The case for no one on the Iron Throne

Who should end up on the Throne? We've got some ideas.

One of the most lasting catchphrases from Game of Thrones is the line from which the show gets its title: “when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” It’s a Cersei Lannister classic, said in the context of King Robert’s death and the show’s first true moment of political upheaval.

Back in the days when Robert’s contested line of succession was the most pressing problem in the kingdom, Cersei was right. The Iron Throne was the prize thousands of people died to win, but now that Game of Thrones is approaching its end the allure of the Iron Throne seems...a bit stupid, really. Ice zombies are real, people. Fuck your chair.

Jon Snow doesn’t want the Iron Throne. He has only ever been concerned about the Night King and his hair. Even though he is the rightful heir to the throne and his claim through his father Rhaegar takes precedence over Daenerys’, it’s unlikely that the man who was named both Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and King in the North entirely by accident would pull rank over his fireproof aunt who he is also banging.

He’s a good leader for the North, but his leadership skills are tailored for moments of crisis and war. Sure, Jon can broker peace with the wildlings and shatter a White Walker or two, but does he really want to organize trade with the Summer Isles and deal with a court of backstabbing nobles (too soon)?

As for Daenerys, who knows what her plans for Westeros are now that Jon has completely derailed her assault on the crown. For all her badassery, Daenerys has never demonstrated her ability to sit and rule a country with any measure of success. Every time she gets in a spot of political trouble, she whips out her dragons and sets people on fire. Stuck in Quarth? Set people on fire. Khals trying to retire her? No dragons, still fire. Insurrection in the streets of Meereen? Dragons, fire. She’s continued the process in Westeros.

Like Jon, her skills are better suited to war and more specifically conquest. Even Tyrion and Varys openly fear that supporting her means supporting the dragon-riding remix of the Mad King, and while she’ll come in clutch for the war against the Night King, giving her Potentially Unstable Highness free rein over a decimated nation doesn’t seem like Westeros’ best bet.

There are other players in the game of thrones who would actually make a decent ruler. Sansa Stark has earned her knowledge of Westeros and made many connections in her journey. She would excel at being queen, especially if her husband Tyrion survives and stays by her side. But even with one or two qualified candidates alive at the top of Season 8, it’s hard to imagine that Westeros as its characters know it will still exist after the threat of the Night King is dealt with.

There’s no guarantee that everyone will survive the frozen onslaught and even if they do, there isn’t a single zombie movie or apocalypse story that ends with the words “and everything went back to exactly how it was before.” The war for the living will change the way both the common and noble classes of Westeros think about the world and their place in it, so the odds of its survivors being cool with single rule again seems low. Low and, at this point, anticlimactic.

No one should end up on the Iron Throne at the end of Game of Thrones. The Iron Throne and the notion of centralized power should be abolished by the time the final credits roll on the show’s last episode. Maybe the scattered survivors of the final war will roam around Westeros as itinerant hunter-gatherers, or the seven kingdoms will shut each other off and become seven separately ruled states. Maybe literally everyone will be dead.

All of those sound better than putting another king or queen on that spiky old throne and starting this whole dance over again. It’s high time to end the game, and end the throne.

More ideas:

The case for Jon Snow on the Iron Throne

The case for Daenerys Targaryen on the Iron Throne

The case for Cersei Lannister on the Iron Throne