Spoiler alert: this recap is published after Game of Thrones airs on HBO in the US on Sunday night and on Foxtel in Australia on Monday. Do not read unless you have watched the finale of season eight, which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Monday at 2am and 9pm, and is repeated in Australia on Showcase on Monday at 7.30pm AEST.

‘He is our memory. The keeper of all our stories: the wars, weddings, births, massacres, famines, our triumphs and defeats.’

You might not please all the people all the time, but I thought that was a fantastic conclusion, melancholy and stirring in all the right places, to a show that has had to wrestle with the often unwieldy but always addictive nature of the story being told.

Anchored by a lovely performance from Peter Dinklage, who finally got to let us see the Tyrion of the early seasons again, and filled with emotional and fitting sendoffs for almost all the surviving characters, The Iron Throne managed to pull the three themes that have dominated this show – the power of love, families and, above all, stories – into a coherent, enjoyable whole.

The upper Hand? ... Tyrion. Photograph: HBO/Helen Sloan

Was it the ending everyone dreamed of? Probably not, but then again isn’t that the point? That we all tell each other stories and imagine how they might conclude and sometimes they don’t add up to the reality, or we wish it had played out another way.

This episode was all about that gap. It was about the myths that were told about glorious kings and queens versus the true horror of what it took to put those people on the throne; about the dark tales of the First Children that Bran, now the Broken, First of his Name, learned at the knee of his nurse, and the dreams of chivalry and song that Sansa, Queen of the North, believed in even as her sister Ayra, the assassin-adventurer, knew there was no place for a girl like her in them.

Most of all, it was about the stories that Daenerys Targaryen was raised on far from Westeros. Of Aegon Targaryen, the great conqueror and liberator who forged the Iron Throne from the swords of those he defeated; of her noble brother Rhaegar, who fought for justice, and her father Aerys, the Mad King, slain by Jaime Lannister who then sat on his throne.

That last story is perhaps the most important, because we know Jaime’s version of how a boy who never wanted to be a member of the Kingsguard killed his king to prevent him razing a city rather than saving it.

We know, too, that when the future stories tell of how the knights and ladies of Westeros came together to save a kingdom and beat back the Mad Conquering Queen, they will only tell a fraction of the tale.

For, as she explained to her soldiers then later to Jon, Daenerys Targaryen wasn’t the Mad Queen at all but a woman with a clear if devastating vision: a desire to break the wheel and bring freedom with fire.

Yet she was right that it was Cersei who used the people of King’s Landing as a weapon – just as Dany’s father had tried to do before her. Her flaw is that, knowing that, she chose to cloak herself in the words of her house and slay the innocent rather than turn Queenslayer as Jaime Lannister had done all those years before.

In the end, the greatest tragedy of Game of Thrones was Dany’s.

A girl raised on stories and dreams who survived tragedy and birthed three dragons from her dead husband’s fire. It’s the story of how that girl became a woman who believed that she alone could change the world, but who never realised that what she was really proposing was razing it to dust and ashes. Who never grasped that it’s not enough to say you are good and expect everyone to join your cause, or that liberation and conquering are two sides of the same coin. And who, most importantly, never understood that Westeros was not really hers but a half-glimpsed dream of what might have been.

‘You are my queen, now and always’

The ‘true heir’ to the throne ... Jon Snow. Photograph: Courtesy of HBO

It was also an episode about love. From the love Tyrion still felt for his terrible family, digging his dead siblings out of their stony tomb while he wept, to the love Dany and Jon felt for each other and the duty both felt to their very different dreams.

Would Dany have ultimately killed Jon, as a disillusioned Tyrion insisted? I’m not sure. Yes, he was the ‘true heir’ to the throne but I believed her when she asked Jon to build her new world with her – being closely related is, after all, no barrier for Targaryens.

And Jon loved her too, for her beauty and bravery. For the fact that both of them were outsiders, unsure of their place in the world, who built their own stories from unpromising beginnings. The difference being, of course, that Dany grew to believe in her own myth while Jon was never convinced of his.

Even though I knew he’d have to kill her (there was no way honourable Jon Snow would condemn his sisters to death) I still gasped when the moment came. Finally, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke made me believe in their doomed relationship. It might have come at the end of their time, but it was worth it (and explains why Jaime and Cersei’s death played out as it did – to pull the same trick twice would have lessened this crucial moment.)

‘What’s west of Westeros … no one knows. It’s where all the maps stop. That’s where I’m going’

Call me a sentimental sucker – I was happy to see my favourite Northerners seize their destinies. Photograph: Courtesy of HBO

And so to families, in particular the family that has been central since the start – the Starks.

I’ll admit it: I’m a sentimental sucker and I was happy to see my favourite Northerners seize their destinies.

Thus Bran agreed to rule most (but not all) of Westeros, essentially setting up a Star Chamber while he went off to vision-quest for a grieving dragon. It was an interesting development that both answered what he and Tyrion might have talked about before the battle with the Night King, and raised intriguing questions about what sort of long con the all-seeing Three-Eyed Raven has being playing here.

Will Bran be a good king? I’d say he’s beyond such petty concerns, but if his down-to-earth council can stop squabbling they’ll do fine. Anyway, he might not have a dragon but Bran is arguably the scariest person on this show – as his comments to Tyrion about paying for the past by doing a job he didn’t want made clear.

Only arguably because DarkSansa, AKA my favourite new ruler on this show, is not to be messed with. I liked that we were made to think it was the Iron Throne she was itching for, when really it was only ever independence for the North.

Meanwhile two forms of exile, one self-imposed and one not, awaited the last two members of the Stark family (Jon still counts thanks to his mother). Arya the fearless headed off to explore the unknown – a fitting end for a girl who always longed for adventure, and probably the most satisfying character arc on the show.

As for Jon, his end was set from the moment he killed Dany (surely no one thought he was toast, certainly not after Drogon spared him). Back to the Night’s Watch, where all those who condemned him for bad Direwolf parenting got their comeuppance as he was reunited with both Ghost and Tormund, then rode his Wildling people out to make a new life beyond The Wall. As an end for the monosyllabic northerner it was a fitting one. It turns out that Jon Snow did know something after all.

Additional notes

• After eight seasons of backstabbing and speeches about power, the best political commentary of all came from a grieving dragon. Yes, I did cheer when Drogon incinerated the Iron Throne.

• I also cheered when Sam proposed bringing democracy to Westeros. Never mind Sam: some people are just born ahead of their time.

• In an episode filled with nice touches, I was particularly fond of the fact that Jon, now the Last Targaryen, not only referenced Maester Aemon but faced his own choice about love and duty before ending up at The Wall, just as his forbear had done.

• Davos remains my favourite to the end, not only pointing out that there had been enough violence in the name of the Iron Throne but also demonstrating that his time with Stannis upped his grammar game.

• I told you that Bronn, like the cockroaches, would survive. Although he might not find it as easy as Littlefinger to get those brothels open again.

Sure to annoy fans of the books ... Brienne writes Jaime’s history. Photograph: Courtesy of HBO

• The scene with Brienne as Lord Commander writing Jaime’s history might have annoyed fans of the books but I’m OK with it. It spoke silent volumes about all they had shared.

• Hello Edmure, nice to see that you’ve learned absolutely nothing during this time.

• Godspeed Grey Worm, may you and the Unsullied make it to the lovely isle of Naarth and live in peace and harmony far away from the machinations of Westeros.

Violence count

Thousands of burnt and dead citizens of King’s Landing, several Lannister soldiers whose throats were slit in the name of Dany’s Justice, one incineration of the Iron Throne by a grieving dragon following the stabbing to death of Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons by Jon Snow, AKA Aegon Targaryen, former King in the North, one-time Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and occasional Resurrection Man.

And finally: it’s been a pleasure writing this blog over the last nine years and thank you to everyone who has debated, argued, and quibbled over this show. Thank you to the Stark loyalists and the Lannister fans, to the people who have loved this season and those who hated it. To the grammar pedants, the error spotters and the military historian: you were all right. To the people who came to complain every week about why we ran it before it aired in the UK, and even to those who turned up just to say they’d never watched an episode. I’ll see you below the line one last time. Pour me a large Dornish red. And now my watch is ended.