The same thing is true with Game of Thrones. I adore the series but feel Season 7 was extremely lackluster. So my expectations for Season 8 are not very high. If I were to do a Top 10 list of what I actually expect from the final season it wouldn't be happy and I want this post to be happy.
So this list won't as much about how I think the season will play out as I would like it to play out. Yes, I am letting my inner fangirl write this post.
In Game of Thrones Season 7, Jorah Mormont could've easily been replaced by a lampshade. A very sexy lampshade, but a lampshade nonetheless. The most important thing he did was be cured of greyscale and after that...well...there really was not a lot of use for him.
This is especially strange as the writers were trying to have a love triangle between him, Jon Snow, and Daenerys Targaryen. But because they didn't focus on him and Daenerys, it seems like a love triangle a newborn would write.
A love triangle needs to involve scenes of the person making the decision with the two options. There needs to be a scene of just Person A and Person B as well as a scene of Person A and Person C. The first three Twilight books do this well. Book 1 is Bella/Edward, Book 2 is Bella/Jacob, and Book 3 is Bella making her final choice between Edward and Jacob.
In Season 7 there are multiple scenes of just Jon/Dany while any scene with Jorah and Dany are always interrupted by Jon. So, yeah, I don't really count the 'love triangle' of Season 7 as actually existing due to its poor execution.
Jorah still has a few scenes that only make sense if he's in them, but those are few and far between.
So for the final season, I really want this character to have an actual purpose. He could've easily been killed off last season so the showrunners could say it was a big deal that a long running character had died. But we'd all know they just wanted a shock death of a character the majority of the fandom wouldn't miss.
So: do something with Jorah Mormont! Actually use him!
I have a question for you: have you seen an 80's movie?
You know the whole 'they hate each other in the beginning but fall in love by the end' cliche? You do? Well then you know that Jon and Dany will end up together by the end of the season because their relationship is that predictable.
While I am not a big fan of this cliche, it can work. The Terminator gave us Sarah Connor falling in love with Kyle Reese by the end. Now that relationship worked as large chunks of the film could be focused on Sarah and Kyle without ruining the overall flow of the film. Heck, the whole conflict of the movie was Sarah needing to live and Kyle was the one sent to protect her. So of course the movie would have to focus on them.
Now Game of Thrones is an ensemble show. So you can't have a large focus on the relationship between Jon and Dany without ruining the flow. Therefore it would've made more sense for a different approach to tackle this ship.
So how did Game of Thrones Season 7 handle this relationship? Really poorly. Both the pacing and writing made the progression feel jagged. Plus there was nothing interesting happening to make the two lovers grow closer. Even though Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen had a short run, that relationship was an interesting look into both characters and seeing how they grew because of each other.
Jon/Dany in Season 7 just had...'I hate you and now I love you' basically.
This disappointed me greatly as it was a promising ship. But they still have another season, a final season, to give it some actual life. The easiest way to provide some much needed interest is when Jon finds out his true heritage.
Though with the writing of last season and Jon telling Theon he can be both a Stark and a Greyjoy, I am not expecting much.
A story may be set in a fantastical world like Tatooine, Middle Earth, Mars, or Westeros and people will be able to suspend their disbelief. This is done by a number of techniques to make the world and characters feel real so you care about the events progressing on screen or page. One of these techniques is having characters react realistically (or in a way that doesn't break the tone of a piece).
And this is why I don't want Tyrion Lannister or Sansa Stark to betray Jon Snow in the final season of Game of Thrones.
Sansa Stark's plot last season was all about reinforcing the idea that she is loyal to her family. She may not agree with Jon but she won't turn the North against him. She may be suspicious of Arya Stark, her sister, but she doesn't kill the girl because of a mere whim or suspicion. With such a large focus on family loyalties last season, it would make no sense if she turns against Jon. Now betraying Daenerys Targaryen she could do only if Jon gives the order. If the Northern Fool Fallacy is correct, this could happen.
Tyrion Lannister has spent his whole life trying to earn respect. The only member of his family he had a good relationship with is Jaime Lannister, his brother. So suffice it to say he doesn't have much family loyalty. Daenerys Targaryen was the first woman to show him respect to the point she appointed him Hand of the Queen. Now there is a theory, which annoys me much more than the 'Bran is the Night King' one, that Tyrion has sided with Cersei Lannister over Daenerys. But why would Tyrion show any loyalty to the woman who attempted to have him killed?
Both Tyrion and Sansa have their own unique characters and can't be changed merely to suit whatever drama the writers want. Well, not without making the show into a total mess that resembles The Host by Stephenie Meyer. For anyone who doesn't get the reference: in that book characters are such blank slates that their actions are decided by what would be dramatic at any given moment.
Pre-Season 7 I would assume that the writers of Game of Thrones could do no wrong. Okay, they could mess up but every major plotline would have a satisfying conclusion. Arya Stark being ambushed by the waif was dumb but the 'I'm going home' speech was extremely satisfying. Especially as it showed how important her heritage was to her. Daario Naharis became unbearable by the end, but Daenerys Targaryen breaking up with him was stunning. It brought up how she actually viewed the man as well as her need to seek the Iron Throne.
Season 7 was riddled with too many mistakes. Daenerys Targaryen seemed to forget about political marriages and never mentioned them once in her talks with Jon Snow. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish forgot how cunning he was and got killed because the writers made him dumb. For some reason Tyrion Lannister came up with the idea to get a wight to convince Cersei Lannister to side with them even though he knew that wouldn't work. And no one jumped in to stop the plan from going through.
So by how badly Season 7 was in terms of writing and pacing, plus how cheesy they wrote Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, I wonder if the show will actually make a hard decision. Jon shouldn't react calmly to hearing he had sex with his aunt. He should take time to think about what to do next. If he learns he's the father of a child, he should be more than conflicted about what to do. And if he does stay with Daenerys due to the child, it shouldn't be a happy marriage.
And to those going: but he's a Targaryen so of course he'll be okay with incest!
The answer to that is Jon was raised a Stark. While incest is common in royal families, there tends to be a limit on how closely related both parties are. Even in the South, the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime Lannister is a big deal due to them being twins.
If Daenerys was a cousin there is a chance Jon would be fine with the union. But she's his aunt so he shouldn't be calm about it.
Yet the showrunners may want to please the large Jon/Dany shipper demographic and so make the tension short lived.
For the books, George R.R. Martin has promised a bittersweet ending. The show, on the other hand, hasn't promised that. But many fans, including myself, believe a bittersweet ending will happen on the show. A show like Game of Thrones couldn't end on a high note with all the people you like alive.
There is one book series above all others that I use to judge a bittersweet ending: Animorphs.
While the books do have silly covers and are aimed at a young adult audience, it is not a happy series. Sure there are goofy moments and Visser Three is a little off for an adult series, but it throws punches and throws them hard. So it shouldn't be any surprise that the series does not end on a high note.
Only one of the main cast dies and Earth is saved, but that isn't a cause for celebration. Those that survive suffer from PTSD and find themselves so changed by the war that they can't find happiness. One character who gets all he wanted still feels like there is a hole inside that can't be filled.
I want Game of Thrones to end on a similar vein. Some beloved characters will live but they'll be dead inside. Maybe you'll see your favorite picks as king and queen on the Iron Throne, but you won't feel happy about it.
The thing some people forget about a bittersweet ending is that beloved characters don't have to die for an ending to be painful. Sometimes the worst pain is living.
Cersei Lannister proved herself a villain during the first season and her acts of wrongdoing have only increased. Her actions caused the deaths of Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, and Tommen Baratheon to name only a few. She killed to gain her position of Queen of the Seven Kingdom and was willing to betray supposed allies to keep it.
While I adore Cersei, I don't want her to last until the end. She has done enough that she won't be able to redeem herself and I'm not about to pretend all of her actions were justified. And since she is such a spectacular villain, she deserves an epic death scene.
Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish also deserved a good death scene but the writers did not grant him one. Hopefully they won't make the same mistake with Cersei.
Let me explain what pacing is so that we're all on the same page.
Pacing is, basically, how quickly you go from plot point to plot point. It's about how long a certain plot point lasts. The longer a story the less relevant pacing is while the shorter a story the more important pacing is. With a longer story you're able to explore extremely minor plot points. But in shorter stories you do not have the time to do so.
For an example of pacing I'll use the developing relationship of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones Season 7. Just since I figured some of my opinions on Jon/Dany would've been redundant earlier as I'm talking about pacing specifically here.
Jon/Dany only had a single season to go from just friends to lovers. Now if the showrunners had been focused on pacing they would've made the pair more friendly to each other at the start. There can still be some animosity but not as much as we got. Would this be less realistic? Friends with a dash of animosity would be realistic enough.
Now why should they have been friends earlier? The sooner she stopped saying stuff like 'bend the knee or I won't help you', the sooner the show could've established a bond between the two. And with them acting friendly and cute together, their turn to lovers would've made a lot more sense.
But the showrunners decided on going with...well...with the approach they did. And even then there were some instances where scenes could've been changed or dropped to help with the flow of the show. The one that always sticks with me is the boat scene after Jon returned from beyond the Wall.
In that scene we get the information that Jon bends the knee to Daenerys and they have become very friendly with each other. Those two plot points were repeated in the Dragonpit scene so the previous scene should've been dropped. The scene could've been put on the blu-ray and so Jon/Dany shippers, who make up a large part of the Game of Thrones fandom, would've bought the blu-ray. Heck, maybe they would've bought the blu-ray for that scene alone.
And what could that scene have been replaced with? A scene where Daenerys and Jorah Mormont talk about Viserion's death. I would speak more about how Season 7 handled Viserion's death, but this isn't the time for that.
Season 8 needs to have much better pacing so fans are left with a sense of fulfillment. Because of not ending Cersei Lannister, the season also needs to close up all the storylines involving her as well as the war against the dead.
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A good twist is made up of two things. The first is that it is shocking and makes you reconsider everything you thought you knew. The second is that it's logical. Yes it might totally shock you upon initial viewing/reading but once you go back you can connect the dots.
Prophecies in the Game of Thrones universe are extremely complicated due to their vagueness. You can come to any conclusion by examining them. Two of the big prophecies are the Prince that was Promised and the Azor Ahai Prophecy. While it's a common fantheory to think of both as the same, it is not canon. And where there is no canon, that's where crazy people like myself flourish.
Jorah being Azor Ahai would, for one thing, help explain why he's been kept alive for so long. As I said earlier, he didn't have much to do in Season 7 so why not kill him off? Either they're going to continue making him unimportant or the showrunners have a very special plan for him.
I won't go any further into the details of why it would work for Jorah Mormont as there's not the room here and I'm not feeling strong enough to delve into another Game of Thrones Prophecy. On THIS post I have what amounts to an intro of why Jorah being Azor Ahai works. I've been meaning for years to make a post expanding on this theory.
Anyways...besides making sense, it would come as a shock to the majority of the fandom. The elusive Azor Ahai Prophecy being anything but shocking would make me feel like I wasted my time. It being revealed that Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen holds that title would feel like a letdown as everyone has already bet heavily on those two.
And added to that lovely shock value is the fact Jorah isn't well liked. Either he's ignored or demeaned. So the majority of the fandom would be more than pissed off and I would love to see that. I would love to see if they would try to justify it or just start berating David Benioff and D.B.Weiss.
I want to say: where is your god now?
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What kind of fangirl list would this be if I didn't mention my OTP becoming canon? I know the many arguments against this ship both from people who have been rude and those more polite. Sort of polite. All the way from just 'eeww gross' to 'I don't ship it'. Heck, some people use the odd threat 'it'll never be canon' as if fanfiction doesn't exist. Plus I ship so many rarepairs that any of my pairings becoming canon doesn't usually happen.
But anyways...Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen have both learned from each other. They have each grown because of their time together. Sometimes their motions imitate each other as if they're one soul in two bodies. In Game of Thrones Season 6 they seem to have connected much more than ever before. Daenerys had learned what it meant to lose Jorah and it be her fault while Jorah became comfortable with admitting his feelings. Her parting words to him included that she needed him by her side to rule. With Littlefinger telling Sansa Stark something similar during the same season, it seemed to indicate the line had the potential of being romantic. But in Season 7 the line was never delved into so now it's left to the fans to decide what it meant. Season 7 also failed to remember Robb Stark was King of the North before Jon Snow.
The seventh season also failed to give Jorah and Daenerys any scenes entirely devoid of anyone else. So we can't canonically tell what they feel for each other. One of my fellow shippers thought that Daenerys stopped talking with Jorah outside of meetings. Myself, while there isn't anything canonical to support my theory, I do believe their connection to each other is still strong.
Two of the biggest moments for the couple in Season 7 were their reunion and when Jorah left for Eastwatch. Both times they had a good amount of chemistry even though they were just supposed to be 'friends'.
If Jorah/Dany does become canon then it'll go down in history as one of the sweetest slowburns. Mind you my hope is not only will this couple become canon but that Jorah will have to kill Daenerys due to the Azor Ahai Prophecy. I swear Animorphs removed my ability to bring myself happiness.
I'm very passionate about Jorah Mormont, Jorah/Dany, and pacing but those can't compare to my number one thing I'd love to see from the final season of Game of Thrones. Sure Jorah Mormont is my favorite character on the show. Sure Jorah/Dany always manages to give me butterflies in my stomach. Sure my writer side comes out shouting when pacing is discussed. But all those can't compare to my need to see an epic showdown with the White Walkers.
The first scene of Game of Thrones featured the White Walkers. The first scene of a series helps to point where a show will be going in the future. While during early seasons these deadly beings were pushed to the background, their presence onscreen has steadily been increasing. One of the major focuses of the series has always been the battle between the living and the dead.
The final season of this show has been promised to be an epic showdown, but I'm uncertain. As mentioned before, the writers don't seem to have a good handle on pacing. They have other big storylines to do that I fear we might only get one battle instead of many. I want to see the living losing. I want to see the living barely survive. I want to see the living win against all hope.
After all this buildup I don't want the fight against the dead to turn out how Jorah's greyscale was cured: easily even though the White Walkers had been said to be nearly invincible.
So if nothing else I want to see the White Walkers get the respect they deserve!
Remember you can submit ideas for future posts HERE. I also talk about other fandoms, so don't feel that you have to only submit ideas for Game of Thrones posts.
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