One Way to Make the Game of Thrones Finale More Palatable

by Ryan Scott

(nothing but spoilers)

I definitely did not react as viscerally as many others to the end of Game of Thrones.  I thought it was fine – not great, but the odds of the finale being tremendous were just so slim.  The major critique was that things moved too quickly; they just didn’t have enough episodes to get the story where it needed to go.  They rushed.  That’s true.

One piece of the storytelling, though, could have easily been different and solved many of their problems.  After the Battle of Winterfell in episode three of this final season, we presumed that nearly all of the Dothraki and most of the unsullied were dead – sacrificed to the Army of the Dead to buy time to draw out the Night King.

It’s only in episode four that we surprisingly discover only half of each army was lost; the numbers, by episode six, are still huge – enough to scare the survivors of King’s Landing about exactly what Daenerys was capable of doing.

Think what could’ve been possible if the Essos armies were actually decimated as presumed.  Maybe Grey Worm dies freeing Jorah up to make his heroic defense of the Queen?  Daenerys is forced to rely on Jon and the Northern armies for her support, but they’re greatly outnumbered and slowly marching to the capital.

This gives greater weight to the attempt at truce where Missandei is killed.  Daeneys is projecting strength that she doesn’t really possess.  The death of her last ally is the final straw.  Now she has to use the dragon to take the city, because her remaining forces aren’t strong enough and she can’t even trust them to be loyal to her over Jon.  She needs the show of strength and can’t afford mercy.  Her heel turn makes a bit more sense.

From there you can play with other scenarios as you see fit.  I happen to like the way Cersei and Jaime went out and as powerful as an Arya death scene would’ve been, it also would’ve been very tough to swallow (not to mention you need to leave space for Maisie Williams to come back in ten years for a sequel if her career hasn’t progressed as she’d like).

I still like the idea of Dany killing Jon rather than vice versa and Arya sneaking out of the shadows to take out the big bad once again.  You could also argue it would be more powerful if he won the throne, fair and square, but rejected it to head back to the True North with Tormund and Ghost.

I would’ve rather seen them return the kingdoms to home rule than forcing Bran onto a throne that no longer exists.  The true genius of the show were the diplomatic battles more than the physical ones – the possibility of eight realms (or nine if anyone’s still alive in King’s Landing) negotiating amongst themselves and having to live together is really appealing.

Justice would have Tyrion executed in the opening minutes of the finale, but Peter Dinklage is the only actor who can hold together a decent monologue, so you have to have him all the way through.  Besides, someone has to go back to Casterly Rock and you want those with power to be worth rooting for.

Again, those details are debatable and there are certainly so many ways they could’ve gone outside the larger plot points at which they were determined to arrive.  All of it, though, would’ve made more sense and arrived easier without such a large, Daenerys-allied armies surviving the Night King in the North.

One detail we all expected anyway and things would’ve run a lot smoother.  Maybe next time.