Dear D.B. Weiss and David Benioff,

I write this letter with gratitude and love as the end credits of the series finale of one of the greatest television shows airs around the world. I have joined voices with fans this year and cried myself hoarse as we have watched our favourite show deliver episodes several notches lower in standard from the perfection we are used to. True, you perhaps did not give us the climax we all waited for with bated breath but that does not discount the times you spoilt us silly by delivering a giddy experience when an episode aired from the past seasons (except the last two seasons). We have loved and lost, been emphatically involved in character development, wanted to gouge our eyes out at the end of nail-biting fight sequences, sometimes sighed deeply and mostly just cheered and hooted, much like the extras on the show — your fans were the extras on your show.

The most painful death on your show was that of Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) by virtue of it being the first betrayal we felt in the long line of graver betrayals that followed. The death showed us what Game of Thrones, as a show, was capable of — the fondness we could muster up for a character and the unfathomable pain and shock we could feel for its demise. So leaving everything aside, it is only fair that Ned Stark stands avenged as his children become rulers of their own fate by their virtues alone.

Did we question Bran Stark’s (Isaac Hempstead Wright) ascension to the now non-existent Iron Throne? Yes, but that was no deterrent for getting the long-awaited, much-elusive closure. Bran Stark, the character that hardly induced any emotion in us for it’s lack of achievements, perhaps deserved the throne for this very virtue — the glaring lack of polarising opinions about him. That is the closest one could expect to encounter a radical change in the blood-thirsty seven kingdoms of Westeros and the final collapse of the ‘wheel’.

Jon Snow (Kit Harington), the man who always does the right thing, albeit late, yet again sees the world through the glass of justice and delivers what is expected of him — stabbing his aunt lover Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in the middle of a kiss. In her last hours, she seems out-of-breath and relentless. There is a glint of ‘more’ in her eyes as she plans on achieving her dream of a ‘free world’ even if it involves the death of one or a thousand innocents. Her death, however, refused to stir any emotions within me except relief — that it was finally over. Does that discount the treasons, genocides, regicides, murders and devastations galore in this show and how each and every one of them felt personal? I don’t think so.

Jon Snow or Aegon Targaryen never wanted the throne, the limelight or the power. So thank you for giving him exactly where he deserved and wanted to be — at one with the free folk.

Thank you for building and developing the character arc of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) with the attention and nuance it deserved. From the annoying, ‘king-eyed’, silly elder sister to the victim of unfathomable horrors to the ‘Queen in the North’ — she earned it. Her character makes us believe that strength lies within us and we just need to look for it hard enough. “Without Littlefinger and Ramsay and the rest, I would’ve stayed a little bird all my life”, she says in the second-last episode but we disagree. Sansa, you would have shone, disaster or otherwise and when you now say “the North will remain an independent kingdom as it was for thousands of years”, we nod our heads vigorously, for it is her independence that we celebrate along with that of the North. So thank you too, my queen.

And to my other queen Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) who sets sail for the unknown land “where all the maps stop” — we couldn’t be happier perhaps. We do wish she didn’t have to set off into the sunset like a faux-Columbus with keen sea-faring interests but we agree that if anyone deserved to set off for the unknown, it was Arya Stark.

Thank you for teaching us how to love through Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). And thank you for giving us Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) — the man who laughed at misery and cried when no one was watching; the man who made many mistakes and then spent his time undoing every one of them; the realest of all men. From the time when this ‘imp’ had screamed at court “I demand trial by combat” to the hand of the King who chooses “the boy who fell from the high tower and lived” as the true King of the six kingdoms, we have felt safe at every appearance of this Lannister. Thank you for making us laugh even when you were failing and thank you for not failing when we needed you the most. Do give Dinklage a hug from me when he stands to receive his Emmy for this role (which he will, I am convinced).

Thank you for giving us Raman Djawadi and his iconic music. If anything could outlive this show, it would perhaps be the music he created that contributed to our collective goosebumps festival as much as the plot did.

Thank you for reading George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice and envisioning this universe that helped us make friends with complete strangers at parties and enemies on social media. I hope you didn’t get fooled by him this season into creating something that could have been much better — it could well be that old man’s ploy to increase impending book sales. Just because the last season failed, it does not make the show a failure. So as I bid goodbye to this world, I wish that your cast never again leaves stray coffee cups and plastic water bottles on the set, and may you never have to make compromises with a script because of budget cuts. I look forward to all the worlds you go on to create because after all, “why do you think I came all this way?”

With love, Just another fan...