Even with all the controversy over the final season of Game of Thrones, HBO’s flagship show still came away with a whopping 32 Emmy nominations, including an “Outstanding Writing” nod for that extremely polarizing finale. Of course, your mileage may vary as to whether the Emmy nom is actually deserved, but luckily, you can now decide for yourself. The official Emmy website has released the full script of GOT season 8 episode 6,”The Iron Throne.” And while it doesn’t answer any of the lingering questions we have about the world of the show going forward, it does contain quite a few surprising revelations—including one major detail about a certain character’s decision to do you-know-what to the Thingy McThingFace.
(Major spoilers for Game of Thrones ahead, so click at your own peril.)
But first, we’re gonna leave some dragon-sized spoiler fillers here for those of you with big screens.
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1. Drogon’s motivations for burning the Iron Throne
The biggest reveal is why Drogon decided to melt down the Iron Throne. Whether you thought the moment was a frisson-inducing symbolic gesture against the corrupting influence of power, or cheesy and on-the-nose, or even both, it seemed that Drogon burned the Iron Throne to the ground knowing full well what he was doing.
As it turns out, this is extremely not the case. Like an angsty teen, Drogon simply “wants to burn the world.” Here’s the directions from the script (emphasis ours):
Drogon wants to burn the world but he will not kill Jon.
He breathes fire on the back wall, blasting down what remains of the great red blocks of stone.
We look over Jon’s shoulder as the fire sweeps toward the throne— not the target of Drogon’s wrath, just a dumb bystander caught up in the conflagration.
We look through the blades of the throne as the flames engulf it, and blast the wall behind it.
2. Why everyone voted for Bran
Whether you thought Tyrion’s “Bran has the best story” speech was convincing or not, the folks on-screen certainly found it rousing enough to throw down their votes. The script, however, breaks down the Lords and Ladies’ individual reasons for saying “Aye,” and it turns out not everyone was doing so because of Tyrion’s rhetorical skills.
Edmure is still be miffed he wasn’t given serious consideration, but he expects he’ll have influence at court if his crippled nephew is ruling.
EDMURE
Aye.Gendry is happy to go along.
GENDRY
Aye.Yara has heard that her brother died defending Bran. She knows this choice would make Theon happy.
YARA
Aye.Brienne is a Stark loyalist and represents House Tarth.
BRIENNE
Aye.DAVOS
I’m not sure I get a vote. But aye.One by one, the lords of Westeros express their support for Bran. Tyrion is very pleased.
3. Jon doesn’t forgive Sansa for betraying his confidence
Jon stands in front of Sansa. He hasn’t entirely forgiven her for betraying the oath he made her swear in the godswood.
SANSA
I wish there had been another way.(beat)
I’m sorry it had to be you.
Jon nods. He knows she loves him. He knows she only wants what’s best for the North. But still…
SANSA
Can you forgive me?He hesitates.
JON
The North is free, thanks to you.She accepts the compliment.
SANSA
But they’ve lost their true king.JON
Ned Stark’s daughter will speak for them. She’s the best they could ask for.Jon and Sansa embrace.
See? What a sneaky, non-committal answer, Jon.
4. Arya is Jon’s favorite sibling
Yes, after everything the Starks have gone through together, Jon still ranks his siblings, and Arya comes in first.
ARYA
No one knows. It’s where the maps stop. That’s where I’m going.Jon was not prepared for this. This is the last time he will ever see his favorite sibling.
5. And Jon is Arya’s favorite brother
Over Sansa’s shoulder, Jon sees Arya crying. She hasn’t cried in years but she does now, for the brother she always loved most.
6. Bran’s weirdness is 100% intentional
BRAN
And Drogon? Any word?SAMWELL
He was last spotted flying east.BRONN
The father away the better.BRAN
Perhaps I can find him. Do carry on with the rest.That’s weird. But so is the new king.
You can read the full thing here.
What other surprises did you find in the script of “The Iron Throne”?
wonderful, great review![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
So the production made up for the lack of understanding in the script. Drogon melting the throne that was the cause of the entire turmoil the characters went thru and they missed the symbolism. Was “dumb bystander” meant to be ironic? Or revealing of the cluelessness that bothered so many viewers?
In the Game of Thrones, the throne itself is a dumb bystander.
Well of course it is! It’s a throne. All it can do is stand there and not say anything….
@3. That kind of literalness is why the script failed to impress the show’s fans. As a consequence, viewers ascribed intelligence, understanding, and intent to Drogon when he melted the throne. Turns out that wasn’t the case…
When you reach the end of an epic fantasy show, you expect that little things like this (i.e. Drogon burning the iron throne) have at least some kind of meaning… And after such a disappointing end, at least for me, finding out that that even isn’t the case just makes it even wors.
Oh well, there’s always hope the books will give a more satisfying conclusion. If they even get published, that is.
Maybe the dumb bystander are the GOT viewers they met along the way.
My favourite (and by favourite I mean most rage inducing) lines were:
-The dig about Jon being “diminutive” as he’s passing Drogon on the way to the throne room, because there’s been some real mean-spiritedness for years about Kit Harington’s height, and they proved last year right in the dialogue of an episode that they don’t feel bad about making fun of people’s physical attributes when they made Dany and Tyrion have that conversation about Jon being “too small” and Peter Dinklage got rightly upset about it.
-Jon and Sansa looking at each other when Arya asks “What’s west of Westeros?” and the script literally saying “They failed geography.” It’s just such a throwaway comment that makes no sense in context because these are two of the best educated people outside the Maesters, in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms.
Oh, and all the other little things, like conflicting character motivations, “Her Satanic Majesty” to refer to Daenerys, literally none of her motivation or thought process in her entire death scene despite Jon and Drogon both getting notes, Tyrion thinking that he “doesn’t believe in liberation theology” (which makes me SUPER EXCITED [that’s sarcasm] for that Confederate show these guys are trying to get made), the Son of Saul (Auschwitz) and Hiroshima references on page one instead of independent description of the scene… There’s so much really terrible stuff in this script, it’s hard to even find it all on your first, second, even third pass through.
If this wins for best writing, I’m going to have the same laugh-until-I-cry reaction I got to Bohemian Rhapsody winning for best editing when there are scenes in which the editing makes the frame almost never focus on the person who’s talking at any given moment. It’s so absurd, and I’ve been so angry about this show for so long, wanting it to do better, wanting it to be more, wanting it to at least take the time to explain itself thoroughly instead of springing from showstopper moment to showstopper moment and expecting us to fill in the gaps for them… All I have left is disbelieving laughter at how absurd the state of media has become.
I never thought Drogon knew he was burning the metaphor of the throne, so I was more unsurprised than most people seem to be. I think that’s the perfect ending for that damned thing, because all it was, in the end, was a metal chair. Everything that happened because of it–it’s not the ring, it didn’t have a will of its own. Now it’s gone, it’s revealed as the nothing it always was, a ruin sitting in pride of place in a ruin. I think it’s a very good subversion, both of the “destroy the ring” fantasy MacGuffin tradition and of the entire basic quest for power that drove this show in the first place.
Can we see the script for episode 3 where Baelish’s corpse crawls out of the grave to join the fight?
@9, they would have burned his body, and even if they didn’t, he wouldn’t be graced with burial in the crypt; that was just for the Starks.
Except the kingship doesn’t actually depend on their being a metal chair, as attested by logic, history, and the fact that Bran is (for some reason) king (who has his own damn chair.) So melting the Iron Throne is kind of an empty gesture anyway (though it’s a bit symbolic that it melts with the death of the last ‘true’ Targaryen.) No one was fighting for the Throne as an object, but for the kingship, and this would be just as true if Tyrion had destroyed the Throne with wildfire back in season 2.
@11. zdamien: “So melting the Iron Throne is kind of an empty gesture anyway (though it’s a bit symbolic that it melts with the death of the last ‘true’ Targaryen.)”
It’s both empty and symbolic? I think your’e starting to see the problem. Either you go with a Samuel Beckett nihilism (there is no Godot) or you acknowledge the throne as a symbol. No one has ever said they are pursuing the literal chair, although they refer to it as the Iron Throne. And it is expressly referred to as a symbol in the books when the story of it’s making out of swords is told. Don’t remember where or if the show makes it as explicit.
I don’t know if the chair being meaningless makes me upset or just makes that scene all the more profound/tragic and they just stumbled onto some brilliance there ;)
@8 – RMK: Agreed.