The Dragons of Imperialism

Game of Thrones’ clunky finale is worth revisiting.

by Robert Oliver

When Game of Thrones aired its finale in spring 2019, many of the show’s former fans tagged it as “the worst in television history.”

Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame them too much. Daenerys Targaryen had filled the role of the series’ messianic, angelic protagonist for eight seasons, so it was painful to see her lose the battle against her inner demons, transforming into the overpowered destroyer she had always feared becoming. Inelegant and truncated storytelling also resulted in less of the organic, incisive drama upon which the show had built its success – showrunners David Benioff & D. B. Weiss compressed what might have been twenty episodes’ worth of story into a compact thirteen.

Deserved criticism aside, however, it was disappointing to see disingenuous nitpicking and rampant hyperbole dominating fan reactions, and to then see the process recycled by anybody with an online presence and a bone to pick. It unfortunately meant that we missed the opportunity to properly evaluate the HBO series’ conclusion as a community, and to find value in the sobering politics underpinning its final stages. In other words, people rushed to point their fingers at Benioff & Weiss (“How dare they do that!”) when, instead, they should have interrogated their intentions (“Why did they do that?”).

Game of Thrones was firmly anti-war and anti-monarchy, and its final season endeavored to harshly reinforce that.

Game of Thrones (much like its parent source material, the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R. R. Martin) was firmly anti-war and anti-monarchy, and its final season endeavored to harshly reinforce that. It so often walked the line between depicting and endorsing violence in its universe, but always remained on the side of the former — frequently by displaying the environmental, physical, and emotional cost.

Its tragic ending was no different, pinning the blame squarely on greed and divine rightism, and their contemporary cousins. Season 8 was both a continuation and a culmination of a long process, as a futile scrap for ultimate power (the “wheel” Daenerys longed to break) proved fatal for its one unquestionable icon, just as it had done for so many characters before her. To my eyes, this was an adult television show taking advantage of its last chance to be brutal, provocative, and transgressive, much as it had on several previous occasions. People came to Westeros to escape the real world, but they stayed because it dared to show us so much of it: the unflinching displays of human cruelty, the sharp deconstructions of power and conquest. It was dangerous, honest television.

But by the end, the audience arguably found itself sitting too close. Episodes were review-bombed before they’d aired and then again after premiering. Online communities produced numerous popular re-writes that saw Daenerys commit similar atrocities but only by accident, or saw her win the Iron Throne after all. It was difficult to resist the urge to read between the lines.

The audience craved Daenerys’ invasion without knowing the full extent of what that entailed.

Miguel Sapochnik, director of penultimate episode ‘The Bells’, noted that the audience craved Daenerys’ invasion without knowing the full extent of what that entailed. In response, he pulled our eyelids back and displayed the reality. But such an ending was not a condemnation of Daenerys, nor did it make her the “true villain”; it was a condemnation of the corruptive forces that, all at once, made her dangerously powerful, dismantled her healthy coping mechanisms, and alienated her support network. She was far from innocent, but the guilt was shared.

Her firebombing of King’s Landing took centre stage visually, but the emotional focus prioritised the beastliness that dictated every step of the show’s journey to that point: the Red Keep, a symbol of remorseless greed and tyranny, crushed Cersei Lannister to death, along with her brother and unborn child; The Mountain, who had become trauma and vengeance in physical form, took The Hound to his grave; Northern soldiers, who had been been our friends for seven seasons, raped and pillaged their way through the battle; Tyrion and Jon Snow were powerless to stop war crimes that their blind devotion and naivety had inadvertently wrought. This is what happens when a city falls, and there was no avoiding it.

Game of Thrones’ last leg was significantly condensed and occasionally very clumsy, but it deserved better than its reception. The audience owes nothing to the show or its creators, but to write it off so definitively, when so much could be derived from simply probing its intentions, will forever be as much of a shame as its conclusion is unfairly considered to be. Daenerys’ former adviser Ser Jorah Mormont once asked her whether she’d “ever seen a war where innocents didn’t die by the thousands”.

In her uncertain silence, he unknowingly revealed the fate of both his queen and the TV show he belonged to: “There’s a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand.”

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