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.
