Game of Thrones Finale: Is Westeros Doomed After King Bran?

 


"It was hard, watching the finale, not to shout But this doesn’t solve anything! The grand compromise struck between Grey Worm and the Westerosi nobles leaves us exactly where we began: with a weak and disinterested king plagued by controlling and competitive nobles ruling over largely independent polities. This is, as the show itself has made very, very clear, a recipe for instability, strife, and violence. If anything, Bran’s position is even worse than Robert’s: He doesn’t have even a nominal heir, his kingdom is vastly smaller and devastated by recent wars, his nobles have seen in living memory how easy it is to assert themselves, and there’s an army of impeccably trained eunuch soldiers who hate his guts hanging out on a small tropical island nearby. What’s going to happen during Bran’s reign? What will happen when he dies? Westeros may have achieved an uneasy peace, but it’s one that rests on close personal ties between leading nobles, not on a clear political system or balanced structure of power, and it will only last until those ties begin to fray. As the historian Brent Sirota pointed out in an excellent Twitter thread on Monday morning, “The real problem of the Seven Kingdoms is feudal anarchy and weak governance. Over-mighty subjects. ‘Breaking the wheel’ requires more government, not less. A stronger crown, not ‘emancipation.’”

read analysis by Max Read 

Game of Thrones Finale: Is Westeros Doomed After King Bran?: I