Recap: New monarch revealed in Game of Thrones series finale

The game of thrones has finally been won, with the HBO smash hit sensationally concluding with plenty of controversy after taking fans on an eight-year fantasy journey. But did the finale satisfy you? HAVE YOUR SAY

WARNING: GoT FINALE SPOILERS AHEAD

Daenerys Targaryen looks over the ruined city of King's Landing. Picture: HBO

Stabbings, betrayal, busted seats, backroom deals, the death of legends, injustice and triumph.

The final episode of Game of Thrones may seem a natural extension of the Australian election campaign.

As eight seasons of violence, nudity and wondering when Tyrion gets killed finally come to a close, the embattled writers of this runaway TV success chuck out all their tricks in an unexpected ending.

— Did the series finale do GoT justice? Have your say in the comments below

LIKE THE SHORTEN CAMP ON ELECTION NIGHT

Tyrion walks among the charred remains, grievous injuries and utter desolation of Labor Party HQ.

I mean King’s Landing.

As he indicates he’s going alone into the heart of the city, vengeful Greyworm has a bunch of Lannister soldier prisoners lined up for execution.

Jon Snow, abhorred by the massacre of civilians, confronts him.

Threatened with death by unsullied soldiers, he instead says he’ll talk to the Queen and Greyworm slits the prisoners’ throats.

King’s Landing or Labor Party HQ? Picture: HBO

Meanwhile the Dothraki boys are really getting rowdy.

As they whoop wildly in the forecourt of the half-destroyed centre of King’s Landing, now adorned with an unmissable Targaryen banner, and as Drogon yells his guts up smugly while performing a flyover akin to the Grand Prix, Dany emerges before her troops and lays out her vision for a new Westeros.

How good was that liberation of King’s Landing? Wouldn’t it be great if we liberated every single town and city in Westeros and freed every single man, woman and child with the cleansing fire of the dragon?

Tyrion does not approve. Picture: HBO

Tyrion doesn’t agree. He approaches Dany and piffs his badge down the steps, admonishing her for burning the city, even if he did betray her for freeing his brother, now heartbroken after finding Jaime and Cersei crushed in the dragon skull showroom.

After a moment of introspection, Dany sees the wrongness of her ways and forgives Tyrion.

Kidding, she has him arrested pending execution because she’s mad.

When Jon visits Tyrion in his cell, a banjo duel of wisdom ensues. Love is more powerful than reason. Love is the end of duty. Sometimes duty is the end of love.

With his parting word, Tyrion tells Jon he can make a choice between Dany’s insane rule or a peaceful future for the kingdom.

LADY KILLERS

Jon finds Dany in the demolished Throne Room, touching the sword chair itself and ranting about how she was a little girl who couldn’t count to 20 and now she’s Queen and killing civilians is fine.

Jon challenges her decision to torch King’s Landing and she embraces him, imploring him to be with her, to make a better world.

He declares she is his Queen, now and always.

He also stabs her to death.

Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains and Bleacher of Hair, is dead.

She never got to sit on the throne.

Of course, killing a dragon’s mother is known to cause a bit of tension with the dragon.

Jon braces for fiery doom as Drogon nuzzles Dany’s corpse, but eventually the savvy reptile takes its anger out on the throne itself, melting it to oblivion before scooping up Dany’s body and flying off over the sea.

Fans wouldn’t have seen this one coming.

THE POLLS WERE WRONG

The next thing we know, Tyrion is taken from his cell to the amphitheatre where nobles from around the continent, including a full set of Starks, Gendry who’s a Lord now, Davos for some reason, the husband from the red wedding and Sam, are all sitting in council.

It’s been a few weeks, they reveal, since Dany’s death and Jon Snow is also being held captive.

That’s a big chunk missing, in which Snow must have been a hell of a bargainer not to be stabbed like last time.

Now, apparently, it’s time to just pick a new monarch.

Edmure Tully, known for being the groom at a wedding so violent the likes of it has been seen nowhere but Westeros and Dandenong, gets to his feet to start his pitch.

His niece Sansa suggests he give it a rest.

It is briefly suggested by Sam that a democracy should be established and that’s knocked on the head quickly.

That’s when a self-deprecating Tyrion comes up with a solution while coming perilously close to breaking the fourth wall.

The polls were wrong. Picture: HBO

It’s all about a good story and there’s no story better than Bran Stark, The Broken.

He lost the ability to walk, so learned how to fly.

The others get around it, except Sansa who wants her own kingdom, and as Bran ascends as new king you can hear the cries of a million Westeros bookies who’d already paid out on Jon Snow.

The polls were wrong, the commentators were wrong, the betting markets were wrong.

The dead giveaway might have been Bran Stark’s actor Isaac Hempstead Wright appearing at the start of the episode for Showcase, telling everyone to enjoy the finale. At the time it seemed odd. Not now.

For Bran, this is the sweetest victory of all, and he suggests he knew it was coming all along.

What a player.

Now ruler of the newly redistributed Six Kingdoms, Bran chooses the still-somehow-bloody-alive Tyrion as his Hand, angering Greyworm.

The matter of the captive Jon Snow remains a sticking point.

What a long way she’s come. All hail Queen of the North.

HIS WATCH HAS STARTED

After the battle against the dead, Giantsbane told Jon, “You belong in the North. The real North”.

At that stage the return of the North’s favourite bastard to the wall seemed like a long shot, since he was presumed to end up on the Iron Throne or killed by whoever occupied it.

Now, as fate would have it, a messy factional compromise deal, the likes of which are being thrashed out right now in a centre-left party closer to home, sees Snow on his way back to the Night’s Watch and Castle Black.

Greyworm, who is yet to fully let go of his anger, packs up his crew and sails for Naath.

Arya the Explorer is off to explore new lands.

MORE: GOT STAR REFUSED TO APPEAR IN SCENES WITH EX

WILD FAN THEORIES ON GOT FINALE

Arya, farewelling Jon at the dockside, says she’s heading west of Westeros where the maps end.

She eventually sails off under the Stark banner, completing a character arc of gritted determination, anger and, ultimately, the freedom of forgiveness.

Sansa, who is probably now telling all her friends that Dany wasn’t that bad, returns to Winterfell where she is crowned Queen in the North.

Tyrion convenes King Bran’s new council, which includes Brienne, Davos (Minister for Smuggling, I guess), Sam and, for one reason or another, Bronn, who was last seen backing out of Winterfell with a crossbow and a smug grin.

Brienne tearfully writes the tale of Jaime in a surviving Lannister history book, then fittingly slams it shut.

And Jon Snow is right back where he started.

THE BIG GoT QUESTIONS LEFT UNANSWERED

Jon returns to Castle Black where he’s greeted by Giantsbane and goes some way to making up with his dire wolf Ghost, and the GoT audience at large, but hacking into the CGI budget for a good old pat.

The Wildlings return north of the wall and, it is suggested, so does Jon, perhaps never to return.

— Did the series finale do GoT justice? Have your say in the comments below

The North is left free of the tyranny of the walkers and the audience is left forever free from Game of Thrones spoilers.

Unless the petition to remake season eight gets serious attention, that’s the end.

That was Game of Thrones.

What a hoot.