With bated breath, fans of George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones watched the much-hyped finale titled ‘The Dragon And The Wolf’. After the last few episodes, albeit rushed story and timelines, a lot was pegged on the finale to tie all the loose ends and give a more coherent explanation to everything — right from Jon Snow’s parentage to learning who the Night King is.
Several conspiracy theories were discussed at length over what would happen, especially when the preview itself gave us an insight into much more. But, the makers chose to focus more on visuals and mindless talks such as Theon killing his uncle and talking about saving his sister, Cersei’s fluctuating moods, and the whole question of loyalty that Jon Snow subscribes to.
It seems as though the writers bit off more than they could chew and ended up trying to make amends with whatever happened in the past, and still include bits of sex, violence, and the classic plot twists. The ending, however, is also left hanging. The future is dreary, the queens continue to squabble, and the night is dark and full of terrors. Spoilers ahead.
*****
The show begins with Greyworm and his army, with scores of Dothraki men around, standing in front of Jaime and Bronn’s army at Casterly Rock. As seen in the finale’s preview, the highly-anticipated meeting is to take place — the one between two queens and a king. A lioness, a dragon, and a wolf.
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As always, Daenerys makes quite an entrance with her dragons. But that doesn’t scare the rest of the party attending the meeting. Moderated by Dany’s hand, Tyrion Lannister, the meeting does not begin well. It’s evident the queens hate each other and have a lot of anger inside owing to what happened in the last 50 years.
But thoughts shift when Sandor ‘The Hound’ Clegane opens the wooden box they’d been carrying all along.
Screeching and squawking, with bones rotting and eyes still blue, the undead they managed to pick from beyond the Wall, is presented to Cersei and her people.
Euron Greyjoy is the first to go, “Nope. Not for me,” and heads back to the Iron Islands.
Cersei almost agrees to let go of their enmity and fight the Wights. Almost. Until Jon Snow talks about his loyalty. “I will only serve my queen,” he declares, looking towards Daenerys.
And just like that, Cersei walks away.
But Tyrion, goes to the lioness’ den to call a truce,which she surprisingly understands. And Cersei and Dany, for the time being, put their differences aside and work to defeat the Night King.
Everyone’s impressed, especially Jaime, about the way Cersei conducted herself and agreed to this. But this doesn’t last too long. Cersei goes back to her original ways and still harbours resentment towards the Targaryen queen and the Starks.
Jaime tries to reason with her, and she banishes him with Gregor Clegane standing next to her.
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“I don’t believe this,” he says, in disbelief. He packs his stuff on a horse and trots away. Speckles of snow fall on his golden hand.
Snow? In King’s Landing?
*****
Meanwhile, at Winterfell, the Arya-Sansa fight continues. Sansa, as the Lady of Winterfell, goes to Petyr Baelish for his counsel. She’s unsure of why Arya would be this hostile with her.
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“You know what I do when I want to understand what the person’s motives are? I think of the worst things they’re capable of doing to me,” he says.
It dawns on Sansa what that “worst” thing might be. “Arya wants to kill me. She wants to kill me so she can be Lady of Winterfell,” she says.
The next scene is where Sansa readies her sentence. With all her bannermen in attendance, including Baelish, Arya is summoned. Arya stands before Sansa and Bran, with Baelish standing in a corner and silently smirking.
“Do you accept the charge of murder and treason… Lord Baelish?”
Caught off-guard, Baelish does not know how to react and tries hard to stop his execution. He cries, professes his love for her, and even attempts to deny it. But the last words we hear from him is a faint “Sansa,” uttered while blood spews out of his cut throat used by his own dagger. It’s all karma really.
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*****
The writers also focus on Theon Greyjoy and his smarting conscience. Guilty of betraying the Starks, and failing to save his sister, Yara, Theon wants to fix things now. He first makes amends with Jon Snow, apologising for what happened in the past.
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“You are a Greyjoy. And a Stark,” Jon says, in his own way of showing affection. Theon’s heart melts and he musters enough courage to save Yara.
But, at the Iron Islands, his other uncle isn’t so forgiving of Theon’s uselessness. They fight, with Theon mostly taking the hit. Until his uncle kicks him in the groin with no reaction from Theon’s side.
Taking this as his cue, Theon overpowers him and kills his uncle, with the men now on his side, all for Yara.
*****
The finale is aptly named the ‘Dragon and the Wolf’ as a tribute to the coming together of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. Samwell Tarly, who reaches Winterfell, talks to Bran about Jon.
“He isn’t who he thinks he is. He should know. We should tell him,” says Bran, in his mono-tone voice.
And while fans get visuals of Dany and Jon giving in to the sexual tension and copulating on the hard bed, Bran confirms Jon’s parentage when he wargs into the past. Turns out, R+L = J is true and that Jon isn’t really Jon but Aegon Targaryen, Daenerys Targaryen’s nephew.
One would expect a more dramatic “Noooooo” like Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker, but here there’s just more copulation and icky incest happening.
*****
The episode finally heads to beyond the Wall, where the real problem is. Tormund, Beric Dondarrion, and men at the Wall watch how the army march on.
And also watch the Night King riding on his new dragon. For all those who wondered where he got those chains from, it doesn’t matter. He had them all along for all he required to break the Wall was the combination of ‘Fire’ and ‘Ice’.
*****