'Game of Thrones': Five great things about the final season
HBO's "Game of Thrones" has ended after eight seasons, and the six final episodes certainly weren't met with universal acclaim. Here are five great things about the saga's divisive conclusion.
Arya Stark.
First she slayed the time-worn "you don't want to die a virgin, do you" trope in Episode 2, then she slayed the Night King in Episode 3. The climax of "The Long Night," in which Arya (Maisie Williams) swooped in to stab the leader of the undead army threatening all of Westeros, was as exciting and surprising as a Game 7 overtime winner. (Just check out the reaction videos on YouTube.) That moment, combined with the heel turn by Daenerys Targayen (Emilia Clarke), just might cement Arya as the show's most enduring, beloved character in the years to come. Just imagine if HBO gives her a spinoff as she charts the lands west of Westeros.
The music.
Ramin Djawadi has long been the show's MVP, and he proved it again with his haunting new piano theme, "The Night King," in Episode 3, and a beautiful reprisal of Season 4's "The Children" theme as the final episode cut between Jon, Arya and Sansa taking their steps into history. Djawadi and a live orchestra will return to the Chicago area on Sept. 8 when the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience transforms the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park into a musical multimedia celebration of Westeros. Tickets start at $39.50 and are available online at ticketmaster.com.
Ser Brienne of Tarth.
Before Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) reverted to his old ways and broke Brienne's (Gwendoline Christie) heart in Episode 4, the Kingslayer did what no king would have done by making the noblest warrior in Westeros a knight, even though she's a she. A smile finally cracked Brienne's stoic veneer, and both she and the audience enjoyed one of the most satisfying payoffs of the show. Even better: Brienne's other would-be suitor, Tormund (Kristofer Hivju), didn't display jealousy as Jaime performed an obvious act of love; he delivered a joyous ovation.
The cinematography.
Despite many complaints about how dark Episode 3 was - I blame the crummy live feeds most of us get from our cable providers - cinematographer Fabian Wagner and director Miguel Sapochnik delivered staggering imagery in their two offerings this year. "The Long Night" gave us dragons bathed in moonlight, fireballs flying over the charging Dothraki horde, and reflections dancing in the eyes of the Red Witch (Carice van Houten) in extreme close-up. "The Bells" showed us the atrocities of war in broad daylight, and an apocalyptic confrontation between Sandor (Rory McCann) and Gregor (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) Clegane that turned a stone staircase into a vision of hell.
The fitting nods to 'LOTR.'
It's hard not to compare George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," and not just because of those double R's. The final season of "Game of Thrones" leaned into the comparison, whether it was the battle of Winterfell's parallels to Helm's Deep, Podrick (Daniel Portman) singing a story-song, or the final episode's revelation that the archmaester has written a history of Robert Baratheon's reign and the wars that followed named "A Song of Ice and Fire," just as Frodo Baggins wrote "The Lord of the Rings." Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) even has dialogue about the power of stories that calls back to Samwise Gamgee's stirring words about the "tales that really mattered." Perhaps that's the best thing this season of "Game of Thrones" did for us: It made us want to dig out those old DVDs and dusty books. Frodo lives!
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