I just watched the ridiculous ending of Game of Thrones again. They make Bran the Broken the king of Westeros. For eight seasons, we slowly build up a story, and then we throw out all of that last minute for an absurd twist ending, where Bran — maybe the least suitable candidate of any — becomes king. Sorry if these are spoilers, but also the final episodes themselves spoil the show, and you can’t spoil what is already rotten. Brandon “I’m the Three-Eyed Raven. I can never be lord of anything” Stark becomes lord of everything. Why the ridiculous twist?

I think inexperienced writers make the mistake of trying to outwit their audience. The natural ending is to have either that either Daenerys or Jon become rule of the seven kingdoms. I am sure there were many people predicting this ending online. I’m also sure the writers saw these comments, and worried they might underwhelm people by giving them an ending they’d already predicted. So instead they cooked up something else.

The problem is that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The three should match. (This is what makes choose-your-own-adventure type stories like Baldur’s Gate III so hard to write. Only one ending can match the beginning and middle, and players won’t accept the other endings, resetting their save files to search for the “real” ending.) Generally, the beginning and middle of a story tell you how the story is going to end, and then the ending comes and gives you exactly what you were promised, and the result is you feel satisfied.

If you want a twist ending, none of that changes. The beginning and middle promise an outcome, and you deliver on that outcome in the ending. The only thing different about a twist ending is that the audience is not supposed to realize the ending had been promised the whole time until it comes. Then they can look back on their memories and realize that it had, in fact, been promised the whole time.

You can’t just have a “twist” where the ending just flat-out does not match the beginning. It just feels incoherent, and it’s certainly not satisfying. What is the solution to an audience that has already predicted your ending online? There is no solution because there is no problem. If nobody can guess your ending, your ending sucks, because it doesn’t match the story you’re writing. At the beginning of the Titanic, we’re promised a story about a sinking ship. If at the end, a fairy came and cast a magic spell causing the whole ship to float into the sky and everyone was saved, you would not find that satisfying. Surprising, yes, but not in a good way. It’s a topic for another time, but surprises belong in the first two thirds of a book, not at the end.

Plenty else sucked with the Game of Thrones ending besides the random kingmaking of Bran the Broken, but I have nothing to say about that that hasn’t been said elsewhere.

Secret Rich Text Copyer for Substack