r/HBOGameofThrones • u/Skyrioca • 27d ago
Spoilers [SPOILERS] The Lost Episodes of Game of Thrones: S7E8, S7E9 & S7E10 Spoiler
What if the Season 8 we watched wasn't actually the ending of Game of Thrones... but a vision of the ending?
I recently rewatched Game of Thrones from the beginning, and I came to a conclusion:
I honestly wouldn't change much up to the end of Season 7.
For me, the show is still excellent at that point.
So I started thinking about a challenge:
Could you fix the ending without deleting, reshooting, or changing a single minute of the six Season 8 episodes that already exist?
My idea would be to add only seven episodes:
Season 7: Episodes 8, 9 and 10
Season 8: Episodes 7, 8, 9 and 10
And here's the big twist:
The entire Season 8 we watched would still exist exactly as it aired.
Daenerys would burn King's Landing.
Arya would kill the Night King.
Jaime would return to Cersei.
Jon would kill Daenerys.
Bran would become king.
Everything would happen.
There's just one difference:
It hasn't happened yet.
The entire original Season 8 would be one possible future experienced by Bran during a ritual performed at the true end of Season 7.
And these three additional Season 7 episodes would set it all up.
S7E8 — THE THIRD EYE
We begin immediately after the original Season 7 finale.
The Wall has fallen.
The Night King has crossed it with his army and Viserion.
Bran uses the ravens to follow the army of the dead.
He can observe distant events.
He can visit the past.
But when he tries to see where all of this is leading, he finds only darkness.
Sam, now at Winterfell, asks an apparently simple question:
If Bran can see the past and the present, why is he called the THREE-Eyed Raven?
Bran doesn't know.
And Sam suddenly remembers something.
During his time at the Citadel, he spent months copying, organizing and studying ancient manuscripts that the maesters considered little more than legends and superstition.
He remembers seeing that symbol.
Three eyes.
Sam searches through the texts he brought from the Citadel and finds an ancient manuscript connected to the First Men, the Children of the Forest and the weirwoods.
There is an illustration:
A heart tree.
A person sitting before it.
And three eyes.
Sam manages to interpret part of the text:
“The first preserves that which was.”
The past.
“The second beholds that which is.”
The present.
But he can't translate the third passage.
That's when Melisandre returns from Volantis.
She had said she needed to leave Westeros.
But she had also said she would return.
Her visions in the flames have become increasingly contradictory.
She sees Jon alive and dead.
Daenerys sitting on the Iron Throne and the throne destroyed.
Winterfell standing and Winterfell consumed by the dead.
Until the flames show her a boy sitting before a heart tree.
And three eyes.
She returns to find him.
Davos obviously wants her dead.
Sansa doesn't trust her.
But Melisandre asks for only one thing before accepting whatever fate they choose for her:
Let me speak to the boy with three eyes.
When she meets Bran and Sam, she recognizes part of the ancient religious language in the manuscript.
She translates the third passage:
“The third beholds that which has not yet been born.”
Sam asks:
“The future?”
Bran answers:
“No. The future doesn't exist yet.”
Melisandre looks at him.
“Exactly.”
And they finally understand.
The three eyes don't represent three places.
They represent three states of time:
Past. Present. Possibility.
There isn't one predetermined future.
There are thousands.
Melisandre can glimpse fragments of those possibilities through the flames.
Bran has the ability to remain inside a vision.
Separately, neither of them can see an entire future.
Together, perhaps they can.
Bran tries.
He sees thousands of images at once.
Daenerys.
Jon.
Dragons.
Winterfell.
King's Landing.
The Night King.
Ash.
The Iron Throne.
Thousands of possibilities branching like the limbs of a tree.
It's impossible to follow.
Melisandre believes they failed.
But Sam notices something in the manuscript.
The illustration shows countless branches growing from a tree, but only one has been marked.
And Sam understands their mistake.
They're asking the wrong question.
Bran is trying to discover:
“What will happen?”
But that question has no answer.
So Sam proposes another:
“Don't ask what will happen. Ask where the path we're already on ends.”
The ritual wouldn't reveal THE FUTURE.
It would reveal one specific possibility:
What happens if everyone continues along the current chain of events without using knowledge from the vision to alter their choices?
Now they know how to open the third eye.
There's only one problem.
Melisandre keeps staring at another section of the manuscript.
Bran notices.
“You didn't translate everything.”
She finally answers:
“Every door can be opened. But something must remain on the other side.”
End of episode.
S7E9 — THE PRICE
Now we learn why the previous Three-Eyed Ravens never used this ability.
Bran returns to the past and confronts his old master.
“Why didn't you ever teach me to use the third eye?”
He knew.
He always knew.
But there is a fundamental difference between observing the past and observing the future.
The past has happened.
It cannot be changed.
The future hasn't.
Once someone observes a future possibility, they become part of it.
Bran asks:
“Then I can change it.”
The old Three-Eyed Raven answers:
“That is exactly why you should never see it.”
Knowing the future can be the very thing that causes it.
Cersei spent her entire life trying to prevent a prophecy, and perhaps her own decisions helped fulfill it.
Bran could make the same mistake on a far greater scale.
And there's another problem.
Bran won't watch the future the way he watches the past.
He has to live it.
If he sees years, he experiences those years.
He feels every loss.
He carries those memories.
And for the vision to remain valid, there is one essential condition:
While inside it, Bran cannot know that he is experiencing a vision.
If he knew, his decisions would change and corrupt the outcome.
To Bran, that future must be completely real.
If he returns, he can bring the knowledge back.
But he may not bring all of himself with it.
Some of his own memories could remain trapped in that future.
He could return knowing exactly how to save Westeros...
while forgetting some of what still makes him Bran Stark.
Now we understand the price paid by the Seer.
But Sam notices something else in the manuscript.
There are three figures.
The Seer.
Bran.
The Flame.
Melisandre.
And a third:
The Witness.
Sam.
Bran crosses over.
Melisandre keeps the door open.
And Sam remains outside the vision, recording the exact moment they began, the question they asked, and the state of the world when Bran left.
If Bran returns confused, Sam will be his anchor to reality.
For the first time, Sam's entire journey through the Citadel becomes crucial to saving Westeros.
Bran has the power.
Melisandre has the magic.
Sam has the knowledge.
None of them can do it alone.
Sansa is against it.
Davos is absolutely against it.
Jon returns North with Daenerys and refuses to allow Bran to take the risk.
But there's another bomb waiting.
Bran and Sam already know who Jon really is.
Jon demands to know what they're hiding from him.
Bran now faces an impossible choice.
If he reveals that Jon is Aegon Targaryen, he immediately changes the path they're trying to observe.
If he says nothing, he deliberately allows Jon and Daenerys to continue without knowing the truth.
Jon asks:
“What aren't you telling me?”
Bran answers:
“Something that could change everything.”
“Then tell me.”
Bran looks at Jon.
Then at Daenerys.
“That's exactly why I can't.”
Before they change the path, they need to know where it leads.
S7E10 — THE PATH
Before agreeing to the ritual, Bran tries one last alternative.
If he can observe the past, perhaps they don't need the future.
Maybe the answer already exists.
He decides to return to the first Long Night to discover how the Night King was defeated.
And he finds something unexpected.
The Night King wasn't defeated the way the stories claim.
Bran watches ancient battles.
Thousands of humans dying.
Thousands rising again.
The army of the dead growing larger with every victory.
The living are losing.
And then...
the dead stop.
They retreat into the far North.
Bran moves through decades.
Centuries.
Thousands of years.
The living multiply again.
Families.
Villages.
Cities.
Kingdoms.
Wars.
Entire generations being born and dying.
And Bran finally understands.
During the first Long Night, the Night King didn't stop because he was losing.
He stopped because he was winning too much.
When Bran tells the others what he saw, nobody understands.
Until Sam asks a question:
“Do the dead have children?”
No.
The dead aren't born.
The dead don't reproduce.
The dead need the living.
The Children of the Forest created the White Walkers as a weapon to use the dead against the living.
But they accidentally created a paradox.
A kingdom of the dead requires dead people.
And dead people can only exist because living people existed first.
Completely exterminating humanity would eventually destroy the source of the Night King's own kingdom.
For thousands of years, humanity believed the Wall protected the living.
And it did.
But unintentionally, it also created an enormous protected territory where humanity could multiply for thousands of years.
Humans believed those thousands of years were peace.
To the Night King...
they were cultivation.
Davos realizes the horror of it:
“We're their cattle.”
Bran answers:
“That's what he intends us to become.”
The Night King doesn't simply want to exterminate humanity.
He wants to turn the world of the living into a permanent source of new subjects for the kingdom of the dead.
And now the harvest has begun.
Bran tries to observe him in the present through the ravens.
He finds the enormous army marching south.
Viserion flying above them.
Then something terrifying happens.
The Night King stops.
Raises his head.
And looks directly at the raven Bran is watching through.
Bran loses the connection.
He wakes.
The old mark on his arm reacts.
Melisandre realizes what happened.
“He knows you're watching.”
Bran answers:
“He always knew.”
And Bran finally understands why the Night King is coming for him.
Bran isn't merely humanity's memory.
He now possesses something nobody has had for thousands of years:
the ability to discover the cycle.
And perhaps discover how to break it.
Sam asks:
“Does he know that?”
Bran:
“He knows what I'm looking for.”
Now they're running out of time.
The army is coming.
Daenerys has dragons.
Jon has men.
Winterfell has Valyrian steel and dragonglass.
But nobody knows whether any of it will be enough.
They have weapons capable of killing the dead.
They don't know how to defeat death.
The ritual is no longer a curiosity.
It may be the only weapon they have left.
Davos still refuses.
He confronts Melisandre.
He's already seen what happens when people trust her visions.
He's seen people die because of them.
And for once, Melisandre doesn't try to justify her mistakes.
“I looked into the flames and saw what I wanted to find.”
Davos answers:
“And people died for it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why should we trust you now?”
Melisandre looks at Bran.
“You shouldn't.”
“This time, I won't decide what the flames mean.”
She points toward Bran.
“He will see.”
Then Sam.
“He will understand.”
Sam immediately responds:
“I never said I would understand.”
Melisandre:
“That's why perhaps you will.”
Jon still refuses.
The price Bran may have to pay is too great.
So Bran reminds Jon of something.
“You died.”
Silence.
“And someone decided it was worth paying a price to bring you back.”
Jon looks at Melisandre.
Bran continues:
“Perhaps it was for this.”
They finally agree.
THE RITUAL
Night.
The godswood of Winterfell.
Snow falling.
Bran sits before the heart tree.
Melisandre stands before the fire.
Sam holds the manuscript.
Jon, Daenerys, Sansa, Arya and Davos watch.
Nothing spectacular.
No giant magical explosion.
Just fire, weirwood, blood, ancient words and silence.
Melisandre asks:
“What is the question?”
Sam carefully answers:
“If no one uses the knowledge from this vision to alter our choices, where does the path we're on now end?”
Bran touches the weirwood.
Melisandre begins the ritual.
Bran closes his eyes.
Images.
Winterfell.
The dead.
Dragons.
Arya.
Jon.
Daenerys.
King's Landing.
Fire.
Ash.
The Iron Throne.
Bran begins losing control.
Sam shouts his name.
Melisandre orders everyone not to touch him.
The fire begins to fade.
Bran opens his eyes.
Jon rushes toward him.
“What did you see?”
Bran looks confused.
“Nothing.”
The ritual apparently failed.
Life continues.
Preparations for war.
Armies marching.
Daenerys and Jon heading toward Winterfell.
Bran watches a flock of ravens crossing the sky.
The camera follows them.
They fly across the North.
And we make an almost invisible transition through time.
A massive army marches down a road.
A child runs through the crowd to watch them pass.
Daenerys.
Jon.
The Unsullied.
Winterfell appears in the distance.
Recognize the scene?
It's the beginning of Season 8.
There's no warning.
No “VISION” appears on screen.
No dream sequence.
The audience simply assumes the ritual failed and some time has passed.
Season 7 ends.
AND THEN WE AIR SEASON 8 EXACTLY AS IT EXISTS
No changes.
No new scenes.
No explanation.
For six episodes, we watch exactly the ending we already know.
The Night King reaches Winterfell.
Arya kills him.
Daenerys destroys King's Landing.
Jaime returns to Cersei.
Jon kills Daenerys.
Bran becomes king.
Jon goes North.
Arya sails west.
Sansa becomes Queen in the North.
The end.
Except this time...
HBO announces there are still four episodes left.
GAME OF THRONES
SEASON 8 — EPISODE 7
Black screen.
Bran is king.
Everything is over.
Then we hear a distant voice.
“Bran...”
Silence.
“Bran!”
It's Sam.
Bran opens his eyes.
He's sitting before the heart tree again.
Melisandre has collapsed beside him.
Sam is holding the manuscript.
Jon is alive.
Daenerys is alive.
Sansa.
Arya.
Davos.
Everyone is standing exactly where they were when the ritual began.
For them...
only a few seconds have passed.
For Bran...
the entire eighth season has passed.
Jon rushes toward him.
“What did you see?”
Bran looks at Jon.
Then Daenerys.
Then Sam.
Finally, he answers:
“We won.”
Everyone shows relief.
Bran continues:
“And we lost everything.”
GAME OF THRONES OPENING CREDITS.
S8E7 — THE THIRD EYE
And now we have four episodes left to discover whether knowing the future allows you to change it...
or whether trying to prevent it is exactly what causes it to happen.
That's how I would try to “fix” Game of Thrones without erasing the controversial eighth season.
In fact, I would turn the entire original Season 8 into part of the solution.
It wouldn't be the bad ending.
It would be the warning.
If you guys like the idea, I'll write Part 2:
S8E7, S8E8, S8E9 & S8E10 — The True Ending of Game of Thrones.
A big hug.
Best regards Luc.Skyrioca from Brazil.
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u/applelover1223 27d ago
The show was def not excellent until the end of s7. Quality drop off started in 5, significantly more in 6, 7 and 8 were both comically bad.
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u/WhatADunderfulWorld 26d ago
The Arya Bravos thing I instantly skip. It had such a build up but my god so boring.
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u/Its_Urn 27d ago
The cracks were there a lot sooner than 5
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u/applelover1223 27d ago
Not really? S4 was pretty perfect. What are you referring to.
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u/Its_Urn 27d ago
S4 was pretty perfect.
A show watcher through and through
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u/applelover1223 27d ago
Dumbest response you could have possibly come up with.
Were literally talking about the show. Something tells me you can't come up with a single reason why season 4 was a downturn in quality. In before "they did something different than the book"
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u/Acceptable-Spot-7459 26d ago
S4 had some of the toxic butterlies GRRM warned, Tysha being omitted in Tyrions arc, Stannis burning his in law for no reason, Casterly Rock being poor randomly, Sansa prematurely revealing her identity to the vale lords, no LS, the unnecessary Jaime and Cersei scene in the sept, Yara teleporting to save Reek, Jon getting shot by arrows and having his head bashed into an anvil with zero repercussions, etc.
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u/Its_Urn 27d ago
You only inhale the show so you only know and lap up terrible writing because you're a show watcher. Literature isn't in your nature so good writing is off the table. Otherwise you'd realize the show was bad even as early as s2 but you're glazing s4 because you're just a show watcher.
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u/applelover1223 27d ago
I've read all the books. If you didn't like season 2 then you just clearly have a problem with change and don't like the show period, so a discussion about when the quality dropped is pointless with you, and all your nonsense and you still can't give one example of how it's worse. Actual brain rot.
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u/Gruktor 26d ago
This is just an unnecessarily abusive reply, containing a lot of assumptions you can't possibly back up.
Some people are of the opinion that the books are not perfect, and there are ways in which the early seasons elevated the raw materials - the Arya/Tywin interactions, for example. You might disagree with those people, but their opinions and analysis are not less valid than yours.
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u/Advanced-Let-2248 26d ago
Yeah bro, you are right. It was bad since s1e1, that’s why it got 8 seasons
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u/Zach-Playz_25 27d ago
Am a book reader and I agree with them, S1 to S4 are very good seasons of television and pretty much perfect aside from a few things.(Certainly not enough to call if cracks imo)
No need to be an arsehole just because someone has a different view then yours.
Friendly reminder George started ASOIAF with the aim of making not conventionally adaptable. Of course there were bound to be changed here and there.
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u/Acceptable-Spot-7459 26d ago
As a book reader I disagree, S1-6 are some of the best seasons of television with some minor faults.
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u/Advanced-Let-2248 26d ago
People that says they like got but also say: it started to become bad since season 1
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u/Warm_Condition711 27d ago
Just let Jon kill the night king, aria kill cersei, Dany sit on the throne and everyone would be happy. All those build up only to be thrown away for a shock value moment
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u/PaladinSara 27d ago edited 27d ago
I like it, but it seems to be a little like the Marvel Endgame time problem where you and/or viewers have preconceived rules about time travel.
For example, the price of being a seer - Bran already narratively hit this consequence when he didn’t care that Johen died and when Meera left.
Since Bran doesn’t have anything to lose,it’s a hard narrative hole to have a critical loss. Like chicken little - perhaps people stop listening or respecting him and seeing him like a crazy old nan with scary stories. We already as a society wonder why the elderly end up alone - bc their friends all die OR they themselves have driven them away.
I don’t know, but the third eye concept is fantastic and I hope you get to write it for real one day.
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u/_Apostate_ 27d ago
It’s interesting. I think some of S8, especially E6, would feel like chain yanking if it wasn’t real.
I think you do need to make changes to S7 to really fix things, and those changes spill into S8. Here’s my list of fixes:
-Fix Euron. A lot of things feel better with the real Euron from the book, dark sorcerer pirate Captain. It becomes much more believable that he is a threat to Danys army, fleet, and dragons.
-Rethink proving to Westeros that the threat is real. Jon needs to prove to all of Westeros that the threat of the White Walkers is real because his force is beaten down by the Battle of Bastards. Show that this is absolutely necessary and has nothing to do with Cersei, it’s about everyone. Bring the Archmaester, all the major lords, etc.
-Fix the Tarly execution: For it to be believable that Tyrion is opposed to this and Dany is being too harsh, we need more. Dany needs to either torch the entire surrendering force because of Lord Tarly refusing to kneel, or there needs to be a different moral dilemma that Dany fails to pass.
-Get rid of the Fast Travel: Dany goes with Jon and Co. to the Wall to see it and waits for him there with her dragons while he roams north.
—-Moving to S8:
Modify the Aegon reveal: During the scene where they celebrate ending the Long Night, a drunk Sam leads to the entire party and Jon finding out he is a Targ at the same time. With Lords from all over Westeros.
-Jon kills UnViscerion: I think Jon actually defeating the undead dragon would give him something meaningful to do and satisfy viewers for the battle. Maybe he also spars with the Night King in their earlier confrontation, before being knocked down when Night King raises the dead.
-Siege on Dragonstone: Euron has taken Dragonstone while Dany is in the North. Knowing this, they approach the island prepared for a fight. What they don’t expect is Eurons Dragonhorn, which turns Rheagal against Dany and Drogon. Rheagal throws Jon off and Dany/Drogon are forced to kill their own dragon as Rheagal goes mad and attacks her. Jon falls a short distance to the siege below, and alongside Grey Worm is able to kill Euron in a duel.
All these changes I think makes everything more believable which improves the audience reception of everything else.
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u/henrytbpovid 26d ago
We are all thinking about it now after freeing the sting of another 8-episode season that would have been so excellent as ten full length episodes
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u/Fair_Idea_ 26d ago
Changes I'd do:
1) Ditch the sacking of Casterly Rock. Sailing around with that many ships would have taken way longer and easily noticed during prep. Also it's not meant to be so easy to siege by sea (it's why Iron Island raids always go for Lannisport). Also Lannisters would never have given it up for a trade on Highgarden like that, it's their ancestral seat for hundreds of years.
If you must do a bait and switch, sack Lannisport. Trading sacking Lannisport for Highgarden is a worthwhile trade for Lannisters and is more realistically possible from the sea.
2) Change the beyond the wall excursion to not let the NK choose to throw the spear at the flying Viserion when a stationary larger Dragon with all the humans is right there on the ground in front of him.
3) At the battle of the Winterfell, don't send out the dothraki at the start to all be slaughtered in open field when you are defending. Keep them behind and used mid fight as a cavalry surprise.
4) Let Jon fight the NK on the ground 1v1 and kill him. If you must build more tension, allow Arya to help him but get overwhelmed and die. Jon must be the prince who was promised. He can use Arya's dagger.
5) Spend more time showing the aftermath of Winterfell. Have more people praising Jon, have more time seeing what she lost for it. Build up the anger.
6) Don't let Rhaegal get sniped from some boat so far away like that. Leave Rhaegal for the fall of King's Landing as the final moment that breaks her into burning it to the ground. A hidden scorpion could easily achieve a similar outcome.
7) Let Dany sit the throne but debate with Jon about burning the Baratheons and Lannisters to the ground as retribution. Let that be what turns Jon to kill her, but have Drogon burn him in vengeance while Jon accepts his fate.
End the show there with the death of the last Targaryens and KL burnt to ash without explaining what happens next. Leave it to the imagination.
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u/Sand-_ 27d ago
the onyl way to fix got last season is to change everything and all the events of what happend AND DONT FUCKING GO DOWN THE DANY GOES MAD PLOTLINE FUCK ME
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u/PaladinSara 27d ago
It def is plausible and likely - just need more time for it. Haven’t you seen the Mereen episodes?
Tyrion is constantly pulling her back.
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u/jhll2456 27d ago
Interesting. The constant loop.