Warning: All sorts of Game of Thrones spoilers ahead!
Game of Thrones [1] fans have plenty of reasons to be reeling after watching the latest episode, including — so long, theories! — the final moment between Jaime and Cersei Lannister. Over the years, there have been tons of possibilities tossed around as to how the twins might die. Who would kill Cersei [2]? Would Arya Stark get to her? The Hound? Daenerys Targaryen? Would Jaime himself turn on his sister? Would Arya wear Jaime's face to kill Cersei [3]? Turns out, she doesn't die by anyone's hand, but by the ruins of King's Landing itself, which fall and crush both her and Jaime after Daenerys and her dragon torch the city.
Yes, that's right, Cersei dies in the arms of Jaime, who returns to King Landing not to kill his sister, but to save her. After leaving a distraught Brienne of Tarth in Winterfell [4], Jaime makes his way to King's Landing, but before he can get there, he's stopped by Daenerys Targaryen's men. Daenerys tells Tyrion that his brother has been captured, and Tyrion comes up with what he believes to be a clever way to end things peacefully: he frees Jaime, returning the favour after so many years, and encourages him to escape with Cersei. Jaime swears he'll do just that, but the plan goes awry when Jaime doesn't make it through the gates of King's Landing in time. He's forced to find a new path, and he ends up running right into (wow, what are the odds?!) none other than Euron Greyjoy.
The two engage in a bloody battle, both of them severely injured, and even after Jaime takes the final stab through Euron's stomach, Euron still has the energy to look to the sky, beaming, and say, "I'm the man who killed Jaime Lannister!" Mmkay. Despite his wounds, Jaime's able to meander his way through the castle and eventually come upon his sister, who can't believe the sight of him. Sobbing, she begs Jaime to save her. "I want our baby to live," she says. "Don't let me die, Jaime, please don't let me die." With the walls of King's Landing crashing in around them, their deaths inevitable, Jaime brings her close and says, "Look at me. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Only us." And with that, the Lannister twins die holding each other as the walls quite literally close in on them.
. . . Whew. Quite the finish for those two, right? Fans on Twitter have a lot of feelings about Jaime's return to King's Landing and the pair's eventual demise. Some feel the ending erases the growth we've seen in Jaime's character over the past several seasons, but others find their deaths to be a moment of poetic justice. Meanwhile, some fans expressed how surprisingly emotional they felt about Jaime and Cersei's deaths — and then, of course, there are those who are pretty thrilled to see them both go. Keep reading to see how viewers reacted to Jaime and Cersei Lannister's final moments on social media, then watch the preview for the upcoming series finale [5].
