Courtesy of the Wrap
With only two episodes until the series finale, “Game of Thrones” approaches the end of its eight-year reign as HBO’s No. 1 show. What started as a series of political intrigue with occasional sword fights has grown into the high-budget, fast-paced cultural phenomenon that keeps us glued to our TVs.
As of now, we have reached the end of one of two story arcs that began from the very first episode. This is the story detailing the threat of the White Walkers and the Targaryen campaign to reclaim the throne that was lost to them after Robert’s Rebellion – the war that took place two decades before the first season that ended the Targaryen dynasty and set the scene for the entire series.
The White Walkers, led by the Night King, have been defeated, and the only war that remains is the war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms.
Now Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow prepare for this last battle. As of Sunday night, any chance at a peaceful end, which we knew we would never get, is gone.Only two episodes are left to kill Cersei and her armies and take the throne.
The only thing fans can be certain of is that things will not end as expected. Major character deaths are one of the show’s defining elements and – at least most times – when someone dies, they stay dead. We have seen characters we thought would stay with us for the whole series decapitated, poisoned and massacred, but we’ve always had Daenerys and Jon Snow.
Now, as Daenerys fights to take her father’s throne back, we might just see her lose. Her most trusted advisors doubt her ability to rule, two of her three dragons have died and the man she loves, Jon, has been revealed to be not only her nephew, but the true heir to the Iron Throne: Aegon Targaryen, the only son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.
The latest episode shows that even Daenerys is not confident in her ability to take the throne. She begs Jon not to reveal his true identity to anyone else, knowing that the people will rally behind him just as the freefolk north of the wall and the people of the Kingdom of the North have done.
An optimistic fan might think they’ll marry and rule together, but in the words of Ramsay Bolton, the best villain this series has seen, “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”
In the most recent episode, Daenerys has lost a second dragon, her best friend Missandei and confidence in her ability to take the Iron Throne. Now we will see if she can take it, and if she does, whether or not she will become a tyrant like her father as her advisors fear she will.
The last two episodes will both have a run time of 79 minutes, and we have so much more to look forward to than seeing who sits on the Iron Throne. Fan favorites like The Hound, Jaime Lannister and Arya Stark are descending on King’s Landing as well, each with their own stories to wrap up in the capital of Westeros, and there are still plenty of main characters to kill off.
