Well, it’s over. Here are my observations on the final season, mainly around thematic inconsistencies, letdowns, continuity errors and other. And maybe even a few stray positive thoughts! In fact, let’s start there.
THE GOOD:
Okay, it wasn’t entirely terrible and there were a small handful of things I didn’t entirely hate!
*Bronn – I thought he was one of the only consistent characters throughout the final season (perhaps due to his limited screen time). At the end of the day, the guy is a sellsword who only cares about making money and banging whores. Maybe that’s why he remained consistent, pretty easy to write. I also really liked that at the end, he’s the Lord of Highgarden. I mean, several of the Great Houses are dead, so new houses have to get built somewhere, right? Without explicitly stating it, I like that we were shown how a new great house can start, in Bronn’s case it was by betting on both sides and managing to survive long enough to collect. I think House Bronn has a great future ahead of them and although it makes zero sense that he’s the Master of Coin, I don’t even care.
*Clegane Bowl. I thought this was a completely fitting ending for both of these characters (including Qyburn getting his face smashed in as an appetizer). Neither of these guys was going to get a happy ending and them dying together falling hundreds of feet into flames seemed like a good way to go. Not the best one on one combat the show had, but Sandor Clegane’s story was told and came to a satisfying conclusion.
*Jon Snow’s ending. I’m actually pretty okay with this, even though it was rushed (like everything else) and concluded poorly. I like that he’s banished to the Night’s Watch (much like Maester Aemon before him, also the ‘true heir’, only to desert them to go, presumably, become King Beyond the Wall. Him killing Dany made sense, even though it was rushed (again) and not particularly well done.
*Dany’s heel turn. I guess this is something that an overwhelming number of viewers had a problem with. Was it done quickly and without much build-up? Was it executed horrible? Absolutely. Had they stretched this out over the course of a season, rather than one glancing look at the Red Keep it would have been much better, but I thought it was well within her character to go that way and murder thousands of innocents. If it had been built up properly it could have been so much better.
*Tyrion. Sure, I have no problems here. He is the last remaining Lannister (I assume, they seemed to have a shitload of cousins but I guess they’re all dead now too), he’s the Hand of the King now and even though it made no sense that he wasn’t written into the history, he should still have a fine time helping Bran rule (although that should also be unnecessary since Bran is al seeing and all knowing so why the FUCK does he need anyone’s help?).
THE BAD:
Where did those Dothraki come from at the battle at King’s Landing? Weren’t all of these guys sent out to die in the first wave against the army of the dead? No? There was a second unit hiding somewhere? Okay sure, then why were they never seen again during the Battle of Winterfell?
Why didn’t everyone explode into ice when the Night King was killed? We saw it several times earlier in the show – you kill a white walker and all the people he raised shatter into ice or snow or glass or whatever the fuck. They had that huge funeral pyre after the battle for all the dead, but there shouldn’t have been any bodies, or at least not a whole lot of them since, you know, they should have exploded when the night king died (this happened to Viserion as he was about to attack Jon).
What in the everloving fuck was the point of the Night King? I already wrote about this on my previous post so no need to recap, but this entire plot point ended up being a giant fuck you to all of us.
What in the everloving fuck was Jaime’s character arc? He was the most complicated character in the show and killed off in one of the stupidest ways imaginable, dying in a cave-in trying to save his sister/lover. Why did he even travel to Winterfell in the first place then?
Speaking of his death, when Jaime and Cercei go under the keep to escape they find themselves trapped by rubble, and the entire place seemingly caves in. Wait no, that’s not right because Tyrion heads down there and is able to walk around where he finds them together under a moderately small pile of rocks. Great, sure. Their deaths must have been the two most unsatisfying of the entire show. Cercei – not killed by Jaime, Arya, The Hound, Jon Snow, a dragon, the Night King. No, killed by falling fucking rocks.
What happens when Bran dies? Do these dumb dumbs believe there will be a peaceful transition of power when the heads of whoever is around determine a new king? Don’t they have, I don’t know, thousands of years of history telling them otherwise? Why is Yara so shocked at the idea of electing a new leader WHEN IT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY DO IN THE IRON ISLANDS?
Who the fuck is that new Prince of Dorne and why does he matter so little? Actually strike that, who fucking cares.
Okay so Sansa is the Queen of the North. Wait a second, this was just an option?
I know it was briefly touched on during the show, but what is west of Westeros? In thousands and thousands of years, nobody has sailed in that general direction? Count me out for the Arya the Explorer spin-off.
Azor Ahai. Oh, another thread that was actually meaningless? Cool.
I won’t even go into detail how much I hated the death of Rhaegal and how absolutely stupid it was. The inconsistency and logical problems with this, especially as it relates to Drogon and how he was able to avoid all projectiles are mind-numbing.
Back to Jon Snow – so, why is there even a Night’s Watch anymore? I guess there has to be somewhere to send the criminals you don’t want to execute but….what exactly do they watch anymore? The army of the dead has been defeated and everyone is friends with the wildlings now so….what does the Watch watch? Do they just sit around complaining about the cold now? And how much of that wall is still standing? It sure seems like a lot, even though we saw a lot more of it crumble previously. Oh well, whatever.
Everything about Euron Greyjoy.
Everything Brann. What was he doing during the Battle of Winterfell? Why does he get to become King, because he has the best fucking story (also very arguable)?
The Golden Company. No, they had no elephants and actually, they had nothing. Nothing at all. We saw them for a quick flash before they were all wiped out in one fell swoop by Drogon. A completely pointless arc concocted by Cercei that ended up being absolutely meaningless. Bye Harry Strickland, it was nice knowing you for those two scenes you were in.
They sure built King’s Landing back quickly, seems to me this should have taken years, if not decades.
So Sam is what, the Archmaester of King’s Landing now? I recall him leaving the Citadel and not being anywhere near completing his training but I guess they just take deserters back no problem. It’s like adding a dropping a class apparently. Or maybe he was given an honorary degree since he did find a cure to Greyscale and all.
I know it doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things, but what’s going on in Essos now? Dany sort of just up and left, assuming that slavery wouldn’t come back, but there’s basically nobody to enforce that anymore, rending all of her time spent there totally pointless.
In fact, if there’s one consistency that the final season showed us, is that there is no consistency. Character arcs mean nothing, logic doesn’t exist and nothing matters.
Look, I’m not one of these morons who signed a petition crying that HBO needs to redo the season. You’re not going to make all the people happy all of the time. That said, I really hope GRRM finally finishes these fucking books so we can get an actual ending that makes a bit of fucking sense, that has some thematic consistency, and doesn’t give us the Wayne’s World Super Happy Ending that the show gave us.
