Of course, we’re talking about Games of Thrones here. The final series of the immensely popular HBO series caused some viewers some deep irritation and lot of Game of Thrones fans weren’t happy with which character got to rule over Westeros at the end of the television series. In the second blog in our series, we asked a bunch of writers to tell us who they would have crowned king or queen.
Obviously, there are spoilers ahead…!
RE McLean (author of the Multiverse Investigations books)
I would have made Hodor king. His ability to repeat the same thing over and over again despite the fact that no one knows what he’s on about would eventually wear the small council down and he’d get his way every time (this is a skill I imagine Teresa May wishes she’d had).
Anna Stephens (author of the Godblind trilogy – Bloodchild, is available to pre-order now)
Hands down, the new king has to be Tyrion. Varys would have done well, but obviously he’s just a charcoal briquette now. Tyrion would genuinely have run the kingdoms brilliantly. I think he too would have ceded the North back to the Starks. But he’s clever and experienced enough to calm all the tensions, reward those who need it, and these days, jaded enough not to listen to simpering sycophants.
Jacey Bedford (author of the Psi-Tech series and the Rowankind series)
They should have crowned Gendry. Because he knows the common people and, though he has little experience of ruling, he would appoint Tyrion and Davos as joint Hands of the King. Sadly he still won’t get Arya Stark as his lady, but I’m sure that in time he’ll find a nice little princess from Dorne who will bear him many children who will be brought up sensibly, educated by Samwell and Brienne, and not spoiled rotten.
Justin Lee Anderson (author of comedy fantasy Carpet Diem)
Jon. Anyone who actually wants to be a king should be banned from being one. He’d have been the angstiest king in history, but he’d have been just and decent, like his fatheruncle. And maybe Tyrion would have rediscovered his tactical nous in time to help him make fewer stupid decisions that left him needing rescued by his sistercousins.
Iain Grant (comedy writer and co-author of Exit the Dragon)
What are monarchs for? Are they there to rule wisely or to just look pretty on a throne and make sure the other nobles don’t get any funny ideas about taking over. Gendry Baratheon (son of King Robert) and Tyrion Lannister (uncle to King Tommen) have reasonable claims to the throne. One would make a handsome king, the other would be wise. Would either of them have been accepted by the nobles of the land? No. The people want someone highborn, good with a sword and with a fine sense of justice. All hail Queen Brienne of Tarth. She’d be bloody brilliant.
Steve McHugh (author of urban fantasy series, The Hellequin Chronicles and The Avalon Chronicles.)
Jon Snow is the obvious choice seeing how it certainly seemed to have meant to be him. Tyrion is my personal choice though, just because he was meant to always be the smartest man in the room, even if the writers seemed to forget that.
Garrie Fletcher (author of Submerged)
I’d have put one of the many prostitutes that were constantly used throughout the series on the throne – Let’s see how Westeros likes being screwed by them!
And if your monarch of choice was placed upon the throne what should their first royal decrees should be? What should they do to heal and repair their ravaged kingdom?
Garrie
Fresh water is a priority. They’d need it to fight disease etc. but most importantly, they all needed a good wash – especially with all that ash/snow floating around.
Iain
We have a decent historical precedent of our own in the form of the Great Fire of London. If that taught us anything, the destruction of the metropolis is an opportunity to rebuild your city as you would want it. Wide boulevards, good sewers, impressive civic buildings. It also give you a chance to put in power structures- do you want the priesthood to be swept aside? Or do you want to use them as a tool to shepherd the masses.
Also, a big fire is a great incentive to introduce people to the important business of home and contents insurance.
While you’re doing all this, it would be a good idea to keep an eye out for crafty foreigners who might try to take advantage of your weak situation and invade.
Anna
Use the surrendered enemy soldiers – Unsullied etc – to provide the manual labour to rebuild the city so the victors could see they were being punished and not just languishing in jail getting three squares while everyone else is cold and hungry. Reach out to High Garden for emergency rations and the Iron Islands for seafood. Come down hard on hoarding and theft, as these will be a big problem – thieves sent to the Wall etc (would also make that open to women as the whole ‘boys only club’ is stupid). Issue proclamations of peace throughout the kingdoms and promises to hear complaints once the initial crisis is out of the way.
Kit Power (horror, crime, and sci-fi author)
Eat the rich. I’d make a lousy Hand of the King :/ .
Justin
I suppose you have the advantage of not having to worry too much about rotting corpses in the street, since they’ve all been crispy fried. So that’s something. You also need less food, what with half the city being dead, and most of the invading forces buggering off (where *did* the inexplicably regenerating Dothraki go?). Cleaning up seems like a good idea. Rebuilding the walls, ensuring food supplies, all that kind of stuff. But in truth, considering we’ve just seen how completely shafted you are if a dragon decides to attack your city, and that we’ve seen well established magics used by the Lord of Light, while the Old Gods and the Seven appear to have done bugger all whatsoever when their worshippers were either being slaughtered by wights or toasted in the street, I think a proclamation making the Lord of Light the official religion of the country would be a pretty decent start. All hail the Lord of Light!
Steve
My first act? To abdicate and let someone else deal with it. Hand of the King, out. Peace!
Good rulers are in short supply in
Exit the Dragon, the latest book from Heide Goody and Iain Grant in which the wizard, Newport Pagnell, and the city’s privy council have to work out how to rebuild the capital once the dragon and the dragon queen have gone.
