath of life. But he could never change his course of action because he’s resigned to the fact that that’s not his purpose in the story. The Lord of Light brings him back for a reason and it isn’t to stay in a cave with Ygritte or Daenerys or whomever. It was to save the realm from annihilation.
“Every time I come back, I’m a little bit less,” Beric informs Arya when she pleads for Thoros to bring Ned back to life as he does for Beric. It’s not a life (or second life or third life) that he would wish upon anyone, but it’s a life he experiences all the same. And it’s the one Jon is forced into, as well. For the hero of the story, for the favorite character of many, it seems almost like an injustice that Jon is forced to lose the shredded hope within him when he returns to a plane of existence that actively works against him and eradicates the humanity still remaining in him. The only thing worse than seeing Ygritte die is being the only one trusted to kill Daenerys and save humanity from the “Mad Queen.” Yet, Jon is forced to do both.
It’s cruel, but it’s necessary, especially in Jon’s mind. When he speaks with Beric beyond the wall about the connection they have as two of the only people to ever return to life, courtesy of the Lord of Light, they discuss the burden that they must bear, sacrificing their own happiness for the good of others. Beric concedes that he doesn’t know what they’re fighting for with the Lord of Light in mind and he acknowledges that death is the enemy that always wins. “You and I won’t find much joy while we’re here,” he admits to Jon. “But we can keep others alive. We can defend those who can’t defend themselves.” They are the shields of humanity, laying down their lives and joys so that others may experience them. Yes, it’s easier to stay in the cave with Ygritte. Yes, it’s what I root for — even on rewatches. But Jon cannot ignore the greater calling. For him, it’s enough to know he must fight.
It’s hardly a beautiful sentiment, but it is full of heart in the sense that it contrasts a sunshine-laden kiss atop the wall with a wildling whose days were numbered. Game of Thrones always had the capacity to be beautiful, all the way to the end. Of course, one of the most joyous scenes in the entire series comes in the final season, when Tormund and Jaime convince Brienne to say, “Fuck tradition” and allow herself to be knighted by Jaime.
“In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent,” Jaime says to Brienne, carefully sliding his sword along her shoulder blades before proclaiming her a knight of the seven kingdoms. Even with the army of the undead steamrolling towards Winterfell in just one episode, Thrones still had room for a gorgeous moment of humanity like this. The applause from the room with no ulterior motives aside from pride in Brienne. The affirming nod from Jaime as he shares the realm’s greatest honor with his lifer companion (who would later pay his legacy forward in Westeros’ history book). The purest form of joy expressed in Christie’s face as tears bubble over and a genuine smile bursts across her face. If Game of Thrones built to nothing else, at least it built up to this: a moment of human connection, love, and accomplishment. The sense that it was worth it.
It’s a beautiful scene that comes in the mix of Jaime responding to the “Kingkiller” misnomer and Tormund’s story of giant’s milk and the origin of his Giantsbane surname (“She thought I was a baby!”). But it also leads directly into Podrick carrying the torch of Billy Boyd, in terms of fantasy stories with haunting, foreboding songs, as he croons “Jenny of Oldstones.”
High in the halls of the kings who are gone
Jenny would dance with her ghosts
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found
And the ones who had loved her the most
The ones who’d been gone for so very long
She couldn’t remember their names
They spun her around on the damp old stones
Spun away all her sorrow and pain
These stanzas of the song probe exactly what I love so much about Game of Thrones and still do, even a year after it ended, as it resides in a position of my favorite television drama ever made. (Perhaps not the best, but certainly my favorite.) The stories we forget, the stories we find, the characters we encounter along the way. They’re always there for us. Whether they’re characters we haven’t met in years or characters we see every day, they’re there and they’re close — shaping our hearts and our minds.
The redemption of Jaime Lannister, the fight in the Hound, the determination in Arya, the sacrifice in Jon Snow, the tragedy of Daenerys, the wit of Tyrion, the growth within Sansa. They’re always a part of us, speaking deeper into what it means to be human, even through they are characters who are decidedly foreign to our own world.
But even then, the most relevant part of the song was still to come. Podrick’s voice echoed through the halls as the series came to an end, with only four weeks left and continents to span for experiencing them. His song marked exactly how the world felt about the final season and about beloved television stories, in general, beautiful and heartbreaking as they could be. Game of Thrones is the chorus and the chorus is Game of Thrones.
And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave
Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave.
