Warning: Contains Spoilers
First of all, I feel like I need to warn you that there are major spoilers in this article. That being said, you probably already know that if you’ve read the headline.
So yeah, apologies if you haven’t watched it yet. For those of you who have watched the last ever Game of Thrones episode, you’ll be aware that not everyone’s happy with the way things ended up.
Mostly because (spoiler alert) Bran Stark – of all people – became the ruler of the Six Kingdoms. Bran Stark, as though that made any sense at all. Honestly, I’m still trying to get my head around it.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had all been an elaborate prank by HBO to be quite honest with you. Seriously, it would’ve been more realistic if the cast would’ve popped up like ‘surpriiiiise!’ immediately after Bran got made king and then they started playing the actual episode.
It seems I’m not the only one who thought they were being pranked either, as Bran himself (well, the actor Isaac Hempstead-Wright) has admitted he didn’t believe what he was reading when he saw the script.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actor said:
When I got to the [Dragonpit scene] in the last episode and they’re like, ‘What about Bran?’ I had to get up and pace around the room.
I genuinely thought it was a joke script and that [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] sent to everyone a script with their own character ends up on the Iron Throne.
‘Yeah, good one guys. Oh s—, it’s actually real?’
Regardless, Hempstead-Wright says he’s happy with the ending – although he would have liked to get a ‘good death scene with an exploding head or something.’
The 20-year-old also recognises that despite his happiness at being crowned king, he’s aware there’s a good chance not everyone else will be happy.
Speaking to the publication, he said:
Not everyone will be happy. It’s so difficult to finish a series as popular as this without pissing some people off. I don’t think anybody will think it’s predictable and that’s as much as you can hope for.
People are going to be angry. There’s going to be a lot of broken hearts. It’s ‘bittersweet,’ exactly as [saga author] George R.R. Martin intended. It’s a fitting conclusion to this epic saga.
And hey, even though we won’t get to see Bran’s rule of the Six Kingdoms because the show’s ended for good (sob), Hempstead-Wright is confident he’d be ‘a really good king’.
Hopefully that means no more death and destruction, then. We’ve definitely had enough of that for the time being.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).