Game of Thrones Season 4 Finale Leaves Viewers Both Thrilled and Disappointed With Shocking Ending

Game of Thrones Season 4 Finale Leaves Viewers Both Thrilled and Disappointed With Shocking Ending 

The fourth season of the HBO hit series Game of Thrones wrapped up on June 15 with the final episode, "The Children." The finale, like season four itself, seemed to be met with mixed reviews. It was a somewhat uneven season, full of dramatic highs and doldrum lows.

It began on an addictively high note with the death of everyone's favorite love-to-hate-him King Joffrey, who drops dead of poison at his own wedding feast. The rest of the season's peak drama revolves around King's Landing and Tyrion Lannister, who is falsely accused by Joffrey's mother Cersei of poisoning her son. In true GoT fashion, our hopes are dashed, then raised, and then dashed again as we see Tyrion stand trial for murder, be championed by the charming Oberyn Martell, and then watch horrified as Oberyn falls in combat with the Mountain, leaving Tyrion to his own devices once more. The finale leaves us with the disheartening death of Shae at the hands of Tyrion, after we watch her earlier betrayal of Tyrion in the courtroom as he stands trial for murder. Tyrion's murder of his father, Tywin Lannister, has been both a long time coming and extremely gratifying for devoted viewers of the show. Viewers were also startled and saddened by Dany, who in her quest to gain the respect of the people across the Narrow Sea, locks up her beloved dragons to die in order to ensure her people's safety (we see the threat of her dragons in the charred child corpse that is brought to her by a horrified father). This goodbye changes something essential in Dany's plotline; she can no longer hold her much-cherished title of "Mother of Dragons."

Season four left its devoted viewers, whether they were disappointed or thrilled by the finale or the season as a whole, ready to wait through another long winter until it is time for season five and all of the adventure it will bring.   

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