- After eight seasons and 73 episodes, Game of Thrones came to an end Sunday night.
- At the end of the series, Jon Snow is forced, once again, to take the black and go to serve a life sentence on The Wall as a member of the Night's Watch.
- The final moments of the finale, however, suggest that Jon leaves his watch to join the Wildlings.
This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones' series finale.
Tonight, the long-anticipated series finale of Game of Thrones aired, complete with the destinies of all of our favorite characters. Daenerys dies. Sansa becomes Queen of the North. Arya goes off to explore un-mapped parts of the world. And Jon Snow gets sent back to The Wall to live the same life he was set on living at the beginning of Season one, albeit this time not by choice. Here's what you need to know about Jon Snow's fate at the end of Game of Thrones.
Why did Jon Snow kill Daenerys Targaryen?
There's a longer explanation available here, but the short version is that Dany just had to go. She went full Mad Queen, killed hundreds of innocents, sentenced Tyrion to death, and rallied her armies with promises of more "liberation" which is just Dany for "murder" at this point. Jon realized that he was the only one capable of taking her out, so even though he didn't want to do, he did just that.
Why does Jon Snow have to go back to The Wall?
Grey Worm and the rest of the Unsullied are none too pleased with Jon when he kills their beloved Queen and they lock him up for weeks until all of the lords and ladies of Westeros can make the trek out to King's Landing (or what's left of it anyway) to decide what to do with him and who to name King (or Queen) of the Seven Kingdoms. When all is said and done, Bran Stark is named King of the Six Kingdoms, Sansa is named Queen of the now independent North and Jon Snow is sentenced to take the black and serve out the rest of his days on The Wall as a man of the Night's Watch.
Is there even a Wall or a Night's Watch at this point?
But wait, you might be thinking, why would you send Jon to The Wall? Wasn't that destroyed? Isn't the Night's Watch rendered useless now that there's no Night King or White Walkers to watch for? Jon asks pretty much exactly these questions and Tyrion basically says that they're keeping the Night's Watch around as a place to exile criminals. Great.
Won't Jon's siblings visit him all the time though?
Nope. Even though The Wall is just north of Winterfell, Arya announces that she'll never visit because she's going west to explore and never coming back, essentially. And Sansa, as Queen of the North, will need to play by the rules and not go visiting prisoners on The Wall. At this point, things are looking bleak for Jon, who has basically been sentenced to go sit, alone, on a broken ice wall until he dies.
So does Jon leave the Night's Watch?
Sure does. When Jon arrives at The Wall, it's not deserted like he expects. His old friend Tormund is there waiting for him, which is weird, since Tormund made it clear that he intended to go back to the real north, north of The Wall, with the rest of the Wildlings. Things become more clear, however, when you realize that Castle Black is full of Wildlings (and Ghost!) and they all seem to have been waiting specifically for Jon.
Does Jon become the King of the Wildlings?
Maybe? In the final shots of the series, Jon is seen leaving Castle Black with the rest of the Wildlings and venturing off north of The Wall, presumably never to return to Westeros. Whether Jon is officially named the Wildlings' "king" isn't clear, but we know he's a natural born leader and will surely be a high ranking Wildling at the very least. Maybe he and Tormund can co-lead the Wildlings for the rest of their days. That seems nice. Let's all just imagine that.
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