First off, a quick note: This is my first post in over a year, I may be back, may not be. The important thing is this is a good way to post a whole lotta spoilers without spraying them all over someone's Facebook wall.
Anywho, indeed, this is a spoiler filled post. If you care about that kind of thing, turn back now. Literally all of Game of Thrones will be discussed.
I'm not joking people.
Last warning.
Okay, now that they're gone, let's talk.
A lot of people are unhappy about this last season, and the final 2 episodes in particular. I definitely felt a bit cheated after watching "The Bells", but I was very satisfied after the finale.
I feel like the best forum to discuss this is through a few questions I've seen around the internet, to see if I can help you, my single reader (you know who you are), understand how I interpret them.
Let's begin:
Did they just forget about Azor Ahai, the prince who was promised?
No. Jon still fulfilled the prophecy in my opinion.
I think for a series that kills off the main character in the early stages, you should expect some curveballs. This whole time, we were expecting the Night King to be to big bad that Jon was supposed to save the world from.
Then Arya killed him. 3 episodes before the finale.
That shocked me, and it shocked a lot of people. But the message is clear: The Night King was not the evil that Azor Ahai was meant to quell. Daenerys was. Jon saved the world from her "liberation".
This also fits very well with Jon's arc throughout the series. There's a theme that's highlighted early on with the Night's Watch in Season 2, where their purpose is mostly to save the world while no one remembers or cares. Jon won't rule, he won't father children, he won't be recognized generations from now as the savior he was. He stopped a great evil because it was the right thing to do. The Red God brought him back for it, and he fulfilled his cosmic purpose.
(Interesting side bar: I think Arya also fits fairly well if you do subscribed to the theory that the Night King was the great evil. And they both ride off into nothingness at the end, being saviors that won't be recognized. I'm giving Jon an edge because he was resurrected from the dead though. Plus my whole "Daenerys was the great evil" thing...)
Why did any of the 3 eyed raven stuff matter?
I actually wasn't satisfied by this arc, but I think it was there in the background.
The Night King was about one thing: Death. He wanted to rid the world of Man, and as they pointed out in "The Long Night", Bran as the 3 eyed raven was the fount of all of Man's history and knowledge. He is the epitome of what the Night King wants to get rid of.
I also think it's important for the fact that Bran because a different person when he became the 3 eyed raven. He became a dispassionate and wise thinker. Just the man to break a wheel of power hungry monarchs. Bran as his pre-raven self may have may a fine king, but current Bran has what Westeros needs: a man who doesn't want to lead and who is most qualified to learn from others' past mistakes.
Couldn't they have made Cersei suffer just a little bit?
I must say, I was pretty upset after her death in "The Bells". I wanted her to be flayed alive onscreen. I wanted every bone in her body to be broken while she was conscious. She was a terrible, evil woman.
But despite all that, after having time to process I think this was the most in character for her. She's someone who gets pushed around, then retaliates and wins. She successfully killed her husband the king so her son could take the crown. She suffered through her the Faith Militant (a problem of her own making, but that's not really the point) but then burned them all with fiery vengeance. She even rose to the crown and fucked over the north by not supporting them in their war against the dead.
Now, right when everything is being taken away from her, guess what? She wins again. By all rights, she should have been tortured by Arya, or Daenerys, or anyone who wanted her blood. Instead, she died in the arms of the man she loved, with what was likely a reasonably quick death. She cheated her foes one last time. It was the most Cersei thing that she could have done.
How does Jon go to the Night's Watch if it doesn't really exist or have purpose anymore?
I'm actually stealing this theory from some comments I saw online. I believe it was a way for Jon to live a happy life elsewhere, away from the politics of Westeros to keep Grey Worm happy. It was an unspoken truth that Jon would be able to ride north with the Wildlings because the Night watch is gone and the dead are gone with it.
Why the hell is the episode called "A dream of spring time" instead of "A dream of spring"?
Fuck that decision.
