‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Finale Power Rankings: It Was All A Dream
LET’S DO THE LAST EVER POWER RANKING, YEEEEHHAWWWWW!!!!!!!
Well! The show is over. And with it goes the easiest conversation topic any of us will ever have.
Think about a social situation — the real clench-your-teeth, hide-in-the-toilet social situations.
What do you talk to those imbeciles about? You talk about Game of Thrones, because we all had Game of Thrones in common (mostly; the ones who don’t watch it love to tell you about it, ask them).
It was like looking out the window and remembering that you and your neighbours and the entire world were looking up at the same cosmos, a precious shared experience — except instead of the cosmos, it was a show where a man’s head got crushed like a melon one time.
I mean, I’ll be fine. (I’m rich now.) (I own multiple walk-in closets filled with linen clothing, gold bricks, cocaine bricks and every issue of Playboy released in 1967.) But what about you? What are you going to talk about next week — the dying planet!?
Actually, we should really talk about that.
But okay, not right now! Now is the time for dragons and melancholy and a man named Benioff and another man named Weiss (both of their first names are Christopher) (they also share a liver) who decided the time was right to make a daring television show about a man who was once king, and his brother who became king, and the other man who advised them both, I tell ya you would not have seen it 20 years ago.
In retrospect I really should have gotten some other hobbies.
Me trying to extract a new interest from my own brain.
LET’S DO THE LAST EVER POWER RANKING, YEEEEHHAWWWWW!!!!!!!
—
Winners
Sansa (she won)
“I told you cowards I looked good in hats.”
Bran (10 points)
Maybe that season when he wasn’t on the show he was doing management training.
“It’s actually very easy to get a promotion, ladies.”
“If you want it badly enough.”
Bran the Broken, a man who proves that you cannot choose your own nickname no matter how much you want to, is the king of Westeros.
Haha. (“are you fucking kidding me” – Meera Reed, somewhere.)
It all started with a meeting in a dragon pit, which I guess was about Tyrion being executed? I don’t care, don’t tell me. Everyone was there! Arya, Sansa and Bran! Yara Greyjoy! Robin Arryn! Gendry! This guy!
He got a lot out of it.
The meeting was initially tense, as Jon Snow was locked in a basement somewhere. Davos was like, “My lords and ladies, I must first announce that I’m still here”.
“My lords and ladies at this Degrassi Next Gen council, stop squabbling so.”
“Why yes, I am still alive, thank you for asking.”
“I’m so excited that we’re all together again, I’m literally crying right now.”
Sansa is like, “Hello everyone, I know that I look amazing, thank you, where is my beloved sort of brother Jon?” and Grey Worm is extremely, “Ah he murdered our Queen, and I take issue with that????”
Yara is like, “Yes I also take issue with that” to which Arya responds with gentle diploma-
“I will murder you right now,” Arya says.
“I will fuck you up, get my brother’s name out of your mouth.”
“…”
“Maybe I’ll just never talk again, just in case.”
Tyrion — a man in chains, who is in a meeting about his own execution — somehow has the floor and starts telling everyone what they should do.
Entranced by the sight of a bearded man bossing them around, everyone listens with rapt attention when he explains that none of them have any power and only the king gets to decide if Jon Snow should die.
Do you know how easy it is to elect a king? Well guess what, it’s easy, you just say it and it’s true. Someone rises to nominate themselves… IT’S EDMURE TULLY, BITCH!
“remember me, everyone.”
“remember HBO’s The Red Wedding.”
Shockingly, this positive campaign platform does not work well for Edmure Tully.
Edmure is like, “Everyone, I think we can all agree that the right choice is moi, a war veteran, a cad, a senior lord, yes I WILL accept the role of-”
“Uncle, please sit,” says Sansa.
It’s the most savage and humiliating thing to have ever happened in King’s Landing, a place where people also sometimes get their heads cut off, aka the most embarrassing thing that can happen to you.
“I KING.”
“You’re humiliating yourself, I actually can’t even open my eyes fully because it hurts to look at you.”
“Is she talking to me.”
“I’m going to walk slowly back to my chair in case she is not talking to me, a cool backwards walk, I don’t think she was talking to me though.”
“Was she was talking to me.”
Tyrion, still in chains and in charge of the meeting (being a man must be WILD) is like, “Hey actually, I have been thinking for a few weeks and the king should be the person with the greatest story, yes, it makes sense, take it away Bran.”
“We can all agree that no-one has a better story than Bran.”
“I -”
Sansa is like, “He doesn’t want it, his dick doesn’t work and he’s basically an impolite computer?” to which Tyrion says, “Yes, that’s why he’ll be perfect, I will be taking no questions at this time”.
Tyrion (the prisoner) decides on a new election system and everyone agrees that yes, Bran is king. Bran is absolutely beside himself.
Sansa is only a soft yes though: she still wants the north to be independent (no-one else cares about being independent because they’re all excited that Bran is their king, somehow). Bran agrees because Starks Rule and also, who cares.
“My argument against me being ruled by you is that I don’t want to do it.”
“Okay.”
“Wow it’s so easy to get these dumb idiots to do whatever I say, what should I ask for next.”
“I am longing to be rid of you all.”
“AM I GOING TO GET TO CUT ANYONE’S THROAT TODAY, OR?”
It’s going to be so handy having a king that has seen every sexual act to have ever happened in history.
“My first order of business is that you bitches shut the fuck up, thank you, now who wants to hear about all the times their mother had sex.”
Brienne (8 points)
Brienne finally got what she wanted: she is a knight and the boss of the Kingsguard, and is writing down her legacy — oh no wait, she’s just writing down all the good things her ex-boyfriend did in his life.
[The Most Profoundly Dirty Porn.]
Tyrion (7 points)
Quite a rollercoaster for old Tyrion! He began the episode with his customary walk through the battlefield of corpses, corpses that he frowns at like “fml, I am SO surprised this happened” which, okay.
He then spends some time checking the place where he thinks that Jaime and Cersei likely died (spoiler: they died) and checking out his old house.
“A lot more natural light than I remember.”
He makes it back in time for the special assembly.
Dany, who somehow has about 50 billion soldiers left (wow, it really is a fantasy story) addresses the troops. “You know what, you guys did fantastic, you really did,” she says. “Yay!” the men say, pushing each other out of the way a bit because there are too many of them to fit into this tiny kingdom.
“Yay!”
“GhhFfYGBHHasfsT!” [Dragon for ‘Yay!’]
“why isn’t she mentioning me by name, that hurts my feelings I must admit.”
Dany is like, “Grey Worm you’re the master of war, you’re welcome” and Grey Worm nods which means “Thank you for finally giving me a desk job”.
Since, allegedly, Tyrion is a nice guy and Dany is a walking vial of poison, we know that Dany needs to be stopped. Tyrion decides to teach her a lesson by quitting his job. She is enraged that he has quit his job.
“You are required to give at least two weeks notice, I cannot believe you would do this to me.”
Having committed the brave act of throwing a badge down the stairs after he was complicit in the murder of about 80,000 people, Tyrion is imprisoned. In the past, he was extremely ‘who is this fucker’ about all of the men who wanted to betray Dany but then it turned out to be him, he was the fucker.
Luckily, Jon Snow is allowed to visit him because visiting people is harmless, what’s the worst that visiting a treasonous prisoner can do?
Tyrion: “I think you should kill Dany.”
Jon Snow: “Okay.”
Oh.
“I cannot believe you would ask me to kill my Queen, okay I’ll do it.”
“That was actually too easy, maybe I should have also asked him to bring me some Digestives, or to free me.”
“Wait, I’ve already forgotten what you’ve asked me to do.”
Jon makes a lot of “owwww ouchhh my tummy” faces, but it’s not that he has a sore tummy, it’s that he remembers that he must kill Dany.
Tyrion is like, “Look, I love her too, no big deal, no it just hasn’t come up until now, Dany is evil, we’ve all seen the behind-the-scenes featurette, just do it”. So, Jon… does it. And at then end, Tyrion is once again Hand of the King and is engaging in some banter with some secondary characters.
Sam: “Here is a book called, A Song of Ice and Fire!”
Tyrion: “Am I in it?”
Sam: “No.”
Bronn: [Something pornographic.]
Brienne: [Honour.]
Tyrion: “HELLO KING BRAN, OUR BELOVED KING, MAY YOUR REIGN-”
Bran: “Whatever.”
Is this what The Big Bang Theory is like
“Bazinga.”
Arya (6 points)
“Weeeee.”
Losers
Sam (4 points)
Don’t you hate it when you try to invent democracy and then everyone laughs and is like, “Sure sure sure sure sure alright alright alright alright, maybe my HORSE can vote also????”.
“Maybe everyone should decide on the king, not just Tyrion.”
“HAHAHAHAHAAHAH.”
“Smdh I am so ahead of my time, do these people know I have had sex not once but twice.”
Dany (1 point, because I’m polite)
From the get go, it seemed like Dany was doomed. Firstly, I have never seen anyone (sober) walk as slowly towards their girlfriend as Jon did.
“Almost there.”
“Getting there.”
“Maybe if I walk very slow, I will somehow walk backwards into Season 6.”
I can’t figure out what the show is trying to tell us
Poor Dany. All she wanted is to be considered a social success in court. All she wanted was to be rich and aimless and lie in fields and stare at the sun and be carried everywhere by recently freed slaves and walk into large flames just so everyone applauds.
(She also killed a lot of people!)
“Urgh, having a job is so boring.”
Dany arrives at her castle (“Could do with a bit of a vacuum,” she says to no-one) and walks very slowly towards the throne, as all people do with the things they really want.
“Hey Jon, do you like my new chair?” she says, sweetly. “Why are you slaughtering prisoners of war and burning children,” says Jon.
“ESQUEEZE ME!” says Dany.
“I mean, you really are a clown.”
“I cannot believe you choose THIS, my SPECIAL DAY, to talk about those children I burned.”
“You REALLY are the most tiresome nephew I have ever encountered.”
Dany is like, “Can you stop being an idiot for like, five minutes?” and Jon is like, “You know what, I can’t” because you can’t change the way people are born.
Jon kills Dany and it’s actually very brutal and terrible.
Drogon, a known republican, melts the chair in retaliation. “You smooth rodent bitches are crazy,” he says, but with fire.
“Honestly? I want to ruin your career now.”
Maybe he thought the pointy chair did it.
Welcome to cancel culture, baby.
Death Count: one maybe, can’t remember
RIP Dany, I know you are just a fictional character but I REALLY like Emilia Clarke so this was tough!!!
Emilia Clarke and a fan.
WTF, Who Knows
Jon
Ah, Jon. You knew from the start that you were destined to kill the Queen.
You thought about pretending to be asleep until it was all over or coughing heaps so everyone was like, “hey Jon, what’s wrong” and you say “a disease” and they say “yeuchhh!” and then you could hide in bed for the next 50 years. But you were the only one with a sword, so… !
To repent, you grew a terrible ‘second album beard’ in jail.
“I can’t believe we’re not getting radio play.”
Tyrion and Jon suddenly have an intimate and intense relationship, the type of relationship where one friend can lightly suggest that another friend kills his aunt and then the friend just does it.
It’s sort of like thinking that you have a rare connection just because you’re experiencing something simultaneously, like dancing to ‘Blue Monday’ at 3am in a field, but absolutely everyone likes listening to New Order in the dark, sorry loser.
Anyway, as Tyrion said, banishing Jon to The Wall was the perfect compromise because everyone felt bad about it, and nothing sums up Jon Snow’s general arc more than that.
So that was it! He decided to to go back to his old hair. He had a touching farewell with all the Starks. On the shores of the sea comes the end of our fellowship!
“Hey, just so you know Sansa, no hard feelings that you stole my kingdom.”
“I didn’t say sorry for that.”
“Ok.
“Hey Arya, come visit me anytime.”
“I’m going west, where maps stop.”
“That sounds really bad, Arya.”
“Yeah.”
“Bran?”
“Yes?”
“Seeya.”
And so Jon returns to Castle Black to hang out with his last single friend, Tormund.
It’s kind of like if Monica had kicked Chandler out and Chandler had to move back in with Joey. They lead the Wildlings out beyond The Wall, perhaps to make a new life there. Does it matter that Jon didn’t choose this, but was sent there, so we never truly know what he wants: no!
You ask too many questions.
Anyway, he had another relationship he had to mend.
“Oh, you’re back are you.”
“I hope you notice that I am currently missing an ear, on account of your furless dog wars, I hope you’re enjoying your large kennel, smdh.”
“Where did you even go, why is your curly top fur the old way again.”
“smh, I can’t stand mad at you, you’re so helpless and pathetic, your snout is so smol.”
Then, Jon rides off into the sunset chilly wilderness, once again doing exactly what he’s told :)
“Think I’m ready for my next fling actually, hey ladies you heard of the Lord’s Kiss.”
So, that’s it! My watch has ended! Thank you for reading this dumb thing! Thank you for watching it with me! <3
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Sinead Stubbins is a writer from Melbourne who has done stuff for Vulture, The AV Club, Pitchfork, Vice, frankie and Elle. She tweets about Drake, Gilmore Girls and cheeseburgers at @sineadstubbins.