Welcome to my Game of Thrones thread for Seasons 7 and 8. I normally just edit Star Wars, but GoT was my favorite TV show, and like many others, I hated how the final seasons ruined an otherwise great show. To try to fix things, I started this fan edit back in 2019 shortly after the show ended, but it’s seen several stops and starts over the past year and a half as I had trouble figuring out how to solve some of the main character arcs because of travel distances and characters being in places at the proper times.
After recently watching the excellent fan edit by almightycutie, this issue can be solved by simply restructuring the episodes so that all of King’s Landing happens early on, then the Battle for Winterfell to close out the show. almightycutie and I both had a similar approach in fixing the series, with mine personally addressing most of the negative critiques on YouTube and Reddit that fans (including myself) overwhelmingly agreed on. Enough preamble though – I just wanted to start by saying that almightycutie’s edit reinvigorated me to finish my own edit of the series’ final episodes, so a special thanks goes out there. Now that the edit is finished, I figured it was time to create a thread for it to give this community a chance to also view my work. As for the details…
I’ve taken the final (13) episodes of the series and have condensed them into one final 10-episode season. Although I set out to improve character arcs, I also tried my best not to lose too many scenes and unnecessarily shorten the show. Stupid plot points and scenes are now gone, but others I’ve restructured/repurposed to make for a better telling of the story. Each of the (10) episodes falls between 48 min and 73 min, which holds true to what a standard GoT season and episode length would look like. I didn’t want to unnecessarily change anything that didn’t need changed, so some of the earlier episodes are pretty similar to what we got on the first viewing, with some minor changes.
Many SPOILERS to follow for episode details, so if you don’t want to know what happens in my series, just PM me for the link now! Please post any reviews in this thread. Ok, on to the spoilers…
S7E101 – A King’s Justice – 52 min, 26 sec
The former ‘Dragonstone’ episode is mostly intact, but like almightycutie, I also had flipped the Dragonstone arrival and Frey’s death to introduce some of the Dragonstone scenes into the first episode and move some of Arya’s screen time into episode 2. The swap just made the most sense for an opening and ender, as one is an arrival and the other is a bad ass exit. My edit does keep Varys questioning whether Dany is right as ruler, so he does his monologue still at Dany, but she doesn’t threaten to burn him. The deleted scene of Dany/Tyrion’s hallway chat en route to Melisandre was restored, as well as the deleted scene of Gilly giving more backstory about the White Walkers.
S7E102 – The Scorpion and the Kraken – 1 hr, 2 min, 47 sec
The former ‘Stormborn’ episode also didn’t have a lot of changes. In addition to Arya’s scenes, Cersei’s and Euron’s introduction in the season was moved to this episode so there was immediate payoff at the end when Euron attacks Yara and the Sands. There were also a few minor cuts from Cersei’s dialogue since Tyrion and Dany had already arrived at Dragonstone in the prior episode.
S7E103 – Queen of Thorns – 1 hr, 1 min, 54 sec
Another episode with minimal changes, just some minor scene reordering with Sansa/Bran and breaking up some of the Cersei scenes. The new ‘The Queen’s Justice’ still ends with Olanna taking the poison.
S7E104 – Bend the Knee – 59 min, 44 sec
The new ‘The Spoils of War’ is where things start to change a little bit more. The first half of the episode is mostly the same, but I’ve begun the Littlefinger plot earlier than in the show. Now, after Arya duels Brienne and looks up to see Littlefinger watching her, the next scene is her following him and finding the scroll Sansa wrote (with Littlefinger spying on her). The rest of the episode plays out similar to the show, but instead of ending with Jaime and Bronn sinking, it cuts to Tyrion surveying the battlefield aftermath, then cuts back to Jaime and Bronn emerging from the blackwater. The episode ends with the Tarly’s getting roasted. Ending the episode like this gives the illusion of more time passing so Jaime doesn’t show back up to Cersei as quickly. It hangs on what Dany just did, making you question what path she’s heading down.
S7E105 – The Lion’s Den – 1 hr, 3 min, 2 sec
Although having many elements of ‘Eastwatch’, this is where my edit really starts to deviate from the show. It opens now with an establishing shot of King’s Landing and Jaime updating Cersei on the battle. Jon arrives at Dragonstone, Bran sees the Night King coming, etc. And Varys still has the chat with Tyrion about burning the Tarly’s. Except now when Jon is telling Dany about the Night King coming, Jorah volunteers to go with Jon to stop him, and Dany says that she’s come to save the north not conquer it, and speaking in Dothraki, she says to kill the Night King. Tyrion also agrees to go talk to Jaime about the dead army threat since he may listen to him but Cersei definitely would not. There is no mention of the stupid wight plot though – Jon and company want to take out the Night King before his army gets to the wall, but in case they can’t, Tyrion wants Cersei’s forces on their side to help.
The rest of the episode plays out with Tyrion talking to Jaime, Cersei telling Jaime not to betray her again, then the ‘Beyond the Wall’ chat of Dany and Tyrion is moved up here to talk about meeting soon with Cersei. After Jon leaves for Eastwatch, Tyrion and Dany meet Cersei at the gates (from ‘The Last of the Starks’). All shots of Missandei have been cut here. Tyrion pleads with Cersei, but she’s not having it, raising her hand, threatening to kill Tyrion and everyone else with arrows. But she relents and we cut to Tyrion walking with the Mountain. The next two scenes I was able to salvage from ‘The Dragon and the Wolf’ without using the stupid dragonpit convo and wight reveal. Tyrion and Cersei chat and, presumably in thinking of her unborn child, she eventually agrees to send her forces to help with the fight against the dead. Except…betrayal! Cersei tells Jaime she has no intention of helping and he leaves King’s Landing for Winterfell in defiance, vowing to honor his word. Then, on their way back to Dragonstone, Dany and the Unsullied are attacked by Euron’s fleet. A scorpion narrowly misses Dany and her dragons, and out of anger she flies at Euron but peels off before taking a fatal swarm of arrows. Euron destroys several Unsullied ships and we cut to black with a beam falling on Tyrion. D&D’s explanation that Dany simply forgot about Euron’s fleet is so asinine. In my version, Dany’s guard is appropriately down a little since Tyrion just brokered an apparent truce with Cersei, making it more believable for Dany to be caught off guard on her way back to Dragonstone instead of simply forgetting.
S7E106 – Blinded By Fire – 58 min, 25 sec
Largely taken from ‘The Bells’, this episode now opens with the Unsullied washing up on Dragonstone. A defeated Tyrion tries to talk to Dany, but he knows he messed up – the dragon queen is coming for Cersei. What I like about this version is that Dany doesn’t go “mad” or burn King’s Landing out of anger since she hasn’t lost Missandei and Rhaegal. But she HAS been outsmarted a few times in the Dorne Sea and at Casterly Rock, and since Cersei just betrayed her and tried to kill her and destroy her fleet, she now has proper motivation for attacking the capital.
Bits of the ‘Winterfell’ episode have been moved up here to show Euron arriving with the Golden Company and chatting with Cersei, and Theon rescuing Yara. The Littlefinger plot also continues and concludes in this episode with Arya confronting Sansa, except Littlefinger is shown once again spying on them. This provides more setup for the sisters knowing that Littlefinger is watching, making it more about them playing Littlefinger and not being duped. This means Sansa does not find Arya’s bag of faces, eliminating that whole silly scene. Sansa later confides in Littlefinger, before finally calling Arya before her and turning the tables on Littlefinger and executing him. This arc still works when it looks like Arya and Sansa are working together, unlike how the show put them at odds.
The episode ramps up now with various Dragonstone talks about attacking King’s Landing, who in turn are prepping for battle. Much of the attack is similar to the show, except Euron dies immediately via dragon fire instead of conveniently washing up next to an escaping Jaime (who had already left for Winterfell in the prior episode). All shots of Jon and Davos have been cut from the episode since they are en route to Eastwatch.
Much like with almightycutie, the battle finally ends with the soldiers surrendering and the bells ringing. Except unlike with the show, Dany doesn’t do a complete 180 flip and burn the types of people she’s been freeing in her rise to power. Instead, she heads right for the Red Keep and starts attacking it, with music added. Qyburn convinces Cersei to leave but on their way down the stairs, Drogon blows up portions of the keep, causing rock to fall and crush Cersei, Mountain, and Qyburn. In the aftermath, Tyrion makes his way to the Red Keep and finds Cersei under a pile of rubble. Despite wanting to kill him, Cersei does elicit some emotion from Tyrion, who still just lost his sister after all.
The episode ends with Dany addressing her soldiers. Instead of a menacing speech where she wants to dominate the world, it’s now accompanied by some uplifting music and new subtitles to indicate one tyrant has been defeated, but they will not stop until the threat in the north has been eliminated too. The final shot is from the first episode of the season where the dead army is advancing.
S7E107 – Into the North – 58 min, 57 sec
The original ‘Beyond the Wall’ episode is largely unchanged aside from the wight hunt being scrapped and tacking a few additional scenes to the end of it. The party is more or less trying to find the Night King and kill him before he reaches the wall. All scenes of other areas of Westeros are cut as we stay the entire time on our heroes in the north. We open with Jon and company arriving at Eastwatch to allude to more time passing from his departure from Dragonstone. All the convos and snow bear stuff happen as normal, but all shots of the wight being captured are removed. When the dead arrive, Gendry still runs back to Eastwatch but he isn’t The Flash and able to make it back in time to have a raven sent to Dany. Instead, Bran senses what’s happening in his warg state and, in turn, wargs into Dany to warn her that Jon is in trouble. Dany later shows up to save our heroes – no message from Gendry and no Tyrion at Dragonstone trying to stop her.
The rest of the episode plays out as normal except “Benjen ex Machina” was removed, and it also keeps going after Viserion is reanimated. We cut right to Bran after Sam arrives at Winterfell. They talk and we see the Rhaegar/Lyanna flashback to show Jon’s heritage. Jon is recovering on an Unsullied ship so there’s no need to return to Dragonstone. Dany has already ordered her forces north in the previous episode so she simply hooks up with Jon and they sail right to White Harbor to meet them. The Ned/Lyanna stuff has been extended here from ‘The Winds of Winter’ to replace the shots of Tyrion creeping on Jon/Dany. With the boat shots from ‘Beyond the Wall’ and ‘The Dragon and the Wolf’ being combined in my edit into one scene, Tyrion is out of place here and would instead be traveling with the rest of Dany’s army up to Winterfell. We end with ravens flying to Eastwatch and the Night King taking down the wall with Viserion.
S7E108 – Eye of the Storm – 1 hr, 13 min, 16 sec
Referencing the calm between two sides of chaos, this episode title preps our heroes for the final battle. There’s a LOT of talking over the course of ‘Winterfell and ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’, so like almightycutie, I also had plans to combine these into a single episode. Without going scene by scene, much of the convos remain, but I did eliminate unnecessary stuff. Arya reuniting with Gendry and even him making her a weapon is fine, but they do not hook up before the battle. All the Bronn and his whores stuff is gone (including the subplot to kill Jaime and Tyrion since Cersei is already dead), as is Dany telling Jon that Sansa doesn’t like her and also her berating Tyrion. Jorah counseling Dany is also gone. Otherwise, there’s some other minor restructuring but this combined episode should feel very familiar.
One other thing I did like about this episode is that some of the foreshadowing about character deaths from various conversations does pay off now by the final episode (specifically comments by Bran and Edd).
S7E109 – The Night Is Dark – 48 min, 17 sec
almightycutie and I both had the thought to split ‘The Long Night’ into two episodes, except I’ll be keeping the reanimated corpses in the crypt to give some of our main non-fighting characters something to do (even though I think it was stupid to put them down there in the first place). Otherwise, a lot of our sequencing is similar since we both agree that having important main characters like Jaime and Brienne on the front line isn’t strategically smart, as is a non-fighter like Sam. All shots of the three for the first part of the battle have been removed, and Edd’s death involving Sam has been moved inside the walls with some minor color correction.
Mirroring almightycutie, I found the whole angle of failing to light the trench very silly, so I’ve also eliminated this and made it seem like they had planned for Melisandre to do this all along. Much of the battle inside remains the same as we cut back and forth to the crypt. The dragon battle in the sky was moved near the end with the Night King getting knocked off Viserion, then Dany trying to burn him. Instead of Jorah ex machina arriving out of nowhere to save Dany in the next episode, the shot of him looking up at Dany approaching the Night King was moved to E110 to show that he saw Drogon flying without Dany, which prompts him to come to the rescue. Also, I borrowed almightycutie’s idea here of Bran warging into a dragon instead of ravens so it made him actually useful in the final dragon battle.
The episode ends with the Night King reanimating the newly fallen soldiers and the White Walkers walking towards the camera. Again, lots of credit to almightycutie for a good chunk of the sequencing in this episode – there are some minor differences, but this really was the best way to structure things.
S7E110 – And Full of Terrors – 1 hr, 7 min, 49 sec
Part two of the battle picks up with a more quiet tone. As the title implies, we’ve moved on to the ‘terror’ portion of the battle. We open with Arya’s horror sequence indoors, then cut to the wight corpses emerging in the crypt, then cut to before the outdoor Godswood sequence of the wights surrounding Theon and Bran. The deleted scene of Alys Karstark’s death was also restored here to set a creepier tone.
Once Arya is “safe”, she chats with Melisandre, but we cut away after her ‘Not today’ line. I added more sfx of wights trying to bang down the door and don’t show Arya leaving so it’s less obvious that she’s going after the Night King and instead could be trying to close more “blue eyes” that are trying to break down the door. In the crypt, the deleted scene of Sansa and Tyrion stabbing wights with dragonglass to protect Missandei, Gilly, and her child was restored.
Once we get through the ‘terror’ bits, we’re back outside headed to the endgame with Jon hacking away at wights. Much of the episode from here proceeds as normal with Dany saving Jon, Jorah saving Dany, and Jon getting pinned down by Viserion as the Night King finally makes it to the Godswood. We see shots of Jaime and Brienne being overrun, then Sam. Theon’s futile charge results in his death and then we see the final Night King walk to Bran. I changed the music a bit at the end and eliminated the wisp of wind moving the White Walker’s hair to make Arya’s approach less predictable. She’s an assassin and also shouldn’t be screaming mid-air so you only hear her now when the Night King catches her by the throat. This makes it seem more like he could sense her. To make Bran even more useful, I borrowed from almightycutie again by having Bran warg into Arya – she delivers the killing blow and he gets the big assist. Everything else remains the same from this point up to Melisandre’s walk of death.
On my first viewing, it bugged me that someone with no previous story with the Night King ended up being the one who killed him. I would have preferred it gone to someone else, but there wasn’t much that could be done with this from editing standpoint, aside from giving the assist to a warging Bran (who does have lots of history with the Night King). Moving on…
Instead of ending the episode though, we fade in from black to Sansa mourning over Theon’s body. Since there were some additional deaths in this episode, I took advantage of Dany’s long mourning over Jorah to cover up bits where some newly deceased characters were shown observing the funeral. This allowed me to keep Jon’s speech and the original music. There was some minor restructuring here, but it should look/sound mostly familiar. At the end, we see that Jaime, Brienne, and Sam also died in the battle (full credit to almightycutie for reuse of the smoking corpse shots).
The rest of the episode combines scenes from ‘The Last of the Starks’ and ‘The Iron Throne’ to wind down Dany’s pursuit of the Iron Throne arc and also provide some closure for our other main characters. A deleted scene for Grey Worm and Missandei leaving for some quality time was restored for the post-battle meal. Also during the meal, Dany sees how the people love Jon. She has flashbacks of her attacking King’s Landing, the people fleeing, and her burning the Red Keep. She’s unsettled by this and leaves, with Varys in tow. A few other convos were kept here, but all shots/scenes with Jaime and Brienne were removed since they died in the battle.
After the meal, we see a condensed scene of Dany telling Jon how she noticed the people looking at him. She is realizing at this point that Jon’s heritage will not allow her to claim the Iron Throne, despite Jon not wanting it. After Arya and the Hound depart Winterfell, we have the library conversation with Dany and Sansa where they talk about each being a leader. Sansa questions what will happen with the north now that Dany is in line for the throne. Outside, Davos is telling Tyrion and Varys that the north don’t like outsiders and Dany would need to earn their trust. Dany gets on Drogon and leaves Winterfell as Sansa and Tyrion look on. Tyrion believes in Dany and that she’ll do the right thing.
From here, we cut to a winterized King’s Landing and Dany approaching the throne. As Dany goes to touch the throne, she has a memory from earlier of her telling Jon that she doesn’t have love here, only fear, despite Jon telling her that he loves her. Jon then arrives and tells her that the north is free because of her. After she recalls a story about the Iron Throne, Jon repeats that she is his queen and pleads ‘Please, Dany’. Dany simply replies with ‘I can’t’ as we cut to Drogon approaching and landing beside Jon. A tense moment builds before Dany utters ‘Dracarys’. Drogon melts down the Iron Throne and Dany and Jon embrace. Jon reassures her that she’ll still always be his queen and they kiss. The music leads us to Jon and Dany, midflight on Rhaegal and Drogon. Their playful chase ends near the icy waterfall where they chat and embrace once more. We begin to end things with the Stark montage where we see Missandei and Grey Worm holding hands, the sequencing implying they are on Arya’s ship, destination unknown. Sansa is queen of the north. Jon walks through Castle Black, greets Ghost, then is approached by Tormund. Tormund asks whether he is going to ride the dragon, then teases him about his size. He embraces Jon and tells him he has the true north in him. They leave beyond the wall on horses. Jon hears a dragon behind him, then looks back to see Dany riding Drogon, and also Rhaegal fly past. Jon smiles and the wildlings head into the woods towards their new future. THE END. No silly counsel to decide who is king, and no Jon returning to the Night’s Watch.
Conclusion
If you’re still with me, that’s the new story of Seasons 7 & 8. It’s a satisfying ending for pretty much all characters I think. Dany doesn’t go “mad” and kill innocent people – instead, she removes a tyrant from power and has proper motivation to do so since she was outsmarted a few times during battle, then betrayed and was almost killed after seemingly reaching a truce. In the end, Jon doesn’t want the throne but Dany knows that she can’t have it either – and even if she did, the people would never love or respect her like they would Jon since she’s an outsider, they only fear her. Since the throne is a symbol of tyranny, she burns it down and chooses to live a life up north with the person she loves.
Jon feels the pull of the true north and turns down the crown, without disclosing to anyone that he’s the rightful heir. Sam is dead and Bran just stares all day, so the truth is pretty much safe unless Jon wants to reveal it. Instead, Sansa is the “queen of the north” and has the presumption of power in Westeros while Jon and Dany live happily ever after up north leading wildlings.
Brienne and Jaime both die honorable deaths, and Sam’s luck with the White Walkers finally runs out. None of them could overcome the plot armor they were wearing in the final battle. Jaime’s redemption arc also isn’t trashed and he doesn’t hook up with Brienne either.
Restructuring the episode order also allowed some previously deceased characters to survive, like Missandei, Varys, and the Hound – the latter doesn’t get his revenge against the Mountain but he does save Arya and gets to ride off with her. And satisfyingly, Cersei and Littlefinger got what they deserved.
Fates are unknown for some people like Arya, Tyrion, Varys, Bronn, and who’s actually in control now in the south, but I thought it was better to leave that open-ended than use a silly ending like the show gave us. Varys doesn’t die unjustly and his future is open-ended. Arya is also someone I debated killing off because the completion of her arc is kind of lame – if she wants to see what’s west of Westeros, why not have Bran send ravens? But I did love the final Stark montage, so I felt it was better to keep her alive and leave her future destination ambiguous, same with Missandei and Grey Worm since Naath – according to the books – is supposed to have a deadly butterfly sickness that affects all non-natives. It was easier just to cut their pre-battle talk about heading to Naath and just let them sail away somewhere with Arya – maybe she’s still taking them to Naath, who knows.
As for the final leadership team in King’s Landing, what the show gave us was a joke so I scrapped all that. In my version, Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven and remains a weirdo. Bran is not the Night King…he’s not even King. He’s just Bran. Bronn is literally the worst person that could have been made master of coin. Brienne’s role would have been fine if she survived, but Sam had hardly any experience as a maester, let alone being the top one. And Tyrion is terrible at his job, so it makes sense to stay north with Sansa, who he has feelings for and who he is still likely technically married to.
So that’s it! If you’ve made it to the end and this sounds interesting to you, send me a PM. Again, please post any reviews here in this thread. It was really rewarding to finally be able to finish this edit and I hope all of you that watch it enjoy it! Again, a special shout out to almightycutie for the inspiration to finish the series and for the reuse of some sequencing and a few VFX shots.
-YCE