Knights & Knaves Alehouse

OMG... family law attorneys feeding frenzy. Just the way all good fantasy resolves.

Not a prediction, but what I hope happens:

1. Arya kills Littlefinger in the next episode.

2. Cersei gets killed in episode 7.

3. Season 8 sees Daenerys's dragons fry the entire undead army into ash. All of her dragons reach the end of the series alive and well.

4. The incipient love triangle amongst Daenerys, Jon, and Jorah is resolved Return of the Jedi fashion: Daenerys and Jon find an aunt-nephew marriage too icky, and Daenerys comes to realize that she has loved Jorah for a long time. Daenerys takes the Iron Throne and weds Jorah.

5. What about Jon? He doesn't even want the Iron Throne. He is a northerner through-and-through. He takes up rule in Winterfell (with Arya as captain over the men) as Daenerys's equal: She rules over the South, and he rules over the North. Then ensues a period of peace and prosperity for Westeros.

But what about George R. R. Martin's bittersweet ending? Daenerys is barren. She can never have children, and (in all likelihood) Jorah will predecease her. Therefore when she dies one can expect a bunch of psychos to start fighting for the Iron Throne all over again. And chances are the dead-and-resurrected Jon is sterile as well, so one can expect unrest in the North upon his death as well.

In short: A total victory, but a temporary one. I'm not expecting all this, but here's hoping...

Ser Jorah of House Friendzone? Ought to take the black.

But anyway, it’s supposed to be bittersweet in the way that the RotK ending is bittersweet, so, what does that mean? Personally, I’ve talked to many fans who think Ice is bad and Fire is good, but that doesn’t work for me. Both extremes are bad, Dragons and Melisandre and Targaryens and all their crap no less than Others. On the other hand, I think people underestimate the evil of the Starks just because we knew them since they were little kids. I’ve said before I think Sam would discover that the Maesters purposefully suppressed magic, poisoned the dragons, and engineered the overthrow of House Targaryen. I know many people are hoping Bran, Jon, and Daenerys will join forces to drive away the evil Others with fire and magic, and all will rejoice; but I think Sam will find a way to bring an end to all the fantastic stuff, even if it means backstabbing his friend Jon. Littlefinger may indeed end up with the throne. In that sense I agree there will be petty wars going on for forever, but at least the continued existence of mankind is assured.

I think Dany will sacrifice herself and her dragons to kill the Walkers and make sure Jon can take the throne.

I'm still in the Sansa and Tyrion stay (re?) married camp. It makes too much sense. They basically mother and father the next generation of half the 7 Kingdom's nobility.

I'm starting to really wonder what Arya's role in all this will be. (Other than sticking a dagger in Littlefinger's eye.) I suspect she'll decide that Dany has to go and will end up swallowed by a dragon before she can manage it. I really don't see any happily ever after for her. Ditto for Bran.

Similarly, I think a fairly sizable chunk of our "7 samurai" are going to perish while on their expedition. I predict only Jon and Tormund - and maybe the Hound - make it back alive (or not undead). Beric Dondarion is already dead in the books. So I don't think I'm going out on a limb in his case.

Jamie kills Cercei as we all know he eventually will. In a twist, I'm predicting he ends up the captain of Jon's King's Guard. There's the flashback scene in the book which I think was mentioned in the show, where at the sack of King's Landing, Ned finds Jamie sitting on the Iron Throne, sword still bloody with the old king's blood. I think we could see history repeat itself, with Snow coming into the throne room only to find Jamie there. But this time, Jamie isn't on the throne. He's standing at the foot and says something like, "The throne is yours, sire. What is your command?" End scene. Roll credits. That would be a culmination of the journey he seems to be taking in the books.

Sam ends up Jon's Hand or maybe founds a reformed order of Maesters. Or both.

Jamie knows that the soothsayer predicted that Cersei would only have three children, and that all would predecease her. The lie that she is pregnant, along with the "don't ever betray me again" foreshadowing give good indication that Jamie will somehow end up killing Cersei before all is done.

A combination of Brendyn Stark's sacrificial efforts and the Red Priest using Gendry's "kingly blood" to perform some awesome magic will save the bacons of Jon and a couple others...that's why Gendry is there. The previews embedded in Sunday episode's credits show that only a few make it back.

Be interesting if Cersi is pregnant and the child is a dwarf.

It's disappointing and sad to me that, after ~4,000 pages and 20 years building up an incredibly detailed and complex fantasy world, because GRRM couldn't be bothered to finish writing even one more book the whole thing is just playing out as the cheapest and most formulaic fan fiction imaginable. It almost feels like Benioff and Weiss polled focus-groups for what they wanted to see happen. All of the fan-favorite "cool" characters are getting "scene" moments to shine, all of the characters that the fans hate are getting systematically humiliated and killed in the most predictable manner possible. At the rate we're going, when the Jon Snow All-Stars get in trouble beyond the Wall, they're probably going to end up being improbably rescued by the little Mormont girl (Jorah's niece?) riding Ghost the Dire Wolf, just because the fans love her and love the dire wolves and that would be sooo awesome!!!1!

I suspect that is why GRRM has not finished the series - the body count has been so high that it's difficult to write an ending that is not a paint by numbers, good guys prevail conclusion. Unless he is going to go full-GRRM and kill off Jon and Dany, one or both of them more or less have to win out. (I confess, I don't understand why so many have seen Dany as a good guy, given the French Revolution sensibility her overseas campaign* has had in the books. But maybe the tv show has been more flattering?)

* That is, her campaign across the sea from Westeros.

DungeonMonkey wrote:I suspect that is why GRRM has not finished the series - the body count has been so high that it's difficult to write an ending that is not a paint by numbers, good guys prevail conclusion. Unless he is going to go full-GRRM and kill off Jon and Dany, one or both of them more or less have to win out. (I confess, I don't understand why so many have seen Dany as a good guy, given the French Revolution sensibility her overseas campaign* has had in the books. But maybe the tv show has been more flattering?)

* That is, her campaign across the sea from Westeros.

Is the cold allowing the walkers to move south or are the walkers making it cold? If they are having a mini-ice age then walkers or not it is time to move south?

My problem with this season is the lack of Tyrion and good dialogue. I find this season fairly vacuous.

One of the premises of the series is that they’ve had 9 years of summer, so they’re presumably headed into a very long and very bad winter. It makes me wonder if they’ll do a time jump before the last season, just to create the illusion that winter has lasted a while. Otherwise the whole series would be like, Winter is coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, ohshititshere, phew! It’s gone!

Falconer wrote:One of the premises of the series is that they’ve had 9 years of summer, so they’re presumably headed into a very long and very bad winter. It makes me wonder if they’ll do a time jump before the last season, just to create the illusion that winter has lasted a while. Otherwise the whole series would be like, Winter is coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, ohshititshere, phew! It’s gone!

9+ years of winter and there would be a huge migration south. Given the 8,000 years of history such a common occurence would create a winter holding for everyone in the north to movre to during these winters. Or is this the first long winter in generations?

JasonZavoda wrote:

Falconer wrote:One of the premises of the series is that they’ve had 9 years of summer, so they’re presumably headed into a very long and very bad winter. It makes me wonder if they’ll do a time jump before the last season, just to create the illusion that winter has lasted a while. Otherwise the whole series would be like, Winter is coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, ohshititshere, phew! It’s gone!

9+ years of winter and there would be a huge migration south. Given the 8,000 years of history such a common occurence would create a winter holding for everyone in the north to movre to during these winters. Or is this the first long winter in generations?

Not having read the books it seems that it was hinted that there might not have really been much of a winter until the Children of the Forest made the White Walkers.

So, I'm guessing that Winter might be as much as the White Walkers getting enough "power" to create a zone of winter to make it easier to assault The Wall as much as it is a seasonal thing.

I think one possibility re the "bittersweet" ending is that the defeat of the White Walkers and (probable) death of the dragons will mean that magic passes away again. If this happens, I think Jon may well keel over dead.

Some kind of sacrifice seems likely,, but the death of magic seems totally boring and too Tolkienesque for something that has tried very hard to break that mould.

Well GRRM said he wanted a Tolkienesque ending, so that’s why people bring it up.