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Game of Thrones’ series finale preview teases one final fight

Spoilers, obviously.

Zack Beauchamp
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy, The Reactionary Spirit, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here.

Game of Thrones season eight, episode six will be the show’s series finale. The trailer for it doesn’t reveal a lot — but it does suggest that there will be a reckoning for the events of episode five, “The Bells.”

First things first: Spoilers follow below.

The episode six teaser confirms that at least three major characters — Arya, Daenerys, and Tyrion — survived the destruction of King’s Landing, as it focuses on them walking around in the ashes (Jon, Davos, and Grey Worm aren’t shown, but they likely survived as well). The trailer is washed over with a dark blue tone and ash falling like snow; it has an almost wintry feel to it, as if a terrible kind of winter has come to King’s Landing.

Tyrion appears horrified at what he sees in the city. Arya looks ready to turn on Dany — the trailer shows her standing by some Unsullied with murder in her eyes. And Daenerys seems unwaveringly regal, walking between lines of her soldiers as if she’s proud of the massacre she just committed. There’s also a shot of Dothraki cheering, as if they too are happy with what’s just happened.

Everything we see suggests that Game of Thrones’ series finale will focus on the divide created by Daenerys’s actions in the penultimate episode, with most of the main characters seemingly turning against her in horror, and the warriors who crossed the Narrow Sea with her standing by her side. The conflict is no longer Starks versus Lannisters or humans versus undead, but rather our surviving heroes versus Daenerys Targaryen, the Mad Queen.

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