By now, you’ve probably heard that Game of Thrones‘ eighth season has been a disappointment—whether you’ve heard it from your disgruntled friends or from your own mouth, screaming at the TV. It’s difficult to watch characters we love and identify with have such anticlimactic endings unworthy of all that they’ve accomplished. The show has been on the air for eight years, and not everyone considers what a significant weight eight years can carry. In the span of eight years, a student could begin high school and graduate college. In the span of eight years, most successful romantic relationships become marriages (statistically, most couples date for two before engagement). Consider your own group of friends—how many have you known for that long, nearly the full span of a decade? But you’ve known Jaime, Cersei, Dany, Arya. Maybe you were a child back then—not a small one, but fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. It’s been eight years, and you aren’t anymore.
This is the reason people are so angry with the trajectory of the final season: not petty Twitter drama or ill-considered ingratitude, but real emotional investment, completely squandered.
So why keep watching? Eight years.
Booze & Books(tr) drinking games are usually celebratory, but this week, we’re guessing you won’t be raising your glasses to toast. Here are some predictions for the upcoming finale
Image Via Decider
Drink if…
1. There’s a line of sexist dialogue (i.e., Sansa’s sexual trauma made her stronger)
2. A beloved characters’ story arc is left hanging (i.e., Brienne’s story would have been complete once knighted, but instead, she made herself vulnerable and was abandoned after seasons worth of character development)
3. A beloved character does something we don’t love quite as much. In “The Bells,” Dany, Jaime, and Arya all make choices that many feel are out of line with the trajectory of their character development. (Whether or not I agree with all three complaints is something I’ll keep to myself.)
4. An unnecessarily long shot of a relatively unimportant event. YES, I’m referring to Arya’s deus-ex-machina white steed. If you didn’t catch that the white horse may have been a biblical allusion to Conquest, one of Revelation’s four horsemen, thirty extra seconds of screen time probably didn’t make a difference.
5. Yara Greyjoy does nothing. The writers this season seem to continually forget some of the coolest things about their own script until they’re absolutely necessary—for example, that dragons can breathe fire.
6. Major plot points are left unresolved. Audiences still feel that Bran and the Night King’s stories aren’t finished yet, particularly because the narrative places so much emphasis on this plotline and then offers a relatively quick solution.
Image Via Thrillist
TWO DRINKS IF…
1. Khal Drogo returns to life… if you can call it that. Click the link for the theory!
2. There’s a dragon out there that the audience doesn’t know about.
3. Varys poisoned Dany before his execution.
4. Sansa will rule Westeros. (Note: this is Stephen King’s preferred outcome.)
5. Arya kills Dany—she always intended to kill “the Queen,” after all.
6. Jaime isn’t dead. If he’s not, can we please get a fully-rounded character arc?
7. Dany becomes the Night Queen.
And as always…
FINISH YOUR DRINK IF…
Your favorite character dies—or all your hopes for the ending do, whichever comes first.
Featured Image Via Thehindu.com