Game of Thrones | Season 8 Episode 6 | The Iron Throne

RECAP

Tyrion advances in disbelief through the rubble of King’s Landing; he crosses paths with Jon, pays him little mind, and says he will go on toward the Queen. The city is heaped with incinerated bodies and devastation. Grey Worm keeps executing the last remaining Lannister soldiers in the name of Daenerys Targaryen; Jon’s attempt to stop him is in vain. Tyrion continues his solitary journey. Stopping in the crypts of King’s Landing, he discovers the bodies of his brother and sister, lifeless and embracing beneath a pile of rubble. A deeply moving moment follows Tyrion’s realisation that all his efforts to save them were for nothing.

Now comes the moment for the Dragon Queen to show herself: she descends a stairway leading to the Red Keep — where Grey Worm with the Unsullied and Jon Snow are also present — and prepares to address the mixed ranks of Unsullied and Dothraki, who chant her name. She invests Grey Worm with the title of Master of War. Majestic and victorious, she brutally lays out to her subjects her plans for the forced liberation of all the peoples of the Seven Kingdoms — and perhaps of the entire known world. The new tyrant of Westeros is born.

Tyrion makes his move: he presents himself before her and defies her when accused of betrayal, casting to the ground the pin that marks him as Hand of the Queen; he is imprisoned to await execution. Jon Snow, dazed as ever, can only look on in anguish at what is happening.

He decides to speak with Tyrion before he dies, and the latter reasons with him and provokes him, trying to open his eyes to the situation they are living and to the true nature of the Dragon Queen. He makes Jon see that this threat to all peoples must disappear if they wish to go on living — reminding him that love can be the death of duty, and duty, at times, the death of love.

TYRION’S ANSWER TO JON SNOW

Daenerys arrives in a ruined throne room where the Iron Throne stands untouched. She realises she has accomplished her life’s mission. Wrapped in falling snow, she approaches the throne until she touches it.

She turns and sees Jon, who comes to speak with her and make her see reason, without success. In a highly dramatic moment the two kiss for the last time, before Jon pierces her with his dagger, in tears, telling her she is his Queen — and always will be.

JON SNOW TO DAENERYS

Drogon appears and draws near his mother’s lifeless body, trying to nudge her awake to no avail. He begins to engulf the Iron Throne and its surroundings in flame, melting it down. He gathers Daenerys’s body and flies away with her.

The moment of Tyrion’s execution arrives — or rather, it doesn’t: Grey Worm brings him before the assembly of the most important lords of Westeros, gathered to decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms. He manages to speak despite the Unsullied’s rage. Davos restores order to the assembly. While poor Sam is mocked for proposing that the future king be chosen democratically, a worn Tyrion plays his hand: during his imprisonment, he says, he had plenty of time to think about the best solution. He names Bran the Broken — the keeper of all their stories and their past — as King of the Seven Kingdoms, to lead them toward a better future. From now on rulers will not be born; they will be chosen by the lords and ladies of Westeros. So Tyrion replies to a perplexed Sansa, who points out her brother’s unsuitability for the role, crippled and unable to produce heirs. Why else, Bran asks, does she think he came all this way? Bran accepts. The lords vote for his ascent to power, and Sansa obtains the North and its independence. In exchange, Bran demands that Tyrion be his right hand: like it or not, he must accept the office.

TYRION PROCLAIMS BRAN STARK THE NEW KING OF THE SIX KINGDOMS

A weary Jon Snow receives news of his fate: he must head north, to the Wall, among the Crows, in exile — a fitting place, Tyrion calls it, for bastards and broken men. Jon takes leave of his cousins, Sansa, Bran and Arya, bidding them farewell in a tragic moment of parting. Grey Worm, meanwhile, glowers at him from his ship, bound for Naath. Some time passes. Ser Brienne, now captain of the Kingsguard, leafs through the book collecting the stories of the royal guard’s commanders. Finding Jaime Lannister’s name, she writes the remainder of his story, restoring his memory for posterity. The first small council since the new King’s election is held. Tyrion presides. Ser Davos, Master of Ships; Bronn, new Lord of Highgarden and Master of Coin; and Sam Tarly, Grand Maester, welcome King Bran, accompanied by the commander of the Kingsguard — Ser Brienne — and by Podrick. The King tasks them with finding a new Master of Whisperers, of War and of Laws, and departs to try to locate Drogon with his powers. The remaining five tease one another over proposals for rebuilding the city, with a healthy dose of humour. Meanwhile, Arya devotes herself to exploring the lands west of Westeros, and Sansa is crowned Queen in the North. In a succession of scenes following Arya, Sansa and Jon Snow, their destinies are revealed. Jon reaches the north and is welcomed at Castle Black by Tormund and the wildlings who stayed to wait for him. Saddened by all he has been through, yet heartened by the wildlings’ presence, he tenderly greets Ghost, stroking him with affection, and heads with them beyond the Wall, into the true north.

REVIEW

The finale delivers a clear message: power wears down even those who hold it, above all when they believe themselves — or truly are — in the right. Everyone bears full responsibility for their own actions. Tyrion, the true glue of the episode, goes from the dungeons of King’s Landing to the Hand’s seat, diplomatically resolving the choice of the Seven Kingdoms’ destiny. Neither legitimacy, nor strength, nor fidelity to one’s values suffices to hold power for long. Jon Snow, the new moral tyrannicide, goes into exile. Daenerys Targaryen dies in her beloved’s arms just when she thought she had made it. Tyrion was also the first to admit that Bran’s coronation would make no one particularly happy — and yet he is the best candidate: the one who knows the stories of the past and will lay the foundations of a better future, ending the cyclical repetition of events and mistakes. A large share of the audience was disappointed by this bittersweet epilogue: the finale was perceived as “empty”, senseless, too forced — even a betrayal of expectations. Daenerys Targaryen’s end is considered a disservice, and the character’s evolution a work of poor writing. Jon Snow was battered in every sense: the man who was meant to be a saviour turned, in a few episodes, into a useless, dazed heir to the throne. His descending arc carries him far from the others — though toward the far North he so loved — with a broken heart.

The excessive reactions stirred by the final episodes are nothing new: it is not the first time that fans, invested in and attached to certain characters, want to avoid the ending. Still, the impression remains that some things, had they been handled better at the script level, would have spared the show much criticism and covered some notable plot holes. The episode’s rating keeps falling. Bran, who won the “game of thrones”, has been defined in recent seasons by an absence of empathy, connection, humanity. It would have been fascinating to learn how he conceives of human life now that, with his cold omniscience and dependence on visions, he has divorced himself from the rest of his species. Throughout the episodes he stares at others and waits. He seems to have lost the will to live, absorbed in his own world; by his own admission he did not even want to be King — and yet he accepts the heavy role imposed on him without blinking.

One of the positives that marks this episode and sets it apart from its predecessors is the return of dialogue between the characters. Viewers hypnotised by shocking — at times gratuitous — events, and by the characters’ new habit of staring at one another without uttering a word, could once again enjoy one of the series’ strengths.

Episode 6 declares to the world that the surviving Starks reign: Bran at King’s Landing, Sansa in the North, and Arya — with her thinly veiled expansionist ambitions — west beyond the sea. Although the fates of many characters had become predictable, the impression is that the Starks were markedly favoured not chiefly by the abilities they showed in the field, but by the will of the storytellers. The new small council is a breath of fresh air over a heap of ashes, presenting the new governing order of the Six Kingdoms with the biting humour that marked the series at its best.

What do you think? What did you enjoy, and what made you wince? Are there aspects you’d like us to explore further in future articles? Write to us in the comments or on our Facebook page!