Warning: Contains Spoilers
And so, after the final episode of the final series of Game of Thrones, there must come the questions, the loose ends and the ‘what ifs’ to keep us all thinking until the next gripping TV show comes around.
Heads up: spoilers incoming…
By the end of the episode, we’d seen Jon Snow permanently break ties with the one person he said he loved, and be banished back to the Wall, away from his loyal Stark siblings (cousins?).
We then saw him walk off even further into the north, beyond the wall to… well, who knows. Perhaps to be free for a while with the wildlings, to find himself another Ygritte, or perhaps he was just having a mosey to make sure there definitely weren’t any White Walkers left.
Either way, as Jon returned to Castle Black, we finally got the reunion we were really waiting for – Jon and his direwolf Ghost.
Many viewers thought Jon’s loyal, massive wolf got a bit short-changed when Jon went south to King’s Landing. At the end of the fourth episode, The Last of the Starks, Jon simply tells Tormund Giantsbane to look after Ghost, without so much as a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ear goodbye. There was, however, an explanation for this, albeit a more technical, less emotional one.
Thankfully however, in The Iron Throne – despite all the lingering questions, deaths and injustices – the show redeemed itself slightly by reuniting Jon and Ghost, and the pair enjoyed a lovely headscratch. Smiles all round. The showrunners obviously had some cash leftover and so could budget in some more CGI wolf time.
Naturally, most fans were very happy about this:
Though some fans weren’t so happy:
Oh yeah, and if you’re wondering why Ghost only had one ear – remember the Battle of Winterfell? I know it was a few weeks ago now, but we lost a lot of people, and Ghost an ear! Luckily the vets in the north stitched him up a treat.
He may not have the throne (he never wanted it), he may not have his queen, his siblings, his Ygritte or his dignity, but at least he’s got his direwolf.
To paraphrase T.S. Eliot – this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper… from Ghost the direwolf.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.