And so Game of Thrones ends with a million angry tweets and sighing Facebook posts. Trying to answer every criticism isn't really worth anyone's time, but I feel compelled to make some observations.
First, I want to compare it to the end of Seinfeld. People hated that ending, but Seinfeld's original concept was "horrible people doing horrible things, but funny." The ending laid that bare by cataloguing all the horrible things that the Seinfeld cast had done. That's what the show was "about." The ending was true to that.
What was GoT about? I think far too many people became invested in who "won" the game of thrones. As Drogon so eloquently expressed last night, the throne itself is toxic. No one "wins," because competing is ultimately self-destructive. Robert Baratheon was a drunken boor, Joffrey a sadistic monster, Tommen a fool, Cersei a cynical murderer and Daenerys a messianic megalomaniac. All of them used the idea of hereditary rule to justify their reign. At the end, the idea of hereditary rule is ended. The game will be won politically rather than with DNA or swords. Bran's (shocking) elevation to the throne was not because he's especially well-suited to be king, but because he's a compromise that allows for peace. Everyone stanning for another character has to be disappointed.
Some people were actually upset that Sam's idea for a democracy was laughed off stage, but that's entirely in keeping with that world, or ours for that matter. By electing a king, though, that's the beginning of representative government, though the franchise is limited to the Great Houses. Eventually, the Lesser Houses will get a vote and so on.
What we see in the final scene at King's Landing is a debate on the Small Council over sewage, brothels and trade. It's small and petty and played as a punchline. Also a punchline is the fact that the official history of the war fails to even mention Tyrion, who was arguably as important a figure as anyone. History isn't even the propaganda of the winners, it's whatever the writer says it is. Tyrion had made a speech about how powerful stories are and then finds himself written out of the Song of Ice and Fire. The leadership of Westeros - a semi-human database and a dwarf who can't garner any respect - is rendered as a grim punchline, because it's always been grim punchline.
The other thing the show was "about" was scope and scale. If anything, that's what set it apart from any other TV show. From the opening credits, we know that this episode will travel around the world. So many of the best storylines revolved around characters' journeys. Daenerys and Jorah through Essos, Jamie and Brienne, Arya and the Hound, Sam and Gilly, Jon and Ygritte, Jon and Tormund, Jamie and Bronn, Grey Worm and Missandei. The show took a huge scope and shrunk it into small journeys. The much maligned "Catch a Wight" episode was simply a larger version of this dynamic. The story itself starts with the almost forced exit from Winterfell of Nedd, Arya and Sansa Stark and Jon Snow for the Wall.
And it ends with Jon heading north of the Wall to be in the one place where he seemed happy and Sansa returning home to be the rightful Queen in the North. Both Jon and Sansa are home, whereas Arya... well, a girl has no home. The endings for the Stark children seemed right. OK, Bran was weird, but Bran IS weird. (There is the interesting thing with the direwolves. The names are supposed to mean something. Sansa's direwolf is Lady, and she winds up a Queen. Jon's wolf is Ghost and he winds up in the lands formerly ruled by the dead. Arya's is Nymeria a warrior queen. And Bran? Summer. Maybe the Three Eyed Raven's victory over the Night King means the weird weather will stop.)
Did it all make sense? Of course not. I'm still trying to figure out what the Wildlings eat, because even in summer, there is no agriculture up there. Where did all those Unsullied and Dothraki come from? Where did Drogon go? Which IS more important: ships or brothels?
But an epic story isn't one meant to end. The Lord of the Rings had a shitty ending, too. In fact, it had so many endings, it's become it's own joke. Game of Thrones was about wheel and about the road. The wheel turned and at the end it's a little bit different but overwhelmingly the same, because that's what wheels do. And the most of the main characters are back on the road. The ending of Game of Thrones was no ending at all.
A true ending was always impossible, so instead they wrapped things up because they ran out of money. That's frustrating. But they told their story - Martin, Benioff and Weiss did - and now our watching has ended.
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