Warning – spoilers! Game Of Thrones review: The final episode

Cometh the hour, cometh the… well, cometh the Three-Eyed Raven, apparently.

Yes, ’tis Bran Stark (Your Grace, Bran The Broken now, FYI) who the people of Westeros have bent the knee for, because all that malarkey about Jon Snow being the rightful heir – you know, the point that this story had been building up to for years?

Yeah, that never really mattered. No biggie.

After 73 episodes, hundreds of awards and hundreds of thousands of bloody deaths, the Game Of Thrones has been won, sort of, ending in bittersweet style with a finale that, like the rest of the season before it, will no doubt divide fans.

We all knew the end was never going to be easy. It was never going to satisfy everyone. So many threads to tie up, so many beloved characters to serve, so much that fans really, really cared about.

This final series has split opinion like no other; more than a million people had signed a petition calling for it to be remade before the last episode aired. This ending likely won’t have kept numbers at a plateau.

It started promisingly, with stunning shots of Tyrion walking through the smouldering ashes of King’s Landing, charred body upon charred body surrounding him.

We then saw Queen Daenerys, walking out to her people as Drogon’s wings unfolded in beautiful symmetry behind her.

“Blood of my blood! You have given me the Seven Kingdoms!” she shouted in a speech that once would have been rousing but after last week’s antics was chilling to the bone.

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At that point, it felt like anything could happen.

Then – spoiler klaxon – we had the shock death that wasn’t a shock death, because if there’s one thing that you can predict with Game Of Thrones, it’s a shock death.

But still: Jon killed Daenerys, as many had predicted, but the timing and execution really did come out of the blue.

Just when you thought our bumbling hero was still going to stand by his queen, despite her human fireworks, he only went and stabbed her in the heart as he snogged her.

No fanfare, no stand-off, no apologies, no goodbyes. Done, and all in the first half an hour. Sorry for ever doubting you, Jon Snow.

So Dany is dead, Bran is King. As we prepare to leave Westeros behind and return to the real world, here are the main talking points from the last ever episode of Game Of Thrones.

All hail Bran The Broken

After Dany’s death, it all got almost democratic and her successor was chosen by the people left standing. Well, the important people left standing. And all the important people apart from Jon, that is, as he had been imprisoned for murder.

This is where things felt a bit odd. It wasn’t so much the choice of Bran as King that felt slightly out of step – those Three-Eyed Raven powers might come in handy, after all – but the way it happened, the fact that Jon’s true lineage never even came up.

What happened to Varys’ letters revealing the secret? Why didn’t Sansa or Arya say anything? Or Tyrion, or Sam Tarly for that matter?

This was no secret anymore, half the people there knew. Jon had always made it clear he didn’t want the throne, but it always felt like it would be his to give away.

Jon is well-meaning but would have made a rubbish king, any fool could see that, but it feels strange that Bran was chosen so quickly and the matter wasn’t even discussed. Ah well. Everyone seemed fine with it.

Bye, Drogon; bye, Iron Throne

In the end, the Iron Throne was gone, melted by dragon fire as Drogon mourned the death of the woman who raised him.

Interestingly, the dragon didn’t try to burn Jon, keeping his fury solely for the throne, as if acknowledging the fact that it was the hunger for power that killed her. And was that a bow to Jon, who is of course also Targaryen, we saw?

He then took off, flying away with Dany’s lifeless body. It was the perfect way for the Mother Of Dragons to bow out.

Jon returned to the Night’s Watch

So Jon was sent way up North, saying goodbye to his Stark sisters/cousins Arya and Sansa and reuniting with Tormund and Ghost. Ghost! That was a nice touch.

Not sure what the Night’s Watch will actually be doing, seeing as the White Walkers are no more, but at least he’s got something to take his mind off the fact he killed his lover/aunt.

Sansa, Queen Of The North, and the Starks are split

The North remains independent, which means Sansa gets to be queen of it. Hurrah!

I can’t pretend I’m not slightly sad not to see the elder Stark sister taking over the business of the entire Seven Kingdoms. She would have been great, especially with Arya by her side… hang on, Arya isn’t hanging around.

She’s off to explore what’s west of Westeros, and this is goodbye. After letting go of her need for vengeance in The Bells, it’s a new non-murdering start for our favourite assassin.

Thank you for everything, Stark sisters. You were the best of them.

Jaime and Cersei are definitely dead

We watched them clinging to each other as the Red Keep fell in the penultimate episode, but with no sign of bodies there were many who believed they might have survived (especially those who wanted a gorier ending for Cersei).

But here, we saw them, their bodies curled around each other, leaving the world together as they entered it. It was an emotional scene, Tyrion in tears as he found the bodies of his brother and sister in the rubble.

It ends with a book

The story has been committed to paper in a book called, you’ve guessed it, A Song Of Ice And Fire. And Tyrion isn’t even mentioned! The cheek of it!

But we’ve done it, we’ve made it to the end. The finale had some great moments, some not so great. It wasn’t perfect, but how could it be?

One thing we can hope for. With Arya the explorer heading off to uncharted lands, there’s surely a spin-off series waiting with her name on it.

(c) Sky News 2019: Warning – spoilers! Game Of Thrones review: The final episode