‘Game of Thrones’ – Season 8 – ‘The Iron Throne’ – Review

The game is now at an end, and a decade long journey as drawn to it’s closure in one of the most perplexing episodes of television ever filmed.

Following on from The Bells, and the destructive turn of events of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) from a liberator to a destroyer, Game of Thrones fans were left with the consequences of Daenerys choices and the heroic Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) was forced into a position to destroy that which he loved in order for the greater good. What then followed was a bizarre ‘United Nations’-esque discussion which thrashed any notion of democracy and somehow voted in Brandon Stark, known as the Three Eyed Raven, now known as Bran The Broken to be elected King of all Westeros, and then followed with the emancipation of The North from the Seven Kingdoms, and Jon Snow being sent back to the Night’s Watch as penance for the murder of his queen.

In short, I like many fans was quite caught off guard with what transpired on our televisions screens here as Game of Thrones came to an end. While the episode did have some impressive moments, such as the scope and scale of Daenerys Targaryen’s victory and the destruction of the Iron Throne by Drogon, this ending just felt very anti-climatic and not what the fans intended, even though the creative staff did.

The experience that all of us had while watching this series, and our own theatre of the mind brainstorming as to how we believed it would all end really was the exciting thing about Game of Thrones, and like all things what we had dreamed up in our minds was never going to be what we were given here.

All things must end and we did get an ending here with Game of Thrones. It was not the ending I was expecting, and I think I’ll still have to think on it and what it all meant down the line, but the game has now been played.

Image: Courtesy of HBO/Helen Sloane