Talk to me about your reaction when you read the script for your final episode
Ummm
oh, I... I was
Errr... I was really
Pleased with... that
[voiceover from review excerpt] I hate Dumb and Dumber the producers and writers of the show. I have never liked them
They are the most overrated,
egotistical, sorry excuses for talent in Hollywood
[Think Story] as of the making of this video, the petition to rewrite season 8 is approaching a
Staggering one-and-a-half million signatures that's like more than the petition to end world hunger, but it's one thing to hate the season
It's another to claim you could have written it better
So before you go ahead and automatically dislike this video hear me out if you don't like what I'm putting down fair enough
But the whole reason I'm making this video is because I love this show so much and felt the characters deserved a lot better
I'm splitting this video into two distinct halves
First my two major critiques of the season and two the rewrite
So if you're interested in just the rewrite portion
I've left the timestamp in the description below but keep in mind my critique of the season
Informs the rewrite a few ground rules before we begin this is going to be a broad overarching
Revision of some of the main tentpole moments not a scene-by-scene rewrite or else we'd be here all day
in fact
I'm leaving episodes 1 & 2
Relatively untouched opting to start with episode 3 where things started to go downhill for me and then onward to episode 4 where
things went completely off the rails while Daenery kind of forgot about the iron fleet and Euron's forces
And I'm also not going to magically add episodes or seasons
I want to give myself the same constraints the showrunners had
Even though the last 35 minutes of the final episode arguably could have been an entire season in and of itself
So I'm going to briefly go over what I believe the two major problems of this season were now I know there are literally
Hundreds of things to bitch about this season and I could do a video entirely just on that
But for the purposes of my rewrite
I'm gonna focus just on these two major points one the night King and two character arcs
The night king is the main antagonistic force that propels much of the narrative in the show
It's his presence that forces people like Danny and John to band together in order to save humanity if the night king is
Successful in his quest then. It doesn't matter who's on the Iron Throne
I argue that the night King is more important of a foe than
Cersei and there's more at stake should our heroes fail against him look all the way back at the very first scene in the very
First season it doesn't start with the death of Jon Arryn palace intrigue or something to do with the throne
It starts with the White Walkers. That's how important day in the night king arm
This is why the night king dying in Episode three was a major mistake
Not only were we denied an epic battle between Jon and the night king
Which was essentially promised to us with the end of hardhome
But all eight seasons of the show have been building up to this moment
Will they defeat the night king or not by having him die in episode three?
You lose eight seasons of that tension
The best analogy I can make is imagine if Frodo dropped the ring into Mount Doom and defeated Sauron halfway through the two
Towers the most climactic moment of the series should be continually built upon until it explodes near the final
10% of the show or film
take a look at this diagram which shows the
Traditional three-act structure of a movie the same applies for a TV series just in those instances it stretched out across episodes
This is where the defeat of the night king should have happened
Here is where it did
Keep this in mind when I go over my rewrite the second major critique
I have of the season are the character arcs mainly because many of them a didn't live up to their potential or B were
Disregarded entirely now that isn't to say some characters didn't receive proper arcs
I thought sir Jorah and Theon both received endings that made sense both narrative ly and emotionally
But then there are characters like John Danny and the one who had the most potential Jaime Lannister
Jaime had the most compelling arc over the eight seasons starting as an incestuous
child murderer who over the span of eight seasons learns the error of his ways and becomes
Yet in the show's final episodes he reverts back to his old self and his love for
Cersei takes over eight seasons of building this change within him even banging Brienne was thrown under the bus so he could die to a
Pile of falling rubble this unrealized potential of character arcs is something I want to address in the rewrite
So without further ado, this is how I would have written the final season of Game of Thrones
Okay enough of that we start with episode three the Battle of Winterfell
And for the most part this episode will play out much like it did in the real version
The combined forces of the unsullied are a key Northman and wildlings face off against the night king and is undead horde
Meanwhile Cersei the golden company and the iron fleet chill in King's Landing
Having reneged on their promise to help in the upcoming war but this episode will have one major
Difference that will completely change the episodes to come
The night king will be victorious and the remaining forces of Winterfell will be forced to retreat to King's Landing
Let's dig a little deeper how this would play out first. I wouldn't put Tyrion the women and children in the crypt
Yes, it's fun to have them in danger from the rising corpses of the stark family, but it's lazy writing
They are putting the thrill of having to dodge zombies above logic as Peter Dinklage says nobody thought of that
He's bringing all the dead people back to life and they put women and children in a crypt with all the dead people. So
Instead I'd move them to the main hall where later Tyrion and the others are confronted with the fact they will soon die
It's like the scene in the two towers when the battle looks lost and we see the pain of the women and children
embracing each other one final time
You can still have Taryn and Sansa holding hands than Tyrion picking up a blade ready to fight and even
Sansa ready to join him in their last hurrah
It's emotional visceral and gets the point across without mummies rising from the dead
Meanwhile, Danny and Jon would be taking on the night king with their dragons but as the battle intensifies
Jon has to split from Dany to help the soldiers below
not only that, but he'll have to decide between
Saving bran or fending off the zombie hordes about to break in and kill Tyrion and Sansa
but Theon who's with
And tells John to go he'll hold them off down there and John at Regal smashed into the side of the main hall just in
Time to save the women and children giving them the opportunity to escape through winter fells underground tunnels underground tunnels
which will have a
Spattering of undead for them to fend off but then we can get characters like Arya who would join them in providing much-needed
protection as they make their escape
Danny hearing Reagan's cries would muster enough strength to dismount the night King from
Viserion plunging him to the ground just like what happened in the
Original John would then make his way to the weirwood tree just in time to see a Theon fall to the night king this death
Would fuel an emotional John to attack and we finally get a sword battle between John and the night king. Trust me
It'll be epic but the making will prove too powerful for John eventually gaining the upper hand
Sword at their ready to kill him when bran suddenly wargs into Viserion breathing dragon fire all over the night king
Yes in my version bran actually uses his powers that actually helps them but the night king emerges from the fire much like he did
in the original
Unscathed by the flames and now holding a dragonglass spear
He slays Viserion which causes the largest and most epic disintegration
We've seen yet taking this brief moment of opportunity
John musters the strength for one last attack and stabs the night king with his dragonglass sword
But nothing happens the night king we find is impervious to dragonglass
It's a huge shock to John who is quickly picked up by the throat much like Arya was and when all seems lost for John
Danny swoops in on Drogo and knocks the night King about 20 feet away freeing John with the battle loss
She grabs, Jon and bran
Winterfell burning in the background as we see regal overrun and killed the episode would end with the risen dead Dothraki
Unsullied and all those who perished in a battle rising from the dead as the night King
Continues his conquest south as John looks to brand will find that bran is stuck in his war expand
They're unable to snap him out of it
We'll get to what he's actually doing it a bit what I like about this is that it keeps the tension of the night King
Attacks still at play while giving us a shocking new piece of information that dragonglass doesn't work against him
It raises the stakes for the next even bigger attack on
King's Landing if I'm gonna keep comparing this to Lord of the Rings episode 3 is the two towers and
Episode 5 is Return of the King episode 4 would be rewritten to deal with the fallout of the battle as the remaining survivors
hastily scramble to King's Landing
It's here that Cersei will have to decide whether or not to let them in and it's Jaime who?
Convinces her along with reports that Qyburn receives on the encroaching dead army
Cersei agrees to let them in she doesn't really have a choice here but on one condition
As long as Danny bends the knee publicly for all to see and with Cersei holding all the power here and Danny's army almost
Completely wiped out Dany agrees. She puts her people before herself
She sacrifices everything for the safety of her kin
Episode 5 just like the original would be an attack on King's Landing
But instead of it being a one-sided massacre
It would be an epic battle much like that of ministereth in Lord of the Rings
One of the things I disliked about the original was that it wasn't really a battle at all
The golden company didn't do anything John didn't do anything. I felt it had so much unrealized potential
So we're gonna try to fix that as the night king approaches his main forces line up along the outer walls
But the night king is smart and has a separate force along the water's edge
As the temperature drops the water around Euron's fleet starts to freeze allowing the White Walkers
Access to the port making the defending army have to defend from two fronts
Even worse is that we'll see Dothraki on undead horses
Undead unsullied and a bunch of undead Giants join the battle for the night King as well
But as the defenses of King's Landing begin to fall bran
Awakens from his dreamlike state as the three-eyed Raven he spent this time since the fall of Winterfell going back in time
Searching for clues that could reveal the Night Kings weakness and those clues lined the messages and symbols
we've seen going back to season 1 he notifies Dany and this could be shown through a series of
Flashbacks like it has been with bran in the past that the night King is linked to the children of the forest
Remember that the night King was created by them in a place called God's eye when he was tied up against the great weirwood tree
Bear with me as I go into a little bit of nerdy G ot
Lore here the grandeur a great weirwood tree
The heart of all the we're woods in Westeros and in my version is the source of the night Kings power
After all it created him. Why can't it destroy him as well?
Danny is told that if she destroys it
It may also have the added consequence of destroying every type of magic in the world destroying the grand weirwood tree would also kill
john
after all
The only reason John is still alive was that he was revived using magic by Melisandre
To make matters worse since bran was marked by the night king the night king now knows what they're up to and will likely
Himself be on his way to protect the tree Danny goes to John as the castle walls are crumbling and tells him what she has
To do and John being the understanding and compassionate soldier
Understands, but Danny is the one who's more torn here not because she'll lose John, but that shall lose the father to her child
Yes in my version Dany is pregnant upping the stakes about 10 notches
She flies off with drogon to the grand weirwood tree is the remaining forces of King's Landing
Fight on it's he or she's confronted by the knight King in an epic final showdown
The real Battle of Ice and Fire and the only thing standing before her in the tree is the night king himself
She confronts him and before he attacks
She yells
Decorous burning her the night king and the grand weirwood tree all together and as the tree burns so does the night Kings flesh?
She takes her sword and stabs the night King through the heart
Piercing him into the burning tree just like he was pierced in the heart by the children of the forest centuries ago
And this is all happening as Dany herself is being burned. But as we know she can withstand flames
She's just never had to endure flames of this strength before and as the night King is dying
So does John and the undead what I like about this particular?
Ending is that it makes the theory that the night king would die by dragon fire true
Just not in the way we envisioned it. It also ties in and brings back all those children of the forest symbols
We've seen throughout the seasons which in the current version turned out meant nothing at all
Nothing at all. Nothing
But where does that leave us with the other characters? We still have Cersei the mountain you're on and countless others
Don't worry. We can still have cleganebowl and you're on I'd have killed by the White Walkers, but then there's Cersei
Ah, yes, circe. Imagine this the battle is over. We follow Jamie on his way to Cersei
We're not sure if he's gonna kill her and that adds to the tension in the halls of King's Landing
Completely out of the blue ilaria sand emerges and stabs him in the chest
You'll remember ilaria was stuck in the dungeon and forced to watch her daughter's slowly be poisoned to death by the Lannisters
It was also the Lannisters responsible for her lover. Oberyn's death in season four
She's broken free either by an ally letting her out or garnering her escape through the destruction caused by the attack
But as Jaime clings to life, it's revealed. It isn't Jaime at all
It's Arya using Jaime's face as a mask to kill the Queen
Ilaria recoils in shock as Arya spits up blood don't worry
We'll see Arya survive and go off on her adventures
But I thought it would be a cool way to bring back her assassin training bring back ilaria and provide a fun twist
Then we have the showdown between the real Jaime and Cersei Cersei tells him that it's finally over
They've won the throne and the battle of the undead
Dany in the northern army have all but been destroyed and nothing stands in their way
But Cersei won't stop there. Now. The battle is over. She says she must send a signal a decisive blow
She calls for the murder of anyone who was loyal to Daenerys Jaime pleads on their behalf without them
They never would have survived. And besides is this the type of new world?
They want their child to grow up in and it's here Cersei divulges there never was a baby
It was all part of playing the game to simultaneously keep him and Euron in check
She tells him to go ahead and kill them all a throwback to Aerys Targaryen the Mad King when he wanted the city to burn
And it's here
Jaime completes his arc plunging his sword into Cersei and killing her for good the
Kingslayer is now also the queen Slayer Danny arrives back and rushes to Jon laying by his side
But it's too late
King's Landing is in ruins with no one to rule a crowd has formed around her in the dead body of Jon
Tyrion tells, the by standards of Jon's heritage and how Dany now with Jon's child makes her the rightful heir to the throne
Tyrion kneels before his queen and hundreds of men and women around kneel well
She makes her way to the throne and sits as we cut to black
But just because we can make it a little more emotional will do something Game of Thrones hasn't done before
Hey, I can break the rules right let's flash forward five years
Daenerys visits the crypts of Winterfell and by the way Winterfell has been rebuilt with Sansa as
protector of the north in the crypts Jon's body has been placed next to edit and Catelyn and who happens to come rushing through but
Their son we can even throw in ghosts in here, too
She puts her hand on the tomb and walks away calling for her son saying come along John
I like this because it does away with the whole powers of Westeros. Choosing the new king
Not to mention bran becoming King which I thought was problematic
We also have more fulfilling character arcs for John Danny and Jamie now I couldn't get to all the characters
but I invite you to leave your comments below on what you would have liked to have seen this season for me this ending gives
Me what I want it's more traditional
Heightens the stakes of the night King and provides more fulfilling arcs for many of her beloved characters
If you like this video
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