Game of thrones rock ending

Daenerys' descent into madness might just be the most controversial aspect of the "Game of Thrones" finale. Thousands of fans have attempted to conjure better endings for everyone's favorite Khaleesi, but YouTuber Hello Future Me might just have the best proposal of all.

Picture this: Daenerys, perched high above King's Landing on Drogon's back, hears the bells of surrender. Rage fills her, as it does in "The Bells" Daenerys doesn't command Drogon to fill the streets with fire and blood. And in that moment of clarity, she is shot down. Daenerys and Drogon die together, beside the Essosi soldiers who knew her as the Breaker of Chains. First and foremost, this ending addresses the problem of Daenerys' unconvincingly sudden bloodlust.

But even more movingly, it completes Daenerys' story — and that of the Targaryen dynasty — in a thoughtful and resonant way. She refuses to be the Mad Queen, shaking off the shadow of her father forever Does this count as a victory or a defeat?

Daenerys liberates thousands, brings dragons back into the world, and reclaims herself from degradation, but she struggles to lead in Meereen, Astapor, and eventually, King's Landing. This is the sort of thorny dilemma that made "Game of Thrones" and Daenerys herself into cultural icons. It's only fitting that they both end immersed in shades of grey.

Brienne fans experience towering highs and devastating lows in Season 8. On the one hand, watching Jaime anoint her as Ser Brienne of Tarth is a triumph. On the other hand, Brienne and Jaime finally consummate their feelings Does the fact that she ends up becoming lord commander of the Kingsguard make up for this? According to many fans, it doesn't — especially since her final major act is completing Jaime's entry in "The Book of Brothers" with a passionate defense of his actions.

One Twitter user has a much better idea for Brienne's exit: Instead of writing that Jaime "died defending his queen," she concludes his story with his decision to anoint Westeros' first female knight, then starts her own entry.

Foolishly, the show decides to devote the final chapter of Brienne's story to her relationship with Jaime. While he's doubtlessly important to her, Brienne is also vividly shaped by her allegiance to the Stark women, her lifelong defiance of gender roles, and her mentorship of Podrick. If we must see her memorialize the man who loved and left her, let her take up space within his story, then turn the literal and figurative page on all of it as she embarks upon her future.

Brienne loves Jaime, but Brienne also loves swords, honor, and kicking men into the dirt. Her ending should reflect this. Despite Peter Dinklage's best efforts, Tyrion's impassioned attempt to convince us all that Bran deserves to rule falls flat. Bran's journey is, frankly, largely extraneous, to the point that he's entirely missing from Season 5 — a fact few have ever lamented.

How, then, is the audience supposed to agree with Tyrion when he argues that Bran has the best story and should gain massive power as a result? Sure, Sansa becomes queen in the North. That's not exactly a shoddy consolation prize — especially since she's cooled on the other six kingdoms. But imagine Tyrion's speech ending with a gesture towards Sansa. It's a lot easier to rhapsodize over her arc than Bran's.

Once an innocent, then a victim, now a steely leader, Sansa's victory is won through enormous growth. Bran is entirely removed from the world, but Sansa is defined by having been consumed by it — until she rips her way out.

Isn't that sort of escape from a crushing system precisely what so many of her benighted subjects long for? Here is a queen for a people in need of inspiration. Greeted with such an ending, fans might have cheered. Confronted with Bran, they merely stared at each other in confusion.

After a lifetime of murder, betrayal, cruelty, and destruction, Cersei is killed Perhaps that's selling things a bit short — those falling bricks previously made up the Red Keep, after all, and there's a certain justice in Cersei being crushed by the very seat of power she so viciously sought. Plenty of fans still wish she'd met a different end, however — including Arya's actress, Maisie Williams. Williams, who spent years murmuring Arya's to-kill list on camera, wanted her character to assassinate Cersei.

Arya would die too in this scenario, but she'd finally get her revenge, and that'd be satisfaction enough for Williams. Many Arya fans agree with her, and it's not hard to see why. Such an ending pays off one of the oldest grudges on the show and makes Arya's Faceless Man training relevant. It's even in line with the show's cynicism, as Arya's desire for vengeance ends up literally destroying her. There are certainly Arya fans who'd be disappointed by such a brutal end for their favorite assassin, but there are plenty more who'd love to see her go out victorious.

Yet in the end, this revelation didn't amount to much. Sure, characters like Sansa and Tyrion will go on knowing the truth, but this doesn't really change the fact that Jon's future lies in the far north, among people who don't even believe in kings.

Jon's illustrious parentage coming to nothing is in line with the show's subversive approach to fantasy tropes, but its near-total lack of major effect still rankles. Podcaster Abe Proctor offers a solution in his alternate ending : As multiple characters look on, Drogon blasts Jon with fire instead of the Iron Throne. This fails to incinerate him, thus revealing his Targaryen heritage.

The fallout is instantaneous and intense. As Proctor details, "The possibility of a power struggle between Jon and Sansa is mouthwatering. In this ending, Jon might very well still end up among the Wildlings. But he, and a whole lot more of Westeros, have to confront the truth to get there. How might this world handle, on a wide scale, an heir who doesn't endorse hereditary monarchy? Does this spur chaos, enlightenment, or something else entirely? Jon refusing the throne, as he does in the canonical "Game of Thrones" ending , subverts expectations, but Jon refusing the throne as a shocked populace looks on leaves those expectations in shreds.

Daenerys' victories are typically accompanied by adoring crowds. When she finally makes it to Westeros, however, she finds an indifferent public. Of the many injuries and insults that drive her to violence, this is one of the sharpest — yet her homicidal rampage still rings false. Realizing she's effectively a foreigner in her so-called native land would hurt, to be sure, but Daenerys has endured unpopularity before without going on a killing spree.

There's dragons in it. Move on," he told NYT. Yeah, it was called 'Game of Thrones,' but at the end, the whole dialogue when people would approach me on the street was, 'Who's going to be on the throne? Ironically enough, the context of Peter Dinklage's full interview was about how much the actor missed Game of Thrones and his Tyrion Lannister character:. He was just lovely, funny and the writers were smart to not only give him the joke that ends up on a T-shirt, but also have him be more than that — in a world prejudiced against him.

Every season we'd get all 10 scripts at the start, like a novel. I'd go through them ravenously. Game of Thrones - HBO's thrilling epic historical fantasy series - finally came to an end after eight seasons, and the finale brought the story full circle in many ways. The show ended with the Iron Throne destroyed, the old system of choosing Kings and Queens eradicated, Bran Stark elected as the new King of Westeros, and Sansa Stark ruling the North as an independent kingdom.

Meanwhile, Jon Snow headed beyond the Wall once more with the Wildlings, and Arya Stark sailed west in search of new horizons. It's about as happy an ending as fans could have hoped for. There were fantasies about Jon and Daenerys ruling side-by-side as a wise and benevolent king and queen, but that wouldn't quite have fit with the description of the finale as "bittersweet.

Showrunners David Benioff and D. Weiss faced a considerable challenge in wrapping up Game of Thrones ' story, from the defeat of the White Walkers to the question of who would rule Westeros in just six episodes. Here's how they did it, where things lie at the end of the series, and what it all means.

Game of Thrones may have begun seventeen years after Robert's Rebellion , but the show's story really began with Jaime earning his title of "Kingslayer" by stabbing Aerys II in the back, after the Mad King gave orders to burn down the city with wildfire.

All the events of the series were set in motion by that act - from Robert Baratheon ascending to the Iron Throne, to Daenerys and Viserys' exile in Essos, and the Lannisters claiming a position of power in King's Landing. Daenerys Targaryen's death brought this story full circle. Like her father, she was betrayed by her Hand - a Lannister, in both cases. Also, like her father, Daenerys' madness was her downfall: her burning of King's Landing which even triggered the wildfire caches Aerys had hidden all those years ago is what ultimately led to people turning away from her.

Daenerys was killed by one of her most trusted allies, Jon Snow, who used that trust to get close enough to stab her like Aerys before her. It was a decision that didn't necessarily sit right with every fan, especially considering Daenerys' half-baked journey toward becoming the Mad Queen.

Shortly after Daenerys' death came a symbolic breaking of the wheel, when Drogon unleashed his grief by melting the Iron Throne into a puddle of molten steel. The throne had been built years earlier by Daenerys' ancestor, Aegon I, who conquered Westeros with the help of his sister-wives and established himself as the first Targaryen king.

It was appropriate that Daenerys' death should herald the destruction of the Iron Throne since she and Jon were the last of the Targaryen line, and Jon's punishment for her murder is to join the Night's Watch again - taking no wife and fathering no children.

The reign of the Targaryens was truly over. Many assumed that if Jon were to kill Daenerys, he would be crowned King of Westeros. Instead, he was taken prisoner by the Unsullied, and it was left to the lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms to choose a new ruler - no longer beholden to any rules of bloodline or inheritance. Tyrion suggested that "Bran the Broken" would be the best choice since his story of being crippled as a child, then going on a great journey north of the Wall and becoming the Three-Eyed Raven was powerful enough to make people believe in him as a ruler.

Though Bran didn't particularly want to be king, he had already seen that it was his destiny, and the assembled council elected Bran Stark as the new ruler of the Six Kingdoms. Only six, rather than seven, because Sansa's condition for giving Bran her vote was that the North would remain independent - as its people had already decided back when they chose Robb Stark to be the King in the North, and later Jon Snow to succeed him.

Game of Thrones ended with Sansa being hailed as the Queen in the North - something that was foreshadowed when Daenerys' attack on King's Landing split the map in the Red Keep down the middle, dividing the North from the southern kingdoms. As with Daenerys' death, this ending brought the story full circle.

Game of Thrones season 1 was about the fall of the Stark family: Bran being thrown out of a window, Ned being executed, the Stark household in King's Landing slaughtered, Sansa taken prisoner by a monster, and Arya forced to flee in the guise of a peasant boy called Arry.

The Starks had suffered tragedy after tragedy, losing family members and at one point having their ancestral home burned. Fans had been waiting a long time to see them finally get back on top, so having a Stark ruling in both the North and the Six Kingdoms felt like just desserts.