The #1 Reason Nobody Liked the Game of Thrones Ending.
Nobody Likes Endings.
An unpopular opinion, by Casey Wilson.
Beginning: A point in time or space in which something starts, so we will start at the beginning. It was the beginning of a series, and it was beginning of my journey through Westeros. Upon watching the first episode of Game of Thrones, I gravitated towards the character Arya. She was bold, tomboyish, and real. I despised Sansa, I starred googly-eyed over the Stark boys (sorry Ethan), and I feared the White Walkers. I will spare you the details about my first impressions of all the characters, but what is important is that each beginning or introduction of a character/storyline left me feeling excited and curious. As a storyteller myself, and a lover of words, I appreciated Game of Thrones immediately for the family dynamics, symbolism, character development, sub-plots, and so on; thus, paired with incredible acting, I knew I was in for the long-run. Over the course of the past eight seasons, I have rooted for characters, cried for characters, and wanted characters to die all while anticipating the next episode with outlandish theories and connections I pieced together in my head.
Ending: An end or final part of something. Last night, the series ended. And in my opinion it ended beautifully, perfectly, symbolically, excellently. As I scroll through my feed, I see nothing but angry posts and disappointed friends. Though I wish they would have stretched out the final season because I wasn’t ready for the story to end, I realized something. I wasn’t ready for the story to end; I don’t think anyone was ready for the story to end- and that is the ONLY problem with the final episode. Do you wish that Cersei would have been pulled apart limb by limb? Do you wish that Arya would have taken a face and killed Dany? Do you wish that Jon Snow sat upon the iron throne? Would that have satisfied YOUR ending? You see, that is just it. It would be YOUR ending- one that you planned for, thought about, wished for, and envisioned. But it is not your story to tell. It is not your ending. People don’t like endings because they provide closure that they aren’t ready for.
Endings create definites for things we haven’t prepared for in our minds.
But isn’t that how endings in real life work? We meet people, fall in love with people, get frustrated with people, go places, fall in love with places, despise places, etc. We plan, anticipate, hope, some pray, and then... things end- most of the time in ways we didn’t expect. So if we all got our way on the fates of our favorite characters, who would be satisfied? We all fall in love with characters for different reasons, we want things for characters, we get sad when they leave us too soon, or we cringe when they change.
It is the mere beauty of an end that leaves us wanting more and believing in things we didn’t intend to believe in. Endings change us and our perspective- as all endings should do.
So with that being said. Can we all agree that no one getting their way was the most poetic version of the story? Can we count the number of theories and speculations we all had about what was going to happen and laugh? Cersei was killed by rocks, Jon walked away with the Wildlings, and Arya sailed West. But we learned that despite hardships you encounter in life, and the mean, awful people that try to tear you down, you have the power of a choice that will lead you to the fate you want and deserve like Sansa. That the world will tell you who you are and who you should be, but if adventure calls your name (even if a girl has no name) then go like Arya. And lastly, when you know the past, you can protect the future, like Bran.
What was beautiful about the ending was that it left us asking questions, added curiosity, blanketed us with a feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction- alas, our hunger for knowledge and bigger connections grows and somehow/someway it will lead us to a better understanding of a person or a place that we come across in our lives, and that is the most beautiful ending of all.
