Game Of Thrones Season 8 Breakdown: What The Ending REALLY Means

3. Sansa And The Free North

As anyone in Newcastle will tell you, there's been a long-held desire for independence in the North and it's particularly fitting that the region would be declared an independent kingdom under Sansa's rule at the end of Game Of Thrones.

As Sansa promised Dany, the North will no longer bend the knee to anyone - including one of their own - and she declares it a free kingdom, changing Bran's rule to that of the Six Kingdoms plus Our Friends In The North. And with that, we see Sansa's arc satisfyingly ended as she casts off the Little Bird image of her past.

Sansa's defiance of someone else's rule is the perfect answer to her past abuses when she wasn't in control of her body or her choices. It's no accident that the final moments see her casting off the costume of mourning - black, shackled and with her hair pinned high - for something softer, more colourful and more personal (with its nod to the Godswood). She even unpins her hair as a mark of transition. She is free, just as the North is.