15 Burning Questions the 'Game of Thrones' Series Finale Needs to Answer

game of thrones finale
'Game of Thrones' Finale | Helen Sloan/HBO
'Game of Thrones' Finale | Helen Sloan/HBO
This post contains spoilers for all seasons of Game of Thrones. Proceed with caution. And visit Beyond the Wall, our official Game of Thrones hub page for recaps, theories, spoilers, explainers, and the best episodes of all time.

The rumors you've heard are true: After eight seasons, Game of Thrones is coming to an end with its series finale on May 19, and it's a given that not everyone will be happy with the resolution. As the show has gone from beloved hit among fans and critics to endlessly criticized pop-culture monolith, it has become impossible for every single prophecy, theory, and prediction to be wrapped up with a nice little bow. In fact, there will probably be quite a few unanswered questions that will leave viewers running to their phones and computers to express their discontent. 

But that won't stop us from demanding answers to a few pressing queries we have. If the finale fails to address each of these concerns in detail, we and the rest of the show's fans will demand a complete reshoot of the final two seasons, with the stipulation that every plot point be approved by a petition of at least 30,000 people. 

game of thrones series finale
HBO

How will Jon respond to Dany's massacre

The answer to this question will decide how the controversial series wraps up, and things aren't looking great for the Jon-Dany alliance that until so recently seemed like the smartest, strongest path to controlling the Iron Throne. The aunt-nephew-lover duo were already on thin ice when Daenerys massacred a sizable portion of King's Landing, and it became even more clear that the two were, let's say, not on the same page when it comes to war crimes. But what's Jon going to do about it, especially considering he pledged his loyalty to Dany, she's still the queen, and she's got that giant dragon willing to flash-fry anyone who pisses her off? The former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch has always been obsessed with honor, yet we've also seen him change course (Ygritte, allying with the Wildlings, etc.). Jon's response to Dany -- and Dany's response to his response -- will reveal whether the queen has any path to redemption in the finale of Game of Thrones.

Who will Tyrion support?

Tyrion's put himself in quite a pickle. He went out of his way to rat out Varys to Daenerys in an effort to show his loyalty, but he was already walking on extremely thin ice with her given that she knows he told the Spider about Jon's big secret. Then -- panicked at his queen's seemingly irrational thought process -- he decided to help his brother Jaime escape captivity in an effort to stop a King's Landing massacre that 100% wound up taking place anyway. So, uh, what now? We don't know if Daenerys actually knows about Tyrion's betrayal -- at least the one related to his brother. Jaime's not alive to spill the beans, but perhaps some of the living Unsullied know the truth. Regardless, it's hard to believe Tyrion's going to actually want to be in Dany's good graces given her murder spree. He wanted her to avoid going after innocents. This all has us fearing for Tyrion's safety, but he's been resilient in the past; now it remains to be seen how he'll weasel his way out of this one. Is it by allying with Jon Snow? Convincing the Unsullied to shift loyalties? Something else entirely?

As the song goes, she's going to take that horse to the old town road and… find another evil-doer to kill? While the idea of Arya again popping out of nowhere with a blade or wearing an enemy's face as a mask might seem likely, the final moment between The Hound and Arya last week, where the grizzled older warrior basically argued that a life of vengeance-seeking takes its spiritual toll on you, hinted that Arya might largely abandon her list of names altogether. After witnessing horrific violence on such a massive scale and struggling to save innocent lives as the city around her burned, does she want to continue on a path of slitting throats? She's got a lot decisions to make. It seems more likely she'll leave the politically chaotic world of Westeros behind, perhaps taking her new four-legged friend with her.

At this point, we still have no idea! Technically, Daenerys has the rights to it because she's the queen of the army that conquered King's Landing. But, thanks to the above questions, there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether she'll ever get the chance. Will Jon finally suck it up and accept his destiny? Will Tyrion manage to sneak into the Throne, despite the fact that he's a Lannister? Will one of the Stark sisters swoop in and sweep Dany aside, like they've wanted to do for all of Season 8? Will Bran's cool but pointless warging abilities convince everyone that he should rule? He does know the entire history of everything that's ever happened, after all.

grey worm game of thrones
Helen Sloan/HBO

What will Grey Worm and the rest of the now-sullied Unsullied do?

Grey Worm and the Unsullied, along with some of Jon Snow's men, took Drogon's fire breath as a cue to lose their goddamn minds and slaughter a bunch of people who'd already surrendered. So, at least for now, it appears that Grey Worm is very much on the same page as Daenerys. They both acted out of their grief over Cersei's cruel beheading of Missandei. Still, murdering civilians is a touch over the line. Grey Worm has remained unwaveringly loyal to Daenerys over the years, and at this point we're going to guess he and his army will remain by her side until the bitter end -- whether she sits on the throne or not.

What's Sansa's game plan? 

After playing an important part in planning for the Battle of Winterfell, Sansa Stark has taken more of a backseat role in recent military campaigns. She wasn't even in the last episode, choosing to hang back with Bran in the North. Her knowledge of Jon Snow's true parentage, which was revealed to her by her brother despite the Dragon Queen's wishes, makes her a real threat to Daenerys' legitimacy. If she wasn't excited about backing Dany earlier in the season, she'll be even less psyched about it after the burning of King's Landing. So, she'll have to do her best to outmaneuver Daenerys, and, with Tyrion and Jon on her side, she's in a good position to do just that. The larger question is whether she's content ruling in the North or if she has ambitions to sit on the Iron Throne? At this point, it all depends on how she chooses to wield her influence and power.

Does Bronn actually get Highgarden now? 

Game of Thrones went through all that trouble in episode 4 of the final season to get Jaime, Tyrion, and Bronn in the same room after Cersei sicced her brother's former bodyguard on them. Their Winterfell exchange -- one of the more fun scenes of this season -- ended with Tyrion promising Bronn Highgarden should Cersei be defeated, and since that's come to pass, does that mean Bronn will get what he's owed? It seems reasonable enough to put a nice, tidy bow on this whole deal, assuming Bronn didn't somehow die off-screen (which would be a real dick move if he did). Even if Tyrion lands in hot water for letting his now-dead brother escape, which frankly seems like a no-brainer, it shouldn't be that tough to squeeze in a moment where Tyrion hands Bronn the keys to the city and he gallops off to his new kingdom.  

Will Bran do something useful for once? 

No one expected Bran to pull out a sword and fight the undead in the Battle of Winterfell, but his curious decision to warg into some birds didn't exactly seem to help the cause very much. Still, he's somehow survived many, many serious threats to his life, so it seems unlikely that he'll play no role in the finale. Though it's a long shot, it would be nice if GoT shed light on the myriad untold connections between the Children of the Forest, the Night King, and Bran, but alas. We may never know.

kings landing burning game of thrones
HBO

Is anyone going to fix the Wall? How about King's Landing? 

Perhaps the thing that's suffered most from this endless string of battles is infrastructure. King's Landing is razed, its tunnels and buildings piles of rubble; Winterfell seems to be in pretty gnarly shape after holding back an army of wights; and there's still that big-ass hole in the wall up North thanks to zombie Viserion. Now that it seems like Game of Thrones is moving into peacetime, how are the remaining living going to rebuild everything they destroyed, and how will they prioritize the massive infrastructure investments required? For example, should the wall dividing Westeros from the wilderness beyond be patched up first, provided there's still some existing threat to humanity out there? Or maybe cleaning up King's Landing will be the first focus, since there's a new Queen in town? All of these questions, and many more, could easily be made into its own Power Broker-style political drama series, which seems highly unlikely. In the absence of a full spin-off, we'd like some initial blueprints drawn up for the finale, please.

Where is Drogon going to live? 

In all likelihood, the real estate market in King's Landing has taken a big hit since Daenerys and Drogon decimated massive sections of the city. All those tasteful new condos and single-family homes funded by the influx of cash from the Iron Bank? Nothing but rubble now. Assuming Daenerys continues to reign, she's going to have a lot of choice land options when building an enormous dragon-dog-house or Olympic-sized swimming pool for her favorite large adult son. If Showtime's Billions has taught us anything, it's that construction projects can get messy really quickly if you're not careful. Drogon could live underground, but Daenerys isn't going to keep him chained up, and he's really more of an outdoors dragon at this point. If this important matter is not settled in the series finale, fans should demand an explanation.

Do dragons go to heaven or hell? 

Two dragons, Rheagal and Viserion, are dead. Which, of course, leads to a larger metaphysical question: Where do dragons go when they die?? What happens if one becomes an undead with no real control over himself before he's really dead? Then what??? Moreover, does anyone on Game of Thrones believe in an afterlife? Sure, there were the forehead-carving believers of the Faith Militant, but they never made it clear their opinions on death, just that marital impropriety and straying from the path of heterosexuality are bad, imprisonable offenses. We also know that people can come back from the dead, which implies that there's some mode of existence beyond death -- though we've never seen an animal come back to live in fully living form. It's a little insulting to the fantastical animals, including the direwolves, on Game of Thrones, but it wouldn't be the first time the show has disregarded its pets.

tormund and ghost direwolf
HBO

Where are the direwolves? 

What is Game of Thrones actually about, anyway? Politics? Religion? Scary zombie-like monsters? Climate change? Or is it about pets? Because seriously: No one on this goddamn show knows how to take care of an animal. Daenerys has led two of her dragons to their deaths and took the third on a fiery joyride that burned up thousands of innocent people. (This was after she misplaced one and imprisoned the other two in a dark cavern with chains so they wouldn't, ya know, burn people alive.) As for the other prominent animals on the show -- sorry, Ser Pounce -- the direwolves given to the Stark children at the beginning of the series have nearly gone extinct. The only two left alive are Arya's Nymeria, who said "fuck this" and decided to start her own wolf coven, and Jon Snow's Ghost, who Jon gave away to the Wildlings without even a pet goodbye. Is Ghost living a swell life with Tormund, thankful to be free of Jon and his indifference? Is Nymeria just out there somewhere chilling with her doggy friends? Will either of them come back? We'd love to see the pups one more time, but also totally sympathize with their desire to get far away from their bad owners.

Will anyone start wearing hats in the North? 

For members of the Quora community, this remains one of the many loose ends that the showrunners will likely leave untied. Such a shame.

Why did we spend so much time obsessing over this show? 

If you could go back in time to March 2011, a month before Game of Thrones premiered, and told your younger self that in 2019, Donald Trump would be president and the nation would spend an inordinate amount of time whining online about the narrative choices a dragon-themed fantasy show has made during its final season, you'd probably say, "Well, I really hope climate change happens even faster than they're predicting!"... and on that front you'd at least have some perverse good news. Seriously, this is a television show on HBO that started out making heavy use of sexposition and gratuitous violence before graduating to a cultural phenomenon that turned everyone into experts on television writing. The internet is a much angrier place than it was in 2011, and it wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows then, either. 

ser davos soup
HBO

What is the recipe for Davos' soup? 

This is important, folks: What was that sweet, sweet broth Davos served up before the Battle of Winterfell? We assume it's onion in nature, given that he's the Onion Knight. But does it taste like a French Onion soup? Or is it is own Westerosi creation? There've been some recipes floating around that could be it, but stop pussyfooting around, HBO. Make that shit available. We're hungry.

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