The Winds Of Winter Can Fix The Game Of Thrones Ending With One Thing: Dinosaurs

It is not controversial to say that the ending to "Game of Thrones" could have been better. It continues to be argued about and discussed as a deeply disappointing conclusion. Even the cast was unhappy with it, with one notable exception. Having eight seasons of television lead up to a rushed final season with huge twists and reveals that came out of nowhere tarnished everything that came before — and is also creating huge problems for prequels like "House of the Dragon."

Granted, it's possible many of the issues in the show won't be present in the books, if author George R. R. Martin ever gets around to actually writing them. In particular, there is a single detail already present in Martin's world that could fix the entire "Game of Thrones" ending if he focuses on it in "Winds of Winter" — dinosaurs.

That's right. Dinosaurs. Canonically, the world of "Game of Thrones" has living, breathing dinosaurs living at the same time as all the other characters from that series.

This information comes from "The World of Ice and Fire," written by Martin alongside Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson. That book offers many details about the larger history of Martin's world, including areas of the world we haven't seen in the shows or even the books. Among them is a section about the distant continent Sothoryos, located south of Essos (where Daenerys is). It is large and covered in jungles, plague-ridden and mostly unexplored. It's Martin's answer to the Amazon.

It is also home to "walking lizards" or "tattooed lizards," big reptiles said to "stalk the jungles, running down their prey and ripping them apart with the long curved claws on their powerful hind legs." Sounds familiar? Because Martin is just describing the velociraptors from "Jurassic Park" here.

Even back in the very first "Game of Thrones" book, George R. R. Martin teased his dinosaurs. In that book, Syrio Forel, Arya's sword-fighting teacher, describes a Braavosi Sealord's menagerie as including "terrible walking lizards with scythes for claws." Terrible lizard, of course, is literally the meaning of the word "dinosaur."

Dragons are cool and all, but the knowledge that there are raptors just walking around in the world of "Game of Thrones" changes everything. It's a way to deliver something truly unique that would make the books a different experience than the show.

But that is the past, we care about the future. It is not too late to make the dinosaurs more prominent. We know that Martin's "The Winds of Winter" will at least partially deal with Daenerys amassing an army in Essos in order to eventually invade Westeros. Last we saw her, she encountered the remnants of her old dothraki group. It's not too late for Martin to have Daenerys take a massive detour from Vaes Dothrak all the way south to Sothoryos, get lost in the jungle for a bit, and return with her own army of highly trained velociraptors. We know Daenerys has an ability to rally people to her side. What's one more speech about liberation and rising up against oppressors? There's no reason why she couldn't just do that to the walking lizards and get them over to her side.

Just imagine The Long Night but instead of dothraki charging into the night it's a bunch of raptors. Or better yet, dothraki riding raptors. If we couldn't get White Walkers riding ice spiders in "Game of Thrones," then we really deserve Dothraki on raptors.

Come on, George, dare to be bold! Unleash the raptors!