Game of Thrones Co-Creators Reportedly Never Considered Alternate Endings

Game of Thrones was always going to end the way it did. According to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, Game of Thrones creators DB Weiss and David Benioff have known how the show would end and never considered any other ending. “They are very smart, very bright, very methodical,” Bloys tells Deadline. “They’ve had this in their heads for a long time. So there weren’t big debates about, should it end this way or not end this way, this is what they had planned.” It seems the destruction of King’s Landing, Jon’s betrayal of Daenerys, and Bran’s crowning as the new king of Westeros were inevitable.

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington expected the show’s ending to be divisive but thinks fans are in denial about Dany’s fate. “I think it’s going to divide,” Harington said. “But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”

He also admits he’s worried about how fans will interpret the show’s ending in regards to its treatment of its female characters. “One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who fall,” he says. “The justification is: Just because they’re women, why should they be the goodies? They’re the most interesting characters in the show. And that’s what Thrones has always done. You can’t just say the strong women are going to end up the good people. Dany is not a good person. It’s going to open up discussion but there’s nothing done in this show that isn’t truthful to the characters. And when have you ever seen a woman play a dictator?”

As for Jon Snow, it’s a tragic end. “This is the second woman he’s fallen in love with who dies in his arms and he cradles her in the same way,” Harington says. “That’s an awful thing. In some ways, Jon did the same thing to [his Wilding lover] Ygritte by training the boy who kills her. This destroys Jon to do this.”

Fans shared their feelings about the Game of Thrones finale via social media. They’re also freaked out about the plastic water bottle left in one of the shots in the episode. The conversation will likely continue all the way until the prequel series, set to film this summer, airs its first episode.

What did you think of the end of Game of Thrones? Are you looking forward to the upcoming prequel series? Tell us how you feel in the comments.