Review: (Spoiler alert) With ‘Game of Thrones’ finale ends a season full of feel-good moments

Jon Snow was dead, Sansa Stark was forced into a marriage with Bolton and the White walkers were on the loose. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong in season five of Game of Thrones. Isn’t that what GoT has always been about? Audiences being hammered with one shocking moment after another followed by a global mourning for days on social media, only if we continue to apply a deterministic logic to the fate of the show and ignore the billions of fans and dollars associated with it. However, someday every great show has to bow down to the cathartic expectations of its viewers and it was about time GoT also succumbed. It is never easy to end a series or resolve a narrative without catharsis. Even Mad Men had a very feel-good ending for most of its characters. Only the Wire comes to mind as an example of a non-cathartic ending. It used an ending implying that all conflicts and ills in that story world were part of any unbeatable cycle.



Feel-good moments were distributed such as charity throughout season six and specifically in the finale, with writers getting predictable with their moral stance for the first time in the show’s history. Good had to prevail, evil had to fade. Females were recognised for making a point in a male-dominated story world and bastards rewarded for their loyalty to the people in spite of being the obvious outcasts.  What began as nightmare has ended like a dream sequence. For the writers have clearly felt more than they thought.

The characters are losing depth with time and have followed the arch drafted by a number of fan theories. But you can’t blame them either; such is the nature of storytelling that you can’t end a series without it being cathartic and more appeasing for the viewers.



Now that Danaerys Stormborn has finally demonstrated the power of her nukes by avoiding a major naval attack on her city and appointed Tyrion as the hand of the Queen, she is going to sail smoothly towards the iron throne. She has the ideal combination of diplomacy and dragons and will hopefully drive the show towards the ultimate climax next season. Let’s hope the Dorthraki mood swings don’t give writers another reason to delay the final blow.

On the other hand, Jon Snow is enjoying the snowfall in Winterfell, he is now the King of the North and Sansa is happy to have fed Bolton to the dogs. It appears as the writers are ticking off the bucket list of the entire Stark family, especially with Bran surviving an attack by the white walkers and Arya avenging the red wedding by killing Fray. Everything has ended so happily for Starks that it’s actually quite sad.

However, one thing that has been consistent throughout the seasons of GoT is the dynamism of its characters. You can’t blame any single character for his or her actions; they are products of their surroundings and chose what is best in their interest. Jamie Lannister has calmed down the King slayer within and is putting his diplomacy skills to use, bringing forward a more sympathetic side of his character. Cersie has acted like the sinister Queen that she is and blown up a part of King’s Landing along with the religious extremists who were plaguing her peace and the daughter-in-law she so despised.

From being loud and cunning to silent and vengeful, Cersie’s character has hit her Nirvana in the finale. She has turned out to be the most well-aware and introspective character of the show, one who is fully aware of her nature and expects everyone else to act like her and that is why she is the only one controlling her consequences in the show, not the other way around. With what she has done with the High Sparrow and his clan, Cersie may have just created a special place in the hearts of the Pakistani fans. Although she is still very much into haraam stuff, just… by the way.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5