Game of Thrones Endgame

Saturday Stories

April 27, 2019

Game of Thrones Endgame

By Jonathan Aquino

I

In the second and most recent episode of the eighth and last season of Game of Thrones, I was happy to see Brienne of Tarth became a knight which she fully deserves. Yet my favorite scene is when Bran Stark and Jaime Lannister finally came face to face – their first time since Jaime pushed Bran out of a castle window in the first season eight years ago. Bran, who was then ten, loved to climb the castle walls, but in one of the rooms of their family home in Winterfell, he saw their guests Jaime and Cersei Lannister making out, which would have been a big scandal because they were brother and sister, and Cersei was married to King Robert Baratheon. So Bran was thrown out so nobody would know.

II

But Bran survived, and he became crippled, but he never told anyone. Since then, he had also become chosen as the new Three-Eyed Raven, a seer with clairvoyant powers whose mind can go through time and space. He can read the minds of others. He can also look into anywhere in the world, and that was how he knew that the Night's King and the countless army of the undead White Walkers have breached the Wall and are now marching towards them. And the only one who can stop the immortal Night's King is the powerful Three-Eyed Raven, so he has to kill Bran first.

III

Bran can also see into the past, and he found out that his brother Jon Snow is not the illegitimate son of their father Ned Stark. Jon's real father is Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of the overthrown King Aerys Targaryen. His real mother is Lyanna Stark, Ned's cousin and also of noble blood. And Jon's real name is Aegon Targaryen. Therefore, Jon is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms.

IV

I love the graphic novel by Daniel Abraham and Tommy Patterson based on the novel by George R.R. Martin, especially since I now know who really killed Jon Arryn, the first Hand of The King of Robert Baratheon who had seized the throne from Aerys Targaryen. After Arryn died, Robert went to Winterfell to ask his close friend Ned Stark to take the position of royal adviser and become the second most powerful man in the realm. Robert loved Lyanna, Ned's cousin who had died while giving birth, and Robert rebelled when Rhaegar abducted Lyanna. But it was all a lie – Rhaegar and Lyanna loved each other. They were married in secret – which Bran had also seen. Lyanna died giving birth, and on her deathbed, she made Ned vow to protect the child from Robert, and so Ned raised the boy as his own. As for Daenerys Targaryen, a.k.a. Khaleesi, a.k.a. The Mother of Dragons, she was Rhaegar's sister, but she was not the next in line, and the crown has to go to the male heir first. Jon is her nephew, but they didn't know that when they had sex in season seven.

Photo courtesy of Amazon