There Are Only Three Ways The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Series Finale Can End

Today’s the day, the final chapter of Game of Thrones, a series that has been building eight years to this moment, and longer than that, when George RR Martin’s books are taken into account. And given that those books may never be finished, this very well could be the only ending we ever get for the series.

It’s no secret that fans and critics alike have not been wild about season 8. We’ve seen record high viewership this year, but record low critical and audience scores for the last few episodes in particular. And after last week (spoilers), the death of the Lannister twins and Dany’s torching of King’s Landing have taken us to a very strange spot in the finale indeed.

With Dany’s left turn into being a bad guy, we have a new “final boss” for the series. As such, given the cast of surviving characters and the fact that we only have eighty minutes to go in the entire series, that has created some rather…limited options as to where we go from here. In truth, there really only seem like three possible paths forward for this series finale.

Daenerys Wins

This makes the most logical sense. Daenerys still has an army of Unsullied and Dothraki that can easily take on anything the Northmen or the Vale or whoever is left standing at this point in open battle. And that’s to say nothing of Drogon, who took out the entire Iron Fleet and the anti-dragon defenses of King’s Landing by himself last week, after his brother Rhaegal failed to do the same the week before. No one has any weapon to take on a dragon at this point, so there’s really no standing against Dany in the field. The war, in any traditional sense of the word, is over.

This means that Dany will either start killing her detractors and betrayers, which includes the Starks, possibly Mad King style by burning them alive, or she’ll imprison them, or they’ll have to go into hiding and start plotting against her for a sequel series that HBO won’t be able to resist trotting out five years from now. “The bad guy wins” is not an unreasonable ending for Game of Thrones to have, given what we’ve seen from the series so far, though I think those who were rooting for Dany to take the Iron Throne were not expecting it to come about like this, and thanks to her actions last week, it’s not even clear there is still an Iron Throne to sit on.

Daenerys Is Assassinated

This has always been the key to defeating Daenerys, whether she was a good guy or bad guy. Her forces have always been more or less unstoppable, the only true challenge she’s ever faced being the army of the dead. So the only way to beat her is to get to her directly, to kill her and her alone, considering she doesn’t have any special combat prowess outside of fire immunity.

There are three main candidates for who might assassinate Dany and end her newfound reign of terror. There’s Arya, who is a trained assassin who has already killed Walder Frey and the Night King, so needless to say she’s overqualified and could likely get to Daenerys wherever she may be. The show spent last week setting up Arya to witness firsthand the horrific destruction of Drogon in King’s Landing, and as such, it seems likely she’ll have a role to play in her demise.

But there’s also Tyrion, who should still be a somewhat trusted advisor to her given that he’s the one who sold Varys out when he was plotting against her. But given the events of last week, it’s hard to imagine he’s still on her side now, and could end up poisoning her or something while he still has a seat at her table.

Or there’s Jon. This seems like the most “poetic” ending where Jon has to realize he made a horrible mistake in backing Dany, and now has to be underhanded for once in his life, swear fealty to her, and then drive Longclaw through her. It’s a very not-Jon Snow thing to do, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and considering how he’s done so very little of relevance at all the last few years, maybe this is his big moment at last.

Bran Becomes Useful

This one is sort of tied into the last one, but I can see a scenario unfolding where Bran finally uses his powers for good for a change, stops sitting around and wargs into Drogon. Drogon is the seat of all Dany’s power (also literally, she sits on him), so take that away, and burn the Unsullied and Dothraki with a dragon you’re mind-controlling and Dany goes from invincible warlord to totally exposed and easily imprisoned or killed.

We have never seen Bran warg into something as big as a dragon, Hodor was his biggest target to date, but he’s more powerful than he’s ever been before as the Three-Eyed Raven, so it certainly seems possible. The problem is that Bran has felt more like a passive observer with his endless knowledge of history than an active participant, so it would be pretty out of character to suddenly make him the lynchpin of the entire turning of the tide against Daenerys. And yet given the established rules of the series, Bran warging into a dragon does not seem out of the realm of possibility, so I don’t want to rule out that it could be a key moment tonight.

The Iron Throne?

This one, I really can’t guess. If Dany lives, she’ll be on the Iron Throne, or whatever the metaphorical throne is if the real one has been destroyed. If Dany dies, it’s really anyone’s guess who would sit on it. Jon would likely reject it, so my guess is someone like Sansa, Tyrion or even Gendry. But it seems pretty clear the idea of “one king or queen to rule them all” is not exactly working, so I would also not be surprise to see the entire concept of the Iron Throne cast aside as the North rules itself and the tatters of the rest of the country simply self-govern. We’ll see.

Hard to believe it’s ending. See you on the other side.

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