Game of Thrones

[Korath]

Lastly, is the Stark line extinguished after this generation? Bran will likely die childless and he is the last male Stark. As much as I love Sansa ruling a la Queen Elizabeth I, if she ever married and produced children, would they take the Stark name or whatever House her husband comes from?

Sansa, as Queen in the North, can probably marry matrilinearly, meaning that she and her children would keep the Stark name. Plus, with many houses destroyed in the North (Mormont, Umber, Bolton, possibly Karstark), there will be a lot of keeps to man once more, and she'll probably be able to grant them to either cadet from loyal Northern families and she could probably cajole the lords into preserving the Stark name by marriage by granting them once of those many castles and lands tied to it.

[MindofShadow]

Even if he's not supposed to, I suppose Jon still has a chance of producing a few kids. The old rules might not matter at this point, and I'll wager Sansa would legitmize them. Again, old rules don't necessarily apply.

But on paper as is yeah... seems like this is the last of the Starks.

He's a targaryan anyway

[AndrewCrossett]

I wouldn’t call it a great leap since they are still not letting the people decide, just the elite.

That's the way our democracy (such as it is) started, though. Originally only land-owning white men were allowed to vote... our version of the gentry and aristocracy. Universal suffrage evolved over a period of 200 years and is still evolving.... not sure in which direction, though.

I'm happy for Jon and I'm glad Grey Worm survived. Other than that I thought this episode (much like this entire season) left a lot to be desired. It didn't really feel like the actual ending to this show.

I'm sure HBO is delighted that you feel that way! Because they've got plenty more Westeros in store for us, I'm sure.

I saw the scenes at the end as being like backdoor pilots for spin-offs. You've got HAND OF THE KING, a sitcom starring Peter Dinklage as the put-upon hand of the king who has to juggle the office politics, with our supporting cast of screw-ups, while serving our spaced-out King Bran, filmed live before a studio audience. Then there's the adventure series ARYA: THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST, with Maisie Williams travelling to new lands and dispensing rough justice. And THE NIGHT'S WATCH, a buddy cop drama north of the wall.

The Arya one is the only one of those I see as a possibility. I'm pretty sure both Dinklage and Harrington are ready to move on to other things now.

They pretty much said they would only make prequels and not sequels.

An Arya spinoff would technically be a sequel, but since it would deal only with Arya and her crew and not with the world at large, it really wouldn't matter much when it was set. Arya would basically be a stand-in for the woman explorer who circumnavigated the globe in Martin's canon.

I love how even Sansa laughed at Sam’s suggestion.

I didn't notice whether Gendry did, though. Considering that about five minutes ago he was one of those commoners his new colleagues were comparing to dogs and horses.

Just wondering, could Bran take control of a dragon as he does with other beastie?

Now, that would seriously boost his capacities. (and bring him even close to my Bran the tyrant theory ^^)

I really do wish they'd done more with his warging ability during the endgame. Having him play an active role in the victory(ies) would have made his becoming king less of an ass-pull.

If there's no Night Watch left, or at least not much of a Night Watcht then I suspect the idea might be for Jon to help rebuild it. I'm sure inevitably there will be more viable candidates sent up there overtime. And there might even be a few surviving Night Watch who might return to duty especially if Jon is up there.

In the short turn, the Nights Watch is probably Jon and the Free Folk. Now that they're on good terms, there's always at least a small standing army up there if needed.

There is nothing for the Night Watch to watch anymore... the White Walkers are gone, and I believe those few dozen Wildlings with Jon and Tormund are the sum total of the human population beyond the wall. If the Night Watch continues to exist, it will only be because it's a convenient place to send troublesome people you don't want to execute for some reason. I assume the Night Watch will now be considered a joint project by the thrones of the south and north?

I just wanted to see Meera become Bran's queen

She'd make an awesome queen, but a) I'm guessing she wants to have children and b) I don't think Bran is exactly her favorite person.

I would give the series overall 7 stars out of 10. It's no longer threatening Buffy for the title of my favorite show of all time, as it was in the earlier seasons, but I think overall it was an impressive success. My only real issue was that the final season should have been 2 or 3 episodes longer. Stuff just happened too fast, mainly character changes that should have been better explained and justified.

One thing I want to know is... what was the deal with that horse Arya found in the ruins of King's Landing? She hops on it and rides away, but the next time we see her she's lurking in the crowd at Dany's Triumph of the Will moment. I like to think that Bran warged into it and sent it to find her, but that was never indicated (unless I missed it) and she didn't seem to be any better off with the horse than without it.

I'm glad no one asked Bran why he didn't warg into Drogon and stop him from burning King's Landing, because he would have had to explain that King's Landing had to burn in order to arrive at this ending... "everything happened just as it was supposed to."

And I'm surprised that, after Bran granted independence to the North with a simple nod of his head, Yara and the Dorne guy didn't make similar requests.

[XPac]

He's a targaryan anyway

True, though I'm dam sure if he did have kids they probably wouldn't be running around with a Targaryan last name unless Jon is firmly sitting on the throne.

[Havok83]

Some loose ends to consider:

Did Dany unknowingly kill Ellaria Sand when she unleashed hell upon King's Landing? Cersei's punishment for her was to keep her alive for a long, long time staring at the corpse of her favorite (and last surviving) daughter. Obviously the show didn't have time to revisit her, so they created random, unnamed new Prince of Dorne instead.

Is Bran going to like warg some wildlife and send them north through that gap in the Wall? Since the Night King had undead horses, bears, Giants, etc. in his army, I would assume the lands north of the Wall are completely devoid of life at the moment. Jon and the Wildlings are gonna need things to hunt and eat...

Lastly, is the Stark line extinguished after this generation? Bran will likely die childless and he is the last male Stark. As much as I love Sansa ruling a la Queen Elizabeth I, if she ever married and produced children, would they take the Stark name or whatever House her husband comes from?

No. In this universe there is precedent that a female of a more prestigious house keep her name and her children be born with that name. Sansa being Queen by default makes her the most prestigious house in the North (the Starks already were). Her children will be Starks regardless of whom she marries, especially since it is understood that if they aren't, her family becomes extinct

as far as Ellaria

[bobellis75]

End result was fine, I guess...they didn't need that episode to be 90 minutes though. If they had a budget to produce x amount of minutes this season...they could have shaved20-30 minutes off that episode and built it into episode 2 or 4 maybe, and done more to show Dany's descent to madness.

I feel like things were settled pretty quickly last night really, then it just went on and on. If they needed the finale to be supersized...they could have at least had Grey Worm show up after the dragon threw his tantrum and fought with Jon. There was literally zero action last night...it was 80+ minutes of sorting things out verbally, and it was a bit too tidy.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The best part of the whole finale is that the island Grey Worm is sailing to is known as one of most peaceful places on the planet. There’s never any wars or invasions or fighting. The reason is because on that island there is deadly butterfly. Everyone on the island is immune to this butterfly. However, non islanders are not resistant and can’t survive there.

So I hope he’s very precise with that spear

[XPac]

That's the way our democracy (such as it is) started, though. Originally only land-owning white men were allowed to vote... our version of the gentry and aristocracy. Universal suffrage evolved over a period of 200 years and is still evolving.... not sure in which direction, though.



I'm sure HBO is delighted that you feel that way! Because they've got plenty more Westeros in store for us, I'm sure.



The Arya one is the only one of those I see as a possibility. I'm pretty sure both Dinklage and Harrington are ready to move on to other things now.



An Arya spinoff would technically be a sequel, but since it would deal only with Arya and her crew and not with the world at large, it really wouldn't matter much when it was set. Arya would basically be a stand-in for the woman explorer who circumnavigated the globe in Martin's canon.



I didn't notice whether Gendry did, though. Considering that about five minutes ago he was one of those commoners his new colleagues were comparing to dogs and horses.



I really do wish they'd done more with his warging ability during the endgame. Having him play an active role in the victory(ies) would have made his becoming king less of an ass-pull.



There is nothing for the Night Watch to watch anymore... the White Walkers are gone, and I believe those few dozen Wildlings with Jon and Tormund are the sum total of the human population beyond the wall. If the Night Watch continues to exist, it will only be because it's a convenient place to send troublesome people you don't want to execute for some reason. I assume the Night Watch will now be considered a joint project by the thrones of the south and north?



She'd make an awesome queen, but a) I'm guessing she wants to have children and b) I don't think Bran is exactly her favorite person.

I would give the series overall 7 stars out of 10. It's no longer threatening Buffy for the title of my favorite show of all time, as it was in the earlier seasons, but I think overall it was an impressive success. My only real issue was that the final season should have been 2 or 3 episodes longer. Stuff just happened too fast, mainly character changes that should have been better explained and justified.

One thing I want to know is... what was the deal with that horse Arya found in the ruins of King's Landing? She hops on it and rides away, but the next time we see her she's lurking in the crowd at Dany's Triumph of the Will moment. I like to think that Bran warged into it and sent it to find her, but that was never indicated (unless I missed it) and she didn't seem to be any better off with the horse than without it.

I'm glad no one asked Bran why he didn't warg into Drogon and stop him from burning King's Landing, because he would have had to explain that King's Landing had to burn in order to arrive at this ending... "everything happened just as it was supposed to."

And I'm surprised that, after Bran granted independence to the North with a simple nod of his head, Yara and the Dorne guy didn't make similar requests.

As far as the Night Watch goes... if you want to be pessemistic about this, we might assume Bran sent Jon up North to restart the Night Watch because he might know that they could still be needed down the line.

But yeah... assuming everything is fine, it's an easy way to exile people. When the show started, most people didn't beleive in the Walkers anyways. So functionally, it wouldn't be that different even if there were no Walkers.

[XPac]

The best part of the whole finale is that the island Grey Worm is sailing to is known as one of most peaceful places on the planet. There’s never any wars or invasions or fighting. The reason is because on that island there is deadly butterfly. Everyone on the island is immune to this butterfly. However, non islanders are not resistant and can’t survive there.

So I hope he’s very precise with that spear

I'd be funny if he got the idea to go there from Bran.

[bobellis75]

Regarding the Night Watch...did Jon just leave at the end anyway? With the Wildlings? Or are the Wildlings the Night Watch now and they were just going to do some Night Watch stuff there in the final moments...I got the vibe Jon was in charge of the Wildlings, maybe (or co-leading with Tormund) and he was just getting the F out of the Dodge there at the end...riding off to live with the Wildlings.

[XPac]

Regarding the Night Watch...did Jon just leave at the end anyway? With the Wildlings? Or are the Wildlings the Night Watch now and they were just going to do some Night Watch stuff there in the final moments...I got the vibe Jon was in charge of the Wildlings, maybe (or co-leading with Tormund) and he was just getting the F out of the Dodge there at the end...riding off to live with the Wildlings.

Theoretically there may be nothing official for the Night Watch to do with no Walkers. Maybe exploring the North more now that it's safer to do so without the Night King is as good a way to occupy your time as any.

I do suspect Jon at least unofficially is in charge, or at least can be anytime he wants to be (he likely won't be in the mood to give orders anytime soon). I doubt he's part of any official heirarchy or chain of command, but I'm sure at this point Jon has Tormunds full support.

[MindofShadow]

Regarding the Night Watch...did Jon just leave at the end anyway? With the Wildlings? Or are the Wildlings the Night Watch now and they were just going to do some Night Watch stuff there in the final moments...I got the vibe Jon was in charge of the Wildlings, maybe (or co-leading with Tormund) and he was just getting the F out of the Dodge there at the end...riding off to live with the Wildlings.

I mean, who is gonna stop him from doing whatever he wants at that point anyway?

[The_Greatest_Username]

Why is Bronn Master of Coin when he doesn’t even know how loans work?

[XPac]

I mean, who is gonna stop him from doing whatever he wants at that point anyway?

They probably assumed that would be Jons job. Guess not.

[Sparta]

Heartbreaking ending for Dany, yes I know she committed genocide (only 2 episodes after saving the North), but in her final scene with Jon we at least saw a glimpse that vulnerable girl from the very first season, she was delusional at the end, sad to see such an iconic character fall that way. Though I felt her death was a little ambiguous, a passing mention on Drogon's whereabouts from Bran was the last we heard of anything Dany-related. I actually thought Drogon would take her North of the Wall and come back as the Night Queen (a lot of plausible theories on this), or Drogon (going East) may have taken her to Asshai. If there was a character to be resurrected, she'd be the one. Unless it's ambiguous on purpose because GRRM probably hasn't quite nailed her fate in the books.

A lot of wasted material. I thought maybe Bran would warg back in time and try to influence events, Arya not switching faces, and Jon Snow going back to square one felt like an anti-climax, really thought he was destined for greatness. Biggest flop was the Night King. Daenerys' journey was a failure really at the end, but I suppose she got her justice against the Lannisters and broke the wheel.

I know a lot of people hate the idea of Bran being king, this doesn't bother me too much because finally we see a just council. (Though I'm not sure about Bronn as Master of Coin). Bran's probably one of the better options, Jon and Sansa were good candidates, but Jon doesn't seem to want anything, Sansa wants to be Queen of the North, Gendry's a little dopey (and a 3rd tier character)...and everyone else is dead. Keep in mind Bran's the first POV in the books, and GRRM is very protective of that character, he was always a big deal, it's just that the show underdeveloped him.