(Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers! (and Lord of the Ring's spoilers:) ))
Next weekend will be the final episode of the Game of Thrones. It's been a huge ride, with a worldwide appeal, mostly due to its combination of visual beauty, gruesome appeal and story writing depth. But many, many people are disappointed about the way the story is wrapped up in this final season. I'm not one of them, but it got me thinking about how to wrap up a good, long story.
When Tolkien worked on wrapping up the Lord of the Rings, he needed a way to rescue Frodo and Sam. Otherwise, the story wouldn't have ended on the hopeful note of Sam's return home to Rosie. So, in came the giant eagles, picking up the two hobbits, carrying them out of hell and sure death. Many readers have later wondered, isn't that too easy? Why didn't they fly in on the eagles in the first place?
With Game of Thrones, you see a similar problem: the writers having to wrap up many complex storylines, in a consistent manner. To make things worse, they overtook George R.R. Martin's books, so they ran out of source material. I believe they did a good job so far, keeping consistent and true to the earlier story. You can wonder about specific arcs, I would have loved to see Dany snap more realistically. It would have been easy to slip in some triggering event just before the supreme moment of her decision. (Maybe wound Drogon? Maybe show a taunt by Cersei? Just a shot of a single defiant soldier?) Anyway, the main story works and they need to wrap up. Never easy.
During the writing of the final chapters of Shadow Upon Saturn's Rings, I needed to wrap up my main story arcs. Most importantly I needed a good reason for Tiffany to want to go board the enemy ship alone. In my original plan, Molly was a good guy (girl), Hell died by the torpedo attack and Tiffany was only driven by the need for revenge. But this didn't work, it didn't make her believable, at least not to me. So, I took the decision to fundamentally change the wrap-up, adding several weeks to the writing. But I'm very glad I did. Now the story makes sense to me, Tiffany going after Molly to prevent the spread of the secret info. It's consistent. And makes Molly (and Bernard) more relevant.
Wrapping up a story is hard. I've gotten feedback on Mercury's Child, stating that the sacrifice by Anni didn't make sense to some people. I don't agree, it makes sense to me, but it shows how hard it is to wrap up a story in such a way people agree and feel connected. In that sense, I don't envy the writers of Game of Thrones. But they have been doing a good job, given the pressure of needing to wrap up in such a comparatively short timespan. People will just have to accept that the show is over.