Season seven was explosive in its own right, but it also served as set up for the endgame, so the last season isn’t likely to suddenly turn peaceful. In fact, we have acquired the first concrete details about two major season eight action sequences, which may turn out to be the two big battles of the season, unless there are even more to come.
A week after filming began in Moneyglass, we’re beginning to see the fruits of that labor, with our first look at what kind of action we should expect at Winterfell; and, at long last, we learned just what that mysterious new set next to Titanic Studios is all about (it involves a lot of fire and blood.) Needless to say, there are spoilers below the cut!
First of all, fellow Watchers reader Cathair returns with telling photos of the redesigned Winterfell set, where locals have spotted filming production active mostly at night:
Along with the —by now oft-discussed— new walls and battlements and snowy exterior, we can now see the Northerners (or, well, the GOT crew) have built what appears to be a trench or moat around the castle’s walls, as well as a trebuchet (not the same as the one we reported on before, which will likely be part of the new set outside Titanic Studios.) With these new pictures, our original idea for a Winterfell under attack develops further. It seems likely the White Walkers attack will take the form of a protracted siege.
As for the other set, it just kept growing and we kept wondering what it’s all for. Well, we’re wondering no longer. Just as we (eventually) came to suspect, WotW sources tell us this new set isn’t supposed to be a castle of any kind, but the streets of King’s Landing. But we know more than that. If you are averse to major spoilers, please skip the following. Last chance! These are major (if not entirely unexpected) endgame spoilers!
So, why build simple city buildings, instead of filming at actual Medieval old towns as they usually do? Well, because the locals may take issue with the production if they gleefully burn down their homes. Since the beginning, we had heard of controlled fire tests taking place here, so this may not be entirely shocking: this set outside of Titanic Studios will depict multiple city streets of King’s Landing, just so they can destroy them in a truly Game of Thrones fashion — by dragonfire, according to our sources. Yes, at some point in season eight, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms may be razed by dragons.
Now, here is the real question: who is in charge of these dragons? Is Daenerys going to attack Cersei with her dragons at last, or is the Night King going to march that far south? Or, in other words: when King’s Landing burns, will it be in red or blue flame?
Wow! My gut reaction is that it is Daeny.
Mainly because I have a little theory, that I hope comes to fruition, where Daeny listens to Sansa’s advice regarding Cersei and stops playing games with her.
Purple. We’ll finally realize that the Night’s King is the 3rd head of the Dragon and that Cersei was the great “other” all along.
Seriously, one other vague possibility is that this has to do with Melisandre’s return to Westeros. R’hllor is good with fire, you know.
Still, I’d bet on dragons.
Oh, Hodor Tree, oh Hodor Tree…
Or King’s Landing will be destroyed by green flame. And now for good.
Wildfire… The leaks are right
Controlled fire tests COULD be dragons.
Could also be…….. wildfire?
Cersei knows where the caches are, after all.
The source to us says dragonfire, not wildfire- hence the post. 🙂 Make of that what you will.
So yep, as expected, the reason for building such a set will be so they can destroy it à la the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen. As the build grew the guesses were good that it was (this location). It’s difficult to imagine Daenerys would attack with such force after choosing or refusing to for so long. Of course if the wights sweep through and the NK is able to turn it into a city of undead then the situation changes…
White Walkers don’t use siege weapons. More likely the trebuchet is from a Golden Company attack on Winterfell.
What would be in the moat around Winterfell? Oil and fire?
I’m voting for the Night King, unless Dany is seriously PO’d after she, Jon et al defeat the NK and are bringing all her dragons’ firepower with them as vengeance for Cersei’s betrayal, just as Jaime said they would.
But then again, it would be somewhat weird for the heroes to be setting the smallfolk houses on fire, and it’d be kinda lame if the dead are stopped on their tracks at Winterfell. Surely they’ll reach KL.
I stopped when you said “This is your last chance!” So I don’t know what’s going on in KL. I’m going to have to assume WW make it there! But, maybe not!?! Ahh.
Maybe WW find WF too tough a bit to crack so they head south sooner than later
Ok I’m out of this thread now haha.
Dany won’t attack KL with dragons unless she has to destroy WW. NK would atack ofc.
So one way or another this is confirmation that the Army of the Dead will reach KL.
That we know of! We didn’t know they used vessel sized chains until season 7.
So it seems the consensus is that the KL battle will be against the Night King? Does this pretty much confirm that both battles will be against the WW and Cersei will be a sidelined villain this time around?
omg omg!!!
they made it pretty clear in season 7 that dany would never attack with her dragons in KL. so its definitely going to be the NK I bet!
Gigi,
I hope not, I really was hoping that the KL showdown would be between Cersei and Dany.
Burning Stag,
If the White Walkers are going to be mounting a ground assault on Winterfell, then they more or less do need to have siege weapons, because zombies can’t punch their way through a stone wall.
The Golden Company attacking Winterfell wouldn’t make any story sense, either, based on Cersei’s strategy.
My theory that everything will end at KL, with Cersei, Night King, Dany and Jon could be right after all.
Jonah,
it would be lame if they built up the white walkers for 7 seasons and then the white walkers never reached one of the most important locations in westeros.
mau,
I really like the idea of tying everything up in KL. I just can’t help but feel disappointed if we don’t see some Dany/Cersei conflict. As good as season 7 was (like the episode 4 battle) I can’t help but feel that we haven’t really seen the war for the throne yet, especially since we’ve been hyped since S1 that Dany will wage war on Westeros. Do you think that we’ll see a Goldencompany/Cersei/Euron/Dany battle in KL?
Jonah,
I think we will have big chaotic battle at KL where everything will be resolved.
Would the Night King torch the people of King’s Landing rather than try to kill and convert them?
If he besieged King’s Landing with the Army of the Dead and killed and converted its population, is there any reason why they would just hang out in King’s Landing until Dany turned up to torch them all, rather than disperse across the rest of the Seven Kingdoms to kill everybody?
Honestly, I kinda hope it’s Dany. Makes things more interesting.
And it’s not like she hasn’t had to be talked out of doing it before.
Well there’s nothing stopping them from creating a huge mound of wights to storm the castle (like World War Z). Although I guess the Moat could be an obstacle.
Sean C.,
I imagine that either the wights would do a World War Z and mass up against the walls until they can climb over eachother, or they’d just use their wight dragon and melt through them.
ramses:
What would be in the moat around Winterfell? Oil and fire?
Based on the Hardhome episode, we have reason to believe that wights are averse to passing through water (although someone must’ve attached those chains to sunken Viserion!). So a regular moat with water might slow them down. The cold that the WW bring with them everywhere might be able to insta-freeze it, but Winterfell has hot springs that flow through the walls. Tyrion, with his sewer engineering skills, could probably figure out how to divert that hot water into the moat in a trice.
Gigi,
After the way the White Walkers were handled in S7E6 I’m not gonna lie, it kind of did some damage for me. . If Sapochnik directs and handles them the way he did in Hardhome than I’m all for the White Walkers in KL. My biggest problem with the way they were handled in S7 is that they just weren’t frightening at all and I’m a bit worried the same will happen in season 8.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
There is no way that Dany will burn innocent humans in KL. No way.
Burning Stag,
The wight dragon is going to have to be kept away from the Winterfell siege, somehow. I have no idea how the writers are going to manage that, but there you have it, because if he’s there, you don’t have a siege, you have a two-minute scorching attack that kills all main characters present.
I’m guessing the Winterfell siege will be one of the threads of the season, focusing on the more vulnerable castmembers, while the warriors, etc. are off dealing with the Night King, who may go south.
Firannion,
Have the hot springs ever been mentioned on the show? I can’t recall it ever coming up.
Jonah,
yeah I get what you mean. I think that Sapochnik could definitely redeem them and make them a frightening threat again. so I’m all here for them reaching King’s Landing. with there being only 6 episodes in season 8, it would be pathetic if the NK was killed in episode 3 or something lol
Firannion
Shit. That’s good 🙂
Also within that scenario I see plenty of opportunities for Tryion and Sansa to collaborate with one another.
Jonah,
if the NK reaches KL, Cersei isn’t going to be “sidelined” at all
mau,
Boring. 😉
OH MY!
My first assumption was that it will be Dany (after defeating the NK) attacking King’s Landing with her dragons, once and for all. Which got me pretty sad because I figured Jon is probably dead at this point if Dany goes all scorched earth on the citizens of KL and Cersei.
However, after reading the comments I’m starting to come around to the idea that it is the Night King who attacks with wight-Viserion. Meaning, Jon doesn’t have to be dead at this point. Hell, it’s possible he and Dany and their forces are racing to KL to prevent it’s destruction, and that’s where the final battle will be. As someone else said, it would be dumb if the greatest threat to mankind never made it to King’s Landing – where a million sitting ducks reside. It is just too tempting to the NK and D&D.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
Oh, you are so edgy.
Sean C.,
The NK and his dragon could go and destroy other parts of Westeros while part of his army is attacking WF.
But the other problem is, if he is not at WF, Dany can easily destroy army of the dead at WF.
Bran’s powers must increase in significance at this point, right?
Maybe he is enough to thwart NK.
ramses,
I don’t know, but if NK is not at WF Dany will burn his army.
Maybe the dragons will fight while two armies battle each other at the ground.
mau,
That just means that Dany and her dragons have to be elsewhere at that point too.
ramses,
Bran doesn’t have offensive capability, outside of being able to skinchange, something the show has decidedly downplayed since he became the Three-Eyed Raven.
For sure.🙂
Sean C.,
Or dragons can fight and stop the NK to burn WF? They could give time for some humans to escape.
I think that the NK will take WF at the end and stop there for a time, before moving south.
There are leaks (unconfirmed ofc) that Furdik will shout at WF set.
Burn it all.
mau,
It’s hard to imagine any sort of prolonged dragonfight that would allow for a siege to happen. Beyond which, if the Army of the Dead is already at Winterfell, then escape is impossible.
Winterfell won’t fall; this is the moment it’s built for, and the whole reason the Starks needed to retake it before the Long Night, symbolically. When winter comes, the Starks protect the North. We’ve already done the “loss of Winterfell” story beat.
Until he wargs into a undead Viserion😀
What can Bran’s role be except to battle the NK at his own game.
I guess it’s possible he does nothing but recognizance and history lessons for S8.
We have not seen them use trebuchet’s yet, but that does not mean that they will not use them.
Moreover, given that Cersei’s plan is to let the Walkers & Northerners level each other and then take out the winner, why would her forces be in the North?
Sean C.,
Agreed.
If King’s Landing is going to burn, as these leaks and Dany’s visions suggest, then Winterfell will probably survive and potentially become the new centre of power in Westeros.
One of the biggest unfired guns on the wall is the question of why the Walkers are back. That is going to be the key to making them go away, and the big lynchpin decision for Jon & Daenerys and others. We’ve gotten our first hint that a big reason why they will not like it is because it’s going to put humanity in a big wrong.
This sort of stuff is not in Oldtown. R’hllor might know it, but it’s playing its own game. And that makes Bran far and away the best candidate for discovering that is Bran. We got a huge foreshadowing of it last year: Robert’s Rebellion was fought on a “lie”: and we can bet that the Long Night is based on some sort of lie/untruth/misperception, too.
Wimsey,
Any thoughts on what the “why” could be?
Truly the aspect of the story I’ve given the least thought to.
I think that the siege will be done by NK to prevent Daenerys and Jon stopping their advance through Westeros. The WW will get to KL, Cersei will lose most (if not all) her army. Meanwhile the WW start to turn all KL into WW Daenerys comes and burns KL fighting with Viseryon and NK. Jon fights in land as Daenerys fight in the air.
Is it possible this is less a calculated decision someone is making to burn the city and more just collateral damage from a massive aerial dragonfight over the city?
The key to making them go away is to kill the Night King, which will then kill all the other White Walkers and all the wights. The show set that videogame-esque plot up pretty obviously.
The show has not made a big mystery about the White Walkers’ origins and intentions, and the writers are even less mysterious in interviews: the White Walkers are murder machines created by the Children of the Forest; they don’t have independent motivations or choices; they want to Kill All Humans.
Ahhh it’s officially time for major speculation to begin. I’m excited to see all the theories people conjure up. As for me? I honestly have no clue but I’m inclined to agree with those which say that the NK will assault KL before going to Winterfell.
Dany’s morality will probably not play as big of a role as it did in season 7. Especially since she’ll have been influenced by Jon and the other benevolent figures of the North. Her burning down King’s Landing is a long shot.
WHAT IF……
Dany is forced to burn citizens of Kings Landing BEFORE they become White Walkers…..
Say NK and WW are closing in on KL…. theres no time to possibly save all the citizens of KL before they meet their fate… so Dany and the dragons “mercy” kill as many as they can before they become more zombie soldiers that they have to fight.
That would be pretty bittersweet if you ask me.
I disagree. I’m sure humans will be forced to leave the North. That’s why this big battle at KL will happen.
Edward,
They’ve spent 7 seasons posing her these moral conundrums that her advisors (Jorah, Barristan, Tyrion, Jon) keep having to coax and coach her back from the edge of.
If she was ever going to cross the line then the climax of the story would be the time to do it.
Why take 7 seasons for her to learn that razing cities to the ground shouldn’t even be an option for consideration?
And why, even in Season 7 Episode 6 is she still saying things like, “Which war was won without deceit and mass murder?” , and justifying unnecessarily burning men alive?
I agree that her burning down King’s Landing is a long shot. But they’ve left these questions hanging over her, that could have been resolved seasons ago, for a reason.
I’d certainly find it more interesting than her beating the bad guys and ruling Westeros anyway.
Sean C.,
IMO, they will have sort of a dragon deterrence situation: both sides will be holding their penultimated weapon for the last moment but then WF will receive some unexpected reinforcement (Jaime + Dothraki?) and the NK will fly away (to KL).
Regrding the hot springs of Winterfell, I think they were mentioned when Hodor came out of the bush all naked after bath. I like the idea. Though on the other hand, it may be just wood and oil (what a pittly that they have no tires in Westeros!!!).
The trebuchet is the most interesting thing in the photos. But maybe, if the NK succeeds in wightifying some more experienced soldiers, he will become capable of building siege weapons? That also hints that things won’t go easy for him. The wights are pretty good climbers – we saw them climbing on the ceiling of the cave, so they should be capable of climbing the walls of Winterfell without any siege equipment, even without ladders.
As for KL set, IMO it will see both the NK and Dany. But the blue fire of the wight dragon doesn’t burn: we haven’t seen any wooden constructions on the Wall catching fire; nor we saw any vapour or water – the Wall simply exploaded from within. So, this blue fire should be cold and it should kill the people of KL withought destroying their bodies. Therefore, I think that the NK will turn KL into a zombie city and afterwards Dany will come to burn them all (the remains of wild fire may also come into play).
So, in general, it looks like my predictions were right: a protracted siege of Winteerfell ending up with an intermediate victory of the living, the NK’s counterattack on KL, and the final showdown there.
mau,
Ignore what I said here.
No, other than that we can be sure of one thing: the old stories about how the last Long Night ended are 99% lies and 1% ironic truths.
However, there was a war, and then there was not. They clearly were not completely defeated, so the war ended because of X. They came back. A likely explanation is because something shifted so that we now are in not-X. But what? The Walkers were created to destroy an “evil”: humans. That evil has been around all of this time, but what have they done differently? I… don’t know!
Where is Hodor’s Bastard when we need him?!?!? 😀
I say the white walkers and army of the dead reach kings landing and pretty much take it (maybe a good amount of the citizens get evacuated or maybe they all get killed and raised, doesn’t matter), and as everyone is panicking tyrion (or maybe even Jaime if he’s with them at this point) tells dany about the wildfire and then dany decides to torch the city to actually save everyone. as in, she hits the city with dragonfire which sets off the wildfire which will basically blow up the entire capital and kill the majority of the wights and possibly walkers, then there’s a small showdown with the night king and whoever is left on his side. what do you guys think 🤷🏻♂️
I mean snow in KL at the end of S7 was a claer hint that the WW will come there at one point.
She did say, “Sometimes strength is terrible…” when justifying her ‘fewer enemies today than yesterday’ dialogue with Jon. Hmmm.
Wimsey,
I don’t think that the WW need any specific reason to attack. All the spieces want to expand their habitat and procreate and they do it every time, when the circumstances are right. In this case, there is a long winter/night and the world of the living is in chaos. OK, I can imagine that the NK feels unloved and misunderstood for wanting to share the gift of immortality with the living, but seriously what other reason he may have?
It’s not that kind of story.
Inga,
No species save humans do that. Indeed, there often is an inverse relationship between evolutionary success and this sort of here & now ecological success!
And, yes, the Walkers need to have a reason. They were gone for thousands of years. Some truce or something like that has been broken. The kicker is that the humans have no idea what they’ve done. After all, most humans don’t even believe in White Walkers, and the ones that had stories about them have such old stories that the truths in them are buried in embellishments and outright fabrications.
Ultimately, we need to keep in mind that this is a political story. Politics is always about compromise. In some way, Jon & Daenerys are going to have to (yet again!) decide how to compromise. And, once again, it’s going to be of the “do I shoot my right foot or my left foot” variety of choices.
Yup. That is the classic heros have to compromise their integrity trope that is case of a bittersweet ending.
Wimsey,
The long night came to its natural end; the WW suffered heavy losses – taking into account how few they are, even several WW may be considered a heavy loss. Therefore, they retreated to regroup, to raise their numbers, to make a dragonglass-proof armor, etc. Simple.
Certain commenters here really should be on a watchers-summon contact list 🙂 Including you Wimsey!
Yes but what stopped them last time, the wall? And why are they back at this moment in time?
House Monty,
Right. Plus, Momoa said the ending is “going to F up a lot of people”…. if he actually knows the truth, that could certainly apply there.
Someone (meaning Jon or Dany) is either going to die, sacrifice themself, or commit some horrible atrocity similar to what I described above for the general good….. I tend to think with GRRM loving to comment on the folly of war, the complexity of morality, etc. etc., that it will probably be the latter.
Either way, I have pretty good faith in GRRM and D/D to deliver a Holy Sh*t moment as promised. Never forget, Hodor was plotted in 1991. So the bittersweet ending has likely been crafted for decades.
Wimsey,
So – perhaps they have the same foreshadowing as 3ER and so waiting for the right time when it all comes together. I can’t think of much else
IMO there’s no way they’ll have Dany mercy kill all those people in KL to prevent them from becoming part of the Army of the Dead. At least not on purpose. Their goal is to save them from dying at all.
If Daenerys & Jon fight the Night King over King’s Landing, and accidentally detonate a cache of wildfire, there could be red, green, and blue flames, which could be combined in varying intensities to create any color they wanted. They could paint giant fire pictures across the city.
Wimsey,
As for the compromise, I concur that there sould be some sort of compromise, but I don’t think it’s going to involve the NK or the WW in general. The only possible compromise I can see would be restoring the natural balance between life and death: no more unliving WW and no more undead red priests or resurrected humans or other abominations, just a simple acceptance of Valar Morghulis. And this should involve the Many-Faced God by proxy of Arya. The NK is not the only incarnation of death in this story.
But we do know why they WW’s are here: The Children of the Forest created them to defeat the men (first men or Andals, or both). After the pact was made between men and the children, that genie could not be put back in the bottle.
Consequences, yes? Hence, the first ‘long night,’ and our hero of Azor Ahai (show! Prince who was Promised). Obviously, the NK was not killed and ‘slept,’ as it were.
Enter Mance Rayder, who for the past 20 years has been uniting the wildings when the show starts. What else was happening then? Jon (Ice) and Dany (Fire) were born. I don’t know their exact ages on the show but….close enough for TV I’d say.
Why was he uniting the clans? He saw what was coming.
Thanks to Craster and many less fortunate wildings, the NK is back, to fulfill the purpose of his creation: Wiping out mankind.
Perhaps some compromise was made after the ‘long night,’ that men shall not have domain north of the wall. We know that’s been violated if that’s the case.
Perhaps Rhaegar knew this was inevitable, this is why he joined Ice and Fire so that the tools would be in place for this second coming.
Time ran out on my edit:
The NK serves to remind men of the ills of imperialism, colonialism…of what happens when you don’t remember history: You’re doomed to repeat it.
It could be ego, too. This is the best humanity has to offer? Hold my beer….says the NK. 🙂
Sorry to go on, but:
For me the question isn’t why the NK/WW’S are here. The question is why now? Clearly I have my own opinions, as stated above.
What I know is this:
1. He was once all human.
2. He is now ‘of magical properties.’
Combined, he is at once formidable and he is capable of hubris.
The books, if completed, will (should) offer something deeper than we’ll get on the show, but brace yourselves for something simpler: complete defeat of the NK…no compromise.
I am still with the prediction that Cersei will use the wildfire to burn down King’s Landing rather let Dany have it.
I can soooo see that happening, too! If I can’t have it, no one will! I can also see it where she fucks up, or rather whomever she has manning that shit sets off a chain reaction by fumbling a cask or barrel of it. Remember what Bronn said when he and Tyrion were talking to the pyromancer…fear can make even a sure hand shake (not a quote, obviously but the same premise). Nervousness and wildfire do not mix! Hahaha.
Except, again, that the producers have been explicit that the White Walkers are murder machines created by the Children of the Forest, and that the Night King does not have a choice in anything he does. He’s not somebody you talk to or negotiate with, because he’s not capable of those things.
There isn’t any real basis for the “truce” idea in the text (either book or show). It was fine as speculation early on, but at this point the writers of the show, in particular, are most of the way through. The original Long Night didn’t end in a truce, it ended in Azor Ahai driving them off and building a Wall to keep them out.
There’s a reason the writers created a show-only instant-kill button.
One disagreement:
He displays ‘choices’ by being calculating, doesn’t he? Overall, he’s a creation for a specific purpose, but some humanity exists just by his ability to know touching Bran breaks the magic of the 3ER’s tree cave, picking the least convenient dragon to kill, etc.
Agreement:
Instant kill option. Yes, I believe he’s going to be killed once and for all on the show.
Erica,
He can strategize, but he doesn’t have a choice as to his goal/purpose, per the writers. He can’t decide to not Kill All Humans (as Bender would put it).
Except when it is. As with the grand climax to the whole Littlefinger story, which did not remotely fit into the template you regularly advocate for, as it did not feature any sort of “damned if the you do, damned if you don’t” moment, or compromise, or what have you. Littlefinger’s defeat was incredibly easy and had no downside whatsoever.
Except he does make choices as to when to kill humans as evidenced by him deciding to kill Viserion instead of Drogon, and by extension, the humans on the island. Drogon, the biggest of the dragons, would have been a bigger prize, no? That goes beyond strategy to me…that’s fucking with people. That’s a human trait.
The only benefit I can see right now to Littlefinger’s death is that it will show that Sansa is true to the North and that she is capable of ‘passing the sentence,’ as it were (muddy as that plot was, and that’s being generous). It was a rough S7, though, for those of us that thought LF would play a bigger role in some big, undermining downfall drama.
So after reading all the comments everyone say it’s either night king or dany who will destroy kingslanding..
Is there no one else….i think it’s Jon….jon may become a Dragon rider too…..no one will expect Jon to do such a thing..so yes that will be the real twist who burns down kl…
Maybe in the war of dawn dany will faceoff with nk head to head and both die ….and right at this point danys last wish is to restore her dream of targaryen dynasty…
So Jon in memory if dany has to fulfull this dream and accidentally attack kl and become the destroyer of kl instead of saviour….thats a type of twist I expect..
This mary sue Jon is becoming boring everyday
.
We don’t know what his calculation was there.
As to the larger issue, the writers have been very explicit in regard to what the Night King is:
I am aware of the quote from that article and I am glad you bring it up….because the bottom line is: I agree with you. The original comment I was responding to was Wimsey’s question of what the WW’s want. My answer was very much in line with yours regarding their creation and why.
The question I was posing was more of an….existential one? Perhaps? I know the why, I have theories as to the ‘why now,’ that I posted in this thread, but I was examining, pointlessly perhaps, if the NK’s origins (human) will play into his downfall.
At any rate, I agreed with you, too, about how that ends…with death. No compromise.
What leads you to believe this character listens to people? Especially after they betray her? Jon will be the betrayal for blood, gold (crown), and love.
Jon is ice and fire by himself.
Why is everyone forgetting the entire point of the dragon pit in S7? It was so that Dany could get an armistice from Cersei. She wouldn’t go North if she didn’t get assurance that Cersei wouldn’t “take back half the country” if Dany went North. So now that we know that CERSEI DOES NOT INTEND TO GO NORTH since she said point blank she’s not, Dany will be stressed/anxious that Cersei didn’t show and that Cersei is winning. So no, Dany isn’t going to be a savior or a hero. She’s going to attack Cersei because Cersei LIED.
Good theory to revist
https://weirwoodleviathan.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/bran-them-all-the-fate-of-kings-landing/
What do you guys think of this?
House Monty,
Bookmarked! I’ll get back to you, whether you want it or not! lol
Or green. Wildfire buried all over the place….
I want it!
Apologies if someone already speculated this, but if there’s a moat/trench being constructed around WF, they’d likely fill it spikes and spears of dragonglass, not water.
That will stop a wave of WW’s…the rest will climb their “forever dead” to get past that. Man, this is going to be one hell of a battle!
Anything he likes, as long as it’s in upper case. “CATS…CATS ARE NICE,” for instance. Or, “I COULD MURDER A CURRY.”
Hahahaha!!!!! The End!
Obvious Danny burning KL at around final episode for Cerci Betryal
At the Books The Maiesters are hated magic and they would do anything to stop magic we havent seen that on the show My guess is may be the NK is looking for the same thing may be he is sick of being NK anymore maybe he want them to urge come up with a plan to stop all magic for Good
Wimsey,
I definitely agree with you regarding Melisandros. I mean it would only make sense that she be involved in the end game. She’s told numerous others that she’s met along the way that either they would see her again or that the Lord of Light has a plan for them almost gaurantees she will be there and a part of the finale. However it goes though, I just hope it’s done thoroughly and answers everything we want to know. Which I’m 1000% confident in. My wife and I absolutely love this show.
Actually will be the NK attacking in KL
ramses,
Dude, i just had a nerdgasm
Yes, at some point in season eight, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms may be razed by dragons
Burn a few streets to make the people and army turn on Cersei, she then burns the whole city rather than lose it.
What was it Jon said to Dany in s7 about burning cities?
I want to see Tyrion burn KL…and Cersei. That would be bittersweet and just.
mau,
She would if that was the only way to stop the NK from raising them to form part of his undead army- if that happened then the NK would be unstoppable and everyone would lose.
kathy,
No. She wouldn’t kill innocent people to stop NK from using them. That makes no sense.
Dany can easily burn his undead army as we saw in S7.
House Monty,
It’s a really interesting theory about Bran burning KL in the skin of a dragon. Fits perfectly: I like it. I just wonder how many protagonists will die along with the wights? Jon may be in KL at that moment trying to clear the city by more convetional ways and also Dany. Maybe, the Hound and Tyrion (IMO there was a foreshadowing in 707 that Tyrion will come up with some crazy plan again and that the Hound will help him to pull it through). One way or another, KL will be burned to destroy the wights, not to destroy Cersei.
Roshan,
If Cersei were the target, Jon or Dany or whomever would be unleashing dragonfire on the Red Keep, not the streets and houses of KL. There is no other reason to burn the city than to destroy the wights.
mau,
IMO, at the moment when Dany or Jon or Bran or whomever will come up with the idea of burning KL, most of its population will be already turned into wights. However, there might be some survivors and even some of the protagonist may be in KL at that moment. In fact, that’s absolutely necessary, because who cares about extras.
But I really wonder about Cersei’s role in all this. Will she be simply killed and wightified by the NK? Too simple. IMO, she should negotiate. And its not like the NK is not completely un-negotiable: he spared Craster and his family in exchange of baby boys offerings. He can do that again. After all, he needs more WW. He lost 4 of them recently, and there are not that many of them. And Cresei is conveniently pregnant and inroducing child offerings would be in character for her. So, it all fits, IMO. But Euron’s role is the biggest mystery.
That could happen, but that still means that Night King will attack KL. That was my point, that one way or another, this leak means that the WW will hit KL.
House Monty,
Interesting and while I get the point, I don’t want the end of this story to be reduced to Deux de Machina.
Firannion,
LOLOL!
ash,
Glad that a couple of people got the joke. It saddens me that there’s so little crossover between the GoT and Discworld fanbases.
Vimes for Lord Commander of the NW!
Having a character act in a god-like way isn’t deux ex machina if it’s set up properly. There already is foreshadowing for this theory, and S8 could continue it, so that it becomes a nearly inevitable conclusion, with appropriate moral struggles along the way.
I’m on the fence about this theory but the link provided by House Monty makes quite a convincing case, and it would be appropriately epic and call back to the very beginning.
I agree with you. I personally don’t like the theory and one of the reasons is precisely that. Its a deus-ex-machina in the classic sense of the term.
But it does seem plausible and more likely now that we know KL will burn from dragonfire.
Firannion,
Oh I get why – really different types of reader I think. No I don’t know what I mean by that just a feeling that DW fans might not be drawn to GOT and vice versa. I miss Pratchett a whole lot (esp the Prachett before he got sick), butyou are looking for character development and strong plotline, I think you might stay clear of DW. DW is certainly is lighter and more fun, even if dealing with similar issues (ie human society) . That being said, my love for fantasty has taken some very interesting and dark roads, and I have no trouble in both worlds. And yes, I so see Vimes on the NW, and Lord Vetarani on the Iron Throne itself! (btw I never checked but I assume there is a DW fan site?)
my only fear for this season is the NK and the WW be defeated at WF, the north, would be the most absurd ever. the big threat since the first episode HAS to advance at least the north to the next region, at least be defeated in the trident. not less.
Sean C.,
The most spectacular demonstration of Bran’s powers, thus far, has been him warging into Hodor. He wargs small animals all the time, but I think they’ll up the ante in the final season by making him warg into a large animal… a dragon.
Who’s to say that the dragon that attacks(burns) King’s Landing has a rider. It could be a warged dragon and I can’t forget the “Burn them all!” from his visions.
It seems they’re showing us that WW’s are tactical. As Mau suggested, the Night King could distract Dany up north while sending the bulk of his army south to KL…similar to the tactic Jaime used on Tyrion and Rob used on Tywin. Could be Dany has learned that tactic like those two and outsmarts the night king?
I guess what I’m saying is, I have no damn idea.
Aguero,
I agree. Plus, what about those complacent maesters at the Citadel? They should be made to see their errors, and what better way than a WW army marching through on it’s way south. Sam should have the pleasure of telling Grand Maester “I told you so”, at least.
ash,
No fansite as elaborate as this, alas, though I have found several Facebook groups for Pratchett fans.
Your point is well taken, though I think that people who enjoy the snarky humor in ASoIaF/GoT would find much to love on the Disc. And there are definitely characters who could fit into both universes easily. I can see Bronn looking for employment in Ankh-Morpork! And surely among Varys’ network of informants, there must be scurrilous street vendors the likes of Dibbler.
As for Vetinari, in one of the screen versions he was played by Charles Dance. How perfect casting is that? In a way, the Patrician is an even better player of the Game than Tywin, because he totally gets the ‘shadows on a wall’ aspect of power.
Anon,
Oh, it would be really great to have Citadel destroyed.
If this is so, I just hope that they don’t have Bran be somehow retroactively responsible for Aerys II’s mad visions, like he was with Hodor’s mental blown fuse, as (I gather) some Redditors have been suggesting. That would feel like too laborious a stretch of logic for me, all for the sake of a bit of ‘ironic’ symmetry.
I mean, as Freud put it, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes mental illness is just mental illness.
Aguero,
Don’t worry. The whole point of making the Night King airborn was to enable his attack in the South.
House Monty,
I don’t think that this theory about Bran counts as deus-ex-machina. In fact, if the NK wightifies KL, the burn-them-all soution will become inevitable. The question will be only how and by whom. Dragons are one of the options, the remaining wild fire caches may be the other. Both options can be combined, though they will require differnt teams of executors. One way or another, I don’t think that Bran will be the sole decision maker. And moreover, even if KL gets burned, fire will hardly kill the NK. At best, it will only clear the way to him, whereas the NK and maybe several WW will have to be dealt individually and even the Valyrian steel may not be enough.
Eh, the archmaester should be the one saying “I told you so” to Sam. He was absolutely right when he said that they should just let the Wall do it’s job of keeping the white walkers away. As it turns out, it was Tyrion, Jon and Dany’s brilliant plan that led to the Wall coming down.
One thing I notice is that the producers always escalate the eye-candy. For instance, they went from Dany flying a dragon, to burning an army, to her using the dragon to shuttle people. Next up is likely an aerial dragon vs dragon fight. It’s one thing we haven’t seen yet.
We’ve seen dragons burn armies in the field, but we haven’t seen dragons melt stone walls and burn cities. So, I believe they’ll show us some of that.
By the way, will Dany be able to kill undead Viserion in an aerial battle? Karsi wasn’t able to kill undead children, not even to save her own life.
And Dany has got to have a real baby this time…enough with this dragon’s are my children bullcrap. This would mean she’ll live at least 10 months to see the baby born. a lot can happen in 10 months. Jon should, at least, know he’s going to be a father and live long enough to lay eyes on his offspring. But Jaime, I don’t think he’ll ever see his child, not after denying the same to Edmure…. that’s if Cersei ever manages to give birth.
*shrug*
I wonder if the White Walkers will lay seige with a smaller force while the bulk of them travel south and destroy Kings Landing… maybe with the Night Kings new DRAGON pet. Would explain why the spoiler for Winterfell doesn’t say anything about getting burned to the ground….
ghost of winterfell,
Maybe, the archmaester wasn’t all that bad after all? He told his colleagues to fix the ravenry. Next season he may do something important.
As for the Wall, the NK would have broken through one way or another. He could have waited for the sea to freeze and bypass it.
mau,
Well…maybe not. 🙂 These folks need all the science they can get.
Inga,
..and he did compliment Sam on his greyscale treatment. I don’t want to call him a do-nothing…he’s just….comfortable and…complacent.
OMG! I hope it is the NK attacking KL! I’ve been waiting for that since season 1! And the dragon flying over KL in Bran’s vision turns out to be the one that NK rides! It would be epic!
ghost of winterfell,
I can almost guarantee that if it comes to that, AM won’t be scoffing at Sam.
Dany’s vision from season 2? Makes me think of that too.
Jason being around recently …. hmm… so kind of re-vision of a vision?
Onion Knight for King,
Technically, now when the NK is airborn, he has no reason to drag his slowly moving army to KL and lose the advantages of the surprise attack esapecially taking into account that he can raise a new army anywhere. But evereything depends on how long the siege of Winterfell is supposed to last. I imagine it being rather short (maybe several weeks), which means that the army of the dead won’t be able to reach KL. But on the other hand, the showrunners may want Dany (and Cersei) to give birth before the final showdown, which means that the siege will have to take some 9 months. However, I still bet on a more rapid denouement.
Anon,
They have books Sam took from there.
lol watch them lure all the WW to KL, and then blow up the entire city with most of the undead trapped inside.
Interesting that that theory page didn’t even mention the 3ER telling Bran that he wouldn’t walk, but “You will fly”.
mau,
Sam could have overlooked some important book. Or maybe the maesters will simply help in rallying other lords and spreading the info how to kill the wights and WW.
mau,
To save them from being killed slowly and turned into more ice zombies that she has to defeat? Might not happen but not completely unreasonable.
Ryan,
It is unreasonable. If she is able to save them , she will do that, but she won’t kill people so the NK wouldn’t kill them. It makes no sense for her character to do so.
Sam took everything important for the plot, I’m sure of it.
Haven’t read through comments yet. I’m just hoping…
• With all of the construction on the Moneyglass set, the landowner will keep “Winterfell” intact as a tourist attraction after GoT ends.
• There will be enough “breathing room” in S8 for high thread-count* scenes of Arya’s reunion with Jon, and the Stark sisters’ reunion with Sandor Ahai…I mean Sandor Clegane.
* Thronetender(?) descriptive term
mau,
Most brobably, we won’t see the Citadel again (except, maybe, in the last episode showing Sam finishing the book). However, we may hear from it, maesters may be used to spread the news about the WW invasion and/or muster some forse to help the North (or KL) or they might influence the Iron Bank, etc. All that will have off-screen, most probably, but the maesters and the Citadel may still play a role of some plot device.
ramses,
It’s way more likely Dany does it. The only reason she went North with Jon is the ceasefire. From a person who can’t help but betray the ceasefire. Dany will find out. Go into a rage. Burn KL. Dark Dany.
mau,
Disagree. She WANTED the burn KL multiple times in S7 and was talked out of it. She threatened to burn Meereen to the ground to Hizdahr in S5. Barristan warned her about exacting Justice like the Mad King.
It might not happen…but if it DID, it would certainly make sense.
Firannion,
Yes, I was thinking the same, that would be so awesome!
Episode 2 or 3 wintefell, episode 5 or 6 will be the endgame in KL.
I’m still on board with Dany being the ultimate villain of the story instead of the hero. Because of multiple reasons:
1. Her actions in season 7 and some small things in the past. She always need advice to stay grounded and not loosing it, most of the time she will take that advice, but what if the persons that gave her advice are dead or against her. Jorah dead, Missandei dead, Grey worm dead, Tyrion maybe choosing the side of his sister (we don’t know what they were talking about in season 7 final), Jon leaving her because he will be chosen as King by the common folk when the news come out about his parenting.
2. Season 7 episode 6: Jon bending the knee to Dany. Episode 7: We learn that Jon is the true king. Why let Jon first bend the knee and later the resolution that he’s the true king, if there’s not a bigger picture to it, a major conflict. A conflict where the common people will want Jon, but Dany won’t let go of “her birthright”.
If she would stand alone at the end with only Drogon as her ally, we can assume she will lose her mind. What if she’s not fighting Cercei or the NK in Kings Landing but in fact Jon.
Probably I’m wrong and she’s fighting Cercei or the NK, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if it would lead to that, it would be a real GRRM plottwist, the hero you were fighting for is the villain in the end. Same as the villain at the beginning will become the hero (Jaime).
kevin1989,
Could be that Dany finds out about Cersei’s betrayal and gets angry enough to burn King’s Landing. It would look like the House of the Undying visions too.
David M. Bauer,
I agree with you. KL is important to Dany. She threatened to burn it many times. It makes the best sense out of the three scenarios. Frankly, I think Bran the least likely to do such a thing.
David M. Bauer,
It’s weird, because they’ve left these lingering doubts about Dany’s temperament hanging over her right up to the end of Season 7.
Why has she had to keep being pulled back from the brink, season after season, if there’s never going to be any pay-off?
Why are Tyrion and Varys still discussing how uncomfortable her behaviour sometimes makes them and how to rein her darker impulses in?
Why is she still justifying burning men who refuse to submit to her as “necessary”, when she was counselled about the corrupting impact of such abuses of power by Ser Barristan back in Seasons 4 and 5?
Why on earth is Tyrion having to defend Dany’s character to Cersei of all people?
Shouldn’t we be past all this by now? If Dany is the story’s heroine, then why are they still presenting lingering doubts over her worthiness halfway through the final act?
Or are we going to be expected to accept that the contents of Jon’s breeches is all that was necessary to finally convince her to stop burning people and contemplating razing cities to the ground?
I’m not 100% sold on a Mad Queen heel turn, that’s for sure. Quite frankly, I have no idea what the producers are thinking these days. But I can’t see why they’ve kept these question marks about her temperament coming, not to mention parallels with the Night King, Stannis and Cersei, right up until the final season if nothing is ever going to come of it.
i don t know what is more absurd, Dany burning the city and the people that she want to rule or the NK and the ww being defeated in the north.
SO, LETS, TALK!
its SO clear what SHOULD happen with the WW in season 8 and at the same time its not, the Nk made a hole on the wall to his army pass in EASTWACH, so the other 18 castles of the nights watch will pass unharmed?? like even castle black that have people inside are safe? cause its impossible to who is in castle black to know that the army has passed, unless the wall keep falling or the NK fly over all the 18 castles destroying them, or the most likely tormund, beric and the rest ride for castle black . so with that, tormund, beric, edd and all the rest of man would bypass the army of the dead and arrive at winterffel to help in the battle, bran of course will know that already the Nk has passed the wall.
so Dany and jon coming with the 2 dragons the army of dothraki and unsulied will join WF. so its a lot of people to stop the NK and his army but yet, way less than the NK. lets think:
Lets put that the NK have 100.000 in his army NOW, and lets try do see how many the living will have at WF.
Dany must have at least 10.000 Dothrakis that can fight by now.
5.000 unsulied since she must have lost at least 3.000 in their battles sincee meeren. ALL the vale has to have at least 10.000 man to fight , Jon and the rest of the north with the houses can have more 6.000 MAN since jon lost a lot in the BoB , but a lot of houses didtn joined him against Ramsay but now they will, PLUS 6.000 Woman and children that will have to fight, Tormund and the rest of the widlings must be at 500 MAN that can fight but the widling woman and children didint fight the BOB but they have now, so plus 3.000 widlings woman and children maybe more, Jaime is coming alone BUT, lets put that he will come with broon pass at the twins and release Edmure and have a talk with him about what happened and the rest of the tully forces that was with blackfish come with jaime, edmure and broon, so plus 1000 man.
the total would be 42.500 people in this count, but being realistic should be 50.000 at least since is all the Unsulied, Dothraki, the vale, the north , the rest of the wildlings , the rest of the nights wach, maybe the rest of the tullys, and all the man, children and woman of this that have age to fight.
so even with 50.000 or 60.000. The Nk would have much more, but the living have WF as a fortress and 2 dragons, but of course they cant have everyone inside or they would lose it easyly and because of course WF don t have space for so much people, so a great number of the army would have to be in the open field with weapons of dragon glass , like 30.000 men or more in open field to hold 100.000 undead with lots of wigths humans, animals, giants , super strong WW as we saw, and the NK with a dragon.
SOOO, lets be real, there is NO WAY they don t loose WF and have to evacuate with the forces that remained to south.
There s no need to the NK to put a force in WF as a siege and go to KL at the same time. even because a lot of people will be out WF to defend ir since the castle don t supports so many people and we saw that in episode 1 of season 7 the lots of tents
to the vale and widling people, and the rest of the north, the army of dany and maybe the tullys with jaime not even came yet.
there s no way they dont loose WF, not in a logical way. they don have wild fire , and the NK show that is easy for him to hit a dragon in movement so is not like her 2 dragons will be such a diference with the NK around and maybe even the WW can
do the same. there just no way in WF to end with the NK, just if the writing too shit to make the NK get ou of the dragon and someone stab him and end the war,
mau,
You are right of course. I wasn’t thinking, I was just trying to find justification for commentary that speculates it’s her that burns KL. Now that I think about it, what I said makes no sense 🙂
There were two things that kept coming up in Daenerys’ storyline last season:
1. That she would never get pregnant.
2. That she would never burn down kings Landing.
If the first one could be fireshadowing that she WILL in fact get pregnant why is it so hard to believe that the second one could be foreshadowing her burning Kings Landing. Especially when you take into consideration that she has won all her battles that way, and when she refrained from using them last season she took a lot of hits and has become increasingly frustrated.
Multiple times? I seem to remember her mentioning it once (I haven’t actually gone back to rewatch, but only time I remember is in 7×04). And the attack was specifically about attacking the Red Keep, not the streets of King’s Landing.
And sure this could be Daenerys’ doing simply due to us missing a lot of the details of what is actually going on in this scene, but Daenerys attacking civilians is extremely out of character. Daenerys prioritizing revenge on Cersei (who hasn’t personally hurt Dany) over revenge on the Night King (who killed one of her dragons) is extremely out of character.
Aguero,
I don’t believe Winterfell will fall.
The most triumphant set piece in the show’s history was dedicated to reclaiming it. I doubt they’d have the Night King conquer/destroy it five minutes later.
Especially if King’s Landing is going to be destroyed. Where is the dramatic heart of Westeros meant to be if the show’s two major locations have both been destroyed? The Eyrie? Sunspear? Highgarden?
Plus our heroes have taken all the wight / White Walker-killing firepower they possess specifically to defend The North and, by extension, the Seven Kingdoms from destruction. If they can’t even hold a single fortified position with Bran, dragons, Dothraki, Unsullied, Westerosi, dragonglass weapons and all the Valyrian steel in the land, then what hope do they have of defeating the Army of the Dead anywhere else?
Perhaps it’ll take great effort and sacrifice to hold Winterfell and then in the second act of the season our heroes will realise that they’ve been outmanoeuvred or that they’re going to need to make some “hail mary” manoeuvre in order to defeat the Night King, etc etc.
Aguero,
The standard ratio that equals the odds is 1 man in defense = 3 in offence. That hasn’t changed since antiquity. Depending on the specific of the fortifications, level of preparation an many other factiors this ratio may be increased. So, only a total fool would to lose Winterfell with the ratio of 1 vs 2, and Jon is not a fool: he has defented Castle Black with 92 men vs 100 thousand (basically the same army the NK has now). Sure, the NK won’t be defeated completely: he has to retreat and launch a surprise counterattack on KL at some point. But Winterfell will an has to be saved nonetheless, because otherwise there would be no-one to fight the NK in KL.
And IDK why you hink that Winterfell can’t host some 50 thousand people. 50 thousand people don’t take that much space: taking into account the size of Winterfell it can easily accomodate even more. Feeding them might be a problem, but IMO the arrival of the Dothraki will be delayed as they will be travelling on winter roads, and the reserves Sansa raised will be enough to feed the northen army and the Usullied (BTW, I do’t think that the Unsulied lost 3 thousand men – 1 thousand at best or even less). As for the Dothraki as far as I remember Dany needed a thousand ships to ferry them, so she must have at least 50 thousand Dothraki men + horses.
And one additional remark: these weren’t tents we saw by Winterfell – these were huts. There is a settlement by the castle and it has always been there.
I agree. The scene of a dragon flying over KL has never been seen since it was shown (I think back in S5 or S6) of Bran’s vision? Some of the others have been such as the destruction of the Sept of Baelor with the barrels of wildfire exploding.
So I reckon KL will be destroyed by dragon fire, but whether its Dany doing this with Drogon (perhaps along with Rhaegal) or the NK with Viserion I’ve no idea!
….Danny being villain ….wont happen …There are plainty villains alive still.(Cercei,Euron,NK,Varys,Qyburn,Sansa and Tyrion .another one will be lame and too waste of time..for 6 only episodes.
Artemisia,
How are Sansa and Tyrion villains? Even Varys is a bit of a stretch
Tyrion betray Danny for CerceiCerceis. “child”.Sansa has done a lot of things behinds Jons back this season and she is jealous about Jon and Danny marry…She will behave badly to Danny and will try to make something bad to her ..Sansa is a villain on the making and got this after what she passed in Ramsays,Littlefingers and Joffreys hands..When you live with monsters you have great possibilities to be like them .As for Varys ..i just dont trust em him…he is a backstabber
Artemisia,
Tyrion did not betray Dany, Tyrion brokered a deal and Cersei broke faith well after Tyrion had already left. It was not his fault, and as I recall he was the one to actually try something, knowing he could be killed, while Dany stood around and waited.
Sansa did nothing behind Jons back, he left the North to her in his absence and she held it. She brought food reserves to Winterfell, made sure the armour would be warm enough for the winter, and when the Northern Lords questioned Jon she was the one to say he was their king. It was Jon who betrayed her, he gave up the Northern independence that her Mother and Brother died for, he betrayed the Northern Lords, they chose him to lead them and he handed them over to a foreign ruler they do not know or trust.
And as for the rest of your issues with Sansa, they haven’t even happened and we don’t know that they will.
Yes Sansa has been with monsters for years, but how quickly you forget that Dany herself was raised alongside a monster and later wed to one. She was subjected to monstrous people for a far longer period of time than Sansa was.
And as for Varys, he refuses to blindly follow a ruler he does not morally agree with, that is commendable, there is honour in that.
KIng’s landing was not covered in snow in Bran’s vision, the one involving a dragon’s shadow flying over the city. And we saw that King’s landing is covered in snow in the last episode of season 7. So it might be just a vision of Danny coming in KL for the meeting in the dragon’s pit or the writers just wanted us to think that Daenerys is going to attack the city once she sets foot in Westeros.
I think the catapults might have been placed there to confuse us, because they know that people are stalking the set 😀
As for the NK, I don’t think he would stay in Winterfell, because he has a huge army and he can raise the dead south of the wall now. He would use his dragon to go south and raise the dead there, while all the forces, dragons, dragonglass and valyrian steel are in the north. Jon himself told Cersei that the citizents in KL are going to become zombies fighting for the dead. So basically KL wouldn’t have the people and the tools to fight back the NK and his wights. That is why I thing the fire in KL would be Cersei blowing up the city with wildfire rather than Danny or the NK. Also why would the NK burn down KL when he can use the people there for expanding his army.
After defeating the wights and the walkers at WF, Jon and Danny and all the remaining forces will go south looking for the NK and then Danny will see KL burned to the ground as it was in her vision back in season 2.
Isn’t it funny how Cersei screwed herself? She doesn’t have any dragonglass and valyrian steel. All the gold from the Iron Bank wouldn’t be of any use in this situation. She just thought that the WW will have to deal with the north first and then go south, but she should have thought more about Danny’s missing dragon and what happened with it, because the NK can now basically fly over to Essos if he wants to. And her hiring the GC with their elephants would bite her in the ass as well, because that would mean more people and animals joining the army of the dead. She would’t have any other choice than burning the city to the ground and escaping somewhere else.
May be she, the Mountain and Qyburn will relocate before burning down KL and at the end they will face justice after everything is resolved. Remember the foreshadowing about the Hound killing his brother- that indicates that Cersei and the Mountain won’t be in KL when it burns down.
Gigi,
Actually, they made it pretty clear she felt a great urge to do it, but didn’t scratch her itch because Tyrion kept holding her back.
Artemisia,
lol How on earth one could consider Sansa more villain than Daenerys dracarys Targaryen in beyond me…
This one’s kind of out of left field, but here is a theory I have:
I’ve suspected that Arya was going to end up killing the Night King with that Valyrian Steel dagger. I couldn’t see any other reason it went to her. Sure, killing Little Finger was great but the dagger wouldn’t have needed to have been Valyrian Steel to do that.
One of drawbacks I had with this theory, was that killing the Night King seemed to fall more organically to one of the other characters – most logically Jon given the stare downs they’ve had. Or maybe some combination of Jon, Dany and maybe even Jamie, with one or two being killed in the process.
If, as some are speculating, the Night King divides his forces, leaves a couple of White Walkers and a ton of wights to besiege Winterfall and takes the rest to Kings Landing, that could open up another use for Arya. Perhaps she could use the Vylrian Steel dagger to take out one or more of the White Walkers attacking Winterfell (and the wights specifically linked to them), leading to the resolution of that part of the storyline and freeing the forces gathered in the north to pursue the NK and his army south.
I may be way off. But I just think that dagger still has a part to play.
Dolorous Methuselah,
It definitely does. It was also in the book Gilly was reading.
I don’t thing that Arya is going to be the one to kill the NK, but it would be an unexpected twist
I don’t think you understand her character arc at all; a girl who dreams of greater things, only to find she had it all at home and family, helps to regain it and will fight to keep it.
From what I know from books,show and the GOT Lore videos, Sansa won’t be a villain, she’s coming closer to a Stark of old, and the North’s version of QOT, Lord Glover and Cersei Lannister have more to worry about then Jon does WRG to Sansa Stark.
Sansa learned not just from the sinister folks, but from Ned,Cat,Robb,Jon, Bran,Arya,Brienne,QOT,Margery, Lord Royce, Sandor, Shae etc. she also came from a loving (if naive upbringing ) family not a dysfunctional one like the Tywin crew.
She’s prepared WF for a siege in Jon’s absent, she’s planning for refugees etc. while her counter part in KL thinks it would be an improvement if the common people died.
All one needs to know about Sansa Stark was in S2 E9 when Cersei ran and S 6.
Artemisia,
It could be the thing that Jason momoa mean. Fucked up a lot of people. The fan base of Dany. There are a lot of set pieces in last season and seasons before that suggest she will be the villain of the story. She talk about burning people and even burning kl to the ground. Only because of Jon and Turin she hold back. Also she has shown dictatorial aspect in the past. The way she handled the lannister man in 7×05,the merenesers in 4×04. Even barristan was horrified then. She have men to her dragons to eat even if it was obvious they were innocent. The list go on and on.
The scene with Tyrion and varys last season needs to have an reason. They made it obvious Dany would be a great leader if she listens to her advicers. And once her advicers are dead or are leaving her, nobody holds her back.
I’m not saying she’s a villain like Cercei or voldemort or other big villains. More like Phoenix from x men or anakin from star wars.
And if you combine it with the famous story from Grrm that he always tell in interviews that all the big villains in history started out as people with good intentions.
I know for 99% certain that she will end up being on the villainous side.
And about just 6 episodes left. If the rumors are true about the runtimes. And If you look at the filming schedule it wouldnt be far off it could be the longest season of them all in runtime. And with only 2 storylines left. It could even be done in 2 episodes max.
Birgit,
I think people like somebody that murders people even when there’s a way to not kill those people. But I think these people will be cured once season 8 ended. People think she will just bend down and let Jon be king. And If Jon will not be king what’s the point of having his past revealed and having him come back to life.
You havent see S7 ..Jon did bend knee to Danny because he wants her help in the Great War..he did not betray them.Tyrion did betrayDanny of because Cerceis unborn bastard.Also Littlefinger before dies did talk about a Jon -Danny marriage manipulating Sansa to fall into jealousy… and she listened to him.Go watch S7 again….those are involved and indicated.
Are told you that Danny final villain is a theory who foes not hold water anymore.Her pregnancy by Jon is more sure to happen than this you say..There are other characters like Sansa who are more likely to end up villains…She has develop a more darker character this season and has inherit some clues from her Tully aunt…jealousy for Jon/Dannys relationship ..like did Lyssa for Littlefinger/Cayelyn ship and her passion to kill those Karstark/Umber kids with every way ..show in me that she has more chances/possibilities to end up villain.She has her beauty and her melodrama “rape”story ..things that she uses for to make peoples to feal sorry ,then to use them as via for her purposes and in the end to dont give a shit about them or to kill them..Danny at least is very honest for heri intentions…Sansa lies about of what she really wants
Dolorous Methuselah,
I also think that Arya will play a pivotal role in the NK’s demise and not only because she received the VS dagger. She is an agent of the Many-Faced God who represents death. The NK is also an agent or incarnation of death but at the same time he and the WW in general are an abomination to death, because they don’t die naturally. That would explain why the Faceless Men recruited Arya, helped her to develop her skills, and then allowed her to go back to Westeros: they knew that eventually Arya Stark of Winterfell will go against the dead. What makes me wonder, is that the Many-Faced God needs the name. The NK mus have had a name when he was still a human/mortal and finding out that name may be a component of his demise procedure. Therefore, I wonder whether that name is preserved in the legend about the bue-eyed giant named Macumber? The NK may be descibed as a giant because of his powers and abilites and the phrase about living in his eye may be a reference to his greenseeing ablities. Moreover, the showrunners were sort of hinting to the blue eye of a giant/Ning King in the promotional materials of S7. Sure, they showrunners may simply kill the NK with a sword and a dagger, just like they tore down the Wall simply with a wightified dragon without bothering about the spells, but I still hope for a more sophistcated resolution.
Anyway, I think that, after the Battle for Winterfell is won, Arya will travel to KL to kill Cersei for her treason and run into the NK making the surprice landing in KL and then we’ll get the denouement. I don’t think that Arya will play a big part in the Battle for Winterfell. She minght kill a WW to get a taste of that, but in general I think that the WW will try to avoid a close combat: they are too few to risk their lives.
Danny is honest on her true intentions ..Sansa always had lied for what she really wants.She had used her beauty and her melodrama “rape” story for to make peoples to feel sorry about her and to help her..but she dint give a shit about them.Tyrion saves her life in S2 and. accepted to marry her in S3 and she runs away with Littlefinger.in S4…letting Tyrion behind to his fate instead to support him and stay in his side as his wife.She in S6 lied to Jin about Littlefingees help in the BOTB and let him almost die in Ramsays hand and she in S7 tried to lie in Arya about her weakness to face Geoffrey and to save their father…so “honest” on her intentions girl…I never liked her and i never believed her melodrama”rape”story ..It was all a lie for her plans to take back Winterfell and to be Queen in the North in Jons place..
I know clearly ..Sansa is bot what she shows ..She wears the mask of the good girl ..but has dark hidden intentions.Thats why i dont like her..she is so fake and knows well how to use l her beauty,tears and to sell her fake melodrama “rape” story to naive peoples who believe her easily forgeting that she actually approves Ramsay to put his dick on her pussy
Yikes!
For me,Lena and Maisie have always been on top of their game,season 4 was absolutely amazing for Maisie,just her look when the hound was dying is worth many awards, but this season I liked her more before she reached Winterfell, maybe it was the comfort she has with Sophie that made me feel this way, but Sophie and Emilia really brought their A game this season, Emilia improved so much so she has my vote.
I think last season Kit was brilliant. but he was better than S7, So NKW has my vote
Grail King,
Good analysis. I would only add that Sansa has never wanted to rule. She likes beautiful things, but that means she likes comfort. And ruling is not comfortable. Last season, Sansa was under a continuous stress: she was afraid that her bannermen would leave her, she was affraid of Arya, she was affraid to take out Littlefinger – she had to be pushed to the edge to do that. All in all, she fould little joy in her command and she should be quite happy to give the reigns back to Jon.
IMO, next season Sansa’s role will be keeping an eye on Cersei, while everyone else is concentrated on the WW, and that should result in something pivotal. As for Dany, Sansa may be a bit suspicious about her intents, but all in all the alliance make sense and has countless advantages, so, Sansa won’t have any legit reason to stand against it.
Artemisia,
Sansa may be a liar but she is too passive to enjoy ruling. As I have written above, she likes comfort, not the game. She might have wanted to be a queen once, but she wanted to be the queen consort, not the queen regnant. And there is no time for a treason: the KN on his way to Winterfell, Cersei is strirring some shit in the south, and when it’s all done and dusted with those two, Jon and Dany may simply be dead or Sansa may be dead herself. If not, the Targarian couple will settle in the South and rebuilt KL, whereas Sansa will remain as a wardness or even a queen in the North with as much power as she will able to afford. So, there is no reason for a treason, when everything plays in her favour anyway.
Artemisia,
I really think you have no idea what you are watching.
I don’t even know where to begin….
Sansa was raped. Period. Her being married (SOLD) to Ramsay did not mean consent. It was understood to be brutal, too. She had visual bruising. And, Theon was forced to witness it and you can see it was tearing him up. Such a Dany fan as yourself may sympathize as Dany was sold and raped by her husband.
I don’t know when she used her beauty and tears to sell a “rape” story….in fact, as far as I’ve seen, she has discussed it with no one other than when she met with LF in Molestown in S6 to ask him if he knew what Ramsay was and asked him to “guess” what he did to her. That was a powerful scene; without going into detail she got her point across and she got that point across to the man who actually betrayed her.
You can dislike Sansa, you can dislike or love any character you wish, but I’ve never seen an assessment as far off the mark as yours…it’s vile and venomous. But, it’s an opinion and you’re entitled to it.
mau,
I think that the night king will take his dragon and part of his army to KL and that the rest of his forces will attack WF I think the wights will be deleted at WF and that dany, Jon and the other less vulnerable characters will go to help save KL in this battle cersie, Jon and other main characters will die but dany will survive and sit on the iron throne sansa will rule the North the only thing I can’t get my head around is the theory that bran is the night king could he go back in time to when the children of the forest make the NK and stop it all its a possibility!
Those are good questions. Ultimatley we will find out next year but I see three possibilities:
a.) setting up a character flaw that will lead to Dany’s tragic downfall.
B.) an actual heel turn.
c.) they are just exploring the age old question of how much should a political leader rely on fear versus love, ruthlesness vs mercy through her conversations with her advisors. Bascially, the idea that the line between madness/ tyranny and political greatness is in fact a thin one and responding in the right way is in fact difficult. I think this is a possibility since its not clear she was always wrong when she wanted to take a more violent approach.
1.) Barristan counseled Mercy. Crucifying the masters was not the wise move. But its not clear mercy was either as those masters helped fund a rebellion against her.
2.) Jorah counselled a softer approach with Yunkai. She listened and Yunkai funded a rebellion against her.
3.) Dario advocated for her to get brutal. She didn’t listen and was almost assasinated.
4.) Tyrion counselled for her not to attack the cities and just use a demonstration of force. Do we really think that is going to work long term if all the dragons die? The second the all three dragons are dead Slavers Bay resorts back to how it was.
5.) Tyrion counselled a softer approach throughout season 7. But who is the one that looks like the fool? Cersei has now betrayed them and not taking her out will likely prove to be very costly in the end.
6.) Olenna’s advice directly lead to the Tarley’s so who is likely to be right? Wise Olenna who knows the great lords and the need to make them fear you or Tyrion who is traumatized by his relationship with his father and is trying to be different no matter what the cost?
So between this ongoing conversation between how ruthless to be that Dany has been having with her advisors since she came into power, its really not clear the actual turn of events has been supporting the idea that the softer approach was better.
“(…) melodrama “rape” story (…)”, uh? not once, but f*ck-my-poor-eyes times?
are you the person who floods youtube with jon&dany-powerpoint featuring celine-dion-songs? or are you just Donald Trump?
holy effing cow!
Maybe ..but still she is vulnerable and weak and wants thinks that in GOT cant happen…especially in the books she is still dreamed to marry someon who will behead the Yanos Slynt guy.Sansa show is boring as fuck but than Sansa books ..She there is still that selfish naive girl who believes in fairytales
The NK passing the North and Winterfell not falling are not mutually exclusive
you nailed it. thank you!
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
And what hope they have? they can trap the NK in other place since he is the one who has to die, they can use wildfire in south, a lot of things, theres no logical way they can hold WF, its not the wall , its a castle , is way more easy to pass, and the wall for the NK was nothing, and the NK can kill who and what he wants easy, even a dragon in movement, the have giants, a lot of tehm, we saw 3, but sure they have more, and wun wun alone and tired pass WF, tehere will be a lot of wun wun, the NK , WW, animals a lot of wights. theres no way.
Inga,
only a fool would lose, 1vs3 or 1vs2, do you realise that the the wall is way more dificult to invade so 100 man can hold it, and a castle is way easyer and this army of the dead are not normal?? this 100.000 army has a lot of giants, animals a humans that are restless? and the NK and his WW that are stong as hell and the NK has a dragon? and with his ice spear he can kill wathever he wants and easily??
do you realize this great difference or not? The Nk alone can fly above WF and detroy a lot ,is dany is mad to get close to him he can kill so easy her and the 2 dragons.
House Monty,
why wf would not fall? in the show is so easy to him to take wf ans continue his advance, he has a army of 100.000 undead that are never tired of killing with giants, animals , ww, a dragon and with him , where he can kill what and who he wants easily.
Ultimatley WF would not fall because the writers don’t want Winterfell to fall. It really just depends what they are going for with the narrative. If they want to create a moment of total dispair and darkness before ultimate victory than WF falls. If they want to have WF stand as symbolism for how House Stark defended the North and how House Targaryen atoned for its past crime against House Stark then WF stands. Just depends what they want.
From a Watsonian perspective there are lots of ways WF can stand. The numbers are relatively equal so they could win in battle or at least go for a stalemate. The NK could split off and head south for the much bigger prize of KL leaving an army fighting up North that is defeated.
They can write it any number of ways. Just depends what they are going for from a Doyalist perspective.
Aguero,
I wasn’t arguing that the Night King wouldn’t get further than The North although, admittedly, I don’t find that possibility as absurd as you do.
What I was arguing was that Winterfell wouldn’t fall and that, if it did, despite our heroes having a defensive/fortified position and everything in their locker available to defend Winterfell (dragons, Bran, dragonglass etc) then it’s hard to conceive of them being victorious under any other circumstances (e.g. a pitched battle at the Trident).
And if King’s Landing is also going to be destroyed, as these spoilers suggest, then the story / Westeros would be left bereft of its two most dramatically significant locations.
Yeah ..but Danny did make Drogo her own..using the sex lessons that Doreah teaches her …Sansa should had use the thing between her legs as Cercei advices her to do in S2..maybe she to had make Ramsay her own as Danny did with Drogo or Cercei with Robert…but she was raised to be shy ,sweet and a decorative thing for her husband.That things destroy almost her life and had make her a to be a doll for any torture thing by her abusers.She should to have learn from early ages that life is a bitch and its never fair.Danny learns that lesson when she was still child and earned to be ewhat she is noe..The Queen..Sansa should had do the same
Aguero,
Winterfell can’t fall, simply because it can’t fall plotwise. All the protagonists are or will be concentrated there and there is no way for the showrunners to evacuate them somewhere else – especially if we assume that the NK can kill a dragon without breaking the sweat. Therefore, the showrunners have to make Winterfell stand and in a more or less believable way. The first dragon was killed by surprise – next time the dragons will be more careful (we have already seen that). The Wall was torn down by surprise – Winterfell will be equipped with anti-dragon scorpions (I guess Gendry will make some), the Unsullied are claimed to be the best soldiers on the Planetos (time to show their skills), same with the Dothraki. Jon’s efforts must pay off and he must survive along with Dany, Tyrion, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Jaime, etc. At least most of the main protagonists have to survive till the final denouement in KL, and there is no other way to make them survive than to make Winterfell stand: there is nowhere to run and no means to run. The only alternative is a mass suicide, but a mass suiside of all the protagonists is not an option storywise.
Erica,
Killing Viserion instead of Drogon could be because e.g. in the books Viserion is captured by Euron, then killed by Drogon, and then resurrected by the NK, and a shortcut was needed. It could just be a “feature” of episode 7.6, rather than hinting at a big plan underneath.
Aguero,
Sorry, but you’re just arguing for what you want/expect to see and tailoring your logic to suit that conclusion.
For example, arguing that Daenerys wouldn’t engage with the Night King on Drogon even though that’s exactly what she’s gone north to do and will have to do eventually anyway.
Or your references to using wildfire, which you’ve conveniently decided has somehow made its way from under the streets of King’s Landing (which this spoiler suggests is going to be razed to the ground) and into the hands of our heroes, against the Night King in the south.
Such suggestions are far from certain, yet you’re stating them adamantly as if they’re fact.
Regarding the burning of King’s Landing, all the speculations are about either Daenerys or the Night King burning it. I think the city will be swarmed by the dead butchering the population of the city. There will be a choice – let them spread beyond the city walls or burn them all indiscriminately to prevent the former. Daenerys and Jon will choose to burn the city when confronted by this horrible choice and they will do it together, riding Drogon and Rhaegal, and live with the guilt and doubts whether nit could have been done differently for the rest of their lives.
I agree with Ramsay’s 20th
WF has to be where the NK and his undead are defeated.
Firstly, WF is meant to be the biggest and most powerful fortress in the entirety of Westeros, matched only by the likes of CR and Storm’s End. It’s the most sensible strategic location by MILES.
Secondly, if the NK take the North, it’s game over. They’ll just sweep the entire region one castle, one village, one town at a time. Build up it’s massive force to a million more strong.
Thirdly, if they get past Moat Callin, it’s game over. They can just pour into the entire country with it’s million strong undead and not even the trident will save them. Yes, Dany saw visions of herself fighting there in book 1 but that doesn’t mean everything, the trident is already host to the final battle of the war which saw her family deposed and likely has her fantasizing over reenactments.
Forth, if the living get smashed at WF with Bran, Dragons, Sansa’s stockpiled food, Dorthaki, Vale knights, Unsullied and Northerners, it’s game over. It means they must at least lose most of their forces and lose their most strongest castle and ontop of that, those soldiers rise up and replenish the dead. They’ll be forced to go south, in the lands of a hostile Queen, with remnant forces and shattered confidence with most of their commanders dead.
Lastly, WF is far, FAR more connected to the story than any other location it could possibly take place in logically. WF is the home of the Starks, the place they bitterly fought to retake and is the place the show started. Plus, it’s called WinterFELL. The clue is in the name.
It simply makes no sense for them to go beyond WF. The point of the undead arc is to STOP them from becoming unstoppable and waging long war.
Also, the undead were never, and will NEVER be the main part or point of the story. It’ll always be, as GRRM says, the human heart at war with itself and all about the living characters. Cersei is the end game. D&D also said the end game wouldn’t be good vs “evil”.
Chiming in late, mainly in response to your collective insights. I have only two original ideas to add. 1) Several GoT YouTubers and some theorists predict that somehow the Gods Eye and Isle of Faces will be a major locale in Great War endgame. Those theories always involve Bran, the Man turned into the NK, and often Jon. IMO, it might happen in the books, but If D&D really think the NK is only Death, it’s unlikely in the show. IMO, it’s logical the final Endgame to be in KL, especially since it experiences a major conflagration. I doubt wildfyre will explode because the new set (as the throne room in Dany’s vision) will surely be charred remains. (Fire could even be accidental; historically many old cities were accidentally razed by fire, like London and Chicago, where the deus ex machina was Mrs O’Leary’s cow.) More likely, a dragon. If Dany does it, I doubt she would sacrifice a million people to save them from a fate worse than death. Since Tyrion et al know about Wildfire caches, her team could somehow warn the locals to evacuate before her all-out attack. Then the Northern forces could attack the Red Keep. If the NK does it, he won’t get an army out of Ashes, so it would be purely destructive.
2) About Winterfell, Inga, you’re probably right about a siege. I wonder where Dany will keep her dragons and how she’ll use them. On the ground they’re sitting ducks. The trenches will at minimum slow down attackers. Better, they could be filled with brush and pitch and set alight when the wight attack is at its height. More brush stored on the battlements can be tossed down to repel later attacks, though at some point the fuel would run out. Meanwhile, archers would rain down dragonglass-tipped arrows on wights and any Walkers within range. I hope we see the trained kids and Arya doing this. Perhaps the Allies could manage to use that trebuchet defensively. If Dany and/or Jon and the NK do the Dance of Dragons there, it won’t be till mid-season.
Anon,
It seems they’re showing us that WW’s are tactical. As Mau suggested, the Night King could distract Dany up north while sending the bulk of his army south to KL…similar to the tactic Jaime used on Tyrion and Rob used on Tywin. Could be Dany has learned that tactic like those two and outsmarts the night king?
HE seems to be tactical, but it’s not a given about the WW’s. We mostly see them when he’s in the vicinity. Maybe his control is like a wifi connection–it gets weaker with distance. Your suggestion is great, but it’s not clear if they can act independently, especially when he’s 1000 miles away.
mau,
“Oh it would be great to have the Citadel destroyed.”
God, I hope not. The burning of the Library at Alexandria and destruction of other ancient collections of writings set mankind back at least half a millenium. The Citadel is THE repository of learning and knowledge in Westeros and maybe beyond. The books Sam will surely mine further for useful information were theirs. Granted, it is an Ivory Tower that needs reform badly, in its personnel and especially in the area of sharing practical application of all that knowledge. At least one day Sam will add his Song of Ice and Fire and future generations will learn from it. As we do.
Sean C.,
Benioff & Weiss: In some ways, it’s appropriate he doesn’t speak. What’s Death going to say? Anything would diminish him. He’s just a force of destruction. I don’t think we’ve ever been tempted to write dialogue for The Night King. Anything he said would be anticlimactic.
FWIW, early on they did have David Peterson design an ice-crackling type language, Skroth. I guess they decided not to use it.
I don’t know what happens in the books to come but I still think the NK was “showing off,” as it were. I know D&D said that they are merely killing machines, bent on murdering all humans and since it’s their show, I have to give tremendous weight to what they say.
However, my contention is that since the NK was once human, he’s susceptible to all the arrogance, ego, and hubris that can found in mankind.
Having said that, I don’t think we’ll see any compassion, either.
I think he went for Viserion because he wanted to demonstrate what he could do. He’s going to underestimate man and come to regret allowing Jon/Dany to survive that monster hunt north of the Wall.
As to who kills him, where it happens, and how, I don’t know. I’m just enjoying reading others thoughts on that.
I like it. I’m not sure we’ll see Jon on Rhaegal, but it’s certainly possible and it would no doubt look cool.
After making that difficult decision over KL, it could be that they chase the NK on dragonback back to WF where the NK will ultimately perish. Because of the vastness of the North, the CGI could make a pretty epic aerial battle in that location.
House Monty,
Thank you so much for that link!!! I’ve been wondering something similar for a long time, although my thoughts weren’t nearly as organized as this writer’s.
mau:
As long as she burns the NK’s stash of javelins first. 😂
Ha! Yes!
Question: Do you (any of you) think we will see a scenario in S8 where Dany demonstrates why she is referred to as “The Unburnt?” That would be awesome to see if only for the reactions of her new allies/foes.
Anon:
Jaime threatened Edmure, and quite effectively–but didn’t deny him. The last we knew of Edmure, he was back in Walder’s dungeon. As I wrote in another post a few weeks ago, I hope to see the “where in the world is Edmure?” question resolved with another, and very different, face-to-face meeting between him and Jaime. After all, Jaime must pass through the Riverlands to head north, and I suspect that he might wish to make amends for past behavior.
Jaime arriving at Winterfell at the head of a Tully army would please me immensely.
Stark Raven’ Rad,
I have a theory on how the WW army operates. From what we saw in Beyond the Wall, the wights are controlled by the WW who tured them. Moreover, this control should be a sort of warging: at least the mechanism should be the same. Therefore, it can be assumed than a WW and even the NK can’t control the wights turned by other WW. This might be important when it comes to the potential split of the army of the dead.
Most of the wights (at least 90 per cent of them) were turned by the Night King in Hardhome (and presumably other locations too, because he arrived to Hardhome with a pretty big host). Other WW have relatively small squads under their control: the one who attacked the Fist of the First Men could have had a thousand, others may have even less. Now, from what we saw at the Fist of the First Men, individual WW can carry out operations on their own, but as their wight squads are relatively small, the scope of these operations is limited. In other words, the NK can send a WW to take a village or a small castle but not a big one. When it comes to the Night King, he can clearly operate his wights remotedly (we saw that), but handlin several attacks simultaneously may be too much for his mind: just like Bran he may get lost in the information torrent. All in all, it looks like the NK may have problems with splitting his army. He may sent his leutenants on missions here and there but he should keep an eye on the bulk of his force continuosly. That leaves the attack on Winterfell his only option for Plan A. Plan B – the aerial attack on KL – should come into play only after Plan A fails and the NK loses most of his wights. Then he will be motivated to fly to KL asap and raise a new army.
And I agree with Erica that the NK is just a human susceptible to all the shortcommings of a human being.
Inga:
I’ve wondered the same. I think there’s a distinct possibility that the archmaester quite purposely gave Sam access to the information that he needed, and then drove him away because he recognized that his own colleagues were far too entrenched in their ways to take the WW threat seriously. There’s a part of me that wonders why he didn’t simply tell Sam to leave, but there’s another that thinks that, maybe, the archmaester decided that Sam needed to make that decision for himself in the face of the maesters’ complacency. Kill the boy.
Milutin,
Erica,
Basicly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s going to be Dany or Jon or both. KL will be burned by the protagonists because of its wightification and all of that will be Tyrion’s fault, because, had it been taken by Dany six episodes ago, it would have met the NK well prepared and equipped with dragonglass. (But that would have wrapped GOT in S7).
Dolorous Methuselah,
I’m with you on this one. When Bran asked Littlefinger if he knew to whom the dagger had belonged, I don’t think he meant in the recent past; I think he meant in the far past, and the question went over LF’s head. (I do hope the book with the illustration of the dagger made it onto Sam and Gilly’s cart when they left the Citadel.) I also think his off-handed, casual way of giving it to Arya was very purposeful, so as not to alarm her: He’s very aware of the fact that mere humans couldn’t possibly cope with the knowledge of the full horror that will soon befall them, but that, given the right tools (literally), they’ll do what needs to be done when the time comes.
Wolfish,
I don’t care for Jaime Lannister, but if he, as you say, lets Edmure out of the dungeon, I might forgive him..just a little bit.
How do you know she listened to LF( you seen S 8 already, b4 it finished filming???)??She listened alright, he paid with his life.
I’ll venture that Sansa will mention to Jon he marry Dynarys, it would be a win for the North and House Stark.
An ill-prepared KL’s is appropriate in order to stay consistent with Cersei’s hubris. So yes, it doesn’t matter if it’s Jon or Dany or both to deal with the problem of KL’s ‘wightification.’ I don’t know how much time for finger-pointing there will be, though….but that’s minutiae at this point, unless it affects Tyrion’s employment.
LOL, yeah you know nothing LOL
Erica,
I would love that! And the person she shows it to could be Arya. After Arya demonstrates her skills with the blades or even face changing to impress Daenerys, she could walk to a fire place and take hot coals in her hand as if it were nothing while Arya’s jaw drops in awe. He, he!
Erica,
Chicken Generated Image,
Yeah, the profound irony of someone with the screen name “Artemisia” being so venomously critical of a rape survivor beggars belief.
Her expression in 7-2 was total surprise, she like Jon, may not want to rule ( she’s happy as TLOWF) but it’s thrust on her and just like in 2-9 she shows mettle ; Jon left the home in good hands. As I said Northern version of The Queen of Thorns.
the point about NK splitting his army is that bran still has vision. if NK would decide to split his army, send the minor part to winterfell as distraction and take the major part of his army to south and KL, then bran could come up with his plan. bran’s eyes are everywhere. NK has no chance to use surprising strategies againt jon , denerys and bran.
It’s true that Bran’s abilities remove the element of surprise from the NK’s strategy, if he even cared about that, but I think KL will still be ill-prepared. And that’ll be Cersei’s fault, her hubris. It sets up a “conflict of the human heart with itself,” when our heroe’s will have a decision to make about a ‘wightified’ KL.
Sansa using her womanly parts would not deter Ramsey, he’s nuts, he gets off on pain.
I blame mom and dad for sheltering her, more then a kid having dreams.
I’m hoping Sansa makes use of the crypts, it’s above freezing even in winter.
House Monty,
I’ll have to catch up on this (sub-thread) about Dany’s impulsiveness (?) so if I’m repeating what’s already been said, forgive me for adding my two cents…
I’ve been wary that Dany’s “kneel or fry”, take-no-prisoners approach that resulted in vaporizing Tarly father and son will come back to bite her in the ass. A reluctance to put people in chains or in a POW camp is kind of a flimsy excuse for executing enemy combatants who don’t want to switch sides.
There had to be a reason why the maesters at the Citadel brought up the Tarlys’ immolation after Sam left the room. Surely, Sam will feel conflicted once he learns what Jon’s smoking hot girlfriend [pun intended] did to his family, even though his father was a real pr*ck.
There also has to be a reason for showing us that Dany rejected Tyrion’s advice to exercise restraint when she decided to Drogonize Randyll and Dickon.
Yes, Dany’s aiming for a better world for all people. I just fear that her “pragmstism” or absolutism is going to have unfortunate repercussions – similar to her execution of that guy (“Mossador”?) for killing a Harpy a few seasons back.
One thing Tyrion has been on the money about is the importance of inspiring devotion among her would-be followers (his first bit of advice, if I recall correctly, when he explained why she should not execute Jorah despite her promise to kill him if he returned to Mereen).
Still, I’m hoping there won’t be any inter-squad turmoil amongst Team Targ. Damn it, there are only six episodes left! There’s no time for second-guessing Dany. …. Is there?
Inga,
Yeah. This makes sense. KL could be destroyed, but not WF. It makes sense for the story by the way.
masoud,
Except NK has Bran-O-Vision too. (In “The Door”, he was able to hack into Bran’s vision and screw around with Bran’s avatar and real Bran.) He may be able to jam Bran’s radar.
I think you’re the one who hasn’t watched it properly.
Jon bent the knee because he felt bad about her losing a dragon, he gave up the Northern independence which they’ve been fighting for since season 2, and he handed the North back into a Targaryen’s hands, which they fought against probably about 20 years ago. GRRM himself has said the story is about the Starks, what’s it going to take for you to realise that the Targaryen isn’t the hero of this story? Her burning down Kings Landing perhaps…
And once again, go back and watch the scene between Cersei and Tyrion. Tyrion thought he was about to die, but he made the risk anyway for Dany’s cause, and long after Tyrion had left Cersei revealed she was going to betray the alliance Tyrion made to Jamie, resulting in him leaving her. And Dany stood in a dragon pit and lamented how awful it was the dragons because it meant her family wasn’t ‘special anymore’.
And as for Sansa, are you trying to say he has manipulated her against Jon? Sure, just like he manipulated to her to kill Arya. Go. Back. And. Watch. It.
In season six she said herself only a fool would trust him, and I’m season six she, along side Bran and Arya, had him excecuted.
It is a very interesting question that I wonder about a lot. I think at the end of the day it all comes down to where the series wants to fall on the sliding scale between idealism and cynicism.
Why did Dany burn the Tarley’s? I personally think it all came down to what Olenna told her. Tyrion is clever but he is too clever for his own good. At the end of the day its simple. The Lords of Westeros won’t obey you unless they fear you. So she disregarded Tyrion’s advice and fried them as an example to the other lords of the realm. She is someone to be feared and if you disobey her there will be consequences. And I think Dany has represented this machiavellian quality for a while. If Tywin and now Cersei held power primarily through fear, she has represented the ruler who is feared, but also respected and loved. Jorah specifically spoke about her in those terms in Season 2.
So at the end of the day, whether serious negative consequences come from this versus just some akward interpersonal drama I think will depend on where the series wants to come down on the qualities of the ideal ruler. If the ideal ruler inspires both love AND fear than she is unlikely to suffer negative consequences. If the series wants to take another more idealistic view on the ideal ruler than she will likely suffer consequences.
Ten Bears,
That’s what I meant. All those small setpieces about Danny are being lay out in past seasons. They need to do something with it. If they don’t do anything with it, why were they lay out in past seasons.
And about time. There’s enough time. If you look at season 2 till 6 one storyline had around 50/70 minutes each per season. Season 8 if the rumors are true we can aspect around 400 minutes runtime that’s around 150/200 minutes of screentime per storyline. That means that they can give us more story per episode and we can aspect that a big chance can happen in 1 episode instead of 10.look for instance at leftovers from HBO or other shows what big changes you can make in one episode.
But we don’t know how it will pay of maybe Danny will lose her mind in episode 4. And at the end she finds her way back and sacrifice herself a la Phoenix from x-men.
Personally I think winterfell will fall. But that doesn’t mean the show can end by rebuilding winterfell and making it the capitol. But it need to be defeated at least that our heroes need to flee south. And on the way south Jaime can save them.
mau,
Maybe not destroyed, but defeated. Not safe anymore until the nk is defeated. But still its grrm d and d were talking about.
Tayla,
One that have been paying attention. The last book was first meant to be called: time of wolves. But he changed it, probably because it reveal about which the story truly is about. Dany fans think that I see her as a real villain with a big plan etc. I think she will become a tragic villain. The one that we understand why she did it. Like Walter white in bb. Dany isn’t a bad person, she has good intentions.
But still no matter what happen I’m excited.
I kind of like this scenario. With an army of wights encamped on her doorstep, Arya would have have her choice of thousands of partially rotted faces to recycle if she wanted to infiltrate. Since she’s both female and small enough to overlook easily, having her take out a WW lieutenant (but not the NK) also makes her analogous to the combination of Merry and Eowyn defeating the Lord of the Nazgul, which I like. It wouldn’t be GRRM’s first nugget of homage to Tolkien (presuming that this is part of Arya’s destiny in the books as well).
I also believe, as others have suggested, that Bran’s question to Littlefinger about the Valyrian steel dagger’s previous owner meant much more than “I know this used to be yours.” Perhaps it once belonged to the man who was turned into the NK by the Children? Or Bloodraven, before he became the Three-Eyed Crow/Raven (book canon, not show)? Or the Last Hero/Azor Ahai, who ended the Long Night? Its depiction in the book in Sam and Gilly’s possession cannot be coincidental.
Another question I have been wondering is something I notice was something with the scene with Dany and melisandre.
She talked about, that Dany has a purpose and somebody else. We all know that’s Jon. But what i noticed was the way she talked. Like she was holding back information about her purpose.
And something else. When can we aspect varys and melisandre to die and why?
Kevin1989,
I agree, her story seems to be leading more towards a fallen hero than either a saviour or a devious villian. I actually think this would make her a much more interesting character. I don’t think she is evil.
WF doesn’t have to fall for the heroes (one or more) to go south. Bran can tell them that the Undead are hitting KL causing Dany, etc to head south.
Dany, etc could also head south when they learn of Cersei’s betrayal.
Whatever happens, I’m excited, too!
You have a link to GRRM’s quote that this story is about the Starks?
In his original outline he def. does not say that and says the story is about five protagonists two of which are not starks and one of whom is half.
Curious to read the context of that quote.
All of the dragon remains at the pit and under KL will be reanimated.
Oh damm….. that is an amazing idea!
I think he or she is refering to grrm first draft, about the 3 evils that westeros will face. In that draft only the starks were the protagonists.
Why did you feel the need to put the word rape in quotation marks? She was raped, and she has a right to talk about it, why should she be forced to bottle that up, it will only hurt her to do so.
And as I recall, Daenerys also spoke to Jon about how she was raped at their very first meeting.
I don’t think that is the case. That first draft does not say that.
Fallen hero trope is possible. When she finds out about Cersei’s betryal it could create a despair event horizon where she decides everything Tyrion has been preaching is shit, not working and the only way to win is through straight up Fire and Blood. Of course whether she goes over that line or not is up in the air.
House Monty,
I looked it up and your right. Danny was always meant to be a protagonist
Only things I remembered GRRM saying of the Starks ( minus his pre outline ) are : 1 The Starks are his heroes, they’re his NY Giants 2: each Stark kid will be important to the story 3. each Stark ( not just Sansa, or Arya or Robb or Bran ) contributed something to their fall ( except maybe Rickon ) 4. He also didn’t understand the hate Sansa was getting and the last thing I remember was in S4 where he said about Sansa, she doesn’t control an army, not trained with weapons, but! she has a mind just like Littlefinger.
He (from my memory ) doesn’t state “They are” the heroes, just they are his heroes.
As silly as this may seem, I thought Dany could fall under the ‘fallen hero’ category because of, wait for it….her theme music. Well, not just, but I thought it was woven into the fabric of her story somehow. Seriously.
Yeah, I know..I’ll show myself out now. 🙂
Presuming that, culturally, the First-Men-descended Northerners – especially the hill clans – are meant to evoke the Highland Scots, it’s reasonable to guess that Macumber = Mac Umber = son of Umber. House Umber having a giant bursting its chains as its sigil would also seem to suggest that ‘umber’ means ‘giant’ in the Old Tongue. I’m not sure what this has to do with the Night King’s blue eyes, other than being a possible suggestion that he was originally a lord of Last Hearth.
But I think you may be onto something about his name being important. Names carry their own magic. Gaining power over one’s supernatural adversary by discovering his/her/its true name is one of the oldest and most widespread tropes in folklore. I don’t think we’ve seen GRRM use it yet, except in a subtle way re: the Faceless tradition of being No One – and, as I believe you’re suggesting, In Jaqen’s insistence at Harrenhal that Arya offer the Many-Faced God three names.
If anything, she has become a more important protagonist since then as she took Arya’s role of being Jon’s main love interest and the person Tyrion flees to.
Lol. This is a good analysis of her music. Not sure its fallen hero music.
Except that it would lend itself to a few massive disembodied dragon heads just rolling around after people, but…😄
True dat. The NK might want to spare Winterfell to use as his eventual seat of power. We certainly don’t know all its secrets yet.
Oh, me too! It’s unfortunate that the show cut out the bit about Jaime having much admired the Blackfish when he was a lad.
And due mostly to his double-duty thespian awesomeness on Outlander, I’d be keen to see some more of Tobias Menzies on GoT.
I really CANT understand the head of someone that find its fine the the BIG threat since the FIRST CHAPTER and FIRST SCENE, be defeated in the north, where they already are.
this is just like terrible narrative, you build up a threat as that for 7 books or 7 seasons, one that is to all WESTEROS fear, all the continent fear, and in the end this threat cant even pass the region they were, its just absurdly dumb and bad writing, and in the BOOKS this stupid possibility its out of question, thank god, the other who mocked about the ww, the other regions HAVE to suffer the winter and the WW, not all westeros, but a good part of it to all the continent really fear they.
its like in a harry potter book or movie, be a threat of a creature in the school that cant scape of some room of the school or will be the of the, school, city and the country with it around and they build up the terror of this thing scape for movies and books, but in the end the creature does get out of the room but cant get out of the school and its defeated right there, its so dumb and ridiculous.
i didint know some here didnt know that would be just a death to the narrative, build up something for so long time to be defeated right in first stop. This just don t happens in any history.
so as i know this atrocity wont happen in the books, i want so badly that this wont happen in the series as well.
We’re on the same wavelength again. When they cast Jim Broadbent, wasn’t there a suggestion that the Archmaester character was a sort of hybrid that incorporated a bit of Marwyn? TV Ebrose definitely struck me as quite a bit shrewder than book Ebrose, and perhaps a tad more rebellious as well. Those particular books didn’t fall into Sam’s hands by accident, methinks.
I’m beginning to suspect that Artemisia is someone we have known here under a different name in the past. Lots of WotW folks are Dany fans. Not too many believe that Dany can do no wrong, that the whole story is about her and will twist and frame everything onscreen toward that interpretation.
Artemisia,
Oh dear lord, what kind of venom are you spouting here? Did you even watch the whole series? If you did you have no understanding of Sansa and Dany, no understanding of what rape victims go through
Now I am going back up to join in the rest of the conversation; was hoping this wouldn’t be a ‘Sansa’ thread…..
It is, and would certainly account for a huge increase in Season 8’s SFX budget. We could have a proper Ray Harryhausen homage going on!
Pigeon,
!!!!! oh my gawd yes!!!!! Now we just need to find a way to make it so…..
Aguero,
And how do you imagine such retreat? The NK will make a corridor allowing everyone to leave Wintenfell in peace? LOL and LMAO.
Firannion,
The NK can’t use Winterfell as his seat of power: it’s too warm with all those hot springs around. And he is not after castle – he’s after the people within.
We don’t really know that, though. Many have speculated that the NK was originally a Stark. If so, Winterfell would be where his power would be strongest. And don’t forget that the WW bring extreme cold with them wherever they go; it’s the first thing that people notice when they’re about to show up. It may be that his true endgame is to work some sort of nuclear reaction by reversing the heat of the underground springs/thermal vents and thereby trigger a second Doom. I wouldn’t rule anything out, in terms of what the NK wants,
Erica,
yes. contrary to my first opinion, actually splitting army could be a great Idea from military perspective. suppose that NK splits his army in 9 to 1 proportion ( if he has 100 thousand dead soldier). sending 10K men to winterfell and taking 90K to the south and a dragon. even if bran and his team would know what NK is going to do, they wouldn’t be able to leave WF and go after him. because the small part of the dead army is large enough to storm the entire north if there is no defending army against them. so they are stuck in winterfell until the battle of the north is over. meanwhile NK can approach KL, storm entire south and KL and make an army of millions of dead soldiers. then go back to north and destroy jon and his army. in conclusion, I think if NK would decide to ride north, no one could stop him, even if they could see what he is doing.
They have two dragons, my dear. 🙂
hahahahaha! You are joking, of course!
masoud,
I think the split of the army of the dead, if it happens, should be done a different way. Winterfell will be well prepared and it will have dragons. Therefore, the NK will have to dedicate the bulk of his forces for the attack on Winterfell and hang around with his dragon to promote the air cover, otherwise his forces will be turned into ashes in a few days. However, the NK can easily send south a few of his leutenans. The number of the wights they control is not that big, but its still sufficient to overrun a village or a small castle and it will grow with every minor target taken. The South is totally unprepared, so even a relatively small force will wreck havoc there. By the time those WW leutenants approch KL, they will have antother 100 thousand wights or even more. Then the NK can join them on the dragon and take the city, while the army of the living is still stuck in the North. And by the time it gets south, the NK will already be counting his wights in millions.
There would be only two factors able to wreck this plan. The Dothraki are currently on the King’s Road and IMO their arrival to Winterfell will be delayed by winter roads to raise the stakes and add suspence. The Dothraki have numbers and they are equipped with dragonglass, so they would be able to crash a smaller squad of wights in minutes. However, being a greenseer, the NK shoud be awared of the Dothraki and able to direct his leutenants so, that they could bypass them (even the Neck has an alternative path through the mountains). Another factor is Jaime. Week as he is, he is a determined and capable commander who would be able to organise some defense in the Riverlands and he has a Valyrian steel sword. Moreover, the NK and other WW may easily underestimate this one-handed lonely knight, just like they underestimated Sam during the battle at the Fist of the First Men, and that may turn into a fatal mistake.
Dany is not going to burn KL to the ground. Not on purpose anyway.
They’ve previously flirted with her impulsiveness to burn things for dramatic reasons. That’s it. Her father was the Mad King who wanted to burn them all and the writers are just trying to use that for drama. It’s a constant “Will she give in to this impulsiveness or not?” situation. Well, she’s already showed that she’s different from her father as well as other rulers over the past 7 seasons. She’s done way too many good things to turn bad now.
It’s not that complicated. She’s not going to somehow turn into the villain now. Some people are trying too hard to come up with a twist.
Of course, now that I said it, I’ll end up being proven wrong, lol, but I just don’t see why she would become the villain at this point in the story and decide to burn KL down. The only possible scenario I could see is that she will accidentally set off the wildfire caches, but I don’t think that will happen either. I think that’s something that Cersei will end up doing, if anyone.
You are probably right. 7×06 felt like it was fairly definitive in making her the hero.
Personally i do not like the thematic message sent if she does become more villanous. To me that seems to create a theme that we cannot be different than our parents which feels very deterministic. I hope they go in the direction of both her and Tyrion successfully moving beyond their fathers legacy.
House Monty,
I agree. I would actually be more open to the possibility of the show turning Dany into a villain had they decided to downplay any comparison to her father. It would be much more shocking and impactful.
However, the way they have straddled the fence on this for so long makes it clear to me that they just want the audience to be concerned for Dany, thinking she’ll go bad even though it will never happen. Something akin to Luke Skywalker being tempted by the dark side of the force but never actually going through with it.
Dany burning down KL doesn’t make her evil or a villain. The show has constantly gone out of its way to show Dany’s ruthless side. Olenna’s “become the dragon” advice could win over in the end.
We have Bran’s vision of the dragon over KL. We have the very real possibility that the NK will utterly wreck her armies and leave her with basically only her dragons after he’s defeated. We have Tyrion and Varys “worried” about her, a theme that’s been strong since Jorah and Selmy both failed to get Dany to show mercy to the slavers in Meereen.
There’s also the director of Dany’s speech in S6 saying he compared her to Hitler, we have the visions of the Red Keep destroyed and raining with Ash. And to top it all off, it could very well be the final “Holy Shit” moment D&D have said GRRM told them. Dany burning down KL after being lied to by Ceresi, after being left with barely any army and finally embracing the Dragon. It wouldn’t make her evil, just ruthless.
The NK burning down KL or Ceresi burning it down would be predictable and not very logical given that the NK could then just burn down every settlement and the war’s pointless. Plus pretty Dany and Bran would stop him. Ceresi already burned down the sept and it’s waaaay too predictable, plus she wouldn’t have to after the undead totally destroys the armies of the living since she could just wait out.
Dany gave plenty of warnings. Ceresi ignored them. Tyrion won’t be able to hold her back anymore after they literally have no other path to victory.
Yea, it does.
Or Jon Snow’s advice could win out in the end too. It could go either way. “The people who follow you know that you made something impossible happen. Maybe that helps them believe that you can make other impossible things happen. Build a world that’s different from the shit one they’ve always known. But if you use them to melt castles and burn cities, you’re not different. You’re just more of the same.”
Not showing mercy to slave masters who crucify 163 children is not an evil act. I’d say that’s a pretty understandable punishment. Either way, she realized later on that some slaves were actually put into a worse predicament because of this, so she changed her mind and allowed 1-year contracts. This is not the act of an evil person or villain.
Bender’s quote was this: “She’s not Hitler at Nuremberg, but she’s got the power.” Hardly an apt comparison to Hitler, wouldn’t you say?
Could be from anyone or anything. This does not prove Dany did it. At least not yet.
Well I’ve seen many people just like you thinking that Dany will be the one to burn down KL, so I’d say thats just as predictable as Cersei or NK doing it.
Cersei’s done the wildfire bit before, so why exactly wouldn’t she try it again? She did it in season 6 when she was cornered and had no other choice, so if she gets cornered in the upcoming war with Dany/NK, why wouldn’t she do it again? Because it’s too predictable? I mean, it’s not like the show avoids predictability at all costs. Most of what they’ve done has been rather predictable. I think this assumption that everything GoT does is always or should always be unpredictable is wrong and needs to be put to bed already.
He could do that anyway
To me the parallels between Daenerys and the Night King are too blatant to ignore these days.
– Ice and fire.
– Both immune to fire.
– Both now riding a dragon.
– Both foreign (yet not foreign) invaders single-mindedly determined to conquer Westeros.
– Both leading an army of converts, that would disintegrate (literally, in the Night King’s case) without them.
In 7×05 when she gathered the defeated Lannister/Tarly forces and demanded they submit to her, there was a shot of the Dothraki on horseback shepherding the soldiers toward her which blatantly mimicked the White Walkers shepherding the Night King’s converted army of wights.
I don’t know if Daenerys will burn King’s Landing, but I do wonder if one way or another it may be determined that she and her dragons are a threat to the future safety and prosperity of Westeros just like the Night King and that they exist pretty much to cancel each other out.
What I really hope for is a bit of intrigue and I think there’s far more potential for that in Daenerys and the lingering doubts over her character, her power-hungriness and the strained relationship / image of a Targaryen invader among the Westerosi, than there is in any other character.
I can get into this angle much more than assuming Dany will burn KL to the ground all mad king style. I suppose I’m really open to any possibility at this point since we don’t know how things will unfold, but we’ve just had too much emotional investment with Dany at this point for her to just go all mad king now. It really doesn’t make much narrative sense. That’s my opinion of course, everyone else’s MMV
Intrigue is cheap. Its something that is interesting the first time you watch and then has little value in subsequent rewatches. I think what ultimatley makes a story timeless and worth engaging in is what it says thematically.
While having Daenerys make a darker turn would be interesting intrigue or shock value, i think fundamentally that has to be weighed against what that does to the theme of the story.
What has been interesting about Dany is her idealism and fundamentally good nature combined with ruthless pragmatism. What is also interesting about her is the fact that she has a white and black insanity streak to her and is an emodiment of the unrestrained trope yet who recognizes this and sets up structures around her to check these impulses.
Any short term benefit gained from intrigue or shock value needs to be weighed against the long term consequences to the story’s themes of having her and what she represents ideologically fail at the end. Having her fail in the way you propose will definetly mean that the narrative is taking a stand on idealistic pragmatism and the ability of people to recognize their natures and overcome them. Will be interesting where the narrative decides to fall in the end on this stuff.
I don’t know if the paralles between her and the NK mean anything predictive other than the NK being the Big Bad and her set up as the Big Good. Could mean more than that of course, but it could be nothing more than that.
Your Dec. 3, 2017, 7:03 pm comment envisioned: “All of the dragon remains at the pit and under KL will be reanimated.”
• Reanimated Dragon RemainsI love your idea! Reanimated skeletal dragons! They could be of all different sizes!* From B1 Bomber-size to kitten-size! (HBO could offer miniature dragon action figures or build-it-yourself scale models after the show ends; I’d pre-order the entire line.)
* Daenerys at the Dragonpit (S6e7), talking about the Targaryens’ dragons:
”They were terrifying. Extraordinary. They filled people with wonder and awe, and we locked them in here. They wasted away. They grew small.”
Tyrion (S6e2): “The dragons Aegon used to conquer Westeros ranged over hundreds of miles. Then Daenerys’s ancestors started chaining them up in pens. A few generations later, the last dragons were no larger than cats.”
• The Two BattlesI still cling to my speculation that the NK will send a splinter force to Winterfell to keep the armed and dangerous heroes occupied just long enough for the NK and his main army to march on by and head to KL, where 1,000,000 oblivious, unarmed recruits await. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel. And the 20,000 Golden Company mercenaries – with no dragonglass weapons – will either: (i) Take one look at the Undead Army and turn tail: ”Sorry Cersei. We didn’t sign up for this. Read the fine print of our contract. We wish you good fortune in the wars to come. Bye-bye!”; or (ii) Be overwhelmed by the wights and join the ranks of the Undead Army…along with their elephants! Zombie pachyderms FTW!🐘🐘🐘🦏🐘
• A splinter force of about 10,000 wights tasked to tie up Team Targ-Stark at WF while the remaining 90,000 head south should be able to accomplish the mission. After all, wights are relentless – and disposable. Possible alternatives:
– If the good guys hole up inside the walls of WF for at least a few days… mission accomplished.
– If the cavalry (Dothraki), infantry (Unsullied), and contingent of Northern fighters [less than 10,000, per Jon in S7] meet the Undead on the open field, even if supplemented by two dragons, mission accomplished: Drawing out the human fighters and inflicting some casualties will conceivably add new undead soldiers while forcing the humans to expend precious time and divert resources away from any attempt to halt the southward progress of the 90,000-strong main battle group.
– Assuming Lord Glover takes one look at the swarm of 10,000 zombies and promptly chickens out, leaving the defenses undermanned, mission accomplished.
– Even if unchallenged, two dragons carpet-bombing squadrons of wights will take time. Since NK is apparently a West Point graduate and has studied Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, he might disperse the 10,000 wights, e.g, into twenty battalions of 500 each and have his WW commanders launch attacks from different directions, or in staggered assaults. By the time Dany is done flying all over the North trying to locate and fry all 20 battalions, the NK and his 90,000 will be on the doorstep of KL. Mission accomplished.
– Even if all 10,000 wights get vaporized by dragonfire or disintegrated by dragonglass or VS weapons, the NK doesn’t care. If they buy him time, mission accomplished.
While Robb sacrificed a splinter force to fake out Tywin (and Jaime copied that strategy in S7 when he used Casterly Rock as a decoy to enable him to sack Highgarden), humans now don’t have that same luxury of sacrificing thousands of soldiers – especially with the risk that -1 dead human soldier = +1 undead soldier: a net gain of +2 for Team NK.
So, Team Targ-Stark can celebrate “winning” the battle for the North, while the NK has successfully positioned himself to overwhelm KL.
That is why I now posit that the first “big” battle of S8 will be at WF, but WF will not fall; the second – and possibly biggest battle of the entire series, will be at KL. (Of course, why else build an entire set of a city street?)
• Dragonfire vs. WildfireNow that it appears that dragon fire will be involved, I suppose I should take the blame for throwing out the speculation that the charred KL set under construction + trebuchet suggested that Cersei will deploy her catapulted wildfire pots plan from S2e5. (Acting Hand Tyrion commandeered Cersei’s wildfire stash, agreeing with Bronn’s assessment that it was a “sh*t plan” because it was more likely that people trying to defend the city would wind up accidentally burning it down.)
However, by way if clarification – since there’s some confusion in the comments – Cersei wouldn’t need to rely on any remaining caches of wildfire stashed under the city by the Mad King. Rather, as in S2, now that she’s back in power she’d simply commission the pyromancers of the Alchemists Guild to “work tirelessly day and night” to produce massive stores of fresh, high octane wildfire.
(Discarded Tinfoil Alert…)
• Qyburn’s Supersoldiers & Advanced Technology? As a closet Qyburn fan, I had been dreaming up tinfoil, wishful thinking scenarios, prompted by his fascination as a scientist with the Captured Wight’s severed arm, his successful revivification of Gregor, and his invention of the Anti-Dragon Scorpion. Now, however, I doubt the show is setting up Qyburn as a scientific whiz who will spearhead a Manhattan Project-type weapons program.
I had been hoping we’d see something like this play out between Qyburn and Cersei in Season 8:
Qyburn: “Your Grace, I’ve got some good news and bad news.”
Cersei: “Give me the bad news first.”
Qyburn: “My little birds in the North have sent word that the Night King and the bulk of the Army of the Dead have bypassed Winterfell, and are heading straight for us. And…”
Cersei: “And what?”
Qyburn: “….That third dragon you noticed was missing at the Dragonpit? You were right. Something happened to him. The Night King’s got him. He turned him into a wight dragon, figured out how to pilot him, and melted the Wall.
Supposedly the Alliance forces are marching south to try to help us.”
Cersei: “I doubt it. They’re coming to watch and gloat…”
Qyburn: “We have 1,000,000 civilians jammed into the city. We do not have any dragonglass or Valyrian steel weapons. The Lannister army is depleted after Field of Fire 2.0. As you know, some of our troops bent the knee to Daenerys. Others have decided to defect and follow Ser Jaime. Euron and the 20,000 Golden Company sellswords are on their way, but none of them have agreed to go head to head against 90,000 White Walkers and ice zombies.
We don’t gave enough food to feed a million people; Daenerys incinerated the provisions we were expecting from the Reach. We’ve got a million people facing death from disease and malnutrition within the city walls, and worse than death from the threat outside the city walls.”
Cersei: “So you’re saying we’re completely f*cked?”
Qyburn: “Oh no, Your Grace. Here’s the good news:
First, I went ahead and had the pyromancers of the Alchemists’ Guild resume production of wildfire around the clock. And I’ve modified the Scorpion to fire specially made bolts with wildfire-filled warheads, designed to detonate on impact. “Stinger missiles” I call them. Equally effective surface-to-air and surface-to-surface, to fire at wights on the ground or at a wight dragon in the air. We’ve already got a huge arsenal stickpiled. Enough wildfire missiles to make the Battle of the Blackwater look like a stovetop grease fire.”
Cersei: “Aren’t you precious!”
Qyburn: “Wait. There’s more…Tell me, have you been satisfied with the performance of my upgrades to Ser Gregor?”
Cersei: “Quite. He’s far exceeded my expectations.”
Qyburn: “Science produces a better undead soldier than the supernatural. My laboratories have expanded to commence mass production. With your Grace’s permission of course, if 20% of the population volunteers for the procedure we can have an army of 200,000 ZombieGregors ready to roll out in a matter of days. That many people will be terminally ill from disease and malnutrition before long anyway.”
Cersei: “I will make sure you have your ‘volunteers’.’…And Qyburn?”
Qyburn: “Yes, Your Grace?”
Cersei: “Please make sure we’ve got plenty of wine and popcorn.”
Qyburn: “Already taken care of, Your Grace.” 🍿🍷
House Monty,
I like what you wrote. Good food for thought. I have no clue what the show has in store for Dany; so many different possible outcomes.
I’ve toyed with the idea that someone will take it upon hinself or herself to try to assassinate her, either because of a sincere concern about her impulsive streak, or just out of lingering prejudice against anyone related to the Mad King.
I hope that someone is not Samwell Tarly, in a parallel to his scene explaining to Olly that sometimes it’s necessary to do what one feels is right even if it’s unpopular.
I didn’t see that post. I don’t know if this would be possible without changing history, as it concerns the remains of dragons in KL. The living dragons within the Dragonpit were killed and the Dragonpit was burnt. That’s why it’s in ruins. Any remains there would be ashes. Thousands of bodies were also burnt there with wildfire years later after a disease killed many. Earlier, larger dragons that died or were killed had their heads removed and their skulls adorned the throne room during the Targaryen reign (now in the crypts as we’ve seen). This doesn’t mean there couldn’t be unknown buried and intact skeletons elsewhere of course.
The population of KL could be flame-o’d for good reason, of course, were they to have been turned into 1 million wights.
Mr Derp,
There’s also a possibility of Drogon burning down KL, but it isn’t at Dany’s command. How about this: The army of the dead are defeated in the North and Drogon is the only dragon to survive, Dany and the survivors head south to KL, another meeting is set (maybe Jaime is the go-between), Cersei (or Euron or whomever controls KL) decides that only one remaining dragon is worth the chance to try and take it out in a betrayal, the Dragon is fired upon knocking Dany from him, Drogon and Dany both survive but Dany is knocked out cold, Drogon goes into a rage and burns the city with nobody conscious to control him, Jaime chokes the life out of Cersei for her jerk move, Dany awakens to Tyrion saying “I’ve got good news and bad news.”
Assasination attempt is possible. Jorah’s comments in 7×07 certainly hint at that.
One thing Season 7 did fairly well is set up a bunch of stuff where the series can still go in multiple directions. Dany getting assasinated and the heros needing to go on without the “most important person in the world” as Tyrion said is certainly one of them. The Big Good getting taken out so that The Hero can achieve his final leveling up is a fairly common trope.
CT Wahoo,
Interesting, but I’m not buying it. I believe that Drogon is dangerous, but is not going to go all mad dragon on everyone. That would be an odd direction to take things.
I’m sure there will be another interesting twist and turn in the final season, but I think some people are simply trying too hard to come up with some sort of edgy story line for the last season. Like I said, I’m sure there will be another twist or turn, but it won’t be at the expense of character development that’s been laid out for us over the last 7 years. I believe things will most likely play out fairly predictably at this point with one major twist still coming.
I agree. At this point the Nk making it south and threatening to whiten KL is probably the twist shock and whatever happens with Cersei.
Its more likely that Cersei continues to embody the God Save us From the Queen! trope and Dany continues to be the High Queen trope and that is it versus a last minute switch.
Guys, it’s going to be Bran.
https://youtu.be/NGRHMxwRK4w
This video is interesting. According to this dude the music suggests the NK burns the red keep as there are traces of the WW theme in 2×10 when Dany is in the throne room
House Monty,
Wow. amazing video. very nice and subtle catch. this explains everything about the spoiler in this post. NK is definitely going to split his army and attack KL. amazing twist.
masoud,
Right? I am shocked no one pointed this out before or made that connection.
Would be pretty impressive work on the shows part if in season 2 they foreshadowed the destruction of the throne room as being the work of the WW and then the NK ends up doing it with Vicerion in Season 8.
On a thematic level, I think it works well to for it be the NK.
House Monty,
personally, the idea that NK was not going to make to kings landing (his defeat at winterfell) was very disappointing to me. but now, the story has changed. I don’t exactly know how NK will find his way to KL( splitting army or forcing army of winterfell to retreat to KL), but the fact of “NK in KL” is fantastic.
r-hard,
Yes, it seems everyone has forgotten the WF and the fact thar Cercei is the more likely to do it. It would be good Irony considering why Jamie killed the mad King.
I don’t think he’s going to split his army. Because that means that Jon and Dany etc can only be present at one of these 2 places.
The nk and Jon and Dany need to be in both battles. First we get wf and last kl.
But I think we get more than those 2. I think episode 1 will get an small battle at house umber with the nk a very small battle of 2 minutes, bran sees everyone getting killed. Probably a scene with the night’s watch. Episode 2 and 3 will contain a battle with theon and euron. And one big at wf. Which is which I don’t know. Episode 4 will be a breathing episode where there will be a change with character, understanding what happens at wf, making plans etc. Episode 5 first half preperarion battle. Second half battle kl ending with a twist in the battle. Episode 6 finishing the battle for and the ending.
Kevin1989,
I kind of agree with you. I don’t think Jon and Dany have to be a part of everything that NK is doing. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the NK split off from his army and headed South and the big battle at WF occurs without NK.
But I do agree with your basic outline regarding when the battles happen and the big final battle being 8×05 with something bleeding into 8×06.
Martin himself in his original outline wrote “The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.” So I think that will actually happen and in 8×05.
Inga,
OF COURSE NOT, a lot will die to hold whilke other few scape.
Aguero,
How would the few escape?
Are they going to get on boats like the few survivors of the massacre at Hardhome? No, that’s not possible.
Or are they going to be airlifted to safety like the survivors of Jon’s suicide mission beyond The Wall? No, that’s not possible either.
How do hundreds/thousands of people escape a besieged castle?
Then how do they trek hundreds of miles across the wintry North, presumably with few horses or supplies, without being run down and massacred?
Will there be any women, children and old people among the survivors or will Jon, Dany, Jaime and co abandon them all to be massacred while they flee?
And once our heroes have fled south, with the bulk of the Dothraki, Unsullied, Northern and Vale armies destroyed and most of their dragonglass weapons presumably lost, will the leaderless Dornish, or the Golden Company, or the conscripted common folk of King’s Landing be the ones to somehow defeat the Army of the Dead instead?
And speaking of King’s Landing, will our heroes rally a new army of southerners before or after somebody has put King’s Landing to the torch, as these spoilers suggest will happen?
Gigi,
Exactly and Cersei
BeardedOnion,
No pointless and predictable is having Dany go “mad” or whatever convoluted mess youve come up with to call it something else. The will she wont she thing has been a constant theme and I think it she decided to in Beyond the Wall that none of that mattered. I know many of you seem to think that the NK will be dead at the end of the cold open but Cersei will have to deal with the consequences of taking the threat lightly. Every other character or group of characters is facing north to fight for the very survival of humankind besides Cersei. The NK is coming on the back of Viserion and he is burning KL. This has been my belief since the NK killed and resurrected Viserion; that the dragon Bran saw flying over KL was undead Viserion with the NK riding. This is also a belief of mine because I believe that Martin put at least an inkling of climate change metaphor into the Great Others, White Walkers, NK threat. Martin is a huge liberal after all and in like the battle for the Dawn the battle to reign in climate change will require everyone working together. It also wont help to ignore the problem as it will still effect us whether we believe its there or not. So I believe the WWs will ultimately present the same kind of unique threat that cant be ignored so while Cersei thinks she is safe in KL waiting out the war the NK will come down (and it really only needs to be him as unless Qyburn has made some dragonglass bolts for his scorpion Viserion cant be killed) from the north on the back of that undead horror and rain fire down on the good (kinda) people of KL.
Burning Stag,
Makes sense. I fully expect Euron to betray Cersei, the look on his face when he saw Dany ride in on Drogon was quite telling. Middle aged, bitter woman or young beautiful girl with dragons – he’s made his choice.
Black Raven,
Just a thought what if Brans vision of the dragon was as himself warging one. Thats why we see the vision from above.
Blue. I’ve been thinking about this a little bit and why would the NK attack his enemy at it’s most powerful point? The dragons have to be the only legitimate threat to the NK. Why not bypass Winterfell and attack into the riverlands? It kind of reminds me of Germany and France in WWII. France was banking on the Maginot line blunting the German attack and fighting a defensive war similar to WWI. As we all know Germany blitzed through the Ardennes bypassed the French fortifications and struck deep into France. What if the NK did the same? I don’t really know my Westeros geography but I have to assume he could bypass Winterfell and shoot down the Neck and into the Riverlands. That would even allow for a Edmond Tully appearance. There would be no meaningful resistance because of all the wars that preceded the Great War and the NK could be at the gates of Kings Landing quickly. Then Dany and Jon would have to race south and everyone would throw down in the capital. In this situation Winterfell would be spared which seems unlikely so maybe the NK sends a good portion of his current army to attack Winterfell while he and his officers head south picking up “fresh” troops as the go along? Anyhow that’s my theory.
mau,
FRankly speaking, not sure
It will depend how she feels the situation
She ddi it already in Essos
After, or as, Winterfell is destroyed by the WW, the NK will move on to KL. Jon, Dany, Sansa & Co. high tail it to Dragonstone. The NK torches KL alone on his dragon and Cersei, being Cersei, blames Dany and sends her army to Dragonstone, setting up the final winner take all battle.
To quote Tormund, “I like it!!!”
NOOOOO!!!!!
The loss of all that recorded knowledge would be a profound tragedy, the sort of thing that would affect Westeros the way the loss of the library of Alexandria affected our own world.
One would not torch the library of Alexandria because the librarians had become myopic and complacent. One would find better librarians.
Dolorous Methuselah,
I don’t think you’re “way off.” Ten Bears and I have both proposed this (as have others, I’m sure!).
I believe the Night King will allow his army to fight the Northerners and lose, Just so he can go to King’s Landing and trade his army for an army of 1 million. We dont know if the Night King can warg into other wights and if he could, who’s to say he didnt warg into the wight they brought down to Unite the 7 kingdoms in the Dragon Pit. He got his information and now he knows where they’ll stand and where it will be defenseless. I dont know, that’s just my thought. Night King burns King’s Landing.