Like many people I was disappointed in the last few seasons of Game of Thrones. The biggest mistake might be them shrinking an entire world with massive seasonal changes and culture to a world that seems to be a little bigger than New Jersey. I've analyzed the millions of possibilities from the plotlines of the last episode to narrow down to just the one way that would save the show, pull the nose up and fix a whole bunch of mistakes it made along the way.
Naturally there will be spoilers......
SPOILERS AHEAD
The scene opens over screaming but it's off screen. A few guards march into Winterfell. Maybe the unsullied. The screaming continues over some stock Winterfell footage. The screaming stops abruptly like a bad edit as we cut to Jon Snow, sitting in the throne room waiting for his queen. He's nervous. The screaming stops as we cut to this scene.
Long shot starting from Jon's POV we see a door open to a corridor behind the throne. It's a long corridor and as the camera slowly makes it down the hall you ever so slightly, just barely noticeable, you start to hear the screaming again. It builds and builds until we get to the end of the hall and in the next room....
It's the Mad Queen torturing someone and he's in bad shape. It looks like he's been there for a few days at least. As we get closer, we see that it's Bran that been yelling this whole time. And you'd think she'd be using some high tech torture device but she's gone old school. She's getting all Bolton on him. Or at least having her Qybern do it. This is a female maester type creeper. She's enjoying it.
The Queen approves, turns around and starts walking and we follow the Mad Queen backwards as she walks down that long hall back to Jon Snow. The screaming starts again then gets quieter and quieter until once she's almost at the end of the hallway you can't hear it any longer. Even better, if we could pull it off, the sound morphs into something that eventually sounds inhuman. Regardless, the thumping can be felt if not heard in the Throne Room. It was there all along. The hallway was designed to be the longest anyone's screams could be heard from.
Jon looks up at her when she comes into the throne room. "what is that noise?" he asks
"That's your brother Bran. I'm ... questioning him. Well, your cousin really."
Jon looks confused. He starts doing the math in his head "But how did you get to Winterfell and back so quickly?" He doesn't believe her. This must be a test.
The Mad Queen doesn't answer. She isn't puzzled or anything, She knows this man.
"I don't believe you," he says. "This must be a test." Classic Jon.
"It never even occurred to you. did it? You never wondered why it only took four hours to get to the wall. You never even asked why your brother would just marry another woman in a foreign land." She takes two steps closer comes face to face with him now. Spittle flies a little. She gestures dramatically with her arms. "Of of this. all of it was for your benefit. To get you to marry me. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on to the throne. I needed someone, a patsy, to be the figure head of state over here. You've never been to the real world at all. You've seen a carefully orchestrated reenactment of it. The real Winterfell is ten times as big. The Night King is my brother....."
And then she goes on to explain some of the worst plot holes over the last few seasons. Jon was too stupid too notice all the inconsistencies with Jon representing the part of the audience as he says what he thinks happened, what he's seen or heard about around the fire at the Wall.
I'm available to write for one of the eight prequel projects in the works.