#it funny because ashe is trying SO hard to make this work and wight is just. stubbornly refusing

[a-cat-in-toffee]

Ashe having to hold back a finally when wight subconsciously accepts something from them after fighting with them

small victories

[renlyisright]

Season 8 Episode 6 - Icy Ire

It’s the finale! I warmed up some glögg, raided the chocolate stash, turned off the lights and rolled myself as one with the sofa. 80 minutes later, I rose, with that sweet melancholic happy feeling you get after finishing a big series. And this one has been big.

Now, two weeks later, I begin to write this last chapter of my reactions. I have liked to wait at least this long with every episode of these last two seasons. On one hand because of my own schedules, and on another hand because so much happens in these episodes it’s good to let each development sink in before continuing.

And now, for the last time, let’s continue.

King’s Landing is in ruins. The liberators, Jon, Tyrion and Davos walk amidst the rubble and the dead. A badly hurt human walks past them, looking mostly like a wight. They worked hard so that wights wouldn’t walk on the streets of King’s Landing, and look at the place now.

Outside of the few citizens still alive in these opening scenes, very few common people are seen during the rest of the episode. After they had their grand death scenes, they moved back offstage so the high and mighty could discuss if more of them get killed or not. And who gets to sit on the pointy chair. That is important.

Grey Worm has found some living Lannister soldiers, and plans to rectify that immediately. Jon tries to stop him, but the orders have come from higher up. You know, that woman you bent your knee to? So Jon has to leave him to continue.

Grey Worm is taking this “We are evil now” memo very quickly to heart. But Grey Worm, you can’t be Daenerys’ Dragon (a TV Tropes term), she already has a literal one.

The falling ash is turning into snow. Tyrion gets to the lower levels of the keep. The dragon skull hall wasn’t completely caved in, as I thought it would have been. If Cersei and Jaime had stood a little to the side, they would have survived. Not that that would have helped them much. This way their deaths didn’t include dragonfire.

Daenerys has a victory parade, and has a cool grand entrance with the dragon wings visual trick (that sadly no one except Jon saw from her actual audience). This black dress is also super cool, maybe her best one. It could be because “evil is cool”, or because black is simple and just works. I wonder who makes them for her? And whether she gave special instructions that black is now the color.

Tyrion gets a closure. Instead of wondering for the rest of his life if his siblings escaped or not, he knows the truth now. And that’s the last straw. When Daenerys dares to note his treason, he notes back that she destroyed a city, and removes his Hand pin.

Daenerys must wonder how traitors just keep on turning up again and again. They see her dragon, right? She has Tyrion arrested.

Jon goes to meet him, after hearing from Arya that Daenerys is a killer. She knows a killer when she sees one, she says. You mean when you see her killing thousands? That’s the education you got in Braavos?

Tyrion points out that Daenerys must have killed more people than Cersei and Tywin together. I… don’t know about that. King’s Landing has a lot of people, yes, but Tywin was part of many wars during his life, using people like the Mountain to spread terror, and, well, there was that place called Castamere?

In one of his books Brandon Sanderson had a burning of an entire city and killing all of its people as a dark hidden secret of his warlord character, which was finally revealed in a flashback. He later commented that for story impact reasons it was just one city, but for a warlord, that would sadly actually be a rookie number of sacked cities.

Tyrion has been bad at reading people lately, but here he finally gets to do something big: He talks Jon into killing his queen. If Lannisters are good at something, it’s getting royalty killed.

He even uses the words of one Targaryen, Aemon, to tell another Targaryen that it is his duty to kill the third Targaryen. Nice work there.

He asks if Jon knows anything about the afterlife, as he has experience of being dead. But no, Jon has nothing. Generally in fantasy stories, if the afterlife is not the point of the story, the great beyond is kept as an unknown. And even in something like Coco, where the afterlife was the point, it was made clear that there’s actually something else after the afterlife where souls eventually go… or is there? Nobody knows. And I like it that way. If the Lord of Light manifested now and told explicitly that yes, there is an afterlife, and burning people is doing them a favour, just as I said, here, I have graphs… Nope. That wouldn’t be fun, and would at the same time widen the fantasy world too much and lose the wonder.

The similar wonder happens when reading historical novels. Characters of different, existing or currently extinct, faiths telling about what their faith teaches of the afterlife. And, well, they exist in a fictional story. Even if the story tells of a known historical event with named people from history, it’s still a story inside its covers. So who knows, maybe the characters are correct inside that story.

Tyrion tries to analyze Daenerys’ sudden attack on civilians. In his opinion, the reason was that Daenerys has had good results every time she embraced violence and vengeance. And every time she didn’t, her enemies eventually betrayed or ambushed her, starting with Mirri Maz Duur. Jorah was a big expectation, but he’s dead now, so there. So with that simple feedback, and people saying they loved her, she eventually crossed the line and just killed everybody (I see a very big leap here but I have never led an army). And now when people say that killing everybody was bad, those people are traitors. It’s miraculous how traitors just keep piling up.

The reason Tyrion gets through to Jon’s head is that he was honest. That same honesty which didn’t work with Varys (and when Varys tried to be honest with Tyrion and Jon he got burned) works very well with Jon. 

So Jon goes to meet Daenerys, who is in the Throne Room. And it’s the throne room of her vision from back in Qarth. Back when I saw it, my simple description of it was “The roof has been melted with dragonfire, but the winter has come and everything is in snow.” I didn’t have any other thoughts about it, as if it was a vision of the future, well, the future can change. Especially in long-running TV shows where real life can make changes necessary. Both the winter and dragonfire destroying castles were a long way away.

That’s the funny thing with time, it moves forward. Both the winter and harrenhalling the Red Keep have now happened. And Daenerys enters the throne room, her destiny.

The fireboxes Joffrey inserted into the room are trashed on the floor, covered in snow. Daenerys climbs the steps to the Iron Throne and touches it. Pop, main quest done. But she never gets to sit on it (it must feel cold to the butt now).

Jon arrives. The queen and her closest ally at this point are alone. There’s no Queen’s Guard, no Blood of Her Blood to protect her from… let’s say anyone from Westeros at this point. 

Daenerys talks about how this was a great win and how she’s going to create a new world. It won’t have any room for those who lived in the old one, of course. Those who have learnt to play game of thrones and cynically look just for new ways to get power and keep it wouldn’t learn the new utopian ways. (People like Sansa, I presume). Daenerys presses all the wrong buttons while talking. People can’t use the innocent to hinder her, if she doesn’t care about the innocents! That’ll teach them! She keeps talking only about the future. If she looks back she is lost.

Jon makes his decision, and they embrace each other. And the sound of smooching gets interrupted quickly by a sound of a knife sinking in. At first I wasn’t actually sure which one stabbed which one. I wouldn’t have put it past Daenerys at this point to stab Jon, for planning to betray her too. She would have been right.

And so passes Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, the Protector of the Realm, Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, Khaleesi of the Great Plains, the Queen of Dragons’ Bay, Unburnt and the Mother of Dragons. Long list of titles, and I’m sure I have forgotten some. She was maybe the most main character of all of them. The entire Essos plotline of the first six seasons was about her, with her own side cast. And when she came to Westeros, the entire last phase of the story was about a) her, and b) the Dead. And she outlasted the dead.

Her death also marks the last death of the entire story. On the foot of the titular throne of games. She got closer than most, but still no cigar.

And from the courtyard there comes the screech of a dragon. Oof. Drogon has entered the building. Jon can’t fight it and doesn’t even try, as he’s too crawled up in his heart to even react.

Drogon’s reaction here makes me more sad than Jon’s. It’s the difference between animals showing their affection and main characters doing their main character sad stuff. Drogon looks at the mother’s killer with a hurt expression, but after the initial pain changes into anger, he does not blast Jon with his fire, but instead directs the force straight into the Iron Throne.

After this episode I had to revalue my view of dragons of this world. Are they merely animals, with instincts which cannot be properly understood, or do they think? (In ways that cannot be properly understood). Drogon is the only known dragon alive left in the world. Jon has burnt himself in the past so he’s not even an honorary one as Daenerys was. So now Drogon is all alone, and the reason for that is really that damn chair. Daenerys couldn’t let it be, which killed Drogon’s siblings and finally herself, when she was consumed by vengeance. The game of thrones the humans played ended up almost destroying them all, and it did destroy everyone Drogon cared for. But that’s very abstract thinking, so if that’s what Drogon could gather from this scene, it shows a lot of intelligence.

Then Drogon picks the Mother of Dragons up and flies away, into the unknown. And so leaves the last supernatural creature of the show. The story of magic coming back to the world ends with the magic leaving.

Except for Bran. Who knows if he even has a human’s lifespan anymore, never mind if there will be more Three-Eyed Ravens in the future.

The next fortnights are skipped, and we continue when the leaders of the current Great Houses have arrived to King’s Landing to discuss what to do now. Everyone who has raised a claim to the throne is dead now, and so are those who have mixed the soup for mysterious motives.

This would be a delicious time frame for a short story, as I’m sure the world is holding its breath and for example the Iron Bank is having a lot of strategy meetings. The wars have stopped as no one knows what’s up. The Northern armies have stayed outside of the walls, waiting for orders. The city has been governed for several weeks by the Unsullied and the Dothraki, likely with an iron fist in the name of the dead queen.

These last years have taken a large toll. When Davos offers the Unsullied land in the Reach, he says that the people who used to live there are gone. No wonder Bronn gets it in the end, rebuilding it with the winter going on will take a long time.

Jon is kept as a prisoner, and Daenerys’ death by a knife to the heart is common knowledge. How? They were alone, and Drogon took the body and flew away before anyone saw it. There was a blood stain on the floor, yes, but blood stains were everywhere in the city that day, and they don’t have DNA scanners. What anyone knows is that Drogon flew away and no one saw Daenerys since. Maybe she flew away with him, to think, or there was another complication like in Meereen when she disappeared too. Jon accidentally made a perfect crime. So how was he caught?

...yeah, it’s Jon. So it happened like this:

Tyrion points out that Jon can’t be judged before there’s a king or queen in whose name he can be judged. So the leaders here have to make a decision. Of the Great Houses from the beginning of the show, we have:

- Robin Arryn, of the Vale, with apparently Royce still as his regent

- Sansa Stark of the North, with her siblings

- Gendry Baratheon (of Storm’s End, if he has even seen the place yet)

- Prince of Dorne, who the subtitles give no other name. Likely a Martell, cousin or something.

- Yara Greyjoy, of the Iron Islands

- Edmure Tully, of the Riverlands

And some assorted lords and ladies and heirs and courtiers, like Brienne, Sam and Davos. Some unnamed lords of one place or another (subtitles call them Lord 1, Lord 2 and Lord 3). The main point I have here that surprisingly few surnames disappeared completely during the show. Just the Tyrells, which is unsurprising as they were the best house. But many were close, with just one character remaining.

Tyrion talks them into elective succession, and makes Bran the first elected king of the sev… six kingdoms. Sansa speaks three sentences and acquires independence to the North. At this point no one is going to say no to that. So the Starks finally did well coming South.

Yara doesn’t try the same, the Iron Islands stay under the Red Keep’s crown. It’s a matter for the future if she keeps her word to Daenerys and the Ironborn start sowing.

Will Bran be a good king? Considering the previous rulers, he has a very low bar to get over. He has easy access to compare what decisions the previous rulers did well and what they did badly. And he can literally see everything people do. There can be no Littlefingers in his court or no bannermen harboring rebellion without soon receiving a letter from the king saying to knock it off. That’s a good thing, but it also smells a lot like the Big Brother. Let’s hope he will be a good king to the end of his days. Whenever that is. The last Three-Eyed Raven lived a long life, but he was rooted to a weirwood. Bran may want to pass that.

Tyrion becomes the Hand of the King again, and Bran appeases the Unsullied by sending Jon to the Night Watch. So the last Targaryen is out of any future claim disputes.

The rest of the episode is goodbyes. Tyrion tells Jon that he may well visit the Wall again in the future. And then he’s out of the dungeon, escorted by two wandering crows, to bring him back home.

On his way he meets his cousins, and says farewells. It’s possible they’ll see each other again, as long as no wars or things like that come between them. Except that Arya plans to sail west, like Brandon the Shipwright did. He never came back. No one has. So she will either have great adventures there in the west, or die because of… well, anything there. Maybe once you sail far enough west you end up at the farthest place in the east, the Shadowlands beyond Asshai, of which the stories say little and that little is ominous, but from where came the three dragon eggs.

Grey Worm gets ready to leave this stupid continent. What people he didn’t lose here he started to hate, so 0/5 trip. All the time it was supposed to be his last campaign before retirement, he was supposed to die in it. Instead he was the only one to walk out of it. The Unsullied sail for the Isle of Naath, to live free.

The Dothraki leave as well, for their own big grasslands. Hopefully they get some Faith of the Seven artifacts with them as souvenirs, like the statue of Baelor (their khaleesi’s ancestor), so they don’t have to go back to Vaes Dothrak empty handed.

Brienne has been named the Lord Commander of the King’s Guard. From the first woman to be a knight, mere months ago, right up to the biggest knightly profession there is in these kingdoms. Knowing the good people of this world, there will be hostility. There will be murmurs, mocking songs, some lord may even open his mouth in the court. And after he has been taught the error of his ways, it will eventually become just a thing that is, and time will tell how unique she will be in the history of the King’s Guard. What I mean to say, is that the hurtful words won’t stop even in her new position, but at least she is right next to the ruler of the realm if people say them in her presence.

Even though that king is not Renly. 

She completely whitewashes Jaime’s actions in the White Book. She tells of how he fought against the Targaryen forces, and then the Dead in Winterfell, and afterwards “escaped imprisonment” and died protecting his Queen, completely omitting that he actually changed sides twice there.

Which makes me wonder again how these events and people will be remembered in the future. This book may be copied down during the following centuries, and scholars will use it as a primary source, but will add an asterisk that the way events are told here can be misleading. 

As seen in the theatre production in Braavos, the events will also be immortalized by art, and someone with a quill and a sharp ear for iambic pentameter may well write a series of historical plays, which will influence the way people will see these characters. With titles Joffrey I, Part 1, Joffrey I, Part 2, Tommen I, and Cersei I. Maybe even Bran I or a prequel Robert I, if the series is popular.

Or there will be a scholarly work right after the wars end. Samwell brings for Tyrion to see A Song of Ice and Fire, detailing the wars after the death of King Robert. I see what you did there. But it’s actually a sequel, I point out, as the first part of the series is right in my bookshelf. The World of Ice and Fire, which in-universe was written by Maester Yandel of the Citadel, detailing the history of Westeros and Essos up to the series’ beginning. I have only read bits and pieces of it, as it describes hundreds of years of history in broad strokes and so is quite dry and full of names. Maybe now that the series is over I’ll use it to scratch my Westeros-itch.

The Small Council continues to be the Small Council (which was one of the best parts of the early seasons), even with all its members replaced. They talk softly, use each other’s titles and politely disagree with each other, while the camera slowly shows the still cracked map of Westeros. They better work quickly before those cracks get any wider.

A horn blasts once at Castle Black. Jon is back from his little excursion to the South. The gate is closed behind him and the screen goes black.

So the ending is… not happy, but… content? After years of fighting, that was the best to hope for, and of getting even that I remained doubtful. There were no big revolutions. The wheel still stands. The poor stay poor and mostly the same great Houses rule the same pieces of the kingdoms. The Small Council still has people looking for number one. The winter will be rough for the poor. Sure well-meaning people were raised to some high positions, and the king will continue to be elected by them if they stay alive longer than him, but they are still single people in a grim world.

But on the other hand, maybe some things are better than in the beginning. Dragon’s bay is free (if the loss of dragons doesn’t make the masters bold again, but that is a question for the future), most of the Stark kids lived, and glass ceilings were shattered (whether they will systematically stay shattered is another question for the future). The current leaders were just raised to their positions and so won’t themselves likely plan for rebellions for some time. As the winter is still upon them and everyone is tired, wars won’t happen right now. The rest of the winter will be hard, but if they work together…

Epilogue: The best leitmotif, the one promising excitement and new sights, rises and plays as the Stark kids continue their lives. Arya and Needle go to have new adventures in faraway lands. Sansa gets crowned as the Queen in the North, to the yells of enthusiastic Northerners (if there’s one thing I have learnt here, it’s that the people of the North really like royalty in the North). I can’t see if Glover is there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not, as his family is still wrong and always will be.

And Jon… he’s back among the people who respect him. I don’t know who could be the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch currently as everyone named is dead, but come next vote Jon must be a big favourite if he still wants the job. Currently the Night’s Watch has a new sort of job to do: They are the shield that guards the realms of Men, and some of those realms are on the north side of the Wall. So the Watch helps to resettle the wildlings to the Lands Beyond the Wall.

Ghost is still in the Castle Black waiting for Jon, and reunites with him (<3). They leave to the north with the wildlings now that apparently the worst of the winter has passed. A green plant tries to grow from the snow, a dream of spring. The group continues into the shadows of the Haunted Forest.

They should go on. The wildlings are alive.