Game of Thrones is still over. For fans, it means a year of patience, anticipation, outlandish theories; But it may also be an opportunity to dive back into previous seasons, the end of the series starting to point the tip of its nose. In any case, a return to episode 10 is necessary. Our review of the season 6 finale.
Winter is here, Winter has come, announces Sansa to Jon Snow, perched on top of the walls of Winterfell that they recovered in the previous episode. "Father promised us," he replies. Indeed, for five years, Game of Thrones has been buzzing in the anxious expectation of the winter that is coming, as prophetically announced from the first episodes of the series. And it's finally here. While the showrunner couple had recently stated that they were hoping for about eight seasons to conclude the plot of the Seven Kingdoms, season 6 leaves the impression that this is the beginning of the end, with some story arcs culminating.
This feeling lies in the fact that the "good" manage, as rarely, to get by. The Starks, who suffer the worst horrors since the beginning of the series, finally regain the hair of the beast. It is enough to observe Sansa and Jon revive themselves within the walls of Winterfell to understand that they are not ready to leave, and to see the intensity with which the lords of the North swear an oath to Jon Snow in the last minutes of the episode, after the clamors of Lyanna Mormont in his favor; Undoubtedly the new heroine of the series.
And while Sansa is offered the title of Lord of Winterfell by her brother, who admits that he could never have defeated the Boltons without her, the latter finally leaves behind this bastard status that stuck to his skin. Sansa tells him that he is a Stark to her, and the little heroine she doesn't care about his origins, her father 's blood flowing in her veins… Or not.
Among the most influential fan theories, the one that specifically concerns Jon Snow's parents, finds confirmation in the episode. R+L=J. Rhaegar Targaryen + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow. Jon is therefore a Targaryen, at least in part, and he is only the nephew of Ned Stark, as Bran discovers in his final vision. This also makes him Daenerys' nephew, Rhaegar was her older brother. Everything is connected, and the title of the original novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, resonates here. What if Jon, the union of fire and ice, was really Azor Ahai? Anyway, this one embraces once and for all his destiny as a hero.
Arya , meanwhile, seems to have returned to her primary quest: to avenge her family. We discover her as a faceless, slit the throat of Walder Frey, one of the nominees on her list. Who will be next? And will we finally be able to see Arya reunite with her sister and brothers in the next season? Each member of the Stark family, in this season, will have found their way, will definitely have become someone, forged between resilience and a deep vindictive desire. The circle is complete.
On the other side of Westeros, Cersei too seems to have become as she was known in her early days: calculating, ruthless, yet still terribly human and touching. While a year before she paraded naked in the streets of King's Landing under the humiliating gaze of the population, she now sits on the Iron Throne (did she foresee it?), proud, and stronger than ever. Indeed, the Greek fires previously mentioned by Tyrion were not unknown either to his sister who uses them to end the reign of the High Sparrow and his abusive and fanatical septons, killing Loras and Margaery Tyrell at the same time; the latter that we will deeply regret.
In a third time, it is Daenerys herself who achieves her goals, completing (almost) her return to Westeros, the Greyjoy children and the Dothraki at her side, without counting on Varys, who negotiates alliances with the bereaved Olenna Tyrell and the Martell of Dorne. The last sequence, which exposes the exponential Targaryenne fleet heading towards King's Landing, bodes well for Daenerys, who may well dislodge the Lannisters and recover the throne she is owed. Is an alliance with the Starks possible, knowing that they have under their flag all the houses of the North, and that a confrontation between Stark and Targaryen seems difficult to envisage? In any case, Cersei will probably quickly become disillusioned. The circle is (again) closed.
The last two episodes of season 6 are in any case among the best of the series, and the entire season makes it possible to make up for the few mistakes that could tarnish the fifth and leave us with an aftertaste of unfinished. Everything finally makes sense here, and Game of Thrones definitively stands out as one of the best series of its decade, regaining its letters of nobility and leaving its viewers with an emptiness in the heart and the feeling of having witnessed something great, at least one of the most powerful endings ever observed on television.
Looking forward to next year.
