The final season of Game of Thrones was a dumpster fire. Now with the spin-off series House of the Dragon, only days away, the bitterness of that final season still burns away in my mouth, and I won’t be watching any more GOT content because of it. But I can’t think of a better time to relay my altered reality of what I believe the final season of Game of Thrones should’ve been. I’ve told this theory to a few people over the past few years, to a variety of responses, from scrunched-up faces to people labelling me a genius (some kissing my butt, and some I wished would kiss my butt)! So, strap yourself in as I attempt to reshape the past, and joust your socks off!
Background – I binged the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones after their initial release, and had time to reflect before the eighth season began. Dreaming forward, I started by looking back on what I didn’t like about the first seven seasons, where an ending could make sense of it, and I wondered where all our characters would end up… I was confused as to why Theon Greyjoy was still alive – apart from rescuing Sansa from Ramsay Bolton (which anyone could have done), Theon had barely done anything since he took over Winterfell back in Season 2. The couple of episodes we spent on the Iron Islands with Balon Greyjoy (Theon’s Dad) were pretty uninteresting and unimportant as well, (if you remember, Balon Greyjoy complained that his son was a disappointment, and that the Greyjoys were never respected as a House in Westeros, mainly due to the Starks). This got me to the crux of my theory – Theon could still alive because he would sit on the Iron Throne.
A couple of reasons why this theory has merit – Theon had been portrayed as the broken-down Reek for a few seasons, but I thought the show was finally giving him his agency back. At the end of Season 7, he decides the Ironborn should save Yara; one crewman challenges him, and he beats him to death (fighting to the death) for his moral cause. I also love-love-loved a scene between Jon Snow and Theon where Snow is the one to finally say to Theon, “You don’t need to choose. You’re a Greyjoy AND you’re a Stark”. Which is right, of course; Theon was a character in a very unique position.
Here’s how I saw it playing out – first Dani would prove herself unworthy of the Iron Throne (the show actually started this out pretty perfectly in Episode 1 of the final season, when Dani is telling Sam that she killed his father and his brother because they wouldn’t bend the knee. Because Sam is such a sympathetic character, the audience gets the sense that Dani doesn’t fit in Westeros. It’s one thing to war with slave-traders, but negotiating the civil politics of Westeros is a completely different prospect, and one that Dani has not been trained in). In the fight against the White Walkers, I would have Dani lose so much; Missandei, Jorah, Qhono, perhaps a second dragon, and Jon Snow (yes, Jon Snow is dead! He died for his cause, sacrificing himself to destroy the Night King, and saving Westeros from the dead army). Dani is rudderless now. I wouldn’t have her go psycho like the terrible show did 🤦♀️ (think of all those mothers who named their daughters Daenerys and Khaleesi over the last 10 years only to realise their daughters are now named after a looney tune). But Dani does get mad; she has lost everything in a war that wasn’t hers. Not only that, Sansa, the Queen of the North, already doesn’t like her, and without Jon, there is nothing to coerce Sansa to support Dani’s claim to the Throne. But Dani proclaims she may be pregnant with Jon’s baby, the heir to the North, if not the rightful unifying heir to the Iron Throne. This is when Tyrion starts to think Dani is starting to sound a bit like Cersei – clutching at straws, since she sees no path to the Iron Throne directly, and using her potential offspring to stay relevant. This is when Tyrion flips but talks to Sansa about keeping Dani onside (she has a dragon for God’s sake, and they will need her army to fight Cersei). Tyrion suggests that maybe Sansa should consider herself the best candidate for the Iron Throne.
From there, we move to King’s Landing (and let’s have the biggest and best finale ever, ey?). In anticipation for a big fight with either the dead or the north, Qyburn has turned the majority of the Red Army into zombie-like Mountains. The whole army is jacked up! The ladies of Game of Thrones go to war – the pregnant Queens (Dani & Cersei) and Sansa. There’s a big fight and many are killed… including Dani and Cersei. As the Mother of Dragons lays dying, her dragon goes ballistic destroying half of King’s Landing, but flies off into the distance after being warged by Bran, as a way to quell its anger. (Yes, I already had the dragon destroying half the city in my theory before the shows end, but I just don’t have Dani being the one to pull the trigger). Dani dies an honourable death, but not as the preferred heir to Westeros. Cersei is defeated and so many of our favoured characters are dead. All that is left is to decide who will sit on the Iron Throne…
Sidebar – this is probably a good time to mention that the show is called ‘Game of Thrones.’ The whole point of this caper has been about who will sit on the throne! After eight seasons of waring kings and queens, I think our surviving few should realise that nobody wants to sit on the Iron Throne. The Iron Throne is practically a curse that brings envy, death, and corruption. Our surviving characters are not power-hungry beings like the ones that have died before.
…Sansa is the obvious choice, but she refuses. She claims her priorities are ensuring the welfare of the North and that doing that from King’s Landing would be a disruption. Arya agrees. Then Tyrion puts up his hand; “someone has to do it. I will do it” he says. It is said that nobody will respect him due to his stature, plus half the village people still think he killed Joffrey. Theon says he will do it – NOT be King, but he will sit on the Throne while Tyrion and Varys run things. They are the best people for the job, after all; the most knowledgeable, and most measured. The remaining survivors back this decision – Sansa of House Stark, Yara of House Greyjoy, Sam of House Tully, Gendry of House Baratheon, Jaime of House Lannister, Robyn of House Arryn, Lyanna of House Mormont, and Bronn of House…oh, sod it, Bronn just does too. Theon pledges himself to serve Westeros, and to obey Tyrion and Varys above all else. The others are confident Theon will do right by them as he has already had a go at being a tyrant in Winterfell, which didn’t sit well with him, so they trust he won’t be doing the same again. Lyanna reminds him that “the North remembers.” And Theon repeats the Ironborn phrase, that ‘what is dead may never die’, but uses it to refer to upholding the values of Jon Snow.
A couple of reasons why this works – it’s not Bran for starts! 😁 But Game of Thrones had always been a ruthless melancholy show and deserved a fitting bittersweet ending – Tyrion is finally the leader of Westeros, but not really. Westeros finally has a noble king, but not really. Even Varys, who has always coveted the throne himself, is not on the throne but can find kinship in a man who has also had his balls chopped off and serves his own paramount perdition. I think the show we got tried to do an elevated semi-democratic “King-by-Committee” approached as well, but it just picked the wrong candidate – a boy that nobody really enjoyed following throughout the seasons, and one that should’ve already had a role to play as the mystical Three-Eyed Raven. I do understand that having Theon end on the throne changes the entire perspective of the whole show, but not for the first time – in the beginning, we are led to believe ‘this is Ned Stark’s show.’ Then he dies and you think, “okay, maybe it’s Rob Stark’s show.” But he is murdered too, so it turns to “oh, it’s Jon Snow’s show”, until finally it is revealed that the show has been Theon’s journey all along, the forgotten elder half-Stark. Plus, it’s always been weird that the pure-hearted Ned Stark stole Theon from the Greyjoys in the first place (he took Balon’s son to assure the Greyjoy’s wouldn’t war again, very strange). So maybe Bran can do his thing and go back in time to discover that Ned was prophesised to take Theon to assure future success for the Greyjoy’s and Westeros as well, but maybe not, if unnecessary. And little does the dead Balon Greyjoy realise, after we heard him bellyaching in Season 2, that the Greyjoys would never be respected as anything with such a useless heir, now actually serve the highest public honour, as they have a son on the Iron Throne.
Furthermore, and so remarkably, Theon’s journey throughout the show has actually always reflected the other Kings and Queens of Westeros.
- When Robert Baratheon sat on the throne, Theon was also fucking whores and joking at other people’s expense.
- When Cersei assumed control, Theon was hitting on his sister, Yara.
- When Joffrey took the throne, Theon was taking over Winterfell, in a cruel and ruthless manner, and trying to prove himself against his ignorance.
- When Tommen was on the throne, Theon felt the same powerless in Ramsey’s capture.
- When Cersei held the throne, Theon became aligned with the feminine rule of Yara and Sansa.
I’m telling you, it’s damn poetic!
Obviously, the show would have to build Theon up as a more likable character – I would have him protect Bran from the Night King, as the show did, but Theon might serve a noble role in destroying some White Walkers, instead of getting senselessly murdered. I hate how Bran was like, “Theon, you are exactly where you are supposed to be”, and then he dies two minutes later before Arya jumps out of nowhere to save the day. Thanks Bran, you dick!
So, I came up with this theory in between the releases of season seven and eight, but it’s been embellished and strengthened after watching how the real finale played out. Quiet honestly, I don’t care what anyone says, this is my true ending to Game of Thrones, and I have tried to block out as much of what actually happened the best I can, blissful in my own fantasy. What do you think about my theory? What did you hate and what did you love about Game of Thrones? Who did you want to see on the Iron Throne?
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