Although many people have a lot of bad reviews about Season 8, I actually like Season 8 because it's very George Martin.
The White Walkers and the Dead climbed up the city walls like dumplings to besiege Winterfell. Everyone was using their last bit of strength to fight ghosts. At the last critical moment, the city walls were breached, the courtyard was breached, and the castle was breached. , even the heart tree forest where Bran was located was surrounded by dead people, and the archers led by Theon used up their last arrows and died in hand-to-hand combat. The Night King also appeared, only a dozen meters away from Bran.
At such a critical moment of life and death, Bran sat in a wheelchair like an old cadre and said to Theon: you're a good man.
Then Theon turned around in tears and went to die.
I believe that many people will have doubts when they see this. When is it? Is the ultimate moral question of "Is it a good person" still important? Humanity has reached the moment of survival and extinction. "Is it a good person?" How can it be?
However, throughout the eighth season, such moral questioning runs through.
At the last moment of his life, Theon went to Winterfell to fight, just to get Bran's words: you are a good man. James also went north to join the battle of Winterfell, and finally got Bran Ni's words: you are a good man, not like your sister.
Theon has done a lot of wrong things because of his unsteady will and conflicted personality, so what he said to Jon was particularly profound: you always know what it's right, but I don't. He will always go when he needs to. The moment he chooses "right and wrong", he falls off the chain and chooses the wrong one, although he still remembers what is right in his heart. Just like he chose to change back to Greyjoy the Ironman, take Winterfell, and kill the people in the city, but he still spared Bran and Rickon; just like he chose to be a little thin-skinned servant, and finally Still bravely saving Sansa.
But he still needs to atone for his wrongdoing, and so does James. Theon died for Bran and Winterfell, and he atoneed for his sins, so Sansa pinned the Stark direwolf badge to Theon's body, posthumously recognizing that he was still a Stark after all. But Jaime didn't die, he survived the Battle of Winterfell, which is why when he heard that the Dragon Queen was frustrated in her attack on the King, he rode south in the middle of the night, and he continued to atone for his sins.
So he said to Brienne, you think I'm a good guy? I pushed a child off a tower and maimed him for life; I strangled my cousin to see Cersei; I nearly killed everyone in Riverrun, and you think I'm a good man?
Although Brienne admits that James is a good person, he has not yet, and he feels that he has not yet redeemed his sins, so he will continue to fight in King's Landing and continue to atone for his sins.
The entire Battle of Winterfell, and even the entire eighth season, was one big ritual of atonement.
Jorah Mormont had betrayed the Dragon Queen, so he used his last strength to protect Daenerys, die for her, and atone for his sins; Soros was once a red robe monk, like the red robe woman, But he only knew about drinking and martial arts, and lost his mission until he came to Winterfell after going through hardships and twists and turns. He died to protect Erya and atonement for his crime of catching Erya.
They are all fighting for redemption.
So many people will feel that the eighth season is boring, because the plot is no longer tortuous, and there is no horror like the bloody wedding. Everyone is lining up to die. What's the point?
However, that's exactly what George Martin wanted to say in Game of Thrones.
Someone once asked George Martin, you wrote about a lot of people in A Song of Ice and Fire, like James, who seemed to be heroes but didn't seem to be heroes, and James even became more of a man after he broke his hand. Hero, do you have to torture heroes like this? Do you have any anti-hero complex?
George Martin said frankly that he felt that "redemption" was the theme that attracted him the most, and it was also what he wanted to explore through his works. "Even though I'm not a Catholic, I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, and maybe that influence is subtle. People repent in church and their sins can be forgiven, even if the society cannot Many of the most profound sins forgiven, but still can be forgiven and redeemed from a Christian perspective."
So in the whole "Game of Thrones", what we see is that the heroic protagonists who seem to have aura die unexpectedly one by one, and then one by one, dwarfs, eunuchs, ugly monsters, bastards, mercenaries, crippled... .... survived, their experience of surviving in troubled times is not glorious, and sometimes even very unbearable, so there is the classic dialogue between Bronn and the Lannister brothers: which famous family does not exist because of Did your ancestors have a wicked, wicked killer?
This may be the true portrayal of the Middle Ages and the true portrayal of human history.
But George Martin still hopes that they repent, they die for redemption and forgiveness.
In the play, the Onion Knight Davos was the most antipathetic to the King of Light and the Red-robed Woman at first, and was furious because the Red-robed woman burned Princess Xilin, but he was the most influenced by the King of Light, and he was always brooding. Do not forget. And finally admitted: "We are all pawns of the King of Light." He had a deep doubt about his faith until he finally believed it. After a long journey, contradictions always followed.
And although George Martin was not influenced by his family to become a Catholic, he spent almost the second half of his life writing epic works. Each character's chapters are full of inner monologues to tell us, repentance, and redemption.
Remember if the woman in red robe said something: The King of Light is always watching you.
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