Long Live the King...
After ten glorious weeks of Game of Thrones, Season Five has now come to an end, and what an end it has left us with. The death of one of the programmes most beloved and sacred characters will inevitably produce shock-waves across the fandom whilst those conniving book-readers who knew such a fate was set to occur can laugh at us whilst our emotions completely pour out in front of them. Although there was also a sense of inevitably around the death of Jon Snow, the one shining bright light in the terrible realm of Westeros, his death was still incredibly hard to witness, topped off by young Olly, the killer of Snow's lover Ygritte, landing the final blow. Of course, this is Game of Thrones, and not everything is always as it seems, particularly when you take the timely arrival of Melisandre into account who finally realised Stannis was not the King she and her Lord of Light had been looking for and instead, had maybe come to the realisation that Jon was that person all along.
Whatever it means, the "death" of Jon Snow topped off a fantastic episode which carried all the elements of what makes Game of Thrones tick in a season which suffered from a range of difficulties amidst some exciting and memorable plot-lines that ultimately will lead into another exciting season next year.
Aside from the death of Jon Snow, we also said goodbye to Selyse Baratheon who decided to hang herself after causing the death of her only child, whilst Myranda was murdered by the hand of Reek, who finally began to redeem himself in the eyes of Sansa who was subsequently aided in her escape from Ramsey and the Bolton's. Although lost and defeated in the snow-ridden lands of Winterfell, Stannis's supposed sentence to death from Brienne was not captured on-screen, meaning he could well have been saved, yet such a scenario is very unlikely with Brienne's vengeful nature for the death of Renly obviously engulfing her, so much so that she missed Sansa's call for aid. The rushing of the battle at Winterfell made the death of Stannis rather anti-climatic in all honesty, and although there was a lot the show-runners had to get through in a short space of time, I felt the episode could have handled that particular scene much, much better.
One scene that was handled terrifically well however was Cersei's atonement in which she was forcefully made to walk stark naked through the streets of Kings' Landing after committing her crimes to the High Sparrow. Although Cersei has been the evil Queen of Westeros since the beginning of the show, her bloodied feet and pained expression brought about the smallest amount of sympathy from me for her, whilst reinforcing Lena Headey's sheer dedication to the role of one of Game of Thrones' most hated, yet brilliantly thought out characters in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms. Elsewhere, the poisoning of Myrcella by the ever-vengeful Ellaria was rather predictable, whilst the return of the Dothraki left Daenerys in a rather ambiguous turn of events which left Tyrion, who was finally reunited with Varys, in charge of Meereen. Braavos once again was the platform for weird, eerie scene of the week with Arya finally getting her revenge against Meryn Trant whilst ever-further being trained by the masterful ways of Jaqen H'Gar who warned her against the use of a new face on someone that is "no-one", resulting in Arya seemingly going blind.
Overall, Season Five of Game of Thrones has suffered at times from dragging its' heels into the land of boredom whilst also offering scenes of sheer excitement and tension, particularly in the second half of the season with the battle at Hardhome and Daenerys' dragon rescue in the previous episode being the highlights that first come to mind. The death of some major characters this season will inevitably have repercussions heading into the next season, as it always does, whilst the fact that the TV series has finally overtaken the books and heading into the unknown makes the future of Game of Thrones an exciting proposition to say the least. Until next year, Game of Thrones.
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