More like ‘Game of Drones’

I’ve never been a radical Game of Thrones fan. I’ve watched it mainly because I get HBO free with my AT&T wireless plan and find myself occasionally wanting to watch something different. That said, the impending end of the series prompted me to catch up recently and then watch the the final few episodes as they came out.

I have witnessed the conclusions of several iconic TV series in my life (M.A.S.H., LOST, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, My Name is Earl, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, The X-Files and many more.) Some of them ended well (LOST, Battlestar Galactica) and some of them disappointed (The X-Files.) This one is firmly in the disappointment category.

Just as the death of the Night King and Cersei Lannister were anticlimactic and underplayed, the death of Daenerys too was more meh. That doesn’t even approach being the worst thing. The dragon (Drogon) flying off to never be heard from again – weak. Jon Snow heading the again take the black and leading the Free Folk was meh. Bran’s new council behaving just like previous ones (albeit a bit inexperienced) shows that nothing has changed and that we spent 73 episodes with the story for nothing. Arya heading off to some Marco Polo/Christopher Columbus quest was again just lazy writing and certainly not a finish worthy of such an excellent character.

Here is how I would have ended the final episode – assuming I couldn’t just rewrite the entire season but only had this episode to wrap.

  1. Jon didn’t kill Dany. Instead, he argued with her on the steps in front of her followers, really pissed her off. She calls the dragon, which instead heads to Jon to allow him on its neck. The Dothroki warriors seeing she is not the invincible warrior they respect, turn on her and in a great battle between them and the Unsullied she is overrun before Jon can attempt to save her. 
  2. That’s it. Don’t do all the patchwork wrap ups. Let the viewer/fan write the rest in their mind. Let them develop their own idea of what Arya does… of what becomes of Tyrion et al.

That said, the show producers (and HBO) are certainly not concerned about my thoughts. Although the ratings have gone down consistently since the series launched, the viewership has continued to grow. They only ended their cash cow because many of the stars were not going to sign on for any more and that risked the franchise altogether anyway.

It was a good run. A series that started about violence, conflict and power – that told a brutal story of a harsh world, slowly evolved into one of political correctness with just enough drama to make not it overtly obvious.

by Chris Doelle

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