Game of Thrones Episode 73: The Iron Throne

The episode opens in the aftermath of Daenerys’s destruction of King’s Landing, with Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, and Davos Seaworth walking through the city’s ruins and seeing the scale of the devastation. Jon and Davos find Grey Worm executing captured Lannister soldiers, and Jon tries to stop him, but Grey Worm says he is following Daenerys’s orders.

Tyrion searches the wreckage of the Red Keep and discovers the crushed bodies of Cersei and Jaime Lannister beneath the rubble. He is visibly shaken by the sight, having learned that both are dead. At about the same time, Daenerys addresses the Unsullied and Dothraki, declaring that they have “liberated” King’s Landing and will continue to “liberate” the rest of the world. She names Grey Worm her Master of War and presents herself as the ruler of a new campaign of conquest.

Jon goes to Daenerys, but before he can speak with her, Tyrion confronts her publicly and resigns as Hand of the Queen in protest over what she has done. Daenerys responds by having Tyrion arrested for treason. Jon later finds Arya in the ruined city, and she warns him that Daenerys will see him as a threat because she now knows his true identity. Jon then visits Tyrion in captivity, and the two discuss Daenerys’s actions and what they mean for the realm.

Jon still struggles with loyalty to Daenerys, but his conversation with Tyrion helps push him toward a decision. He later enters the destroyed throne room to meet Daenerys alone. In their final exchange, Daenerys speaks about building a better world through her rule, but Jon sees her as an immediate danger to everyone else. He embraces her, then stabs her through the heart, killing her.

Afterward, Drogon arrives, grieves over Daenerys’s body, and melts the Iron Throne with dragonfire before carrying her away. Weeks later, the surviving lords and ladies of Westeros gather at the Dragonpit to decide what happens next. Tyrion, still imprisoned, is brought before them and argues that the ruler should be chosen by the realm’s leaders rather than by bloodline alone. The assembled nobles agree, and Bran Stark is chosen as king of the Six Kingdoms.

Sansa Stark declares that the North should be independent, and Bran accepts her request. Tyrion is named Bran’s Hand as a way to help repair the damage he has caused, and Jon is sentenced to return to the Night’s Watch for life to satisfy the Unsullied. Grey Worm accepts the decision enough to leave Westeros with the Unsullied and the Dothraki for Naath. The episode ends with the realm beginning a new political order under Bran’s rule.