'Game of Thrones' season finale recap: Long live the queens

At some point in its six season run, Game of Thrones decided it was going to be about something very different than its source material. The books are about a lot of things, about power and history and memory and family and loyalty and vengeance and also a little big Global Warming.

The show is about all of those things too, but in its sixth season finale, one thing became more important than anything else: Survival. Six years later and the death count on Game of Thrones is in the hundreds (maybe even over a thousand if we count every soldier to fall in every battle). We are at the point where we have lost so many heirs to so many thrones and houses, that families are ending and lines of succession mean nothing. The only thing that matters is staying alive. Power is great, sure, but only if you live long enough to enjoy it.

READ MORE: Game of Thrones or real life? We compare the political leadership of Britain against Westeros

That is what our eyes looked like during the episode, too. (Photo: HBO)

At the end of “The Winds of Winter,” the show has given us three claimants to power in Westeros. Jon, confirmed Targaryen and made King in the North, Cersei, sitting on the Iron Throne a la Don Corleone, and Dany, sailing, at long last, to the Seven Kingdoms with three dragons, an alliance of four Westerosi houses, two armies and the smartest man in politics at her side. These three know how to survive despite odds against them, and in one case,actual death. And since winter is officially here, that is a skill worth having.

Like Cersei said in season 1: When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. Sometimes you play against a holy man or slavers, and sometimes you play against the embodiment of Death Itself. Either way, you have to win. And next season, that won't change.

"Burn them all."

It’s what Mad King Aerys repeated over and over again to Jaime, the phrase that caused the young Kingsguard to become the Kingslayer. He was afraid the Mad King would unleash his stores of wildfyre hidden below the city. What is he to do now that his nightmare has come true, the destruction has been unleashed, but by his sister and lover?

Cersei Lannister may have appeared weak this season, stripped of allies and power and even her long beautiful hair, but Cersei Lannister -- from the young, confident girl we met in the flashback last season to the new Queen of the Seven Kingdoms -- has never been weak. You can see it in the (quite stunning) opening sequence of the episode, which shows Cersei dressing contrasted with Tommen, Margaery and the High Sparrow. The Sparrow may have liked the symbolism of his rags but Cersei puts on armor for this world, lest she find herself standing barefoot in a church blown to smithereens.

Cersei’s enemies, from the Tyrells to the Sparrow to Lancel to Pycelle to all the courtiers who turned up to see her trial, are taken care of in one flash (how did Qyburn turn all those little children into murderers is the real question here, though), and those she truly hates suffer longer, like the shame-spouting Septa Unella. But, like Maggy the Frog predicted, her last child fell as well (perhaps a moment even more shocking than the initial explosion).

READ MORE: Game of Thrones or real life? We compare the political leadership of Britain against Westeros

Tommen’s death may not have been Cersei’s chief goal (she held him back from the Sept purposefully), but you can’t say it wasn’t in her best interest. With no heirs to speak of (I guess we’re never hearing from Gendry again), Cersei took the place on the Iron Throne she has been coveting (whether openly or subconsciously) her whole life. Because it feels good. She’s always been a villain, but in that moment, she was truly terrifying. In her every act before this moment, Cersei had something to care about (her children) and a role that prevented her from exercising her will outright (queen or queen mother). Now she has nothing to lose (except maybe Jaime, but from that look she might have already lost him) and unvarnished power at her hands. The only question is: What does she want now?

The (new) King in the North

They're really all shouting "R + L = J" over and over and over again.

For his entire life, Jon was defined by being a bastard. Sansa didn't like him. When his family had feasts and celebrations, he could never sit at the high table with them. His last name was "Snow." But now, that bastard is a King.

And he hasn't gained this title through fear, like Cersei, or war, like Dany (more on her below), but instead through respect. He spent his entire life yearning for respect, and now he finds himself in a room full of men and women chanting for him to lead (and just how great is it that Lyanna Mormont, the true hero of this show, is the one to first raise her voice for Jon as the new king). Jon may have come back from the dead a tired, man-bun wearing pragmatist, but he remains the same man that was able to raise himself to Lord Commander in the first place. He has allies, in the Wildlings and the Northmen. He has a Hand in Davos, especially after he banished Melisandre. He has family, in Sansa. And he has a cause, and knows more than anyone what the true, real war is. He may be King in the North, but the Night King is coming.

Oh also, just one, kind of small, tiny thing we learned about Jon tonight. And his parents. And how they are actually, truly, 100 per cent Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. Which means that Jon is Dany's nephew, and has a stronger claim on the Iron Throne than she does. And he's not really a Stark but a Targaryen. And his birth may be the reason the war happened in the first place. And Lyanna Mormont's declaration that Ned Stark's blood runs through his veins is only kind of true.

How this will affect Jon in the present and/or Bran in the past remains to be seen. What is more important is that this is the best vindication for all you nerds out there who've been theorizing about this for oh, a decade or so. Long live R+L=J.

Everything you've ever wanted

Season 6 of Game of Thrones has, at times, felt like a direct response to some of the hardest criticism the show has faced in its run, especially in seasons 4 and 5. Yes, I'm talking about the treatment of its female characters, and specifically sexual violence. With Sansa's rape last year, the show reached a tipping point, and the producers seem to know this. This season has taken deliberate steps to push strong female characters with true agency to the forefront, and has been much more careful with how their stories are represented, from Sansa's revenge on Ramsay to Yara's flirtations with Dany to the arrival of the delightful and amazing Lyanna Mormont. They're not victims, helpless or used for shock violence. They're heroes. They're villains. They're fully-formed human beings. It doesn't make the wrongs of past seasons go away, but it was gratifying to see the show evolve and grow.

This is exemplified in Dany, who, this season, was returned to the marginalized and sexist place she began the show in, only to emerge stronger, more powerful and a little bit colder. After gaining, as Tyrion says, everything she's ever wanted last episode, she's finally ready to make her move in Westeros. First, she kicks her sometimes lover, Daario Naharis, to the curb (after he, hilariously, notes that no king would hesitate to bring a mistress conquering with him, stupid patriarchy).

The man she brings instead is Tyrion Lannister, who may have misjudged his peace with the Wise Masters, but definitely is who you need as your Hand if King's Landing is your end game. Sweetening the pie is Varys who -- possibly through the same teleportation device that allows Littlefinger to bounce around Westeros in the speed of a single episode -- made his way to Dorne (and back!) and enlisted the Sand Snakes (wow I guess they did end up being important) as well as the grieving and vengeful Queen of Thorns to Dany's cause. That gives Dany quite a chunk of the southern part of Westeros without batting an eye, and very directly places her in conflict with the newly crowned Queen Cersei. What better to fight wildfyre with than dragons?

Vengeance served warm

Some fans (and this recapper) had thought that, after the return of certain characters and the resurrection of others, that Lady Stoneheart (the zombified and vengeful version of Catelyn Stark) might be coming to give the Freys what they deserve. It turns out we were wrong about who was dishing out the vengeance, but vengeance was still served. In a pie.

Arya has made her way back to Westeros and wasted no time at all in crossing some names off her list. And good riddance to them. Wearing a face she presumably swiped from the House of Black and White (hopefully she grabbed some others, too), Arya made her way into the Twins, killed two Frey sons, cooked them into a pie, and served them to Walder Frey, who she then killed by slitting his throat.

If that all sounds familiar to you, it's because Bran told a story much like that in Season 3, just after the Red Wedding took place. As legend has it, a cook in the North once served a king who had done him wrong a pie that contained the king's son, deeply angering the gods. They weren't angry because the cook was a murderer nor the king an unwitting cannibal, but because the cook had killed the son, who was a protected guest in the house. Much like Catelyn, Rob, and the rest were guests of the Freys.

The North remembers. Arya remembers. Whoever the true gods may be (Many-Faced, Seven, Lord of Light or Old) seem to remember, too.

READ MORE: Game of Thrones or real life? We compare the political leadership of Britain against Westeros

Death watch

Jon Snow: Alive, King in the North, son of Lyanna and Rhaegar. Apparently never really going to display symptoms of his resurrection, so probably not going to be in Death Watch next season.

Who we lost in this episode (a very long list):

Margaery Tyrell (so close yet so far to winning the game of thrones)

Tommen Baratheon (Ser Pounce will mourn you, your grace) 

Loras and Mace Tyrell (at least Loras didn't have that head tat for very long)

Kevan and Lancel Lannister (You weren't real Lannisters anyway)

The High Sparrow (boy bye)

Dozens of Faith Militant, King's Landing courtiers, etc (Here's to hoping that wildfyre, which is supposed to burn anything and spread fast and not be easily put out, didn't spread too far out of the Sept)

Grand Maester Pycelle (The children really are our future) 

Walder Frey and his pie-baked sons (The Starks send their regards)