That’s right: in less than 2 hours, Game of Thrones will FINALLY be over! So, I thought I’d record my thoughts before and after viewing the final episode.

Before

To be honest, I’m kinda glad that Game of Thrones is wrapping up. It was a very epic story, but I think it was a bit too long for television. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the remaining books if they ever actually get published. But yeah: when it comes to TV dramas, I’m usually ready for things to wrap up after 3-4 seasons.

At the same time, though… this final season definitely feels very rushed! It’s like they were writing an essay, and then the professor announced “The exam ends in 5 minutes”. In a moment of panic, they stopped writing paragraphs and just switched to bullet points.

Okay, fine. Yes, sometimes huge undertakings really do conclude within minutes. For instance, I’m sure that SpaceX had been working on “Vertical Landing Rockets” for several years before their first successful test. Yet, the test itself only took a few hours to conduct.

Similarly, I’m not super upset that the White Walker storyline was resolved so quickly. The final battle was a devastating onslaught, but Arya managed to pull off an amazing kill. Game-Set-Match.

Still, it seems like several very important questions have been left unanswered. Here are a few that come to mind:

• Why did the Night King want to kill Bran?
• Why didn’t the Night King just send somebody else to kill Bran?
• Why did Bran warg into a bunch of ravens during 95% of the battle?
• Why is the “Lord of Light” bothering to help humanity?

Hopefully at least a handful of these questions will be answered during the final episode!

Okay, just a few more gripes before I wrap things up:

• The “Jaime returning to Cersei” twist literally came from out of nowhere. It was like 300 pages of a book were missing, and suddenly we were in the middle of some kind of betrayal plotline.
• It felt like 300 pages were missing from Daenerys’s plotline as well. Sure, the books/episodes had dropped a lot of hints that Daenerys was eventually going to go crazy. But, the transition seemed way too sudden to be believable.

So, despite the fact that this final season feels very rushed, I’m still enjoying it overall. It’s nice to see the story wrapping up, even if it feels like hundreds of pages of plot were reduced to a few bullet points!

After

Initial impression: I’ll allow it. It definitely did not wrap up all of the loose ends. But, I’m also glad that the ending wasn’t 100% predictable.

Okay, well, parts of it were predictable. For instance, I figured that either Arya or Jon was gonna kill Daenerys. But, I also assumed that they would also die in the process.

In either case, I wasn’t really expecting this outcome for Jon and Bran. (Re-)Taking the black was a bitter-sweet ending to Jon’s story, but it kinda made sense. It was a painful sacrifice, but it was for the good of the kingdom as a whole.

But, Bran becoming king? The more I think about it, the more confused I become. From an “intelligence” standpoint, it kinda makes sense for him to be king. Like: he can just psychic his way to any information that he wants. But… how on earth are people going to agree to that? What exactly are they gonna tell everybody?

Alright, we have some good news, and we have some… other news. The good news is that Daenerys is dead, and her dragon has flown off! So, no need to worry about your homes burning down anymore… we think. We’re still trying to locate the dragon.

Anyway, in other news: Jon is not your king now! Remember Bran? He was that kid that everybody presumed died like 8 years ago. Well, he’s back, and he’s your king! He has the personality of a stale biscuit now, but at least he won’t burn down your homes! Also, I’m prolly gonna regret saying this, but: he can read everybody’s minds. So, err… keep that in mind if you’re planning on overthrowing him or anything.

Also: we forced Jon to take the black again! He didn’t want to be king, anyway. So, we’re pretty sure that’s what he wanted. Um… we didn’t really ask.

Hmm… the more I think about it, the more I’m confused about this ending. So, I better stop thinking about it for now.