Game of Thrones Ends With the Dragon and the Wolf

Did the Game of Thrones season seven finale, The Dragon and The Wolf, end on a high note or end the game as we know it?

(Spoilers ahead. Turn back now if you haven’t seen the final episode of season seven.)  It feels like only yesterday Daenerys and company landed at Dragonstone setting off a series of events that culminated in “The Dragon and the Wolf” (A not so subtle hint about Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow).

Tense doesn’t even begin to describe the atmosphere of the entire episode. Even before the long awaited face-to-face meeting between Cersei and Daenerys other players had to catch up on what’s been going since the last they saw each other. Tyrion did his best to buy back Bronn, but even as he failed there was still a mutual “like” between the two. Brienne was shocked to see the Hound wasn’t dead and even more surprised when he said he had no intentions of harming Arya ( Warning to The Hound: You’re is still on Arya’s hit list). Tyrion and Poderick were both happy to see the other was still alive. The Hound came face to face with his brother, The Mountain.

The Hound meets the Mountain
“You’re even fucking uglier than I am now.” The Hound

These mini “reunions” were meant to pale against the meeting of Cersei and Daenerys. The confrontation we’ve been looking forward to since even before Cersei usurped the Iron Throne had been built up to something that could never meet our expectations. It tried. Daenerys, in a show of force, rode in on a dragon. Everyone was impressed except Cersei. Words were exchanged, a treaty was made, broken, and then made again.

The plan hatched in “Eastwatch” was to capture a zombie and bring it to King’s Landing. The confrontation quickly took second place in the most anticipated event category the moment the Inglorious Bastards, aka Jon Snow and company, successfully captured one of the undead. The zombie in the box did not fail at causing some gasps and possible a cheer or two in the audience. It was meant to bring the warring parties together, but it turned out to be nothing more than set dressing.

zombie races out of a box to attack humans
Zombie takes a dash at Cersei

Jon Snow drops the truth on everyone in attendance that he has accepted Daenerys as queen. Cue faked outrage from Cersei. We get a big production of Cersei breaking the just formed truce. But it’s what the story needed to get Tyrion and Cersei in the same room together. The two hadn’t seen each other since Tyrion fled from King’s Landing. Much is going to be made of what Tyrion said to Cersei to convince her to a truce. Except it doesn’t matter.

The whole thing was an elaborate ruse Cersei concocted to keep control of the Iron Throne. No matter what was said or done she was always going to keep the truce only to break it as soon as Jon and Daenerys pulled back their forces to fight the dead. The entire conversation only served to reinforce what we already knew- Cersei is an unhinged, conniving bitch. Yes, it’s hard language and some people would say it’s not a pc word to use. Except, in this situation it fits. In Cersei’s mind everything that has happened to her family is Tyrion’s fault. It’s almost pathological how she can connect one incident to another. She claims, as she always has, what she does is for her family. By the time the episode is finished we know the only person Cersei wants to protect, or has ever cared about, is Cersei.

Cersei fakes outrage and feels she's been wronged again
Fake outrage is faked

However, Cersei didn’t just betray Jon and Daenerys. She also betrayed Jamie. Jamie has been a lot things in seven seasons. He’s done just as many bad things during those seven seasons too. However, Jamie has always had a sense of honor, a code. When Cersei breaks the newly formed truce Brienne asks him to talk to Cersei and to “fuck loyalty.” For a moment, Jamie is taken a back (“Fuck loyalty?”). His final remark to Brienne, and it’s more telling than we may realize, is what can he tell her? As it turns out, there’s nothing Jamie can tell Cersei.

Jamie has seen what blind loyalty can do. He refused an order that would have lead to the deaths of thousands of women, children, and men. By obeying Cersei’s order of betraying the truce, no matter Cersei’s argument, Jamie would have been killing millions of people. Jamie is seen riding out of King’s Landing, spared a death by the Mountain. Season eight, depending on the amount of time in each episode, should see Jamie either warning the others that the truce has been broken or doing his best to gather what Lannister forces he can convince to join the cause. Now that he’s seen how far off the deep end Cersei has gone and what she’s willing to do to “protect her family” will Jamie Lannister end the series killing his own sister?

Cersei orders Jamie to break the truce
Cersei orders Jamie to break the truce, but Jamie isn’t having any part of it.

Easily eighty percent of the finale focused on the events south of Winterfell. Sadly, at Winterfell, Littlefinger met his end (Can we get a moment of silence for Petyr Baelish?). Even though we knew more or less what Littlefinger was planning the last three episodes still teased us his plots. He was attempting to manipulate Lady Sansa into killing Arya. If successful there would have been one less hurdle in his plot to gain the Iron Throne. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

Why wasn’t it meant to be? Yes, Arya “Psycho” Stark, slit his throat which actually killed him, but how did all of his plots, deceptions, and manipulations come to light? It would’t have been half as bad if we had been told Arya had taken the guise of Sansa (She did say she could take the face of the Lady of Winterfell), listened to Littlefinger, and used information to piece his plot together. Instead, it was all Bran”Three Eyed Raven” Stark who broke the story wide open.

Bran uses Littlefinger's own words to sentence him to death
Is “Deus ex machins” one of Bran’s magical spells because that’s exactly what happened.

Bran can see the past and the whole word over, or at least that’s what he tells Sam Tarly. Conveniently enough he saw what Littlefinger had done (He repeated his final words to Ned Stark), was doing, and what he was planning on doing in the future.  The story had to eliminate Littlefinger, but how in the time still reaming in Game of Thrones?  There’s not much challenge in a story if there’s a character in the series who can see the past, present, and future. Littlefinger’s death was one of the biggest cheats Game of Thrones has dropped on us.

We were warned way back in season one episode one that something bad was coming. We’ve been sidetracked since then by who’s sleeping with who or who’s going to sleep with whom? How much time is going to be spent on Jon and Daenerys making the dragon with two backs (Thanks, Shakespeare!)? We’ve been distracted by who killed who and what army what won battle. We’ve been sidetracked by guessing and predicting who would be left to sit on the Iron Throne. It seems the showrunners have been sidetrack too.

Game of Thrones's zombie move down south
Will there be enough time in season eight to defeat the dead?

Do the showrunners have enough time to complete the Game of Thrones story? The Night King and his pet zombie destroyed the Wall protecting the south. We were left with the massive horde of undead moving south. It was a brilliant display of CGI. What this means though is that Jon and Daenerys will be left to fight the dead on their own. It won’t take long for them to realize Cersei has betrayed them. Will Daenerys hold fast or fight to take back what Cersei will have surely taken back? Unless the final six episodes have a run time of a full length feature movie or HBO makes a movie to wrap the story up there won’t be enough time to defeat the dead and claim the throne. Something will have to give out so the bigger story can take front stage. Will the “game” for the Iron Throne take the backseat? To quote Jon Snow, if the battle for the throne continues, whomever is left will “rule over a graveyard.”

The Night King uses Viserion to destroy the wall
The Night King flies high