In its final season, Game of Thrones saw a decline in many areas, one of the most obvious being the characters. More specifically, their characterization. It felt like in order to push the narrative along, the showrunners decided that, despite taking seasons to set up and develop this world and it’s residents, the characters were going to just do whatever was needed to get to the end.

Maybe they thought fans wouldn’t notice. We did. We noticed. 

If the struggle for power in Westeros was a game, then for almost 8 seasons, Varys was dealing the cards. Behind the scenes, adding and removing players from the board with ease, and never taking his eyes off the real point of it all: the people. Despite the ambitions of his adversaries and colleagues, Varys is one of the only characters in the show whose motivations were basically selfless. Combine that with his moral ambiguity and sheer cunning, and The Spider leaves his mark as was one of the most dynamic and interesting characters on Game of Thrones. Which makes the downfall of his character that much more painful. 

The Master of Whisperers lived through the fall of the Targaryens, the rise of the Baratheons, and the treason of the Lannisters. More than that, he lived and kept a position of power. How did he do that? By being smarter than everyone else, by always being one step ahead. Despite being a eunuch, which essentially made him a social outcast, he outlived Grand Maesters, Hands of the Kings and Masters of Coin. Varys sat in Robert’s High Council while plotting to put Viserys on the throne and no one ever found out. He even outsmarted Littlefinger, which is no small feat. We watched his character maneuver through all these powerful people, take the power they gave him, and try to use it to help people who can’t help themselves. He deserved better. 

My issue is not that Varys died. This is GOT. I know what I signed up for. It’s entirely about the way he went. Varys was a survivor, and he has been since he was a poor child in Lys. Even in moments of desperation, he was always thinking. That is, up until season 8, when he decided to betray Daenerys, openly talked to Jon Snow about usurping her, which led to Tyrion telling Daenerys and Varys getting “dracarys’d”.

Now, let’s think about this. Varys was in King’s Landing in season 1, when Ned was Hand of the King. He saw then what kind of man Ned was: honorable to a fault. He tried on multiple occasions to warn Ned. He even persuaded him to lie to the people about Joffrey, but only after mentioning the safety of his daughters. Why would Varys, who saw how Ned was about honor and “the right thing” think that Jon, who was raised by Ned and has shown himself to be like his father (uncle), would be any different. Not to mention it was obvious to pretty much everyone that Jon was in love with Dany. Love makes people stupid. This is not lost on Varys. If you recall, he made that exact point in a conversation with Oberyn Martell in season 4. It’s scenes and callbacks like those, combined with everything else we know about The Spider that makes it so hard to buy that he would go out like that, over such a stupid, careless mistake.