Wow. Good for Jon Snow.
It seemed like no one was working harder to die in Game of Thrones Season Eight than Jon Snow. I mean the doofus looked a dragon dead in the eyes and screamed at it. He participated in such idiotic battle strategies as: Fall Off the Dragon, Operation Capture a Wight, and Boy Bait. He wandered through battles like an idiot in Winterfell and King’s Landing. He stupidly doubled down on his love for his aunt shortly before she torched an entire city as everyone warned him she might do. Plus, it seemed like Game of Thrones was primed for another shocking death and would kill its main protagonist in the first episode of the final season.
Yet, despite being phenomenally dumb, and subverting the Game of Thrones tendency for killing its heroes, he’s made it to the final episode of this series. As many predicted she might, the Targaryen nature came out in Daenerys and she chose to completely level King’s Landing with her dragon. In Episode Five, Jon—along with the audience—watched in horror at the destruction Dany wrought on the innocent people of this city.
Going into the final episode we have a clear conflict in front of us. Tyrion and Jon and Arya and Sansa—and everyone else left alive who’s not a total monster—must work to stop Daenerys, the Mad Queen.
But that doesn’t mean Jon Snow deserves to survive the series and end up on the Iron Throne like everyone arounds him wants.
If Game of Thrones wants to end its eight seasons in a way that does justice to a series that shocked and horrified and angered its fans, Jon Snow must die. If Game of Thrones wants this finale to satisfy, to challenge, to surprise its millions of die-hard viewers, Jon Snow must die. If Game of Thrones wants to avoid cliche and provide an emotionally gratifying experience, Jon Snow must die. If Game of Thrones wants to pay off two decades of books and TV and intricate writing, of prophecies, of clues, of vision—Jon Snow must die.
In Episode Nine of Season Six, Jon Snow is preparing for the Battle of the Bastards. “If I fall,” he tells Melisandre, who resurrected him from death after he was betrayed by his Night’s Watch brothers. “Don’t bring me back.”
