This post contains frank discussion of several plot points from Season 8, Episode 6 of Game of Thrones. If you’re not all caught up, or would prefer not to be spoiled, now is the time to leave. Seriously: this is your last chance, and you won’t have another so, get out while the getting is good.

Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth fans not have gotten the happily-ever-after they wanted on Game of Thrones, but they did get one final moment to soak in the bittersweet tragedy of their entwined stories. As everything is wrapping up nicely in King’s Landing near the end of the episode, we see Brienne in the bright golden armor Jaime once wore. Not only is she head of King Bran’s Kingsguard, she’s busy writing down something in the pages of a book. This is a tender Season 4 callback to when Jaime, as he’s gifting Brienne with a new suit of armor and Valyrian steel sword, points out that it’s the “duty of the Lord Commander” to fill out the blank pages in The White Book which records the deeds of every member who has ever served in the three hundred year history of the Kingsguard. “There’s still plenty of room in mine,” he points out with a note of self-loathing.

And so Brienne tearfully-yet-stoically did her duty. True to form she didn’t lie, but she found a positive spin for Jaime’s final moments.

Some Brienne fans who didn’t love the way the show depicted her crying earlier this season over Jaime were a bit frustrated to see her chin quiver over him yet again. Why, they wondered, didn’t Brienne note that Jaime knighted the first woman ever in the history of Westeros? And why didn’t the scene end with her starting her own page in the book?

Jaime died protecting his Queen (Cersei) and Brienne is left with the cold comfort of the job of Lord Commander and the role of the only woman sitting on Bran’s Small Council. Her faithful companion, Podrick Payne, got promoted to Ser and will serve alongside her. I suppose that’s as bittersweet as endings come.