Today marks the one-year anniversary of the final episode of Game of Thrones, and in remembrance, I wanted to defend the show’s most disgraced season by proposing a single rhetorical question: was it really that bad? It may not have been the ending that you were expecting, but looking back on season eight with a fresh perspective, were D&D’s creative decisions that atrocious?
Here are the four most controversial scenes of Game of Thrones’ final season, and why, even though they weren’t what you may have wanted from your favorite characters, they didn’t retroactively invalidate everything good about the show.
4. Arya Killing the Night King
Season 8, Episode 3 “The Long Night” shattered our expectations with one unpredictable fatality: Arya Stark delivering the final blow against the Night King. One of the biggest jaw-droppers in Game of Thrones history, not only did few fans expect the Night King to be killed halfway through the season, but even fewer expected him to be killed by anybody other than Jon Snow.
While a final showdown between Jon and the Night King was teased since the Massacre at Hardhome, it makes more sense for Arya to be the one to end the Night King’s reign. Since she practiced sword fighting with Syrio Forel in King’s Landing all the way in season one, she has been preparing to face off against the God of Death, and it’s been alluded to many times throughout the show that, while the Many-Faced God of Braavos may hold the title, the true God of Death has always been the Night King.
I’m not saying that Jon facing off against the Night King wouldn’t have been satisfying to see, just that Arya defeating him properly closes his character arc.
3. Daenerys Obliterating King’s Landing
For some reason, everybody seemed to have forgotten about the time when Daenerys crucified one hundred sixty masters of Meereen, or when she burned the Dothraki Lords alive, or when she basically firebombed the Lannister-Tarley supply train, or when she locked Xaro Daxos in his own vault to starve to death, or when she – I think you get my point.
Daenerys has never been above committing atrocities for her own personal gain. She’s never been the hero. She’s never been one to show mercy. She’s always used excessive force against her enemies. Her life’s ambition has been to gain control of King’s Landing and take the Iron Throne, and when she heard the bells of the Red Keep chime out their surrender, she felt empty.
She wanted to enact her revenge against Cersei, so when her armies win with very little bloodshed, and she sees the city virtually unscathed, she gets angry, and she finally becomes who everyone was worried she would be just like since the beginning: her father. And with that, she burned them all.
2. Cersei and Jamie’s Deaths
Image via Polygon
To prove to you that I’m not a blind fanboy that deludes himself into thinking that season eight was perfect, I’ll admit here that I was very disappointed when Jamie left Brianne for Cersei. All of his character growth throughout the show of kicking his addiction for his sister and learning to be a better person was abandoned, and he dies as the same character he started out as. However, I still found his and Cersei’s deaths to be possibly one of my favorite scenes in Game of Thrones season eight.
We all knew that Cersei was going to die by the end of the show, but what we didn’t know is how. While everyone theorized who would be the one to take her life, I didn’t think that any character would’ve been satisfying enough. The most likely candidates would have been Arya or Daenerys, but either of them would have been too predictable, which is why I thought that her being crushed by the Red Keep was the most fitting demise for her.
Not only was the Red Keep the only thing that she trusted with her life, but she died scared and crying, reduced to a little girl as she turned to her brother for comfort in her final moments. Besides Joffrey’s assassination, it was the only time that we ever saw her actually vulnerable, reminding us one last time that she’s still human.
1. Bran Becoming King
When the leaders of the Westerosi kingdoms came together and elected Bran to be their new king, most viewers were quite puzzled: after all, Bran has never expressed an interest in being king, but that’s really the point.
As Tyrion says in his defense, what makes a tyrant is a king who abuses his power to acquire something he wants; it’s a king who only becomes king to spend his days eating, drinking and “acquainting himself” with the finest women. Once Bran became the Three Eyed Raven, he no longer desired anything. Not only that, but, as the Three Eyed Raven, Bran knows everything that has happened, will happen and is currently happening, which will help him learn from the mistakes of every other Westerosi king before him, help him know the needs of the smallfolk more intimately than any other king could, and help him prepare for any catastrophic events that any other candidate for king wouldn’t have the ability to foresee. If you think about it, Bran is the best king for Westeros!
To reiterate, I don’t believe that season eight was flawless. As I said above, I found Jaime’s arc disappointing (Brianne should have died in the Battle of Winterfell; that would have at least given him more of a reason to return to Cersei), and I didn’t like how easily Sandor was able to convince Arya to abandon her decade-long quest for revenge, but it was still far from the worst finale in television history. Besides, after waiting two years, I don’t think anything would have lived up to the expectations of the fans.