Game of Thronesstarted out erotic and ended ultraviolent.
Eight seasons later, the fantasy drama’s series finale united those two in cauterized catastrophe.
Tyrion’s hair had long since darkened a prestigious shade of bummer.
Helen Sloan/HBO
The finale belonged to Tyrion and Dany, really.
More so Tyrion, unfortunately, and Dany got a bit overshadowed by her dragon.
Oh, the show paid fealty to the Stark siblings,handing out happy endingsto all Ned’s remainder.
Two Starks sat on two thrones in Westeros.
Another Stark sailed west to discover America.
And their protagonistic brother-cousin rode north with his hippie tribal pals, his smile warming the snowy forest.
We all agree, he totally snubbed the Night’s Watch, right?
And moved up north to start a wildling family?
In hindsight, Jon (Kit Harington) only ever felt happy camping in the snowy wasteland.
He earned himself a happy kind of punishment, hunting forever with best pal Tormund (Kristofer Hivju).
No wonder Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) looked so unhappy.
His Queen got killed, and the culprit got a minimum-security vacation.
Arya (Maisie Williams) sold her cockles"Oysters, clams, and cockles!!!
“on a semester abroad where she learned a very awesome shape-changing power the final season forgot about.
Being cruel to be kind here: There was always at least one thing wrong withGame of Thrones.
Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) went to Dorne.
Brienne (Gwendolyn Christie) spent a season staring patiently at a window.
There was that time when Dany’s whole thing was “My dragons!”
and I think you had to really love pyramids to ever fully groove on her days in Meereen.
Nobody could ever make the Red God happen.
Actually, the imperfections of Thrones deepened the fandom, I think.
(This is whyGame of Throneswas especially beloved by people who think art should be enjoyed like sports.)
Whereas this final season was all about big-huge set pieces and a lot of the complexity burned away.
Jon became, briefly, a proxy husk besieged by two bigger personalities.
In one corner: his queen, his lover.
“Build the new world with me,” she asked him.
Jon killed Dany, and then her dragon incinerated the Iron Throne.
Both actions look a bit inexplicable to me.
Credit Clarke forplaying her final scenewith an unreadable, unblinking confidence.
The finale tried to explain her turn into mass homicide, by which I mean Tyrionliterallyexplained it to Jon.
Was she acting out a particularly violent strategy for eventual peace?
Even her two scenes in the finale felt whiplashed, from imperial kill-the-bastards fascism to lovesick adoration.
I appreciate the confusion, though I’m still left feeling likeThroneslost track of Dany in its final phase.
It was abig moment, the kind of hashtaggy mini-eventThronestried to create often in its last few years.
That urge could leave some characters in the lurch, though, sacrificing drama at the altar of coolness.
Was that scene supposed to be funny?
It felt reductive, no matter what, all her great plans dissolving away from a climactic bro-down.
This wasn’t a great finale, and I didn’t think it was terrible.
and “Huh.”
It’s because, Tyrion explained, Brandon the Broken has the best story.
Didn’t Arya just become famous for killing the walking personification of death?
Worth remembering, I think, whenGame of Throneswas at its best.
That would be season 4, the phase when every corner of the opening-credits map hit runaway-train momentum.
The series that showrunnersDavid Benioff and D.B.
Weissextrapolated from those novels was never so inventive stylistically.
But credit Benioff and Weiss as producers.
Theycast child actorswho grew into compelling adults, especially Turner and Williams.
That decision alone gaveThronesadded potency as it went along.
They initially tried to adapt the books' version of Euron Greyjoy, a looming pantheistic menace.
But Benioff and Weiss could be compelling adaptors.
Am I being too mean?
Am I being too nice?
It became a generational phenomenon, uniting viewers in a shared symbolic perspective of the world.
Agree to disagree, maybe, on the variable excitement of fighting zombies innear-total darkness.
Anyone approachingGame of Thronesfrom a gender-studies perspective would have a field day with this finale.
And the last properly heard spoken conversationeverinGame of Throneswas a joke about a brothel!
I wonder if Benioff and Weiss wrote themselves into a corner.
In hindsight, I’m not sureThronesreally had that many moves left.
Jon and Dany fell in love, but there was a basic lack of chemistry there.
Missandei got lost in the shuffle, like a lot of the non-royal characters.
There were more buildings to explode, I guess.
And thenThronescould just get a little repetitive.
Season 8 ended on a similar note.
Arya was setting out west this time, fulfilling an ambition to explore off the map.
Certain logical questions come to mind: Why is there still a Night’s Watch?
Why are the wildlings going back to live in punishing glacier country?
Did they really rebuild the Red Keep that quickly?
The Starks left Westeros, the Starks stayed in Westeros.
Choose your own adventure.
Final season grade: C
Complete series grade: B
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