The Good, the Bad and Khaleesi

Published May 22, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi Gene and Big D,

I’ve had the pleasure of listening to you guys enhance my viewing experience since season 7 but this is my first time writing in to share thoughts of my own.

First thoughts on this episode were similar to Big D’s reaction of peace. Gene’s eulogy analogy was the perfect way to describe the mood of this finale. This is what the characters that we have grown to love, grown to hate, most of the time both at various times, deserved at the end of what has been an amazing 9-year journey.

The point I wanted to raise was that the term “villain” was used when talking about Danaerys. Off the back of a point, you raised after an earlier episode, throughout the whole show we have followed a very Stark biased story. The Starks have been the protagonists since season 1, episode 1. But the thing that has kept me, as the majority of fans, watching GoT is that no one character is singularly good or singularly bad, each and everyone is somewhere in the 50 shades of grey in which they need to be to achieve what they have set out do. No “bad” character acts without reason and even the most heroic of characters have times when they fall short. After all, they are only human. I would argue that the only characters who could be deemed to be on only one side of the coin are the ones that are not human (read into that what you will).

From Dany’s point of view, she has also been the dictionary definition of a protagonist. “An advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea.”

She is an advocate of freedom. Freedom from slavery, freedom from tyrants, freedom from madness. You can argue that she achieved this. In death, she acheived what she set out to do. Had she not changed as she did through season 8, and I don’t believe this was as sudden as we perceive it to be, we would not have had an ending where Westeros is free from all that she set out to free it from. Did we get there in the way we wanted to? Arguably not. But all I can say is a huge thank you to the cast and crew and to people like you who help us to make sense of this crazy roller coaster that is Game of Thrones.

I, like a host of others, don’t know what comes next. I would have liked to have had less of a polished ending. There are too many easy routes for spin offs. Whether we get any beyond The Long Night is yet to be seen. Following on from the wide range of genres that we have seen in season 8 I would like D&D to try their hand at a sitcom called “The Small Council Chamber”. Look up the BBC 3 show “The Smoking Room” from 2005. Low budget, filmed in one room. The cast is already there to make it something that could keep our connection to this amazing world that we have been lost in for the last 9 years.

Thanks again for all you have done to enrich our viewing experience. Can’t wait for this year’s Thronies and to binge watch this whole season again.

All the best,

George L (no relation to Ken)
England

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