How should ‘Game of Thrones’ have ended?

Welcome to Pop Culture Throwdown, a weekly column where Mashable’s Entertainment team tackles the big questions in life, like what Star Wars movie is best and which superhero would win in a fight.

This week, we asked each other (and all of you, on Twitter): How should Game of Thrones have ended? 

Better

I don’t have a problem with the general ending of Game of Thrones, but since the journey matters more than the destination I’m just gonna say it: They fucked up. Daenerys’ heel turn into the Mad Queen was poorly telegraphed, so imagine a Battle of the Bells where she didn’t intend to burn King’s Landing to the ground. Instead her tactical dragon fire set off a chain reaction of Cersei and King Aerys’ wildfire. King’s Landing is destroyed all the same, but she now bears the blame for Cersei’s sins and unintentionally completes her father’s work. Realizing she has failed to liberate King’s Landing and had her name tarnished by her enemy, she loses her grip on reality. Jon still shanks her because that’s funny as hell.

Arya peacing out to do her own thing is cool, Jamie should for sure murder Cersei instead of being a dumb baby with no character development, Tyrion being Hand of the King is OK — but ugh, get the thing about Sam writing A Song of Ice and Fire out of my face. Bran can still be king but let’s incorporate some theories that the Three-Eyed Raven is actually kind of evil and heavily suggest that the Night King can rise again as long as Brandon Stark bears his mark.

Oh, and Lyanna Mormont survives that giant fight and becomes Hand of the Queen to Sansa. Missandei is also alive and lives to sail across the Narrow Sea to kick the crap out of everyone in Slaver’s Bay with Grey Worm. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter

More death

It’s not a popular opinion, but I actually didn’t hate the final Thrones season as much as everyone else seemed to. There were some things I’d have changed about it, though, and the biggest of these would be the number of major character deaths. In a nutshell, there were nowhere near enough of them. Too many people survived. Sure, Daenerys’ demise was a bit of a surprise, but given how the show built its reputation on sudden, bloody slaughterings, I did think the final body count left a little to be desired. Tyrion? He should have gone. Jon Snow? Should have died ages ago. Bran Stark? Absolutely, and it should have been brutal, too.

Game of Thrones set a high bar for peril early on, first with Ned Stark’s abrupt beheading and then with the Red Wedding, which is still one of the most shocking TV moments I’ve ever seen. After that, expectations were loftier than the Eyrie — and like Dany’s world-conquering desires, they were only going to end one way. — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor

Burn it all

All I wanted from the Game of Thrones finale was catharsis. Yes, after eight seasons of combing through book details and fan theories, it would have been nice to have everything tied up in a gilded bow of overdue answers and perfectly timed revelations. But ultimately, all I really wanted was to feel the kind of emotion Thrones had so expertly pulled from me in past finales. 

Give me the devastation of Ned’s head on the ground, the joy of Littlefinger’s Stark sisters-led demise, the spectacle of Cersei’s sept explosion revenge. With almost no character I liked still alive at the series end, what I really craved was deliverance: scenes of the Iron Throne melting slowly, Jon Snow accepting his failure to save anyone before being eaten by a dragon, Bran admitting he never contributed anything helpful to anyone before turning into a raven and fucking the hell off.

TL;DR We should have burned that shit to the ground. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter

Dogs 

I must have blacked out for the entirety of Game of Thrones‘ final season because whenever I try to think about it, I just get a parade of dog photos floating through my head. So let’s go with that. Game of Thrones should have ended with the hateful, incestuous, and warmongering denizens of Westeros all killing each other in a bloody final battle, thus opening the door to a 1,000-year-rule by the kingdom’s dogs. Ghost can be king. Would bend the knee in an instant to that good boy. — Adam Rosenberg, Senior Entertainment Reporter