This is it — the big, extra-long finale! Spoilers for the show are discussed, mild-spoilers for the book are mentioned too (though mostly in the “wait, huh?” variety), and one of the biggest finales yet goes under one very critical microscope.
Lets go to work.
1. Oh, hey, remember Mance Rayder?
Man, Ciarán Hinds must cost a lot of money to hire! Dude plays one of the biggest characters in the show, gets one episode! Good thing he totally lives through everything next season and is not in any way changed or replaced with anyone else. Nope.
Jon’s story was certainly condensed in this final episode, and changed quite a bit. There’s no new baby, for example, though Rayder’s wife never made it into the show in the first place. Not only that, but I would’ve imagined we would see Lord Commander Snow before the season ended and we didn’t get that either. Nevertheless, when Stannis and his men rode up to save the day from some cutthroat negotiations, it was still quite exciting to see these stories come together — and for Melisandre and Jon Snow to lock eyes for the first time.
Jon’s story to come is pretty interesting, there’s no doubt about it. And in terms of people who have huge character moments, it doesn’t get much bigger than what is coming for Jon. There are quite a few changed elements, sure, but I imagine we’ll see some of Jon’s best scenes next season — including one that involves a certain chopping block.
2. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
Good thing Jojen liked to read?
In what I have to note was quite a surprise, the show knocked out Jojen Reed last night in a surprise Harryhausen scene. It was definitely a bit of a shocker, as in the book Jojen gets to hang out and offer all kinds of decent advice throughout. He still finds out when he’s going to die before the end of “Dance,” but that doesn’t take him out of the book; it just makes him depressed. Considering how true to the book other aspects of the scene were (at least in the reveal of the Three Eyed Raven as part of the tree) it seemed odd to take out a main character like that. Perhaps they were afraid they had not hit their death quota?
There are lots of deaths that came early this season that have made people sad. This is the one for me.
It was also my weekly “Oh, maybe Coldhands will show up this scene!” moment. Damn you, Benioff and Weiss!
3. How to not train your dragons
We jumped ahead quite a bit here, but Dany ended the season by locking up her dragons. Dany’s story definitely jumps around a bit in terms of what happens where, no doubt about it, but it makes a lot of sense to end this season here. Drogon on the loose seems a bit problematic since, y’know, there’s that big ol’ fight scene in which he breaks free and takes off, but there’s still time to hunt him down and use him to fight for pleasure.
Still, I like what they’ve done with Dany in the show a lot, and obviously it primarily is because Emilia Clarke is amazing in the role. I liked Dany plenty in the book, but I think Clarke has always brought the character to life in such a believable way — and every season seems to reveal new and different aspects to her. She’s obviously very afraid in season 1, season 2 features her learning a lot about who she is, season 3 is the Stormborn Triumphant, and now with season 4 we see the queen who is unsure she can rule.
Lets be real: Dany’s chapters in the books? Not always the most exciting thing in the world. And the show padded a lot, adding so much stuff in the second season to give her time to do stuff. Given where season 4 ended, I’d be surprised if we don’t see Dany getting closer to where she was last seen in the books by the end of next season.
Continued below4. THIS ISN’T CANON!!??!!??
Well, to be fair, Brienne did fight a Hound in the book. Just not the Hound. So this is how they got around that, eh?
I can imagine that a few people were probably ticked off by this scene (you know who you are, regular commenters and quinn). But I’ll be honest: I thought this was great. The interaction between the Hound and Brienne was certainly off-road, but it was an incredibly well done scene. It was brutal, it was off the cuff, and it was fairly unpredictable. Not only that, but it allowed for certain threads to come together in a different way, particularly in terms of the supposed death of the Hound. And, as mentioned, Brienne still got to go up against a Hound of her own, so it kind of works out fairly well.
Plus, now Arya is off to be Daredevil in Braavos, so things work out for the best.
Granted, this does sort of mean we probably won’t see the poor old soul who is friends with dogs. But the identity of that character was always a pretty thin thread anyway.
Good show, regardless.
5. Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold
There was always going to be something lost in translation. No doubt about that. The written word hits certain feelings and ideas that the show can not possibly matched, in terms of repeated phrases and mantras seeded throughout. It would’ve been awkward to have Tyrion push his father over to see if a nugget of gold had dropped down.
Would’ve been funny for him to have said the line, sure, but alas.
To be truthful, the only thing I was bummed about in that scene was that Tyrion and Jaime didn’t have their last second falling out. Jaime was obviously on a high, having hooked up with Cersei in a wonderfully awkward scene earlier, but one of the interesting things about the book is that Tyrion left having disavowed his entire line. That the show had built up the relationship between Jaime and Tyrion would’ve made it all the more painful when Jaime revealed his past betrayal, but I guess the show felt the need not to break up that brotherly bond too much — or, uh, something along those lines.
I often knock the show for abandoning some of the smarter, more subtle chess moves that Martin makes in the book, and I think this is a fairly good example of the showrunners just missing the point of certain scenes. It’s enough to get actions right, to an extent, but it leaves them somewhat vapid. Tyrion’s relationship to his family name was everything to him, and his leaving King’s Landing without that name is a huge part of the story to follow with his YOLO Yollo transformation. It’s just a shame that this was thrown aside.
Plus, Varys going along for the ride? That should be interesting. Who is going to use little birds to kill people in King’s Landing now? And who is Jorah going to drunkenly hang out with?
Last, but not least:
RIP Tyrion Lannister. You had a good run. #YOLLO
— Matthew Meylikhov (@mattisnotarobot) June 16, 2014
Here’s to Season 5 and lots of people complaining that Lady Stonheart didn’t show up. I just want Coldhands!
