I’m pretty sure that most people are aware that the final season of Game of Thrones is finally upon us, it has been absolutely everywhere. For the last few weeks it’s been impossible to avoid discussion about what’s going to happen this season and how the season is going to end. Interestingly, most of this discussion has centred around one question: who is going to end up on the Iron Throne. Reddit has had a poll which assigns people to a subreddit for their choice and a fair bit of the marketing for this season eight has focused on the same question. In my eyes, looking at Game of Thrones in this way is counterproductive for several reasons which I am going to outline here.

As a note, there may be spoilers ahead

There is no good candidate for the Iron Throne

There are a few characters who are the most obvious candidates for the throne, these being: Jon, Dany, and Cersei. I think that it’s obvious why Cersei is bad for the people of Westeros: they hate her and equally she hates them. The other two, however, seem like they would be good rulers. But if you start to think about their characters then it becomes clear that – even if they wouldn’t necessarily be tyrants on the level of Aerys II – they wouldn’t be the perfect rulers that they seem to be.

Dany has certainly done a lot of good in her story. It would be difficult to argue that ending the slave trade and liberating thousands of slaves isn’t a good act, but there’s much more to her that that. Her answer to any problem that she faces is to burn it, which we have seen on countless occasions: in Qarth, in Astapor, and against the Khals in season six. This strategy of ruling through fire in incredibly flawed, as can be seen in her burning of the Randyll and Dickon Tarly, and will probably lead to people turning against her (as they did her father). Another issue with Dany is the fact that she claims to be planning to break the wheel, but in reality she is just another spoke on the wheel (I’ll elaborate on this later).

Jon is the opposite of Dany, so seems at least to be a better option. Whilst Dany wants to be on the throne because she views it as her birthrate, Jon has no desire to rule. He has used force in the past, but his use of force is relatively justified (such as when he executes Janos Slynt). His achievements are quite impressive too: bringing the free folk south of the wall, uniting most of Westeros against the undead, and of couse dying and coming back to life. In fact, he perfectly fits the archetype of a hero and the closet thing that Game of Thrones has to a heroic protagonist. Despite all of these things, I still don’t think that he would make a good king. He’s not a very skilled politician, and without a goal like fighting the Night King he would probably fail to control the various factions he would have to appease, much like he did during his time as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.

The r/gameofthrones Pool Board

The other characters who appear in lists of possible future monarchs of Westeros are unrealistic. Tyrion is pretty unpopular with the people. Arya has no interest in being queen (the same can be said of Bran, Brienne, Davos, Jorah, Sam, Theon, Varys, and the Hound). Melisandre, Grey Worm, and Missandei are all foreign-born and would never be accepted by the people of Westeros. Sansa is certainly politically-competent, but she’s learnt politics from so many terrible people that there’s a danger that she would end up like them. Euron is a complete arse who only cares about himself, so I doubt he would even want the responsibility.

The only character on these lists that I haven’t mentioned yet is the Night King. Even though I can understand why he is on these lists, I don’t think anyone thinks that the series will end with the White Walkers ruling the people of Westeros in an era of peace and prosperity (although that would be a brilliant twist if they ended up being the best rulers that Westeros ever had). In my view, the White Walkers are more of a force of nature than people, acting as a sort of stand in for global warming. Whatever their goal is (which we might find out soon), it probably isn’t taking the Iron Throne for themselves. There is a genuine possibility that the White Walkers will win the war against humanity, but to me that’s an entirely different question.

It’s not shocking that none of the characters in Game of Thrones are universally good people, that’s kind of the point of the show (and indeed the books). Unlike a lot of high fantasy, most notably J.R.R Tolken’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones doesn’t feature black and white characters. Instead, most of them are grey. That’s not to say that every character in the show is equally murky, most characters are different shades of grey, but unlike Tolken’s works there aren’t handsome good guys dressed in white and ugly bad guys in dark clothes.

The throne isn’t a good institution

In my eyes, Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire can be read as criticisms of the institution of monarchy and by extension the wars which it leads to. I’ve already discussed the candidates for the Iron Throne wouldn’t make good rulers, but the history of Westeros also shows that the Iron Throne isn’t a perfect institution. The Mad King Aerys II, who has been mentioned in the show quite often, is a pretty good example of how the throne can end up causing quite a bit of damage. His jealousy, paranoia, and madness led to an extremely bloody civil war.

Aerys is only one of many examples of bad kings of Westeros, the list is quite long. Maegor I executed three Grand Maesters, burned the Sept of Remembrance, and executed the entirety of his second wife’s house after he though she had an affair. Debate over the succession of Viserys I led to the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war which saw the deaths of thousands (as well as the majority of House Targaryen’s dragons). Aegon IV kept getting his sister-wife Naerys pregnant despite warnings that more than one childbirth could kill her, leading to dying in childbirth. Aegon IV was also the king who legitimised his thirteen bastard children, an act which led to the five Blackfyre Rebellions. Through his attempts to hatch new dragons, Aegon V burned down the castle of Summerhall, killing: himself, one of his sons, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard among others.

Despite the large number of bad kings, Westeros has also seen some good ones, such as Baelor the Blessed and Daeron the Good. This is a natural part of monarchy: some monarchs will be good rulers and some won’t be. That’s the problem with absolute monarchies: they are entirely inconsistant. Other systems aren’t necessarily any better – you only have to look at the list of US presidents or UK prime minsters to see that – but in most democracies the leader doesn’t have absolute power. And if they’re terrible then you can in theory get rid of them after four or five years at the next election.

Game of Thrones highlights one of the worst aspects of monarchy: the war that it brings. George R. R. Martin is well-known for his objection to war, and it appears in a lot of his works. His first published short story, The Hero, was a criticism of the Vietnam War, which he used as evidence to gain conscientious objector status when he was drafted. As a general rule, I don’t particularly like to discuss authorial intent and am a strong believer in death of the author, but Martin’s anti-war views are very obvious in both the books and the show.

Unlike a lot of high fantasy, Game of Thrones features a very gritty and unromantic depiction of war. Characters often start with romantic ideas of war, but end up disillusioned when they find out the reality of war. Jamie is a example of one of these characters, who started of as a handsome young knight but ended up completely broken. And as if that wasn’t bad enough what are all these wars for? The outcome of The War of the Five Kings didn’t matter for most of the common folk, yet tens of thousands of them died fighting in it. The same can be said of most wars, the First World War being the perfect example of this. Only one war in the show feels justifiable, and unlike all of the others it isn’t about who sits on the throne but the survival of humanity.

If the monarchy sucks so much, what should replace it?

So, if the living survive the war with the dead what should happen? Realistically Cersei will rock up from the South with the Golden Company to destroy whoever is left, both sides would fight, and one side would end up winning. But what if that happened and no realistic candidates for the throne survive? I’m going to present three possible things that could happen once the dust settles.

The idea of democracy in some form or another exists in the world of Game of Thrones, and the possibility of introducing a democratic system was mentioned by Tyrion in season seven when he was discussing succession with Dany. The Night’s Watch elect their Lord Commander and the Ironborn choose their king through some weird form of yelling based democracy (somewhat similar to voting in the House of Commons). A lot of the Free Cities have limited democracy where rich and noble citizens can vote. The one exception to this is Volantis, where the three Triarchs who rule the city are elected annually. Anyone who owns land can vote, no matter of their gender. There is even a system of two political parties in the city. There are two ways which a Volantene-style system could be introduced to Westeros. The first would be on a Westeros-wide scale, whilst the other would be at a kingdom level.

A single democratic system at a level equal to the Iron Throne seems like it would be extremely difficult to implement given the level of technology in Westeros, but let’s ignore that and speculate what a system like this could look like. Perhaps a king-like figure could be elected in some form or another, either by the people or by the lords of Westeros (in a similar fashion to the elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). The monarchy could continue with elected estates, as was common in European monarchies. This system would see the nobles, clergy, and peasants all represented in different estates, all of which have different powers. Ideally, reform would go further than this and completely get rid of the monarchy, replacing them with an elected parliament.

Democracy at the level of each of the Seven Kingdoms would be much more easily implementable. The noble family which rules each of the kingdoms could be replaced by an elected assembly which runs the affairs of the kingdom. This would a much better system considering the different cultures of the different kingdoms. A Northerner, an Ironborn, and a Dornishman all have completely different interests which are much better served by self-rule than they are by rule from Kings Landing. Westeros is based on Britain, and this same situation can be seen in Britain. The Welsh, Scottish, English, and Northern Irish all have different issues which require different solutions. This goes even further if you look within one of these nations: someone in Cornwall, someone in London and someone in Yorkshire will be equally different. This sort of more local democracy would be much more beneficial to the peoples of Westeros, yet we could go further still.

All of the systems that I’ve discussed so far have been liberal forms of democracy, but there are other systems which would give the people the most control over there own lives, these being anarchist systems. Instead of keeping the noble families who profit from the work of the smallfolk whilst doing very little themselves, the smallfolk would be able to keep the fruits of their own labour and decide how their their communities are run. Furthermore, they wouldn’t be dragged into wars between noble families, which are no better than the pointless wars for the throne. The issue with a system like this in the world of Game of Thrones is that it would leave the people Westeros vulnerable to invasion from Essos (as happened when the Andals invaded), although not completely defenceless.

No matter how Game of Thrones ends, it’s been a great journey. I doubt that anyone involved in the show will ever read this, but if they do then I hope that they know that they have helped to make an incredible show.

Thanks for reading this! If you like my writing and want to see more, then follow me on Twitter or Instagram for updates when I post. The next one will probably be an Endgame review or something slightly more political. Hopefully it won’t take too long, but revision may get in the way for a while.