And Now Our Watch Has Ended.

Game of Thrones is over. Taking that in is a bit difficult to comprehend; it's similar to the feeling I had when the Harry Potter book/movie series took its final bow, and similarly, there are significant problems (and predictable fan outrage) with the choices made for how it ended. The final Harry Potter movie made some choices to deviate from the book in ways that I never would have chosen, especially for the final battle between Harry and Voldemort. What was written in the book was perfect; the choice to change it made me feel confused and angry.

That page took six weeks to write

And probably the majority of Game of Thrones fans are likewise feeling confused and angry, but it's a feeling that lacks the same context, because George R.R. Martin's writing speed makes James Joyce seem like Danielle Steel (English majors are laughing their asses off right now...trust me). I'm not going to defend the series or try to make the case for why season eight was great. It wasn't. It was all just...okay; all the pieces were there, but it didn't POP the way the series always had before.

Fans need to let it go and accept that the promise of the first five brilliant seasons did not sustain itself through to the end. It happens. HBO is not going to remake it with new writers. That's one of the most stupid things I've ever seen from disgruntled Internet fan-trolls. But I want to have a kind of grief counseling session with fellow fans to try to make some sense about what happened, to put it in a more acceptable context, and to leave the experience emphasizing the parts that made it great in the first place.

Book vs. Movie

A movie, or even a TV series, is almost never going to be "better" than the original written material. The most amazing special effects are no match for the human imagination. Good movies are either faithful to the source material (Stand By Me, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) or make the conscious choice to deviate dramatically from the source to create something new (Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House).

Game of Thrones is unique in that it did both and neither. It was a mostly faithful and amazingly spectacular adaptation of Martin's first four books. Deviations from the books were justified either because the scope of the books was too broad (there's like a thousand characters) or some plot lines were stupid (Lady Stoneheart, and no, I will not argue about this). Clearly, this was the strength of the first four seasons.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss

In season five, show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had to deviate from Martin's fifth book because a) they ran out of source material about halfway through the season, and b) Book Five is a convoluted mess where the story meanders more pointlessly than Dany and Ser Jorah in the Red Waste. Dany is mired in a political and military mess in Meereen, Tyrion is trying to escape from a brutal slavery, and some guy named Victarion Greyjoy (like TV's Euron with less personality) shows up out of nowhere with his sights set on marrying the queen...but Dany, not Cersei (who hasn't yet scaled the heights of evil she did on TV).

Essentially, Benioff and Weiss had to operate on Martin's planning notes, which as a writer, are almost never where the story itself ends up. What happens as a result of this structure is that the story becomes plot-driven rather than character-driven, which is the obvious criticism of the past two seasons. This leads me to my next point:

Development vs. Spectacle

Seasons one through six were all ten episodes long. Within the expanse of any given season, there would be at least two or three episodes in which "nothing happened." That is to say, fans with short attention spans and little to no experience in reading actual books complained that these episodes consisted of characters sitting around and talking...no sex, violence, or magic, just talking.

What do you mean,
"We're out of wine"?

Yeah, because that's how relationships are forged, characters are developed, and we become invested in one personality over another. The best moments throughout the show, for me, were the scenes where Tyrion and Varys were alone in conversation. Also brilliant (albeit detestable) was any scene where Littlefinger was talking to anyone.

People need to understand that the most significant moments in human history were nothing more than conversations. Jefferson talking to Adams about the weight of the Declaration. Lincoln talking with his wife about how he could possibly put the country back together. Truman talking with his advisors about the consequences of dropping an atomic bomb on Japan. Conversations. Talking. It's what leads us to the truly monumental actions of life.

These conversations were mostly missing from seasons seven and eight, which were only seven and six episodes long, respectively. In fact, probably the best episode of the final season was #2, in which all the characters at Winterfell sat around drinking, and talking, and screwing, because they figured this was the last night they would ever have the chance to do so. And yet, those same trolls complained that nothing happened, that they were bored with the lack of action (Jeebus, sometimes I hate the Internet...).

Those "filler" episodes in which characters could have monumental conversations were eliminated in favor of the huge spectacles of battles and special effects. This is why Dany's turn seemed so abrupt; had we been provided with even two extra episodes to develop this dark direction in her mission, it would have seemed more organic and less plot-driven.

Epic vs. Budget

I have to believe that HBO made the decision to limit Benioff and Weiss to two truncated final seasons for budgetary reasons. The story itself, properly developed, led us to these epic battles: the fight against the Night King and the Army of the Dead, and the War of the Queens. But without the proper "filler episodes" to justify how we got here, they seemed like set pieces.

They reminded me of the huge initial battle in Star Wars Episode Three (my most-hated movie of all time). It had hundreds of things going on on the screen at the same time, and it was all spectacular, and after about two minutes, I was bored. I'm not going to retcon the whole thing, but as a writer, it's easy to see how different choices could have been made.

Game of Thrones has always made good on the promise of epic spectacle from season to season. From the Battle of the Blackwater (still my favorite episode) to Hardhome (the most harrowing) to the Battle of the Bastards, these huge set pieces are an integral part of GoT's reputation. And season eight gave us two of them, both super-sized! But I feel like, at this point, the spectacle was both expected and too familiar. And they probably busted the budget to the point that the producers were limited to only six episodes, and clearly, it wasn't enough time to make it work.

If you only knew the power
of a Disney paycheck...

And although no one will ever admit this, I have to wonder if Star Wars itself didn't have something to do with the timing of these final seasons. Benioff and Weiss are signed to deliver the next Star Wars trilogy, and it's going to be a completely new story. Did pressure from Disney/Lucasfilm inspire them to rush through to the ending of Game of Thrones? No one will ever admit that if it did, but ask yourself...if getting to the end of GoT was necessary to helm the next Star Wars story, would you take shortcuts along the way? It's hard to say, but it wouldn't shock me at all.

How It Ends

So how do I feel about how it ended? It was okay. That's all, just okay. It was lunch at Arby's. Not spectacular, but okay (I like Arby's, in case you're wondering; if you don't, substitute your own middling fast-food restaurant in its place). I liked the outcome for all the characters in the way the finale presented it.

Jon got to return to the far north, the only time in his life he ever really felt free. Arya got to fulfill her dream of sailing past the western horizon. Sansa got to be Queen in the North, a position she was determined to get or die trying since Littlefinger sold her off to Ramsey Bolton. I'm not sure if "king" was Bran's goal, but if it wasn't, he was certainly the right choice.

#winning

My take-away from this final episode was that what is best for human society is good government rather than empire, and that's what Tyrion Lannister represents, and that's who really won the Game of Thrones. He made mistakes along the way, certainly, but that's what makes him the ideal person to govern the six kingdoms (Free North!) of Westeros. He thought that Dany wanted to be a Good Queen, but what she really wanted was to be the Targaryen Empress.

Empires require limitless expansion and a constant state of war, and they are always, always, always subject to destruction. No empire can ever stand. Look at human history...the most powerful and far-flung empires—Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian, Alexandrian, Roman, Ottoman, British, German, Russian—have all crumbled into either dust or a shadow of its former glory in the span of only a few years, in most cases. Dany's rule meant that the war would never be over. And that's what Tyrion could not stomach, what he was willing to give his life in order to stop. Empire means war. Peace can only be achieved through...talking...sitting across the table from someone else and having a conversation.

And that's why the last we see of Tyrion Lannister, the Hand of the King, is a boring, good government conversation with his Small Council. Tyrion has fought and killed when he had to, but his strength is his mind and his weapons are his words. In the end, he not only got what we wanted, but in doing so, he brought peace to a vast union of kingdoms that had known only war and chaos for the better part of a decade. If I'm going to celebrate anything about this final season and final episode, it's going to be the victory of words and rational government.

Nothing Ends Gracefully

Humans love fictional stories. It's why I'm a writer in the first place—because I first loved to read stories, I wanted to create some of my own, where I got to decide who lives, who dies, what happens. But more than that, I want someone to read my story and fall in love with my heroes and despise (and perhaps uncomfortably relate with) my antagonists. No Potterphile wanted Harry's story to end, which is why we're stuck with so much shitty fan fiction and retconning web sites...no one really wants to leave Hogwarts.

So what happens? Our stories end, and we mourn them, and we feel sad and angry that they had to end...just like life. The most-watched ending in TV history was M*A*S*H, but people need to remember that that episode was divisive and controversial at the time concerning Hawkeye's mental breakdown and the reasons behind it.

Other long-running shows, most notably Cheers, Frasier, Friends, and The Big Bang Theory, all ended years after many fans had abandoned the show, criticizing the declining quality of later seasons or pronouncing that the show had "jumped the shark," which in entertainment terms is a fate worse than death.

Probably the closest we came to perfection was Breaking Bad, but that show was limited to only five seasons, and the finale provoked about as much vitriol and criticism as Sunday's Game of Thrones finale did. The sad fact is that a perfect ending to a great show is as impossible to create as a perfect ending to a human life. The end is death, and death cuts us off from new experiences, leaving us only with memories, making us wish for just one more conversation, one more interaction, one more moment with the person—real or fictional—whom we love.

Game of Thrones is dead...on television. If George R.R. Martin doesn't die first, the books will end with the same manner of anger and confusion. It might be more satisfying to some fans than the course of the TV show, but the end will come, nonetheless. As it will come for each of our stories...

And now, our watch is ended.