Vanished characters
It would be impossible to include every single character that ever appeared on Thrones in the final season, but it's frustrating that a few big names were left out entirely, especially when new characters like Euron Greyjoy were allotted plenty of screentime. Especially considering how important Bran turned out to be in Thrones' endgame, it feels wrong that Meera Reed, his faithful companion who dragged him through the far North (as well as all the times she saved his life), never shows up again, particularly because many viewers believe her father, Howland Reed, makes an appearance in the series finale. Another face entirely absent from the final season is Daario Naharis, Daenerys' loyal mercenary and onetime boyfriend, who is presumably still looking after Mereen in her stead, though he's probably wondering where she went by this point. After Arya abandoned her training at the House of Black and White, many fans thought Jaqen H'Ghar would return to claim her life, but unless he was wearing someone else's face, he was nowhere to be found. Ghost, Jon's direwolf, makes a few welcome appearances in season eight, but after a chance meeting in season seven, Arya's rogue wolf Nymeria is never relevant again. Characters have historically dropped like flies during Thrones' violent run, but at least most of those who were killed got some sort of sendoff.
And the king is…
After watching the likes of Daenerys, Cersei, and others duke it out for a chance to take the Iron Throne, one of the biggest questions of the final season was who would actually rule over Westeros. Ultimately, the question of who would physically take the Throne was thrown out when Drogon, after finding Daenerys dead, torched the chair out of existence, but the fact remained that the Seven Kingdoms still needed a leader, and soon. The Seven Kingdoms didn't exactly end up with a leader — the Six Kingdoms did, after Sansa demanded independence for the North and became its queen, and the new king of the rest ended up being none other than Bran Stark, who seemed to already have a full-time job staring into space. As with Daenerys' descent into madness, Bran becoming king makes some sense in the context of the show, but how it arrived there feels somewhat absurd, with Tyrion arguing that Bran had the "best story" of all. For a character who literally didn't even appear in an entire season, it struck many fans as frustratingly unearned.
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