If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already gotten caught up on the most recent episodes of Game of Thrones to prepare yourself for the final episode of the series this coming Sunday. If you haven’t, be reassured that this is going to be a spoiler free zone. However, we’re going to talk about some things that you’ve probably already heard… There are lots of people who are really unhappy with the way that the series looks like it’s going to end up. (NOTE: The articles linked within this post are decidedly not spoiler free, so wait to read them if you’re trying to stay out of a spoiler zone.)

There is a lot of speculation about why fans are so upset with the way the series is ending. And many of them are saying that there was never going to be a way to please everyone.

One common thread is that there was no way that the fans were going to be happy with how the series is ending because, well, it’s ending. We had a year off of no new episodes between the end of Season 7 and Season 8. What could possibly meet that high bar for success? The audience has built up an expectation of epic battles, triumph of our favorite characters, death raining down on those we hate. All wrapped up in a surprisingly short 6 episode final season.

Also, not everybody loves and hates the same characters. Some people find Jon Snow insufferably dull. Some find Cersei admirable and strong in her own way and want her to win. Those viewers were never going to be happy with an ending that had the Starks victorious in their revenge on King’s Landing for the pain inflicted on the North. And vice versa.

But is it really as simple as that? If you’re caught up on episodes, you’ve probably been reading through articles that talk about how we should have expected a lot of this if we’d read the books. There’s something to be said for that, too. The showrunners were bringing the works of George R. R. Martin and his modern approach to fantasy to life on the screen, but at its core it is still George R.R. Martin’s world of flawed and compelling characters. And trying to bring that world out from the pages of a book where we have the inside view of what each character is thinking was not going to be easy.

I’ve always been one to be more invested than some in my fiction, whether I’m consuming it through a novel or a movie or a television show. (Just wait for Veronica Mars to start up on HULU again here in a few weeks and come back to check in and see how that goes. That’s one I’ve been waiting for since I backed the movie on Kickstarter in April 2013). There have been times where I’ve been able to recognize that I’m more into those fictional worlds than some of my friends. But a lot of the time, they are every bit as invested as I am!

Just like we discussed earlier in my Questions for Avengers: Endgame post, that’s part of what’s great about these larger than life film projects. Talking with our friends about how they relate to the characters we don’t understand and learning what it is about those characters that reaches out to them. How they wished things had gone for one character or another, or what they’re hoping to see coming up next. It’s one of the reasons endings can be so hard. And it’s also one of the reasons that sometimes, we feel so deeply disappointment when something doesn’t come together in a way that we’re happy with.

Something is Rotten in the State of Westeros

So this, as you may have guessed already, brings us back to Game of Thrones and the end of the epic that we’ve been engaged with for the last eight years. A common thread through the reviews of the last two episodes in particular has been disappointment. This is the fodder that post-episode discussions are made of each week. Analyzing and reviewing and comparing and sometimes even re-watching previous episodes to verify what we thought we remembered happening in seasons past. And these last few weeks, there have been plenty of things to discuss and try and get our heads around.

Personally, my favorite coping mechanism in these circumstances of disappointment (because we’ve all been here before), is the time honored tradition of the armchair quarterback. Not content to leave this only to my more sportsball favoring friends, we’ll talk about what we think we would have done differently if we were the director or the writer. If we think that getting to the Twins was the best move for the Starks, how would we have done it without betraying the Freys? What would we have done differently to get out of King’s Landing? How would we have gotten our characters to make the discovery that they needed to have the edge at a battle or a dinner party?

It never completely takes the sting out of a severe disappointment when the epic theory we had been nursing for five years about who Jon Snow’s mother was proves to be a different take than the one that the creators decided to go with (ask me… or any of my GoT friends because they’ve all heard my theory at this point). But it does help me understand WHY I felt so disappointed when what I felt was a key element was missed or could have been used differently. And sometimes, it’s just enough that it reminds me why I love the shows I do so much in the first place as I go through the things that did make me happy as I was watching before to keep the spark of the world alive in our discussions even after the show is over.

If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention

Download the 18 Questions and the Print and Play

So feel free to use the questions here with the Print & Play version of Mixed Company. You can use these before the last episode if you want to share your own theories and get a feel for what your friends are hoping to see. Or, you can use them any time after you’ve finished up the series and want to go back and remember what inspired the loyalties and hatreds in the first place. What did your friends love or hate about the characters you’ve been following for nearly a decade? And in your head, where are they going from here, even if that’s not where the screen takes them?

These 18 questions are designed to work best with the Quick Play rules found in the Free Print and Play download. You can certainly add in Challenge Cards and Action Cards if you want, but personally I’d start with the Question Cards and the Trophy Cards to get to the heart of what you think is rotten in the heart of Westeros.

For this version, you’ll want to make sure you print out:

Quick Play Rules

Trophy Cards

Voting Cards

Conversation Guide Cards

Question Card Set MIXD.CO/107

NOTE: Most of the questions in this set are rated All Ages because the questions don’t have anything in them that would cause problems for kids reading them. However, we’re not advocating that kids watch Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is definitely NSFW territory.