The decade’s long journey has finally reached its conclusion, and not without controversy. The reaction to this season has been mixed, to put it mildly, and this episode will do nothing to change that. After last week’s divisive episode, there was no way this finale wouldn’t generate more of the same reaction.
As always the music and visual spectacle were phenomenal, the two elements that have never wavered, instead going from strength to strength. So too the acting, with yet more wonderful performances from the whole cast, although Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage and Maisie Williams stand above the rest in this finale.
The whole focus of the last two seasons has been to bring the story to its conclusion, rushing through plotlines and skipping significant character development, instead resting on its laurels, in order to get to the end. So the stakes were high for this finale, to say the least. And, much like the rest of the season, it only partially delivers.
There are incredible moments of high drama and tension, with a couple of elegant twists, but the end result feels distinctly unexceptional. The showrunners promised a bittersweet ending, and this is certainly it, although probably not the way they intended.
Regardless, it’s been a magnificent run and it’s hard to imagine any other programme having quite such a grip on the public consciousness. It has certainly changed television drastically — a look at the upcoming fantasy sagas, such as Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequels or BBC’s His Dark Materials series, is a testament to that. And that is certainly something for which we can be eternally grateful.
S08 E06: The Iron Throne — Episode recap and discussion
WARNING — SPOILERS AHEAD
Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO
We open with Tyrion assessing the still-burning city, tormented and distraught. Meanwhile, Grey Worm is executing Lannister soldiers, at Daenerys’ behest, which Jon finds suitably appalling. But he is not about to stop because Jon asked him to, leading to a rather tense stand-off before Grey Worm resumes slicing Lannister throats.
Tyrion goes on the hunt for his brother and sister and finds their remains buried beneath the collapsed dungeons. Peter Dinklage is at his magnificent best here, his heartbreak expertly portrayed without any words, which given the writing this season, is probably for the best. He is well and truly alone in this world now, no more Lannisters and his oldest friend, Varys, gone at his bidding.
There is a rally oddly reminiscent of a Nazi-era demonstration. Although this time it’s the brown people doing the rallying and conquering, so it’s subversive? The imagery here is far from subtle, so too the decision to have her speech in Dothraki and Valyrian rather than English, and Daenerys’ speech promises more horrors to come. There is no remorse in her expression or her words, despite looking across a city burnt to a crisp. Tyrion joins her atop the steps and relinquishes his handship before being promptly arrested for treason.
Arya sneaks up on Jon and states the bleeding obvious, that Daenerys is a killer and Sansa will not bend the knee. Jon visits Tyrion in his cell and Tyrion says much of the same, as well as imploring Jon to take the throne.
Daenerys is in the throne room at long last, her vision from the House of the Undying finally fulfilled. She reminisces about her childhood to Jon, who is in no mood for whispering sweet nothings. Daenerys tries to justify her burning a city of a million people and her planned conquests to come, to build a better world, but Jon is having none of it.
Daenerys begs Jon to rule with her, to create her vision of a just world. They embrace in a passionate kiss and Jon stabs Dany through the heart with his dagger, a clear nod to the Azor Ahai prophecy that they had seemingly abandoned (where the Prince That Is Promised stabs his beloved through the heart in order to save the world). Drogon swoops into find his mother dead, and, in a tear-jerking scene borrowed from The Lion King, implores her to move before crying out in anguish. There is a tense moment as it looks to all the world as if Jon is about to be burnt to a crisp. Drogon instead turns his fury on the throne and melts it to smithereens before flying off into the distance with Dany’s body.
In the lore of Game of Thrones, dragons are said to be as smart as men, if not smarter, and Drogon’s decision to burn the throne rather than Jon clearly shows an awareness of the true cause of his mother’s death, even if the show has rarely portrayed them as more than wild beasts hell-bent on burning things.
Fast forward a few weeks and a Great Council of Lords has been called to determine the future of the realm. Jon is notably absent from these discussions, another peculiar decision by the showrunners given that he is “the rightful heir”. Tyrion tells the council to choose the next ruler, here and now, and there is a stunned silence. Edmure Tully (did anyone else forget he was alive?) steps forward to make his claim, being very selective with the truth. Veteran of two wars, proven track record of statecraft? Sansa very quickly shuts him up.
Sam votes for democracy. Cue laughter. Tyrion proposes Bran the Broken as the next king. His story is certainly a compelling one, as Tyrion points out, although on paper he is a far more interesting candidate than in practice. The council all agrees, except Sansa. A nice little political move by Sansa, allowing everyone to affirm their fealty to Bran before her, meaning they can’t really take back that fealty when Sansa proposes the North’s independence. She learned from the best.
Tyrion informs Jon of the Council’s decision to send him back to the Night’s Watch to appease Grey Worm and the Unsullied. Jon still can’t really come to terms with killing his beloved queen, and Tyrion still seems on the fence about it all, but at least he’s there to clean up his mess.
Gwendoline Christie in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO
From there it’s all about tying up the loose ends. The remaining Stark children say their goodbyes, the ultimate winners in the Game of Thrones — a comeback story for the ages. Arya is off to explore new worlds to the west of Westeros. Screw all the prequels, this is the spin-off I want to see. Jon returns to Castle Black, stripped of titles and lands, as if that was a punishment for a man so uncomfortable with power and haunted by his decision to murder his queen.
In the end, Dany’s vision was realised, even if she wasn’t the one to see it fulfilled. The wheel has been broken, at least for the time being, although I can’t imagine any future Great Councils will be quite so smooth when determining the new king or queen. Sansa is the first female Queen in the North while Ser Brienne is the first female Lord Commander of the King’s Guard. Bronn finally got his castle, and much more, while Ser Davos gets his seat on the Small Council. The final scene is a call back to the very first episode as Jon rides out beyond the Wall. All rather neatly tied in a bow, with a hopeful message that Winter is gone and Spring is here to stay.
It’s hard to tell whether or not this is a satisfying ending. There were a couple big twists, but for the most part, it was a fairly saccharine episode. The biggest question that remains from both this episode and the season as a whole is whether they’ve done enough to justify those twists.
Daenerys’ future was foreshadowed for several seasons, but the lack of build-up to her descent into self-righteous madness cheapened and diminished its power. Bran being put on the throne makes a lot of sense, but it feels unearned given the role he has played this season, barely on screen other than creepy, emotionless stares and dry dialogue. Not to mention how calm and unselfish the council that crowned him was. Thousands of Ironborn fought to be an independent kingdom and yet there was no objection from Yara Greyjoy when only the North was given independence. Maybe they have done the maths and realised that all of their kingdoms were too weak and this method promises the possibility of one of their own ending up on the throne. It was all perfectly logical, but that is perhaps the problem. It was reasonable, calculated and ultimately lacking emotion.
Reflecting upon eight seasons, the contrast is stark between the material sourced directly from the books and when it overtook them. The shift to a plot-driven, spectacle based show rather than characters scheming makes it very much a series of two halves. The second half produced some exceptional television, particularly when it came to portraying big battles, but the writing definitely suffered from that swing in tone. There is a reason George RR Martin has not been able to finish his sprawling books, despite having been working on them for decades. And all those reasons were exposed in the final few seasons of Game of Thrones as Benioff and Weiss did their damnedest to achieve what Martin could not.
The ending was all very hopeful, and there is nothing inherently wrong about that, it just felt rather unlike Game of Thrones. There’s never going to be a way to please everyone, but this season really hammered home that Game of Thrones is in the end just a television show. It was still a damn good one, but it suffered as most programs do when trying to find a satisfactory conclusion. It is undoubtedly a shame that viewers will never get the product that might have been had the books been completed, although perhaps it is fallacious to assume that Martin will be able to pull of what the showrunners ultimately couldn’t – find a way to end the story while maintaining its thrilling and subversive nature.
Joe is the film and TV critic for The Lincolnite. He is a Master’s student at the University of Lincoln, having abandoned the sunny beaches of the Cayman Islands for the slightly colder climes of Lincolnshire to see whether he could make it as a writer. Joe graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland in 2016, where he studied the Liberal Arts and drank far too much bad American beer.
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We want to see 750,000 trees planted around the county over the next few years.
The ambitious target is linked to the national 25-year Environment Plan, which aims to create or restore 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat.
Despite its reputation for being a green and rural county, Lincolnshire actually has one of the lowest tree coverage rates in the country at just four per cent, compared to an England average of 10 per cent.
Lincolnshire County Council has started to respond to this by supporting tree planting projects around the county. In the 2021/22 tree planting season we planted over 30,000 trees across Lincolnshire as part of community planting days and highways projects.
Dan Clayton, sustainability manager at Lincolnshire County Council, said: “Historically, huge swathes of Lincolnshire have been used as arable agricultural land, and so the county hasn’t tended to have extensive woodland areas.
“Although much land still is used for farming, there is scope to increase Lincolnshire’s tree cover, and we’re keen to work with land owners, town and parish councils and community groups to support tree planting and help us reach the target of a tree for every resident.”
To keep track of our progress, we’ve installed a tree counter on our website. We also have a map so you can see where in Lincolnshire trees have all been planted so far.
If you plant a tree in your garden or on your land that you control, you can register it on the tree counter and it have it count towards the county’s tree planting target.
Any trees planted within Lincolnshire over the last 12 months can be registered and added to the total.
If you have a site that would be suitable to plant 300 or more trees and are interested in looking at tree planting options, then please register your interest on our website at www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/xfp/form/744 or contact us on [email protected].
Lincolnshire County Council on Monday voted to drop two proposals for changes to the permit scheme along the Bailgate, which would have increased residents parking, but decreased the amount available to shoppers.
Chairman Ian Fleetwood called the area “jewel in the crown” of the city and that it was a “sensitive” decision as he put forward “Option C” – doing nothing – at the last minute.
Nicola Lockwood, owner of Bells Tea Shop and chairwoman of the Bailgate Area Guild, said: “We can’t believe it, we are in shock!
“I just feel for all the businesses and all our customers who supported us and have been behind us all the way through this.”
She said if the changes had occurred it would have seen businesses – already affected by other changes, the internet and COVID – close.
She warned fast-food chains were “already circling looking for anyone who wants to throw in the towel” – however, it is not known which chain this is.
Michelle Guest, who owns a childrens’ shoe shop, said she was “totally relieved, delighted.
“They’ve seen what we’re up against, they’ve seen exactly how it will impact the area and how it will impact the businesses.”
She said casual shoppers and visitors would have been most affected along with those who were less mobile. She claims having spaces on the street deterred people from going to out-of-town facilities.
Josie Rossington, who has run Folly for 18 years, said she was “absolutely elated”.
“We had so much support… far ranging, all from the bottom of Steep Hill to Newport.” They included a 7,000 signature petition.
“The amount of times we were told ‘they’re not locals’… it doesn’t matter where they come from, it would have affected everybody.”
“There are literally businesses that will not go under now because of this. It sounds very dramatic but it’s been a dramatic time which has affected everyone in lots of different ways.”
However, Carholme Councillor Rob Parker, whose ward covers part of the area affected, said residents would be “disappointed” by the decision.
“They put forward a lot of good, sound arguments about the need for residents’ parking in that part of the world, but unfortunately the planning committee didn’t agree.
“It’s surprising because the needs of the residents need to be considered just as much as the needs of businesses.”.
He said there would need to be “some form of review” in the future and that he, along with residents, would be examining whether another case could be brought with more evidence “to show how much residents are affected by not being able to park close to their own homes.”
He said many were already having to park further away from their homes due to other permit schemes being changed to omit them.
Ermine and Cathedral Ward Member Karen Lee said the scheme should have been “about fairness”.
“There are a couple of residents who are elderly and need space for their carers to park daily.
“There’s a woman who’s an acute practitioner, there’s somebody who’s a paramedic – there are all sorts of different people who wanted residents’ parking for very good reasons, and I didn’t think that committee gave that any thought whatsoever. They simply focused on the businesses.”
She said there was “plenty of parking” available with free parking available.
In response to the argument that people who bought their houses knew what they were paying for, she said: “in this day and age do we really think like that, that nothing should ever change and no one should ever reconsider a position and think well, actually, is that right? Because I don’t think that is right.”
The planning meeting in progress. | Image: Daniel Jaines
Speaking after the meeting, Councillor Ian Fleetwood said the decision was fair and listened to both sides of the community.
“Both the residents and businesses have put forward strong points of view… I believe it’s not a good time to move things forward,” he said.
“At the moment, there is a scheme in place. I don’t know if people are enjoying it or not, but it is a scheme that has been working for a period of time.
“If indeed there is an absolute need to change it. Well, that’s a good time to go, but at this moment in time, I don’t believe it’s the case.”
He said if circumstances changed there would be a case for a further review, however, did not see that happening in the short term.
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