It’s time for season two of The Last of Us and my god have I been vibrating with excitement for this. I decided against replaying the game before it came out, partially to give the writers a chance to impress me, but mostly because I simply do not have that kind of time right now. Either way, as I waited for the first episode to drop I exchanged a stark realization with my husband:

There are people who don’t know Joel dies.

Dropped my fork full of pasta when he said that to me. Holy shit. People who haven’t played the game were going to lose their ever loving minds. To say the thought made me giddy would be an understatement. When the second episode dropped—and I got done crying like a baby—I immediately hopped online to share in the internet outrage and the cries for Abby’s brutal demise.

Only… people weren’t mad at Abby. They were mad at the… writers? What the heck? Left and right people were saying they were going to drop the show. That they didn’t want to watch anymore. That they were pissed they lost the main character. And I just. Don’t. GET IT.

Joel Deserved To Die

That’s right, I’m coming out swinging.

Let me just say, I absolutely love Joel. He is such a classic, midwestern dad style trope. Gruff, scarred, battle hardened and ultimately a big soft teddy bear who would bareknuckle brawl an army for you. I love it. And I loved every moment playing as him for the first game.

I would not have loved playing him in a second.

I’ve already played Joel’s story. I spent 70 hours as him. It was done, he was living happily in Jackson. What more would I have done as Joel? I can think of two major paths for him if he were to be the main character:

1. Someone kidnaps/kills Ellie. Okay, we’ve got the same story we got with part 1. Didn’t we already do that? Joel is cool, but he’s not John Wick. I didn’t play the Last of Us part 1 to be a badass op killing machine.
2. Jackson discovers Ellie was the cure and they go on the run. Again… Same game. Same Joel. Either way, it’s too similar to the first game and isn’t interesting. And apart from that, I didn’t want another story about Joel. Regardless of how good they could have made it, The Last of Us Part 2 was never meant to be about Joel. It was about Ellie. When the first game ends, we don’t get to see the fall out of his choices. They deliberately left the ending scene of him lying to Ellie as an opening for a new game. The only logical conclusion to draw is that the sequel game would be about Ellie. About how Joel robbed her of her autonomy and laid the guilt of dooming the human race on her shoulders. And there was no going back for her, no making it right once she learned the truth. He stole a piece of her humanity, and stole a piece of Abby’s too. In one selfish choice, he doomed two young girls to a lifetime of rage and grief that had no resolution. Nothing was going to bring Abby’s father back, just like nothing was going to absolve Ellie of her guilt by association.

We all loved Joel. That does not absolve him of his sins.

Abby Wasn’t Rage Bait

Dear god did I hate Abby. Few things have made me hate a character like The Last of Us 2 made me hate Abby. After she killed Joel, I was about to throw fists at my TV. Full of bloodlust and righteous anger, I was ready to fucking go. And then suddenly… I was playing as Abby. I won’t lie, when they switched me to Abby, I almost stopped playing. The realization of what they were doing made me even angrier. They were going to make me play as her to humanize her, weren’t they? They were going to make me play as her so I would understand her motives. They even gave her a kid to look after, as if that would make me see some maternal side to her. It only hardened my resolve. I was the hero, and she was the villain. Nothing they could do would humanize her.

Except… they were never trying to humanize her.

That was never the point. We played as Abby to show that you can’t humanize someone like that. Because when you kill a helpless, defenseless man like she killed Joel? You don’t come back from that. There is no salvation for you. A piece of you is gone forever. We aren’t meant to root for Abby. We aren’t meant to see Joel in her connection with the kid. We’re supposed to see how her hatred, her bloodlust, and ultimately her choice to torture and murder a man in her thirst for revenge took everything from her. She lost the respect of her crew. She lost Owen. Worst of all, she lost her humanity. And it never came back.

A Hollow Victory

It finally comes. Ellie catches up to them at the beach. This fight scene was so beautifully perfect. The whole game I clung to my anger. But with every bridge Ellie burned, with every line she crossed, with every blackening of her heart a piece of me died inside. But still, I held fast. I was determined Abby would not live.

And then she did. Ellie just walked away.

I’m not going to lie, I lost my shit. I screamed, like full blown rage screamed at my TV. I went through all that work, killed all those people, fought my way through the apocalypse to avenge my surrogate father only to let her LIVE? I couldn’t cope. I was mad for weeks after the fact. But once I calmed down… well, then I started to understand.

Let’s say they changed the ending. She killed Abby, left the kid stranded on the beach. Ellie returns home to the empty house. I take a deep breath, feel the relief that Joel got his justice and then turn off the game.

And then I feel empty. My victory feels hollow as I sit with what I’ve done. I start to wonder what happens to Ellie after that. She’s not just broken anymore, she’s lost the last of her humanity. There is no picking up the pieces, no making it right. No reconciliation with Dina. And what about Lev? The kid she leaves behind? Either they survive and come after her, killing their own humanity in turn. Or they’re dead, unable to fend for themselves.

We saw what revenge did to Abby. We saw how it cost her everything. How she had to scrape and claw her way back from the darkness, just to salvage a mere scrap of humanity. How could I condemn Ellie to the same fate?

I fought all that way for Joel. I killed all those people for Joel. This whole journey was meant to bring justice for Joel. The man who sacrificed all of humanity for this one girl to have a chance to grow up. Is it truly vengeance if it betrays his sacrifice?

Ellie Is Not A Villain

After some time to reflect and consider the ending, I stand by the fact that Ellie walking away wasn’t just the better choice, but the right choice. The writers made a statement with it, and it was bold and fresh. They understood the depths of what Ellie would lose by finishing the story she set out to write.

At the end of it all, Ellie had the opportunity to get the vengeance she thirsted for. She held Abby’s life in her hands. She could have ended it, could have chosen her own, selfish rage—but she didn’t. She chose Joel. She didn’t let Abby go. She let him go, let herself be free of the rage eating away at her soul. It was about her desire to hold on to her humanity, to not let herself fall victim to the darkness that we spent half the game watching Abby grapple with. In making that choice, Ellie stays true to her role in the story. Tragic, broken, and riddled with guilt and grief, but ultimately faithful to Joel’s memory. She remains a heroine.

Killing Abby would have been the safe choice. Giving you the choice to kill her would have been the lazy choice. Forcing you to walk away? That was the right choice. And like I said in my Game of Thrones Retrospective: anything that makes me stand up and scream at my TV and sob uncontrollably is worth the experience. read less

Foreword

Once upon a time, I stubbornly refused to like sci-fi. Space was boring and frankly all the techy stuff made my eyes glaze over. Give me swords and orcs over aliens and space ships any day. Then I watched Star Wars for the first time when I was twenty years old. Rather, my newlywed husband made me watch them all because The Force Awakens was coming out that year and we were going to see it in theaters with his entire friends and family. I relented, with much grumbling and huffing and when the credits rolled on Episode 3, I had lost my ever-loving mind. The lasers! Jabba the Hutt! Han Solo! Stormtroopers! I was absolutely appalled that my uneducated former self had stolen such amazing movies from me.

But if you’d asked me, I would’ve said I still didn’t like sci-fi. I would have argued against Star Wars being sci-fi at all, actually. I was an expert, after all.

About a year later, he sat me down and introduced me to Stargate SG-1. Another thing I didn’t like? Military movies and shows. I couldn’t care less for rah-rah patriotism and hated video games like Call of Duty. So naturally, I didn’t want to watch this one either. I was hooked by episode 5. I binged all ten seasons and then cried when there wasn’t more.

But if you’d asked me after all ten seasons if I liked sci-fi, I would’ve said no.

It wasn’t until I watched all of Farscape that I finally had to begrudgingly admit that okay, maybe sci-fi wasn’t all that bad. But most of the time that people recommend me sci-fi shows and movies, I’m usually not too keen to give them a try. To this day, I still find myself arguing that I don’t like sci-fi shows. But why? Why, if most of my favorite shows and movies are sci-fi, do I still think I don’t like the genre? What about the idea of sci-fi do I find so unappealing?

At first blush, the answer seems rather simple. Aliens. Not scary monster aliens, but proper aliens. Farscape aliens. But this problem goes so much deeper and spreads so much farther than that. So let’s see if we can break it down into bite-sized pieces.

Humor

The first one can actually be applied to so much of modern media, I could probably write a whole separate essay on it. But for now, let’s just try to remain focused on sci-fi specifically. Back when Stargate SG1 and Farscape came out, meme culture didn’t really exist. Especially not to the extent that it does today. I think, because of the rise of meme culture, what the average person sees as funny is wildly different. The bar for a laugh is now set so low, if you have one character addicted to coffee or feeling the slog of a job or acting ADHD in any way you’ve got a chuckle. Make it their whole character, and you’ve got a meme. Or worse, a M O O D. But does this mean that wittier, better written humor isn’t funny? Is today’s generation unable to appreciate the sharp wit or wisecracks of old?

Speaking from the generation of meme culture, I can safely say no meme has ever made me laugh like John Crichton and D’argo’s interactions have.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this clip. I promise you won’t be disappointed

https://youtu.be/rGjB_1lzbOw

Farscape was hilarious. It was also gritty, gross, had a lot of really dark moments and some serious drama. There was some truly unsettling moments, and there were many tears during certain moments in the show. Stargate SG1 was also funny, and had some absolutely amazing lines from both Jack and Daniel. Teal’c was also written brilliantly, and (excuse my momentary fangirling) I really love how they called out his lack of understanding for American idioms. The Teal’c-isms were one of my favorite things about Stargate SG1 because they were both funny and spoke to the cultural differences. I mean, that one time when Teal’c told Daniel “Things will not calm down, they will in fact calm up”? I laughed so hard. What an amazing line. Anyway, Stargate wasn’t just funny. There was a natural sarcastic wit from O’Neill when talking back to people. These lines aren’t always funny, but they are fun.

Modern-day shows are missing this. The line between comedy and drama has grown into this giant, thick eight-lane highway sized divide that keeps dramas dark and gritty and comedies dumb and memey. Now I don’t know of any modern comedic sci-fi, but as far as the dramatic ones go they fall deep into this trap. Foundation, For All Mankind, Westworld, Interstellar… all of these lack this kind of either outright humorous interplay between characters or fun, witty interactions that leave a fond impression in your mind. They are dark, gritty, depressing, heavy, drama filled works of art. And while I’m not arguing against them, I am saying there is a missed opportunity for shows to blend the humor and the grit. And I believe this lack is unfortunately to the detriment of modern media.

Now, I’m not saying there isn’t a place for dark, serious sci-fi shows and movies. Some of my favorite movies are dark, dramatic, edge-of-my-seat rides. Whether it’s the more modern shows like Interstellar or oldies like Alien, not every movie and show has to be a wacky, comedic romp. But the divide is so wide that anything that is meant to be funny tends to be only funny. Rick and Morty is just funny. Futurama is just funny.

CGI and Realism

This is a problem I believe many games also suffer from: everyone is obsessed with hyper-realism. Even the grit has polish! Technology has advanced exponentially since the first sci-fi movies and shows came out. Even as recent as the 2000s, we have seen leaps and bounds in what we are capable of doing when it comes to CGI and special effects. Unfortunately, I think the lessening of restrictions has resulted in more boring visuals. While technological feats are cool, and I love me some crazy machinery and realistic explosions, there is just something special about the weird, wacky prosthetics of old. Aliens in Star Wars and Farscape were amazing and wonderful and most importantly diverse. It’s a wild and weird multiple galaxies out there, it shouldn’t be filled with humans.

Yes, I am aware Stargate is filled with humans. Yes, I can be critical of my favorite shows.

My apologies to the writers. I still love your work. Please give us more Stargate.

It also shouldn’t be filled with non sentient blobs with teeth. Non-sentient monsters, especially ones of invading Earth? Parasitic creatures that invade spaceships? These are cool and all, but aside from being boring from a written perspective they are also boring from a design perspective. Oh, look. Another hulking black thing that you never get to see clearly. Vaguely bestial, probably has sharp teeth, runs on all fours. You know what’s really scary? Halosians. Let me share with you an excerpt on the descriptions of Halosians from the Farscape Fandom Wiki page:

"Halosians were large bipedal, vulture-like creatures. Their cranium was small, and their head had a long, sharp beak. They possessed wings, the spans of which were easily eight feet when fully stretched, but Halosians also had thin arms and articulate claws with which to operate machinery. They often have a very necrotic appearance, with exposed sinews on the mouth and a lack of tissue underneath the jaw."

Now I know what you’re thinking. “But isn’t this just a bird variant of beasts?” Sure, I suppose if you boil it down it is just another type of beast. BUT the Halosians are also intelligent. They have a society that encourages killing not for survival, but for raising their ranks. They can operate weapons and machinery on top of being giant scary creatures. If they so desired, they could choose to use fear tactics that would mimic a beast stalking its prey as well. Key word being choose. The sheer diversity that their intelligence gives them for ways to terrorize and ultimately kill their prey is vastly superior to just a mindless, savage beast.

Beyond villains and monsters, you also miss the opportunity for interesting character design and world-building when you emphasize an overall sense of hyper realism. In a show like Foundation or a movie like Dune, a character that looks like D’argo or Greedo would never be taken seriously. There’s no place for a character like that. Not because of the character themselves, but because they look too alien.

Let me just repeat that bit:

They look too alien. For a show. In space. On alien planets.

WHAT?

There shouldn’t be such a thing as too alien for an alien planet.

Now, as I worked on this I actually began to wonder why. Why, with all of the brilliant, artistic people that were working on sci-fi in those early days did we not get any proper CGI aliens? I can’t imagine that not a single person even tried to make it work. And then it hit me… we did get a CGI alien. And everyone hated him.

Yoda was… an unfortunate casualty in the world of CGI. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on art, film, or the technology that goes into making movies look like they do, but a quick internet search tells us Star Wars Episode I was actually the first film to have a fully CGI rendered supporting character. Before that, CGI was used in much smaller ways to varying degrees of success. I believe that makes Yoda and the other aliens in the prequels the first to be done with CGI using live performances captured on set. So having established they were the first, it’s pretty much expected they weren’t going to be good. And it’s not like we stopped using this method of CGI after they were so ill received. On the contrary, The Phantom Menace pioneered this technology, and it would go on to be used in many blockbuster films and eventually in video games. While not an alien, Gollum was done in a similar fashion if not using the same technology, and he was amazing! So why are all our aliens CGI blobs? We know it can be done! Why did we give up on trying to make cool, CGI aliens? Alas, I have no answers to wrap this part up. Just a D’argo shaped hole in my heart.

Oh, the variety! …or lack thereof

Setting aside mere appearances, where is the variety of alien civilizations? Do you know how big the universe is? Let’s say for a moment that you have an Earth or Earth-like planet, with equivalent life. Are all planets really just going to be copy-and-pasted versions of ferns and humans? Or worse, completely devoid of any sentient/sapient lifeforms? Where are my hive-minded plant people? My crustaceans that communicate with clicks of their claws? Just imagine for a moment, an entire forest of sentient trees debating their war against the encroaching ferns through patterned leaf rustling. Knitting their branches together to provide shelter for their bird friends. Other non-humanoid races, either technologically advanced or pre-agrarian, should exist in the universe. At least from a story perspective. Either we’re alone or we are among many. But even beyond what would be plausible (hello, no one watches TV for reality, not even people who watch ‘reality tv’) I just think it’s not very interesting to see mindless monsters invading Earth. What, you’re telling me an entire alien race mastered interstellar travel just to growl at us? They don’t exhibit any sort of hierarchy? They don’t have any sort of higher intelligence beyond basic murder instincts? That, to me, is lazy writing and a missed opportunity. And any sentient, sapient alien race with a hierarchy society capable of interstellar travel would have at least one individual with wit and/or a sense of humor. It’s just… how thought works, okay? So why do we keep making these boring, Ooo scary alien shows?

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. There is an argument to be made for a singular type of alien and civilization. What if the environments needed to evolve sapient, conscious life forms is the environment provided on earth? What if the natural, peak evolutionary form is ultimately a variant of human? I hear you, and I understand the reasoning. However, this has one major flaw.

It’s BORING. Are you telling me we peaked with this form? No wings? No scales? Can’t even consume sunlight as a primary nutrition? Can only breathe a very specific atmosphere? Honestly, who cares how scientifically sound a lore is. Again, we don’t come here for reality. We come here for the cool shit, primarily, aliens. It’s so hard for me to justify watching and consuming new shows and movies when I know I could just go back and watch Farscape again. Why would I watch Invasion when the trailer literally shows me a black blob with teeth? I’m not even kidding, look at this shit:

Invasion trailers and videos

And what about the new prequel to A Quiet Place? Like, okay, the original movie was amazing. The direction was great, the writing was great, and I loved the premise of a silent world and monsters that could only hear. But that’s what they were: monsters. Not aliens, but utterly terrifying monsters. These creatures shouldn’t be capable of interstellar travel. It shouldn’t have been possible for them to arrive in our solar system and invade our planet. They’re predatory monsters, plain and simple. No matter how good the direction or cinematography is, when you boil it down… it’s just another boring, generic scary alien monster movie. And that’s disappointing.

Now, I do feel compelled to touch-however briefly-on the concept of parasite or micro aliens. For the sake of simplicity, I am not including alien robots like the nanobots and replicators from Stargate SG-1. Unfortunate because, one more quick side note, replicators were so freaking cool and terrifying and I definitely consider them aliens. I do think alien parasites and viruses can be well done, but I do also think it is rarely done well. And I think it’s very easy to tell what makes it good with a simple two questions: 1) is it’s primary goal to kill whatever it comes into contact with and 2) does it have a reason for doing whatever it does.

For this point, I want to reach for Farscape- kidding! Can you tell I’ve recently rewatched Farscape? No, I think Stargate actually takes the cake for this one. There are a variety of episodes I could pull from that contain viruses, parasites and microorganisms of all kind throughout the ten seasons of the show, not to mention the… well… main villain race. Members of the internet, I present to you all Exhibit A: The Goa’uld. They are in fact a parasitic race, but they are complex, hierarchical and intelligent. They don’t seek to kill, they seek to control, to dominate. If that wasn’t enough, take a look at exhibit B: the alien race from the episode Message in a Bottle. SG1 brings back an artifact from an alien planet, which contains what is originally classified as a virus that infects O’Neill, slowly killing him and spreading through the base. 

Now whether or not it’s still classified as a virus in the show, it does eventually grow and evolve to the point where it speaks through O’Neill revealing its history and its intentions. It may be a virus, but it is also a sentient race whose desire isn’t necessarily to kill. It simply doesn’t care if it kills all life on earth if it means it can have a chance to restart. This was a brilliant move on the writer’s part. They could have simply made it an artifact that was a bioweapon containing a mindless virus. It would have still been scary, still made the episode a good one, but would it have stuck in my memory? Not even a little. For a monster-of-the-week episode, it was definitely one of the better in the early seasons thanks to the simple move of making the virus sentient and giving it a lore and a purpose.

Politics

Listen. It’s uh… spicy out there. Thankfully, sci-fi is a great medium to talk about. After all, we’re already living in a world that 20, 40, 60 years ago only existed in paper back novels. But why the hell does every sci-fi show want to pretend as if thinly veiled allegories about climate change, lack of privacy, and capitalism are the only way to incorporate politics into a show? I feel like so many movies and shows are trying to make political statements by repeatedly using these same narratives. And they try to make them as dark and doomsday as possible. The politics in Stargate SG-1 were real and relevant, without making me want to turn my TV off and go back to reality because at least we aren’t all living in a bunker yet. An even better example would be the multitude of political issues explored in Farscape. Moya is a sentient being—and a spaceship. What kind of freedom is such a being allowed? And Zhaan, being a Delvian priestess, is constantly caught between the politics of her religious and the group’s need for survival as run away prisoners. I’d just like to ask the people of this fair and foul planet: which would you rather watch? A) A show that is basically just Earth in the darkest possible future where climate change has driven us all into a bunker or we’re living under an authoritarian government with no personal freedom, or B) A show where two people are turned into living statues and placed outside a government building for eighty of the planet’s cycles to learn the wisdom of governance before they are set to rule? I’d say the choice is obvious. Both are political, but one is new and exciting. The other is just more of the same, overused, uninspired tropes.

I know, I know, the Matrix is a masterpiece and is very obviously political. It was also stylish, groundbreaking, deeply engaging and oh, yeah badass and fun as hell to watch. There are exceptions, okay?

I would argue that it is borderline necessary to bring politics into sci-fi when creating alien races. After all, politics are a facet of any culture and as we have established by now, alien lifeforms should have their own culture. We can even base it upon our own planet’s politics. It just needs to be done right. Look to the histories. Ask yourself, what would our current political landscape look like if black powder had never been invented? What if we’d managed to harness the power of light and photons instead? And what if it was easy and civilians were capable and educated enough to create and use potentially dangerous technology? What laws and forms of government might crop up surrounding this? I feel like everyone wants to use the same few allegories of oil wars and climate crisis in their stories and like… that’s just such low-hanging fruit. I love the new Dune movies, they are beautiful and masterful, with a rich lore and delightfully wicked sorceresses. Dune hits nearly all the right notes for me so far. But it is very obviously just a war for oil, complete with it being found in yet another desert planet. 

Me too, Anakin. Me too.

Conclusion

Honestly, it’s hard not to wrap this all up as just an obsessive fans ranting about how nothing could ever be as good as Farscape. But I mean… has anything been as good? Farscape was messy. It was crazy. The aliens were creative and unique, the characters unapologetically wacky and wild while still being complex, 3 dimensional beings with growth. The story had it all, the humor, the grit, the drama, the politics! It was STRANGE it was WONDERFUL and by GOD IT HAD THIS CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER:

sigh

Let me be clear. I LOVE sci-fi. And I even love the dark gritty dystopia future sci-fi like The Matrix and Terminator. I love Dune and it’s rich lore, and I do actually like Foundation, or at least what I’ve seen of it so far. I know there are plenty of wonderful shows and movies out there that a lot of people worked really hard to make. I just want to ask all the writers, producers, and directors out there a simple question:

Why not do both? We have a wealth of talent and an overabundance of eager creatives out here. Why are we not using them to make more than just another dark sci-fi drama? Or another cheesy, memey headache of a show? We can bring the two together, sharp wit and dark drama. There are actors that play well off each other, costume and prosthetic designers who are itching to make more than just another boring militaristic robe, cloak suit thing. Writers who would love nothing more than the freedom to create character-centric stories with diverse cultures and lore. The best doesn’t have to be behind us, left to be remembered as a fond, nostalgic mark on the genre’s timeline. I believe a modern day show that held itself to the same standard as Farscape, with the same, strange design choices that brought about D’argo and the Halosians, could become one of the most popular shows of the time. Have we forgotten that John Crichton has a kid out there in the big bad universe? As much as I dislike the spin-offs and remakes pervading modern media, I wouldn’t say no to a well-done show about Crichton’s daughter in the Farscape universe.

Humans of Earth, I implore you: stop making boring aliens. Bring back the unpolished, weird, puppets and prosthetics of old. Enough with the shiny, drama-infested, meme filled slop. If you use CGI, give your aliens the same care and attention Gollum received and stop making mindless black murder blobs with legs and teeth. These are civilized alien races capable of interstellar travel. Show some respect. read less

Now this is mostly written for those who never watched the show and then saw the resulting rioting on the internet when it ended. That being said, I don’t want to spoil you all as I go about trying to convince you of why every single person must watch Game of Thrones once in their life. So allow me to paint you a brief picture before diving into my deeper defense.

There are hundreds of shows with bad endings. With cancellations that come too quick and too soon. Netflix alone cancels almost every show they make once it wanes in popularity for even a millisecond. No matter how good or how much potential, shows are greenlit and killed and ruined every day.

So why is it that we can’t name a single one? Where’s the outcry for the Santa Clarita Diet? Where’s the fandom breaking their keyboards over the cancellation of Stargate Atlantis? I’ll tell you where: buried in forums in the corners of the internet where only the die hard fans of such shows exist. Now let me ask you this. Have you even heard of these shows? Has your mom heard of these shows?

Now have you heard of Game of Thrones?

Don’t you think that a show with an ending that divided friendships, sparked international outcry, that broke the god damn internet might be worth something? When was the last time anyone online got so invested about something that wasn’t political? I say this understanding the gravity of my statement when I say that there are three franchises everyone in the world has heard of: Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. And Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones had people who never even heard the word fandom getting tattoos of their house symbol. Bending a digital knee on their facebook pages. Waving their banners on their Twitter bios. People shouted, raged, sobbed and generally were emotional wrecks throughout the entire course of this show. I, personally, have never hated and loved characters with such ferocity. I have never felt as conflicted, never cheered with such vigor for the rise and fall of certain houses, never cried as hard as I did for any other show or movie in existence.

Did the ending leave me in emotional ruin and rage for five years? Yes. Did I scream at my TV for a solid hour after the show ended? Possibly. Would I recommend that every living soul watch this show — including the last season? Without question.

Any show capable of bringing the internet to this kind of fervor is worth watching. Any show that influenced not only future shows but also gave birth to long form TV? The thing that George Lucas himself couldn’t accomplish? You cannot tell me it isn’t at least worth trying.

With that being said, everything from here on out is spoiler central and I do recommend that you go in and watch the show before reading. And then come back and read this in five years once you’re done grieving so you can agree with me.

World Building

Right off the bat, we have the classic tools of the fantasy trade. A prophecy, a world ending evil, an honorable hero and of course a secret that could destroy the kingdoms. It’s a pretty standard toolbox for any fantasy writer, so what makes it so special? As with any artists, it’s not the tools that make you great. It’s how you use them. George RR Martin and the other writers involved in adapting the material knew how to use the tools they held like a master painter knows how to handle even the cheapest brush. There was a prophecy, yes, but who about? Did someone just read a prophecy from a scroll or something? No, we get the prophecy from a fire witch who burns people alive as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light. We get the chilling end of her prayer: “For the night is dark and full of terror.” Haunting, beautiful, and used in just the right amount throughout the remainder of the show. The world ending evil? Death. Darkness. We don’t get a clear visual of what this means until much later and are left wondering about the truth of it. Is it war? Are they just being dramatic? Is it the zombies we saw in the first episode? I love that the show wasn’t quick to show us what we should be so afraid of. They gave us a little taste, and that’s all we get until the second season.

They also did an excellent job bringing to life the environments in the show. The true North, beyond the wall, feels frigid and desolate. Inhospitable and treacherous. They don’t simply tell you that it’s not a place to travel lightly, they show you. Sam running through a the wall of white, Jon lost and separated from his fellow crows, the mountains of furs they all have to wear just to survive… All great visuals that really drive home how terrifying a place it is.

But it’s not just the North. The Red Keep and the city of King’s Landing paint a stark picture of class divide in this medieval, fantasy setting. The tables full of food, pitchers of wine in every room, draperies and diffused, soft light from fire and gentle sunlight offer feelings of comfort and luxury, where as the streets of the surrounding city are full of dirty urchins, with only the harsh, direct light of the sun and not a clean cup to be found. Everyone is loud and rowdy, quick to start a fight or band together in mob mentality. Compare this to the quiet, sophisticated dialogue had in the Red Keep and it really brings the world to life.

Essos is also an area where the world building shines. Our first time in Essos happens in Pentos, which offers a stark contrast to the harsh, cold landscape of the North. We see gauzy fabrics, lush gardens, and one very naked Daenerys Targaryen standing before a scalding bath in an open air room. I think about earlier scenes in Winterfell and cannot possibly imagine being naked anywhere lest I die from the cold. But Pentos looks warm and inviting, not wild and cold like the North and not stiff and regal like the Red Keep. However, as soon as we leave Pentos, we’re confronted with harsh, rugged plains and eventual straight up desert landscapes. And in the middle we get this amazing location called the Great Grass Sea. It’s not only visually distinct and interesting, it also came with lore.

In the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are fields of ghost grass, with stalks as pale as milk that glow in the night. It murders all other grass. The Dothraki believe that one day it will cover everything—that’s the way the world will end.

I just love it when world building multitasks.

It didn’t just serve as a cool visual, but a narrative tool. We got lore all the way from some place called the Shadow Lands, and I think it might be the only time in the show where that’s referenced, and one of the few times Asshai is talked about.

…Speaking of Asshai….

Is it possible to love a place that’s never seen and only vaguely references? Yes. Yes, it is. But ONLY when it’s done well. We’re dripped little tidbits about Asshai and it’s always so god damn fascinating. It’s just enough to tantalize our imagination, remind us that there’s this otherworldly place full of dark magic, but not totally derail the story and make us fixate on it. Melisandre herself is from Asshai and draws much of her strange and dark powers from there. In fact, Beings from Asshai are one of the few sources of real, true magic we see in the show.

Along with brilliant world building via visuals in cities and such, the show also shines in its diversity of gods and religion. Kings Landing practices the Light of the Seven, also known as the new gods. The north worships the old gods, which take shape as the Weirwood trees. Beautiful trees with faces in their stark, white bark and crimson leafs adorning their branches, weeping blood red sap from their eyes. Honestly, with zero explanation or background these trees are still cool. But they don’t just leave them as cool trees. Later in the show they gain an actual use with a god-like entity in the form of the three eyed raven. Who might also be the blood raven, but this is never confirmed in the show. But there are other gods as well, like the one Stannis Baratheon worships. The Lord of Light is one of the only gods in the show that we ever see grant any kind of power or divine intervention for his followers, the most notable of which is the resurrection of Jon Snow and Beric Dondarrion, both performed by priests of the Lord of Light. Beric is actually brought back five times according to a conversation between him, his priest Thoros and Arya. The other god, some might say the same god, is the Many Faced God worshiped by the Faceless Men.

Okay, quick side note.

Some of my favorite characters got spared the Very Scientific Selection Bag (more on that later) due to the fact that frankly, they don’t belong in the character category at all. They go beyond characters and ascend to the realm of world building tools. Exhibit A: The Faceless Man. First introduced in season two (yes, season TWO), the Faceless Man comes with it’s own religion, lore and story arc. Right off the bat we are shown that he is different from other characters with his introduction. He doesn’t simply say “I’m Jaqen H’ghar” or “The names Jaqen H’ghar”, but instead says “This man has the honor of being Jaqen H’ghar”. The Faceless Men have the ability to take the face of any dead person. They can put on a new face and become anyone. Matching their voice, their height, they learn to copy it perfectly and they use this ability to serve The Many Faced God. In order to do so, they must first become no one. A blank slate for which a new person to rest upon. It is absolutely brilliant.

I love this. I love this whole arc, and all of the lore surrounding the Many Faced God. The language they use, the way they never really say anything directly, the just… ugh, everything! I love everything. I especially love how The Faceless Man transcends that of a normal character and becomes an entire cornerstone of the lore for this show. It was fascinating. Even more so when you consider the following: if any face can be stolen, who is real and who is an assassin? How many people in the show were secretly faceless men?

Writing

There is a lot left to be desired by todays vocabulary. When I first began working on this piece, I came across probably the most depressing piece of software in my entire life: https://wetdry.world/@halva/112704633719514750 ![[Pasted image 20240704140530.png]] When I first read this, I legitimately thought it was a joke. Like, surely this can’t be happening. Surely cliff notes is enough. Isn’t TV dumb enough? Do we really need to have our classic books dumbed down as well?

I feel like this is where the crux of the problem with the later seasons lie. The pacing was rough, but even the pacing could have been better handled if it wasn’t for the writing. And that’s not to say the writing in the final seasons was horrible. It at least wasn’t as horrible as I remember feeling it was. But it certainly wasn’t great. Tyrions speech at the end started off alright, but quickly became bland and boring. All of Arya’s lines were contrived and felt forced. Little Finger’s bit about ‘closing his eyes and imagining what people will do’ was not nearly as clever as it could have been. But you know what? I don’t blame the writers for this. I don’t blame D&D for this. I blame MARTIN for this. Martin was the reason we had speeches like the one Tyrion gave before the court, he was the reason we had the monologue Jaime gave in the baths at Harrenhal. He should have stayed on to see the show to it’s completion.

BUT.

That doesn’t mean the show wasn’t worth watching.

Characters felt real

Going back to the better seasons of the show, the writers also did a good job making the characters feel real. It’s not all witty, edgy one liners and well written monologues. The characters don’t cease to exist outside of their big moments, nor do they fold into two dimensional paper cut outs when forced into a normal, filler moment. A great example is the scene after Tyrion rewards Podrick for saving his life by taking him to a brothel and Podrick returns saying they wouldn’t take the money. Tyrion and Bron are both shocked and demand to know exactly what Podrick did that made it so the women wouldn’t accept payment. This conversation doesn’t further the plot, there’s no scheming or plotting, it’s just some guys talking. But it still makes sense for them to talk the way they do. Not only the topic of conversation, but the way they have it makes sense. Especially when you compare it to Jon discovering that Sam lost his virginity. It’s a similar style of conversation, but the way they have it still stays true to their characters.

For the sake of seeming like not all the characters talk about sex in their down time, I also really enjoyed a lot of the conversations that Arya and the Hound had. For example, in Season 4 Episode 5 Arya is practicing her ‘water dancing’ that her sword master taught her, swinging her fencing sword in graceful, flowing movements. The Hound, upon hearing her call it dancing and that she learned it from a Bravosii, heckles her and tells her to try and stab him. She lunges, but her small sword can’t pierce his armor. This back and forth ends up teaching her a valuable lesson:

Your friend's dead and Meryn Trant's not, because Trant had armor and a big fucking sword.

Jaime Lannister, while prisoner to Brienne, also had multiple, albeit one sided, conversations that helped really drive home the kind of person he was leading up to his mutilation.

Jaime: How did you come into Lady Stark's service? There's something we can talk about.

Brienne: Not your concern, Kingslayer.

Jaime: It had to be recently. You weren't with her at Winterfell.

Brienne: How would you know?

Jaime: Because I visited Winterfell. I would have noticed your dour head smacking into the archways.

But by far the best conversation between these two, and perhaps one of the best in the entire show, was the scene in the baths after his mutilation. It really drives home just how wrong we all were about the kind of man Jaime was.

Jaime: There it is. There's the look. I've seen it for 17 years on face after face. You all despise me. "Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, man without honor." You've heard of wildfire?

Brienne: Of course.

Jaime Lannister: The Mad King was obsessed with it. He loved to watch people burn, the way their skin blackened and blistered and melted off their bones. He burned lords he didn't like. He burned Hands who disobeyed him. He burned anyone who was against him. Before long, half the country was against him. Aerys saw traitors everywhere. So he had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city. Beneath the Sept of Baelor and the slums of Flea Bottom. Under houses, stables, taverns. Even beneath the Red Keep itself. Finally, the day of reckoning came. Robert Baratheon marched on the capital after his victory at the Trident. But my father arrived first with the whole Lannister army at his back, promising to defend the city against the rebels. I knew my father better than that. He's never been one to pick the losing side. I told the Mad King as much. I urged him to surrender peacefully. But the king didn't listen to me. He didn't listen to Varys who tried to warn him. But he did listen to Grand Maester Pycelle, that grey, sunken cunt. "You can trust the Lannisters," he said. "The Lannisters have always been true friends of the crown." So we opened the gates and my father sacked the city. Once again, I came to the king, begging him to surrender. He told me to... bring him my father's head. Then he... turned to his pyromancer. "Burn them all," he said. "Burn them in their homes. Burn them in their beds." Tell me, if your precious Renly commanded you to kill your own father and stand by while thousands of men, women, and children burned alive, would you have done it? Would you have kept your oath then?

This monologue has so much raw anger and bitterness, it’s heart wrenching to watch. Here we have a man who is not a good person, something we establish in Episode 1 when he pushes Bran out the window of a tower, permanently crippling him. We spend every second before and after that moment thinking he’s an absolute dick at best, and an evil monster at worst. But this scene… it turns everything we think about his character onto it’s head. In this moment we are forced to confront this man who was judged from before we first laid eyes on him as a Kingslayer and Oathbreaker. Was what he did wrong? Did he deserve to have his honor permanently stained for making the choice that he did? What kind of person would he have become if Ned Stark hadn’t judged him guilty the moment he laid eyes on him in the throne room?

No Hero or Happy Ending

Listen, we all wanted Danearys to end up on that throne. Okay, some of us wanted Jon, or Arya, or whoever. That’s okay, we can’t all be right. What I thought was really brilliant was that no matter who we wanted to end up on the throne, ultimately none of us got our wish. Even more, the throne itself ceased to exist. No one got a happy ending, no one won, and the ending left everyone wanting. Even if the show got the extra seasons and higher quality writing it deserved, Bran ending up the King would have always been an unsatisfying ending. And I think it took guts to make an ending so unsatisfying on purpose.

That being said, I like the ending more when I think about the theory that Alt Shift X presented where Bran is actually evil. You can watch their video here for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oEqnDAbCfE

But even without that, let’s put on our english teacher hats and dive a little deeper into what it symbolizes that Bran became king. Bran is the history of the world. He is the literal embodiment of knowledge, impartiality, and the wisdom of everyone before him. Combine that with the destruction of the monarchy itself, and it makes sense for him to be the person in power. He cannot father children, he can pass impartial rulings, and he is devoid of all personal ambition. Now, he’s not perfect. We could debate all day whether or not he would make a good king. But what cannot be debated is after years of war and ruin by people only seeking power, glory, personal gain, or a misguided set of ideals, the people would want a person who seems calm and impartial. Bran wouldn’t burn anyone alive, he wouldn’t commit atrocities to protect children he can’t even have, he doesn’t care about his family even because he’s not really Bran anymore. When a dragon riding queen just burned the capitol to the ground and got knifed by her lover, following a bombing of your church done my a homicidal mother trying to protect her son… I don’t know about you, but I’d be damn tired of the game. I’d just want someone seemingly stable running the government, and that’s what Brandon Stark offers.

I also like that it was more complex than a simple “here is your hero, here is your villain” story. None of the characters truly remained in one box or the other with a couple of exceptions, but even those exceptions weren’t cookie cutter villains. Each villainous character and hero type had their own flavor, which kept the characters feeling real. Like, for instance, Joffrey and Ramsay were both absolutely irredeemable villains. Evil and rotten to their core, and yet they both were so wildly different in every way. But where I really feel like this shined was with Jon’s story. When our hero dies and is reborn, we expect it to be a triumph. A victory, resulting in a strengthening of their resolve and further cementing their place as a hero. Jon was just tired. They brought him back only for him to have to confront the people who murdered him and hang a young boy. For the rest of the show, he doesn’t ever have a true personal victory. He fights uphill, moving from battle to battle, suffering, struggling, winning yes but at what cost? He dedicates his life to fighting the Night King, to stopping the end of the world, and when the battle comes he can’t even get to him to kill him. He stands alone against an undead dragon, powerless, and screams at it in an act of defiance. When you compare this to like, Aragorn coming back from the brink of death only to confront the orc army at the Battle for Helms deep, you really start to question how you see the hero in stories. It humanized Jon, to see him come back and be so defeated.

Alternatively, our other hero ended up becoming the villain. The quote “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” feels so apt for comparing our two protagonists. Jon died a hero, but Daenerys lived, and suffered, long enough to become the villain. Her suffering was a different nature than Jon’s. She suffered political loss, betrayals, saw her city devolve into chaos and that was before she even crossed the narrow sea. After she got to Westeros, she got roped into a war she wasn’t prepared for, fighting death himself, and lost a great portion of the strength she’d spent years building from nothing. She lost one of her children to the Night King, and then saw it bastardized and corrupted by his touch. She watched the lights wink out one by one as nearly her entire Khalasar were slaughtered in the first wave at the battle of Winterfell. She held Jorah, a man who defended her with his every breath, who loved her purely and dedicatedly, as he died among a pile of corpses. And then the people of the North didn’t want to fight for her like they promised. They didn’t love her, not like her own people did back in Essos. Even worse, Sansa was still openly hostile towards her. And then when she finally began to fight the real war, the one she’d been preparing for all this time, she lost another one of her children AND her best friend. And Missandei’s dying words? Dracarys. Of course she snapped. Of course she absolutely lost her mind with grief and rage and pain and burned the city to the ground, respecting her friends dying wish. Not only does this make sense to me for her character, but it almost makes it agreeable. Almost. I think the actors, directors and writers all did a good job making the burning of Kings Landing feel not like a satisfying victory, but a horrible massacre of innocents. They didn’t let the audience cheer for Daenerys’s victory. They made us feel the weight of her choice with every face that turned into ash.

All in all, I feel like this was a show that diverted from the traditional and somewhat tired fantasy tropes of heroes vs villains and a black and white morality in order to show a more complex story with characters that felt real. No one felt like a mythical being from prophecy or like a born and bred hero. They changed, evolved and grew into entirely new people across the course of the show. Something that I think went on to change how future shows wrote characters, allowing shows like The Witcher, House of Dragons, and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to take a darker, morally grayer path in their own writings and world buildings.

Characters

Picking characters to highlight was like ordering boba for the first time — everything is great, but I’ve only got so much space. I originally planned to include only the last ones standing in the final season, but that felt like the equivalent of ordering a black milk tea cause the menu is too overwhelming. There are so many amazing characters that didn’t make it past the second season, let alone all the way to the end. So I did what any logical, boba thirsting, well researched writer would do and employed a very scientific method. I wrote all my favorite characters down, put their names in a bag and drew three. And then added Daenerys cause she didn’t get drawn and she was my favorite character in the entire show. Like I said, very scientific.

Ned Stark

Ned Stark is a god damn paladin if ever there was one. His character does not change from the first moment we meet him right up to his death, and I think that takes some serious guts to do. There are other characters in the show that don’t change at all, but all of them are on the evil axis of the D&D alignment. But Ned doesn’t need being evil to hold your attention. His honor doesn’t make him boring, and I think this is because it’s so genuine. We aren’t just told that Ned is a good man, we see it in the way he loves his wife, in the way he serves his king, in the way he raises his children with a sense of honor and duty. This actually becomes all the more apparent when we first meet the children of King Robert, which offer a distinct contrast. Joffrey, in particular, is completely and utterly without a sense of honor, duty or mercy. But Ned’s kids, his sons especially, take to heart his teachings and try to live up to his example. We often hear them quoting him, lines that stick with you like:

"He who passes the sentence swings the sword."

"The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."

and my personal favorite…

Everything before the word 'but' is horseshit.

Not only did he love his children, but they loved him as well. They listened to him, respected him, and did their best to follow his teachings. He was a good friend to Robert as well, going so far as to directly oppose him in an attempt to keep him accountable and honorable. He wasn’t afraid to argue with him about things like murdering a young girl on an entirely different continent just because she was a Targaryen. Robert Baratheon wasn’t just his friend, he was the King. Despite that, Ned didn’t stop trying to help him and protect him.

Ned Stark, is unflinchingly, steadfastly honorable to a fault with one major exception:

He’s got a bastard. A stain upon his honor, and one he seems to carry an intense amount of guilt and shame over. When Robert makes a joke about it, he clams up and looks ashamed. In an uncharacteristically serious moment, Robert reminds Ned that they were at war and weren’t certain they’d ever make it home.

Now, I wouldn’t say this is particularly brilliant. Many an honorable man has fallen victim to a moment of passion, especially in trying times like war. The brilliance of this choice isn’t the shame or guilt he continues to cary, but where the guilt actually comes from. We spend six entire seasons believing that Jon Snow is Ned Starks bastard son. That he sullied his honor, broke his marriage vows and bedded a whore, resulting in a bastard son. Six seasons of this, long after his death, only to discover the shocking truth: Ned Stark never broke a vow. Jon isn’t his child. He was faithful to his wife to the end of his life. More over, he was faithful to his sister, whose child he took in regardless of the way it stained his honor. He let the world, his best friend, his wife, his NEPHEW believe that he broke his honor, the core of his entire character, to uphold his sisters dying wish.

This wrecked me. His wife died thinking her husband betrayed her. This might be the saddest part of the show.

Absolutely no it was not, and I’m ashamed at past me for writing this. So many sadder moments, it’s hard to pick the one that gutted me the most. But still, that thought is pretty damn sad.

Ramsay Bolton

Is there a character more opposite to Ned than Ramsay? Probably, but definitely there wasn’t a character that felt more intensely, pathologically, insanely evil as Ramsay Bolton.

By gods, he is one scary bastard. Arguably the most terrifying character in the show and I absolutely loved every minute of him on screen. He made me so uncomfortable, a crazed kind of delight lighting his eyes at every violent action. Joffrey was irritating and vicious but he was ultimately an idiot coward boy with too much power. The Mountain was brutal and monstrous, but he was just a strong man who could hack a bunch of people up like a butcher. Meryn Trant was a disgusting pedophile, but he was a shit fighter and an idiot. Ramsay, though… Ramsay was smart. He was cunning. And he was a talented fighter with a strategic mind. Couple that with the absolutely sociopathic joy in viciously toying with people and mentally breaking them into things… Yeah, terrifying. And so well written, acted and executed that it gave me nightmares.

Okay, I went back and forth when trying to decide if I wanted to write about our first interactions with him and ultimately decided to not go too deep into moments with him. I honestly just think Ramsay is best experienced for the first time by watching the show. If I tell you how we meet him, it takes away from the sheer intensity and depth of his psychotic-ness. So without spoiling too much, I’m going to leave a couple of quotes with a little bit of context that likely won’t do him justice but here you are:

“You’ve known Sansa since she was a girl. Now watch her become a woman.”

Said as he beds his newly wed wife right in front of a man who was raised beside her like a brother.

"I prefer being an only child."

Said after he orchestrated the death of his baby sibling who was mere hours old.

"Lets play a game: which body part do you need the least?"

Said as he’s torturing one of the other characters. This is important because he ends up mutilating this character, flaying part of his pinky finger and cutting off his ahem reproductive member.

And then, his famous and most chilling line:

If you think this has a happy ending, you havent been paying attention.

This one is my favorite. I feel like it was blatant foreshadowing that I somehow only caught after I finished the show. 10/10 one of my favorite characters.

Jaime Lannister

King Slayer! Oath Breaker! Hated by all the people he fought so desperately to save, Jaime Lannister is one of the best and most heartbreakingly written characters in the show. When I first met him, I’d rolled my eyes and settled in for a long ride of another problematic fave. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for the cocky, arrogant charmers in a story, no matter how boring or stereotypical they may be. Imagine my surprise to learn that Jaime is not only able to back up his swagger with actual skill, he’s got a complex backstory and reasoning for his behavior. While he was introduced as an egocentric smart mouthed brat of a rich lord, we learn over the course of many seasons that there is much more going on under the surface. They take their time, peeling back layer after layer until we get the truth of his soul bared to us in a heart rending monologue three seasons in. And it doesn’t stop there, oh no. His character grows and shifts throughout the show as he’s forced into humility, his honor restored, and his alliances ultimately put to rights. I’d say of all the characters in modern media, Jaime Lannister has one of the most well written growth arcs, maybe even the best. And you know what? Despite my original feelings on the matter, I even include his final decision and his death in that. I originally felt that the writers took his character and threw all that growth into the dirt when he made his final choices in the last season. However, upon revisiting, I believe this to be an understandable series of actions for his character.

Let me explain: What was the one, unchanging pillar of his character the whole time? The one central core of his being that he held fast, no matter how much it hurt? No matter how hard it was? No matter how wrong it was?

Cersei. He loved her. He couldn’t help himself. Even when she spited him, blamed him for things outside his control, even when she seemed to hate him, he loved her. I would go so far as to argue that he his character growth was independent of his love for Cersei, or at least not directly tied to it. Think about it, even when he lost his hand his only thought was returning to Cersei. It consumed him, she consumed him. Their love was toxic, tragic, and full of hate and suffering. But even after changing and growing as a person, he couldn’t let her go.

Tywin Lannister

Tywin Lannister might just be my favorite villain in the show. He’s just so smart, you know? First introduced in Episode 7 of the first season, he immediately grabbed and held my attention the entire rest of his life. His introductory scene where he is skinning a stag — that’s real by the way, Charles Dance learned from a butcher to do it right — instantly establishes him as ruthless, cunning, and not a man to be trifled with. He’s intimidating, threatening, but in a… I’m not sure subtle is the right word for it, but definitely not a dramatic way. He’s not scary like Ramsay is, or slimy like Littlefinger, but you instantly sit up straight and take note of his power from his very first lines. The writing in this scene is phenomenal, and Charles Dance’s acting capabilities shine just beautifully. As I was writing this, I literally grabbed my blurays off my shelf and rewatched this scene because it was just that good. Game of Thrones has some truly amazing villains, but Tywin is just something else. But you know something I really loved about this scene, and the episodes leading up to it? You haven’t heard anything about him. You meet his kids first, and based on the way they all are, you genuinely wouldn’t expect them to have that kind of father. I think being left to make our own background assumptions about the kind of upbringing Jaime and Cersei had made his introduction all the more rewarding.

One of the things that makes Tywin so terrifying is his obsession with his family name. Being “THE Lannister” family, and having a son like Jaime whose sword hand was basically kissed by the Warrior from birth, was something to be proud of. If all had gone according to plan, Jaime would have ended up marrying some highborn lady and taking over Casterly rock, having perfect children and carrying on the family name. Except, try as he did, Tywin could never get Jaime to do what he was told. Every decision Tywin made wasn’t for his own personal gain. It wasn’t his name he was fighting for. It was for his legacy, which Jaime wouldn’t even accept. But did this dissuade Tywin? Oh, no. He merely found other ways to manipulate Jaime into taking over for the family. When Tyrion was accused of murdering the king, Tywin immediately jumped on the opportunity to use the entire situation just to get Jaime to Casterly Rock. It’s just such a brilliantly machiavellian scheme, you can’t help but admire his dedication.

But, like other great characters in Game of Thrones, Tywin wasn’t 2dimensional. He was scary and smart, yes, but he was still human. And a lot of his humanity comes out when he unwittingly makes Arya his cup bearer. Upon first seeing her, he immediately 1) acknowledges that she’s a girl and not the boy she’s been pretending to be and 2) recognizes the intelligence of that move. He even corrects her use of “mi’lord” versus “my lord”, which gave her away as a high born and not a low born like she was pretending to be.

Arya Stark

Alright, I’ll be honest with you all. When Arya was first introduced, I immediately loved her. I could relate to her wild nature, her dislike of all things girly and thirst to be allowed to learn what society deemed to be masculine arts. But unlike other characters that follow this similar archetype, Arya suffers through a long road of toil, growth and acceptance on the road to becoming the badass she is at the end. She doesn’t possess raw talent making her instantly dangerous, nor does she fall into the classic trap of “I’m not like other girls”. She acts her age, conveying the arrogance of youth in moments peppered all throughout the earlier seasons and even up to the very end, albeit less so. However, or perhaps in spite of her ego, she trains hard and is quick to learn lessons she’s taught in her travels. Rarely do we see her make the same mistake twice, and we get to witness a rare sort of intelligence that we don’t often see in girls that are written to be classic tomboys. I should clarify for those who have seen the show I do not consider her repeatedly not fulfilling her job as an assassin for the Faceless Men to be a mistake. I see it as a pillar of her character simply not having the stomach to kill indiscriminately. Arya is not an assassin for hire. The first time she doesn’t kill was a mistake. She chose to disobey a group of expert assassins, stealing from them, and using their power for a personal vendetta. This was a mistake. The second time she realized that she cannot simply kill because she was hired to. Her personal morals won’t allow for that. This is not a mistake, this is character growth. She cemented herself as Arya Stark, and accepted that she could not simply become no one.

I have one, (okay two) major gripe(s) with Arya and that is her reaction to Daenerys and her caring about Jon’s exile. For someone who delighted in the stories of Aegon’s sisters, who used the warrior dragon riders as inspiration for her own path, she was much too subdued at meeting Daenerys. She didn’t care nearly enough, wasn’t nearly excited enough, I don’t think she even said more than a handful of words to her. She didn’t even ask to ride a dragon! Honestly, I think the Starks were shorted the most when it came to the ending of the show. I’ll never not be upset by this.

As for the other one, I think this coincides with the overall simplifying of her character in the end. She loved Jon, far more than she loved Sansa and yet she didn’t feel anything at Sansa betraying Jon’s trust? She didn’t care at all about him being exiled? She didn’t fight for him at all, or even speak out to defend him? I just feel like the writers didn’t really know what to do with Arya at the end of it all and therefor gave her character less opportunities to show her feelings on what was going on. Still, Arya held my heart for many seasons and I still think her story is a great example of taking a classic trope and making a proper character out of it.

Daenerys Targaryen

MY QUEEEEEEENNNNNNN Seriously, I would give my life readily for Daenerys. I will never not be mad that not only did she not get an Emmy for her time in the show (while Tyrion did for his absolute joke of a speech??) but she also didn’t even get a single souvenir from the show?? Just.. Just look at this clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/st3LCfrFMg4 The AUDACITY.

Daenerys was one of the most well written characters in the show. I could honestly go on forever about how much I love her, so I’m going to limit myself now to three things that she did that I think really helped convey to the viewer the exact kind of person she was.

Daenerys knew how to be a good ruler: listening to council. And not just blindly listening, but knowing when she needs to listen and when she needs to act on her own intuition. There is one scene in particular that I felt really showcased this wisdom well. It was in my favorite episode of the show, actually, And Now His Watch Is Ended. Both her advisors caution her against trading one of her dragons for an army of unsullied and one translator, and they do it directly in front of the slave masters. Her response in the moment is to wave them off and complete the trade, but once they walk away, she gives them one of the best, most even tempered responses in the show:

You’re both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you’ll be advising someone else. Is that understood?

I love this line so much. Regardless of the ending, regardless of where her character went, I truly believe she would have made a good queen. She knew when to draw lines, knew how to correct her advisors, and above all knew how to carry herself with a regal bearing. And the real kicker is at the end of this exchange you learn that she was never intending to trade one of her dragons for the army. She outsmarted the slave masters, using their brutish, bullheaded ways against them and earning 8,001 loyal followers.

Another strength of hers that she showcased in this episode as well as others is her intelligence, especially when compared to the men in her world. In this episode, Kraznys speaks through his translator Missandei in High Valerian thinking Daenerys wouldn’t understand. He takes advantage of her perceived lack of knowledge to insult and degrade her multiple times. The brilliant part is watching Daenerys smile through it the whole time, feeding his belief that she is simple and stupid only to turn around in one of the most badass moments in the show to look him in the eyes and say

I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue.

And then orders her new army to kill their former masters, freeing them. It’s amazing, brilliant, and showcases her cunning. And my favorite thing about it? No one has to tell you she’s smart. No one is saying “Daenerys is the smartest person I know.” Unlike SOME PEOPLE. No, the show writers showed you how smart she was. And it isn’t even the only time she does this. Later in the show, when she’s captured by the Dothraki hoard, she also hides her ability to speak Dothraki. In fact, she pretends she can’t speak at all, and doesn’t reveal that she speaks Dothraki and is the widow of a Khal until she’s brought before this tribes Khal. She also carefully, subtly slips her ring off her finger the second the hoard surrounds her in order to give Jorah the chance to find her. This showcases how she is quick to think on her feet in stressful moments, and is able to remain level headed and calm in the face of danger. Not only calm, but regal. She shows no fear of the Dothraki warlords, standing tall and proud before them.

Oh, yeah, she also ate an entire mother fucking horse heart raw in a crazy Dothraki ritual.

One honorable mention:

Alliser Thorne. I didn’t feel like he deserved his own section, but especially after a rewatch I felt like he was worth mentioning here as a man who stuck to his own moral compass and beliefs. Just look at his last words:

I had a choice, Lord Commander: betray you or betray the Night’s Watch. You brought an army of wildlings into our lands—an army of murderers and raiders. If I had to do it all over, knowing where I’d end up, I pray I’d make the right choice again. I fought, I lost. Now I rest. But you, Lord Snow, you’ll be fighting their battles forever.

He admits his defeat and feels he can rest in peace in the knowledge that he followed his morals. He made his choice and he firmly, deeply, believed it to be the right choice. Not out of greed or corruption, just purely the correct choice. It’s a man I can respect, and a man Jon ultimately respects.

Political Intrigue

Littlefinger, one of the more brilliant, machiavellian minds in the show is constantly surprising us with his maneuvers. He is easy to dismiss at first, as just a power hungry brothel keeper but two scenes with him really cemented him as a force to be reckoned with. The first one is probably his most iconic scene where he shocks us with this beautiful and chilling monologue:

Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.

I loved this monologue, and loved Littlefinger for most of the show. He was responsible for so much mischief, pulled so many strings, and was just generally really well written as a villain. He wasn’t scary until you considered just how much pull he had over the fate of so many in Westeros.

Threats

The variety of threats in this show is absolutely delicious. So many people throw around so many threats, and each of them have their own unique flavor and weight to them. Joffrey’s threats are that of a spoiled, viscous child. They’re only scary to those weaker than him, and are more often than not left unfulfilled. His mother Cersei, however, makes very good on her threats eventually. She’s very much like an animal backed into a corner in some ways when she makes threats. In the heat of the moment, rank with fear, she lashes out and snaps at the bars. Sure, she’s powerless in those moments, making her threats seem just as empty as her son’s. But she remembers your face, and by the end of the show I don’t think there is a single threat she makes that doesn’t ultimately get fulfilled.

I know I said my face will be the last you'll see, but I'm afraid that won't be the case.

Okay, that one doesn’t count.

Arya’s threats to the hound get more and more empty every interaction they have. This culminates into a moment of realization during her training at the House of Black and White. As she is playing the game of faces, she’s telling truths about a girl named Arya Stark who hated the Hound. She’s struck over and over, defending the fact that she hated him, she wanted him dead, he was a name on her list and she was glad to be rid of him until finally she is forced to confront the truth: by the time she’d left him for dead, he was no longer a name on her list. She no longer hated him.

Littlefinger, in my opinion, is one of the best at threats in the show. One of his best scenes in my opinion wasn’t his monologue “chaos is a latter” but the moment he threatened Roselyn. This scene felt chilling, harrowing and really showcased his ability to view anything and anyone as mere rungs on his latter.

You know, you remind me of another girl, a lovely thing I once acquired from a Lysene pleasure house. Beautiful, like yourself, and intelligent, like yourself. But she wasn’t happy. She cried often. I asked her why, but we didn’t have the kind of rapport that you and I have. Yes, it was quite sad. Girls from the Lysene pleasure houses are expensive, extremely expensive. And this one wasn’t making me any money. I hate bad investments. Really, I do. They haunt me. I had no idea how to make her happy, no idea how to mitigate my losses. A very wealthy patron, he offered me a tremendous amount of money to let him transform this lovely, sad girl. To use her in ways that would never occur to most men. And you know what occurs to most men. I would not say he succeeded in making her happy, but my losses were definitely mitigated.

Varys is also someone in the show that I think is quite good at threats. His, however, feel different than all the rest. There’s almost a… sadness to them? Like, he doesn’t want to threaten people? It’s hard to explain, and it differs depending on who he’s threatening. Take, for instance, his threatening Tyrion about Shae. It is a threat, I stand by that. But it does also feel like a warning, and you can tell he respects Tyrion and does not wish to be threatening him. It’s very interesting and keeps in line with the core of his character which is his attempts to do good by the people of Westeros.

Everything I do, I do for the good of the realm. -Varys

Interesting side note: Ramsay, the scariest bastard in the show, doesn’t make threats. I think that somehow makes him even more fucking terrifying.

Spies

One really fascinating thing about this show was Varys and his “little birds”. Using street urchins as spies, a whole network across the realms, is an interesting way to gather information. Kids are often overlooked and underestimated in real life when conversations are had. It’s like we somehow train ourselves to overlook them, ignore them, or consider them unable to reliably comprehend the topic of conversations we’re having. And the lower, dirtier, less important the child, the more easily they are ignored. What’s more, they seem to find themselves in small places and shadows, making you wonder just how many ears were inside the walls of places like the Red Keep. It is a rather ingenious way to get eyes and ears into hard to reach places.

Cultural Impact

I gotta say, with a few exceptions, movies typically left me wanting. I’d leave the theater and think “man, that was so cool. I wish they’d spent more time exploring x,y,z…” Especially book adaptations, there never seemed to be enough of the original content to satisfy my craving of seeing a beloved story play out in a visual medium. But while I wanted more, I wanted sequels significantly less. Sequels were the worst of every world. No, what I wanted was a big budget, story rich, character driven story that could take it’s time building the world and diving deep into it.

Something that didn’t exist until Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones did something no show had ever done before. And while it’s easy to focus on the shock and aw of seeing a fully naked woman on your TV in the first episode — and subsequent sex scenes — the fact of the matter is the show pioneered and dramatically changed television in a way that happens like once in a life time. Without it, we would never have seen shows like The Witcher, The Mandalorian, Rings of Power, or The Last of Us.

And it didn’t just change things from a story telling perspective. Before Game of Thrones, the TV show with the highest production value was ER during it’s peak seasons. Now, I haven’t seen ER, but knowing that George Clooney was in it leads me to believe that not all of that production budget was going towards writers and set building. Game of Thrones being the big budget, blockbuster hit that it was paved the way for future shows like Amazon’s Rings of Power and GoT’s prequel show House of the Dragon to reach deep into those pockets and come out with a budget of a whopping 20 million dollars per episode. Can you imagine before Game of Thrones any television studio dedicating so much time and money to a show? Especially a book adaptation? I’m not saying that money makes a show good, there are plenty of shows out there that no amount of money would have made better. However, I don’t think anyone in the world would say that their creative dreams couldn’t have been better achieved by a multi-million dollar production budget.

I know I already touched on this earlier, but another thing this show did was bring the entire world into a single fandom. If you’d asked the average person what a fandom was before game of thrones, their answer would 100% depend on the amount and depth of their internet usage. Most likely, they’d have no idea or would just shrug it off as ‘one of those nerd things’. Online communities discussing in depth media content and sharing in a love of a singular work of art? That was for Star Wars and Tolkien nerds, or really niche communities. The average person had no idea how heated debates could get, and would scoff at how passionate people would get about who their favorite character was. Game of Thrones took all that judgmental bullshit and threw it out of the god damn window. It was like the world woke up to how amazing and exciting stories could be! Debates at happy hours and dinner parties revolved around who belonged on the Iron Throne, dissecting theories about the latest season and trying to make predictions for what will happen and who will die. People on Facebook of all places were putting their house sigil as their profile picture.

In Defense of the Ending

Yes, you read that right. I stand before you, good people of the internet, to defend the very thing I once swore to hate. Let me be clear: I do not like the ending. I do not think the ending was good. And I certainly am still very disappointed at the clusterfuck that was the ending of my favorite show. HOWEVER. Some thoughts I had upon those dark days have shifted, and I am able to judge it with a clearer mind.

I’ll start with my biggest complaint about the ending:

Daenerys would have never become a tyrant!

When I first watched the scene where she gives her speech on the steps of the Red Keep, I struggled to reconcile the Breaker of Chains with this person who just massacred half a million people. How could she do something so horrible and then give a victory speech as if she were justified? As if she felt no remorse, no guilt, not even a semblance of doubt? But then this conversation between Varys and Tyrion caught my attention on my rewatch:

Varys: I have served tyrants most of my life. They *all* talk about destiny.

Tyrion: She's a girl who walked into a fire with three stones and walked out with three dragons. How could she *not* believe in destiny?

Varys: Perhaps that's the problem. Her life has convinced her that she was sent here to save us all.

Varys… kind of has a point. And frankly, I think his subterfuge and betrayal of Daenerys was a brilliant example of how some characters just don’t change. Subterfuge is all Varys has ever known. Of course when confronted with the potential of Daenerys becoming a bad ruler he would backstab her and undermine her secretively. What else could he do? He’s the spider. He knows no other way of life.

However, I do not think that she was without guilt. I just think that after committing such an extreme act of atrocity, she couldn’t face the truth of it. Something in her broke when she heard those bells, and she was likely never going to recover from it. She couldn’t face what she’d done in a mindless rage, so she justifies it a necessary and leans into the comforting thought that ruling Westeros is her destiny.

I love Daenerys. Truly, I do. And I love her even more for her ending. They could have given us a picturesque ending, where she took the throne, ruled with grace, ended slavery across the realms and brought dragons back into the world. Instead, they gave us something real. Daenerys wasn’t ever going to be okay after what she went through. And as much as it pains me to admit it, she wouldn’t have made a good queen after suffering the way she had. She’d grown too hardened, too bitter, and she lost the emotional tempering that Jorah and Missandei provided her. This was always how her story was going to end, and I think it was brave and brilliant of the writers to not take the cliche way out.

It’s Too Dark!

Okay, I’ll admit I never shared this complaint. Frankly, I think the Long Night was a cinematic masterpiece. Yes, it was dark. It was hard to see in places. How do you think they all felt having to fight in it? That was the point! It was the Long Night! It was supposed to be dark and full of terrors! Besides, if it wasn’t dark we wouldn’t have gotten the absolutely badass scene where the Khalasar rides across the black expanse with burning swords and then feel the horror as we watch those lights go out one by one.

All The Politics Stopped

I mean… yeah? Of course they did. At some point, the subterfuge and the sneaking and the political intrigue needed to give way to actual war and conflict. We had the assassinations and the machinations and now the last ones standing pick their sides and go to war. That’s how it works.

Sansa? Brilliant?

No, no. This one stays. This one is valid.

…

Oh, fine. Here, I’ll give you this. Her becoming Queen of the North? That tracks. At first I found it to be really upsetting how quickly the North abandoned their loyalties. They were wishy washy at best, supporting Sansa, then Jon, then Sansa. Where is that loyalty? Where are the fierce, honorable men of the North we were introduced to in the beginning?

They died with Ned.

Eh? Do you see it? As soon as I made this connection, everything else made sense. Ned Stark was the North. His honor, his loyalty, his morality was the beacon of light that the North embodied. When he died, the North’s honor died with him. Rob Stark managed to sustain it through his war, but even then the Karstarks were acting less than honorable. Ned’s death broke the bonds that held the North together, and those few that kept his light alive within them died at the Red Wedding. All that was left were those too young or too foolish to remember and uphold Ned Starks legacy. The North irrevocably broke after Ned’s death, and while tradition mandated that a Stark rule Winterfell, I think this was merely a convenient excuse to place Sansa in charge. She was cold, and exuded a bitchy kind of confidence that the weak Northerners could cling to. It wasn’t about her being smart, or even being a good ruler. She merely followed a classic playbook: remind the people that they were once their own kingdom, be stern and stubborn, but in a quiet and disinterested kind of way, use big words and fancy speech to impress the simpletons. And like the honorless fools they now are, the North followed her.

Sansa wasn’t brilliant. She wasn’t even smart. She was a bland, boring narcissist who just wanted her own crown. I will die on this hill.

The Wrap Up

Now this was kind of a mess, I admit. It was difficult to decide what to focus on and what to cut, and I honestly cannot tell if I even came close to doing this show justice. But before I sign off, I want to give one last defense of the show that changed the world. This show was never going to have a good ending. With so many potential outcomes, with so many people rooting for so many different houses, it just wasn’t going to ever have a good ending. However, it could have had a satisfying ending IF and ONLY IF Martin had stayed on. We were never going to get the level of writing and the specific style of writing we got in the first five seasons without him. Regardless of how good the writing could have been, it wasn’t his. Writers like Martin have a voice, a specific flavor to their work that even if you don’t notice it while you’re reading or watching, you definitely notice as soon as it’s gone. It wasn’t that the writing got bad, although I will admit to a drop in general quality. It was that the writing lost its voice. It felt like an above average but still regular TV show writing. The writers did their best to mimic Martin, but they were never going to succeed and they shouldn’t have been expected to.

DESPITE THAT, the show was still amazing. It is still worth watching. Entirely. All seasons, every episode, at least once. I’ve heard people trying to tell new watchers to just stop watching after season 4 or 5 and I honestly cannot think of a worse disservice to those individuals. The show dropped in quality, yes. It lost some of its political complexity, sure. But the show was still. fucking. GREAT. What a waste. You stop at season 5, you never learn that Jon isn’t Ned Starks bastard. You stop at season 6, you never get the confirmation that Jon isn’t a bastard at all but in fact the legitimate child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, making him the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. You stop at season 7, and you never get one of Emilia Clarks best scenes in her entire career when she had to convey like three extra seasons worth of content in one facial expression… and nails it. You stop before the end, and you miss out on the entire purpose of the story.

We all watch so much slop. We spend hours scrolling TikTok, watching whatever trendy garbage Netflix puts out, or justifying the continuation of shows like Invasion. We buy into the sunk cost fallacy almost daily. Instead of consuming more blatantly bad and in some cases bad for you content, why not watch a show that changed the world forever read less