So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed quite a lot of discontent at the ending to Game of Thrones. Not since How I Met Your Mother has a fandom been so outraged at the treatment of their characters and plot lines. To be clear, before I start this post, I am not here to slag off the ending – I don’t hold the same problems with the ending as lots of other people do. Do I think it was the best ending? No. Am I demanding they remake it? No. Am I going to slag off what a huge number of people worked monumentally hard for? Absolutely not.

However, that does not mean that my imagination and my creativity have not been ignited by a video that’s been published on YouTube. By Think Story, this 16-minute video suggests an alternative ending to the season which lots of people believe might have been more satisfying.

In this version of events, instead of being defeated in Episode 3, The Night King would be a menace throughout the final run, with his defeat marking the victor of the Game of Thrones. Instead of being defeated by dragon glass, as he was by Arya, the Night King would come away from this undefeated, forcing the Northern forces to retreat south to King’s Landing. Here, they would be at the mercy of Cersei, who would permit them entry (having been persuaded by Jaime), but only if Dany bends the knee. Dany does so, in order to protect the people who she wishes to rule over and cares for.

Bran would be indisposed, as he would be searching through the history of Westeros in order to find a method to defeat the Night King. The Battle of King’s Landing would still take place with the city being destroyed, but instead of Dany being the aggressor, it would be the Night King. This would be when Bran reveals that the way to defeat The Night King would be to destroy the Weirwood tree where he was created. However, destroying this would also destroy all magic, resulting in Jon also dying due to the magic used to resurrect him. Dany would be conflicted but, with Jon’s blessing, would destroy the Weirwood tree, defeating the Night King and killing Jon in the process.

Back in King’s Landing, Cersei is still on the Iron Throne, and Jaime is excited for the future with their new child, at which point Cersei admits this was a lie to protect herself against others. While uttering the suggestion that she is going to kill everybody else, Jaime is forced to kill her. Meanwhile, Ellaria Sand (random) appears and stabs who she believes is Jaime, but is actually Arya in disguise. Dany is crowned Queen, not just because of her own merit, but also because she is now carrying Jon’s baby.

The show would then end with Sansa and Dany at Jon’s statue in the crypt at Winterfell, with Dany’s son Jon with them.

Personally, I believe that this is a great premise, and gives more weight to the battle against the Night King, which seemed to be over pretty quickly in the TV show, despite lots of build up. Some things would need some improvement were they to be on screen, such as the random appearance of Ellaria Sand being able to kill Arya, who is a trained assassin, but maybe I’m being biased. While I am perfectly alright accepting the actual ending of Game of Thrones, I must confess that seeing this one might have proved more thrilling right until the very end.