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That’s how it started, that’s how it will end. That’s why it’s a Game of Thrones.
As writers, we work with what we have. Looking at the myriad possibilities, it makes sense to have Gendry, the true heir to the Iron Throne as Robert Baratheon’s bastard (certainly more of a claim than Jon Snow who is one king back from that) and Arya, who doesn’t want to be a lady, but has experienced the full gamut of the kingdoms in her travels, becoming the Hand.
The reason GOT can’t wrap up as well as, say, Breaking Bad, is that Breaking Bad had a clear lead character: Walter White. One of my favorite series endings was , but, again, a clear protagonist. People still argue whether Tony Soprano was killed- duh. Yes!
GOT never had a clear protagonist. The character with the most screen time has been Tyrion who has been getting dumber as time goes on. He’s not the protagonist, though. In essence, the throne is.
The first season of GOT I could barely tell people apart. Especially the Stark brothers. It’s a muddle of characters and subplots and the writers are catching hell from fans with their magical transports of people all over the kingdom while trying to wrap things up. I’ve run into that logistical problem- when I simply can’t make characters be where I want them to be when I want them to be there given the limitations of time and space. In a book it’s deadly because readers will go back and re-read and say “Hey!” It’s getting that way in film with DVRs and…
