We are a few months out from the series finale of Game of Thrones, and "The Iron Throne" still inspires rage on the internet whenever it's mentioned. The script for the episode was recently released, and people were furious to discover... that it contained a handful of jokes that would only have been seen by the people reading the script.
Stubborn in my fandom, I continue to insist that "The Iron Throne" (and, indeed, the entire final season of Game of Thrones) was quite good. It's an unpopular opinion - I write this while huddled in a fortified bunker with the three or four other people on Earth who feel the same way.
But I like to be helpful! And I recognize that many of the show's critics have some questions about the way Game of Thrones ended. They have some mistakes or plot holes or logical failings that they believe they have identified and they would like those concerns to be addressed.
Totally fair. So here are answers to a few of the questions I've seen bandied about since "The Iron Throne" aired in May.
Why is there still a Night's Watch?
There are many, many, many reasons there is still a Night's Watch for Jon to be exiled to at the end of the show.
First: tradition. Or call it inertia, if you prefer. The Night's Watch is more than 8,000 years old, which is functionally indistinguishable from "been around literally forever." So far as anyone in Westeros can tell, there has always been a Night's Watch. An 8,000-year-old institution has staying power above and beyond its actual usefulness. The Senate filibuster has been around for a little more than 200 years, came about in a completely accidental fashion, has been altered repeatedly over the years and there are still people who believe that eliminating it is the legislative equivalent of desecrating Thomas Jefferson's grave. Institutions endure, is the point.
Second, there's the practical argument Tyrion makes to Jon: the Night's Watch is where the lords of Westeros send their "cripples, bastards and broken things." The Watch is an exceptionally useful escape hatch for leaders who want to dispose of inconvenient people but who, for whatever reason, can't kill them - how many times in the books and in the show did we see characters forced to "take the black?" The Wall is the only safe place in the world to send the criminals, lunatics, dissenters, extraneous children and political prisoners who populate any kingdom. The Night's Watch is, in essence, the Australia of Westeros, and that makes it indispensable as a governing tool.
Third...there's no more Wall, guys. That 700-foot-tall wall of ice did a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to protecting the realms of man, and now it's gone. Westeros is more vulnerable than ever to an invasion from the north. There might not be any more White Walkers, but eventually the wildlings are going to build their numbers back up. Are they on friendly terms with Jon Snow when the show ends? Sure, but Jon Snow isn't going to live forever, and neither is Tormund Giantsbane. It won't be long before you have an entirely new generation of wildlings who weren't around for that whole "Jon saved us and helped save the entire world" thing. And there will be no Wall to hold them back. Which means...you need the Night's Watch.
Finally, no one in Westeros actually knows that the White Walkers are gone for good. Sure, Arya killed the Night King and all the other Walkers disintegrated as a result, so folks probably feel pretty good about the situation, but that's different than simply assuming the threat is permanently eliminated. Bran is one of the few people in that world who knows the origin story of the Walkers, and we know he's inclined to a silence both mysterious and dickish in equal measure. For all the people of Westeros know, the Walkers could come back at any time - it's hard to rule anything out when you're talking about a race of ice vampires who can raise an army of zombies at will. So it's probably a good idea to keep the Night's Watch around, especially considering the whole "no more Wall" situation.
Why wasn't anyone trying to find Drogon? Just decided not to worry about the massive dragon with no master and a taste for human flesh flying around?
It's unfathomably rude to answer a question with another question, but still: who would have given this order? Who was arranging a dragon hunt?
Westeros doesn't have a ruler after Daenerys' death. It's probably safe to guess that some council or ad-hoc committee was running things - Davos was likely making a lot of the calls. But it was a tenuous, chaotic situation. The only people with the intellectual (Tyrion) or military (Jon) credibility to organize a dragon hunt were sitting in jail.
More importantly, whoever was running things in the interregnum between Daenerys' death and Bran's ascension had some pretty serious issues on their plate. King's Landing is a smoking ruin, which means the political, military and economic capital of the realm is a smoking ruin. The royal fleet is, say it with me now, a smoking ruin, and it's hard to cross oceans in pursuit of a dragon without ships. And the entire country is recovering from years of brutal, scorched earth civil war. Everyone is exhausted and there are no resources to spare on a dragon hunt.
Also: King's Landing is a powder keg. The Unsullied are one harsh word away from killing everyone in the wake of Daenerys' murder, and the Dothraki are hanging around King's Landing being very Dothraki-like. Yes, the flying, 747-sized fire-breathing reptile with a surprisingly firm grasp of metaphor is a concern, but "making sure the nation doesn't destroy itself again" is a more immediate one.
Which is why the issue comes up just as soon as Westeros has a king, things have settled down and a small council has been seated.
So Jon's Targaryen heritage was completely meaningless, huh?
People keep saying this and it's utterly baffling. Jon's royal blood plays a huge role in the story's endgame.
The revelation that Jon Snow is actually Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, drives a wedge between Jon and Daenerys. If Jon was actually just "Jon Snow," bastard son of Eddard Stark, then there would be no conflict between Jon and Daenerys - he wouldn't be a threat to her, he wouldn't have a terrible secret he'd feel compelled to share with his sisters and there wouldn't be that whole "incest" thing to keep tripping him up when the beautiful queen with the dragons tried to sleep with him.
If Jon isn't a Targaryen and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, Sansa (probably) stays loyal to Daenerys and (definitely) doesn't have any damaging information to feed to Tyrion. Tyrion, in turn, doesn't have information to share with Varys. And Varys is less inclined to betray Daenerys, as there's no obvious heir to turn to in her stead.
The alienation between Jon and Daenerys plays a significant role in her decision to bathe King's Landing in dragon fire instead of accepting the garrison's surrender. In the run-up to "The Bells," Game of Thrones goes to great lengths to showcase Daenerys' isolation. She left Daario back in Mereen. Jorah is dead. Missandei is dead, killed in front of Daenerys' eyes. Varys is a traitor. Tyrion is either a traitor or, in Daenerys' eyes, so profoundly incompetent that she can't trust him.
Daenerys is utterly alone - Grey Worm is still alive, but he's a soldier, not a diplomat or a deep thinker, and he's so angry and distraught about the loss of Missandei that he's no help. He's certainly not a moderating influence. And when Daenerys, in the depths of her grief, reaches out to Jon for love and support, he rejects her, a decision he doesn't make if he's not her nephew.
Daenerys' isolation and paranoia are exacerbated by the revelation of Jon's real parentage. And without that revelation, the sack of King's Landing never happens.
Bran should be king because he has "the best story?" What the hell does that even mean? Arya and Sansa don't have compelling stories?
Man, this pissed people off.
Here's the thing: a lot of folks apparently read Tyrion's support for Bran in the finale as a substantive case for the youngest surviving Stark child - as though Tyrion was arguing that Bran objectively had the best story and therefore deserved to be king. But that's a mistake - Tyrion isn't saying Bran will make the best king because he has the best story. He's saying that the realm will find Bran's story the most compelling and unite behind him. Tyrion is basically making an electability argument.
Look at the realistic options* for the role. The guy with the best case, Jon, is in prison, and while it's hardly unprecedented in Westerosi history for someone to go from regicide to king, it might be a bit of a tough sell. More importantly, Grey Worm makes clear that Jon is utterly unacceptable to the Unsullied, and he might have murdered the entire grand council on the spot if they had chosen Jon. So Jon's out.
That leaves us with three choices: Arya, Sansa and Bran.
*Let's grant that, for dramatic reasons, the choices are limited to an extent they wouldn't be in real life. Even after the civil war there are probably a handful of non-royal nobles hanging around who would merit consideration. But you can't very well elevate the lord of Wolf's Raven or wherever in your series finale.
Arya has a great story, the show's critics point out. She saved the goddamn world! She killed the Night King! What more do you want? You can't sell that?
Here's the thing: Arya would be a crummy queen. We all love the character, she's awesome, Maisie Williams is great. People name their daughters "Arya." She's cool as hell.
But can you really see Arya presiding over feasts or tourneys? Can you really see her politely treating with foreign diplomats issuing veiled threats? Can you really see her balancing a budget or haggling over loan rates with the Iron Bank or figuring out how to fund a new sewer system? Can you really see her getting married for the good of the realm?
Of course not. Arya has a very specific set of skills, most of which boil down to stabbing things. And while those are very useful when you're trying to kill the Night King, they're of limited value when ruling a massive kingdom. The entire point of Robert Baratheon's story was to show what happens when you make a soldier a king and he runs into problems that can't be solved by stabbing them.
Tyrion doesn't say these things aloud, of course, but he has had front row seats to rule by monarchs whose first instinct is to murder their problems away. He's not setting Arya aside because he doesn't think her story is impressive - he's setting her aside because he doesn't think she'd do the job very well, and she's not the type to be a puppet queen.
What about Sansa? Unlike her sister, she has a compelling argument on the merits - we've seen how she navigates complicated diplomatic and logistical problems. She's smart, she understands politics, she was taught by a gifted (if profoundly creepy) mentor. Sansa would, almost certainly, be a good queen.
So why isn't she Tyrion's choice? Again, it comes back to the public perception. We know, as viewers, that Sansa has a great story - we've seen all of it. But it's not an easy narrative to sell to a larger public that hasn't been watching an HBO series over the course of a decade or reading a series of books for more than 20 years. Sansa doesn't have a famous military record (like Jon), she didn't kill the Night King (like Arya) and she doesn't have superpowers (like Bran).
Her skills are more subtle, her accomplishments hidden. Everyone knows Jon won the Battle of the Bastards because he was the guy on the battlefield - who knows that Sansa brought the Knights of the Vale and saved the day? Everyone knows Arya killed the Night King - who knows that Sansa played a huge role in organizing the defense of Winterfell? Sansa is just a harder sell.
And it's impossible to ignore the fundamentally misogynist nature of Westerosi society. The people of Westeros have, in their lifetimes, had experience with two queens: Cersei and Daenerys. The first turned out to be a murderous sociopath. The second burned King's Landing to the ground in the Westerosi equivalent of a nuclear attack.
Is that actually a good reason to disqualify Sansa? Of course not. But Tyrion is dealing with perception, and he's living in a society that likely views its most recent experience with queens as an affirmation of its pre-existing opinions of women in general. And if that seems ridiculous, keep in mind that Hillary Clinton lost an election three years ago and now Democrats are running headlong into the arms of Joe Biden because they're terrified that a woman might not be electable.
Which brings us to Bran. Tyrion's right about him, by the way - he does have a hell of a story. A victim of the loathsome incest between the much-hated Cersei and the Kingslayer. A kid who went north of the Wall and gained literal superpowers. A kid who looked the Night King in the eye and never blinked.
Maybe you find that less compelling than Sansa's story - fair enough. But again, Tyrion isn't actually issuing a verdict on the quality of their respective stories. He's talking about perception. And he has plenty of reasons - some substantive, some selfish - to elevate Bran.
Tyrion comes to the great council deeply skeptical of untrammeled kingship. He's not willing to support Sam's argument for a democracy, but he's seen what happens when kings and queens rule unchallenged. He explicitly advocates for an end to the hereditary monarchy. Is he calling for a 21st century UK-style constitutional monarchy? Not in so many words, but it's clear he doesn't want a dictator.
And that's why Bran is Tyrion's choice. He knows Bran has no interest in the day-to-day tasks of ruling a kingdom - he says as much, and so does Bran when he stops in at the small council meeting toward the end of the episode. From Tyrion's perspective, Bran is the perfect king - utterly selfless, without wants or demands, popular with the common people and willing to leave the hard work to Tyrion and his other advisers. King Bran won't be a puppet, necessarily, but he's clearly comfortable giving autonomy to the people Tyrion thinks are most equipped to run a kingdom. And yes, that includes Tyrion himself.
There's another point worth acknowledging here: Bran has literal superpowers. He can see through space and time - into the distant past and into the far future. This...this is kind of a useful skill for a king to possess. If it came out that John Hickenlooper could see the future it would be a pretty compelling argument for his candidacy. And it's a pretty compelling argument for Bran's.
Imagine a king who could see the future - who could see all of the threats facing his kingdom and see them decades before they arose. Now imagine that king has no earthly desires - not for wealth or power or glory or sex.
Choosing that guy...well, that's a pretty reasonable ending to his story.
