[Answer] How Would You Rate Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5, “The Bells”?

[Answer] How Would You Rate Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5, “The Bells”?

To sum it up: all men must die. Some deaths are weightier than Mount Tai; others are lighter than a feather. What I’d really like to do is interview the characters who managed to survive until Season 8, and ask them: if they had the choice, would they rather go back and die earlier in the story, in a way that felt more meaningful?

At the end of a legendary tale, every character dies. Only the Three-Eyed Raven remains, circling on and on with humanity’s memories.

But no matter how much we complain, in the end it comes from caring too much. The writers did their best to put a period on this story. Whether or not, like Ah Q, they drew the final stroke with a trembling hand and turned it into something misshapen like a melon seed, at least there is an ending. And surely even a flawed ending is better than a story that dies halfway through.

Besides, I’d like to think that if this ending can stir a sense of shame in old Mr. Martin and push him to hurry up and write the officially ordained ending himself—otherwise we’ll just assume the novels end the same way too—then that would count as a tremendous contribution.

And who knows, maybe there’s still another possibility: after Mr. Martin finally finishes the last two books, the story could continue to be adapted. Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, rolls his eyes, decides that this ending for the world is not quite right, and travels back to the point where the showrunners started making things up, changing the past and steering the story back onto a different course so it can be told all over again...