Maisie Williams builds hype for “exciting” season 7

Aryabetter

Maisie Williams appeared on The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw to discuss her new Netflix series, iBoy, and the future of Game of Thrones. Though Williams didn’t dish out any plot details, there were some implicit spoilers in what she did say. So, continue reading at your own discretion.

After Williams and Grimshaw chatted about iBoy, Williams’ friendship with Sophie Turner and the life lessons of one who went through adolescence in the spotlight, the conversation turned to Game of Thrones (around 2:14:00). Williams spoke highly of the upcoming season. “It’s so exciting,” she said. “Particularly the end of this series … it’s  just a great finale.”

According to Williams, the writers tend to keep their plans for characters close to their chests and, in lieu of answers, the cast members enjoy speculating amongst themselves (almost) as much as the fans do.

“We go out for drinks and stuff and we just end up talking about the show and then, because we’re a season ahead we have to really watch what we’re saying because you don’t know who’s listening to your conversation,” she said.

Williams also casually mentioned that she hasn’t received the scripts for season 8 yet, which is significant as it implies that she expects to receive them at some point … indicating that Arya survives season 7.

This isn’t entirely shocking. As much as Game of Thrones loves to break our hearts, Arya is one of the few characters generally expected to make it to the final season. Nonetheless, it should hearten Arya fans to know that their fave will be around for at least one more full season.

229 Comments

  1. I don’t think it indicates that she survives season 7, though surely she does.

    I think any actor who is killed off would say something similar.

  2. We all knew Arya would live, because of GRRM’s wife’s threat to leave him if he ever killed her.
    That said, Maisie is a delight and I’m really looking forward to seeing where her character goes as we race towards the end.

  3. I like Arya, she is one of my favourite characters, I expect her to make the last book/series but sadly can see her dying tragically before it all ends.

  4. I listened to her entire part of that show earlier today. She’s so pleasant to listen to chatting about whatever.

  5. Given that Arya is one of the primary protagonists, she really does have to be there at the climax. Indeed, this is something on which I have seen little speculation: what will Arya’s role be in the grand finale? In some ways, it might be easiest to guess at Daeny’s: we now know that the White Walkers are analogous to the Unsullied, and we know how Daeny feels about those who are enslaved in one way or another. Bran knows the big truth about them, and he, too, knows that they are victims as much as aggressors: and he knows who truly is to blame for their existence (the First Men). Jon, too, has grown into someone who sees “equitable” solutions as those that work for everyone, not just his side. Both the “how” and the “why” of the Walkers almost certainly will be relevant for Jon.

    So, what do the Walkers mean to Arya? (We might ask the same of Tyrion.) Arya is fairly egalitarian in her outlook, but she does not have the strident anti-slavery view of Daenerys, or Jon’s hard lesson that “de facto enemies” need not be enemies. Of course, it could be that the other half of the Walkers: their “why” (particularly why they are back will bring ) might be what makes Arya and her character evolution over 7+ seasons relevant.

    (Where, oh where, is Hodor’s Bastard?!?!? He always has some of the best ideas on this sort of topic….)

  6. D’ARcy: I think any actor who is killed off would say something similar.

    If asked, then, yes, they would say something cagey. However, they probably would not mention it on their own.

  7. It’s my belief Arya will kill someone important before dying herself, potentially Cersei or Dany are good candidates.

  8. Jon Snowed,

    She’s definitely going to off at least one major character (or else what was the point of all those training montages?), and certainly Cersei fits the bill.* I wouldn’t be surprised if she kills the Knight King himself while, say, protecting Bran.

    *Btw, “certainly Cersei” is not meant to be confused with “Suddenly Seymour” from the great musical “Little Shop of Horrors.” 😉

  9. LOVE! Arya, she is in my top 3 GoT characters. As a matter of fact, I have a little 4 pound Chihuahua named Arya, and just like the real deal, she is a mean little Faceless Assassin, lol.

  10. Am I the only one still hoping for an Arya/Gendry ship ? 🙂 You would think this show would have taught me not to hope for a happy ending.

  11. I just finished watching the season three episode “Kissed by Fire,” and as ever I’m blown away by the sheer amount of labor, from writing to designing and building and acting and lighting and filming, that goes into this badass show.

  12. debbie,

    You are not alone! I hope she is like a step from the edge of going overboard with her killings and Gendry stops her. It would be cool for them to see eachother again at the very least.

  13. Aryamad:
    Just want the dream team together at the end: Arya, Gendry, & The Hound.

    Hey, Gendry + Arya could be a possibility! Especially if Gendry is legitimized and installed as the new Lord of the Stormlands, and Arya becomes the only surviving heir of Winterfell.

    They both could do worse. Of course, the Hound would have to be a groomsman or something…

  14. I think that the perfect bittersweet ending for her will be that, after everything is said and done, she sails west of Westeros.

    I hope that that great scene with Lady Crane was foreshadowing.

  15. Oh god, I’m so happy! My girl will make it until the final season!!!! Aaaaah

    God, I love Arya, she is my little girl, I just love the Starks, especially the Stark girls!

    I kind of want Arya to survive the series, marry Gendry Baratheon and rule the Stormlands along with him, I know, it’s a fan fiction but I want my girl to have a break, she totally deserves it!

    However, it’s kind of obvious she’ll survive season 7, she is an excellent fighter, and they will need her in the battle to come, all the Starks are important so I also expect her siblings to make it through season 7 too, Jon will be the leader, Bran will do his bodoo tree green peace wizard cool stuff, Arya will fate like the badass woman she is and Sansa will become queen regent while everyone is fighting (ok, I actually have no idea of what Sansa will do, but she has to do something, right? Hahah)

  16. Mr Derp:
    Cannot seem to post anything anymore

    Coincidentally, that was word for word Walder Frey’s last text, to which Jaime replied “LMFAO.” 😉

    But srsly, it was probably just a momentary glitch, or as my career Air Force NCO dad called them, “gremlins.”

  17. Ow I’m worried for Sansa …. my baby has come too far to just die but sadly that’s how thrones goes … not sure how I’m going to feel about season 8 without my fav … if she does die I hope Arya avenged her death

  18. I must be the only person alive who actually wants Arya to die. That fucked up child needs to be put out of her misery as quickly and painlessly as possible.

  19. Ser JJ Watt,

    I wish pics could be posted here, as I’d love to see your darling Arya. My wife and I have two old friends whose chihuahuas, Mimi and Luz, we dog sit for on occasion and though I’m a compleate cat person I adore both of them. 😉

  20. Mmmh, I think it’s not a solid proof. Every year, many actors say this at the begining of the season.

    And Maisie is an amazing liar. Do you remember the “Jon Snow is really really dead, sorry no hope” in every Maisie’s interview last year?

  21. Sansa’s Knight,

    Oh don’t worry, I think Sansa will not only survive season 7 but also the whole series!

    the thing is that even though I think she’ll survive, I don’t know what her role will be, especially with the war against the WW, perhaps she will rule as queen regent of westeros while everyone is, well, you know fighting the army of the dead hahah otherwise I don’t know what her role will be.

    What do you guys think?

  22. Broken Wolf,

    Why do you say that? I mean if you wanna put someone out of their misery just let the army of the dead kill them all right, everysingle character of this show is (now) f***** up, everyone is crazy.

    She is an amazing character, she is fierce, loyal, smart, kind yet she has developed a taste for killing and I still thing she will come out of the darkness, maybe not entirely but just a Little bit.

  23. Sansa’s Knight,
    A few thoughts and ramblings…

    I often wonder if the end game will have 1 male stark (bran) and 1 female (ayra) but with neither one having any claim to their “status” ..ayra sailing off to see what is west of westeros and bran assuming his role as the 3 eyed crow.

    Rob was beheaded (similar to his father) will Sansa meet a similar demise as her mother? Maybe her death will be something that brings the downfall of little finger? He won’t be able to bear losing both Katlyn and Sansa.

  24. Charlie Stark:
    Also she is going to be in a animated movie with Eddie Remayne and tom hiddleston

    https://instagram.com/p/BPXcK1XBzTs/

    Not just an animated movie, but an AARDMAN movie! Directed by the great Nick Parks (Wallace & Gromit)! I would run to see that no matter who was doing the voices, but it’ll be extra fun to have Maisie in it.

    Sort of interesting that one by one, the Stark kids are being recruited for animation voiceovers: Art Parkinson in Kubo and the Two Strings, Isaac Hempstead Wright in The Boxtrolls, Kit Harington in How to Train Your Dragon 2… Sort of weird in that the family-friendly audiences for such films do not cross over much with the GoT fanbase. It’s not like you’d have a lot of little kids yelling, ‘I wanna see Bran Stark in a movie!’

  25. I can’t see Arya fighting in the war against the White Walkers. She’s a killer, but is she a warrior? I don’t think so.

    But there has to be something going on in Season 8 aside from the war with the White Walkers. Not everybody can or will fight.

    I can think of one other major character who’s highly unlikely to be involved in the War for the Dawn: Cersei!

    I’d put money on Arya killing Cersei in Season 8 before either sailing off West of Westeros or dying herself.

    At some point she will probably face a choice between moving on with her life and family or continuing her quest for revenge and she’ll ultimately choose the latter. She’ll probably succeed in crossing that final name off her list, but at the cost of either her life or her humanity.

  26. I’m sure we were all expecting Arya to make it past this season alive.

    If anything I think she’ll survive the whole show and I doubt she’ll be sailing west of Westeros. To me it seemed like she was lying to Lady Crane and putting that Faceless Men training to good use.

  27. Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,

    I’m all for Arya killing Cersie, but the creepy witch lady said Cersei would die at the hands of her younger brother, and I assume by that she meant the lesser known brother Lando Calrissian Lannister.

    Uh, which franchise are we talking about again? 😉

  28. Flayed Potatoes,

    Maybe they wrote that scene in that way just because it a nice scene, and has nothing to do with Arya’s future, but there is no way that she was lying to Lady Crane at that moment. The scene was not written in that way, it was not directed in that way and it was not played in that way.

  29. Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,

    I agree with almost all of this. Like many, I’d like Arya to settle down in the North with her family, but I just don’t think her story leads that way. I’m rooting for Arya to either kill Cersei, or to give up her revenge quest and go have adventures.

    In my fan-fic world, she joins the kingsguard under LC Brienne, guarding Jon Snow on the throne after she’s reunited with Nymeria. And they ride off on their unicorns into the sunset haha :O

  30. Hmmm… Really enjoying this conversation. A few thoughts:

    1. As deeply as Arya loves the North, after spending years in so many other places and learning so many other things, I think she’ll be unable to “settle down” anywhere, even her beloved Winterfell.

    2. When I read the books I thought there was a slight hint of attraction for Gendry on her part, and there was a bit of almost-frisky-albeit-not-quite banter between them on the show. I, for one, wouldn’t be disappointed if something developed there, although (back to point 1) after all that rowing Gendry has done, and all the places it’s taken him, I can’t see him “settling down” in any one place either.

    3. If Arya does go over the edge and just starts killing people indiscriminately (which I actually don’t anticipate happening), I actually think the Hound is the one who would pull her back. Just as her time with him inadvertently put her on the path to becoming a more efficient killer (after all, he was the one who showed her where the heart is), his time with both her and Sansa put him on a path towards emotional openness—protecting others just for the sake of protecting them, not because it was his duty as a Kingsguard or for a ransom or lordship. He has already experienced that darkness of the heart (in fact, he would have been around the same age Arya is now when he began killing people in war), and I think he cares for her enough to prevent her going down the same path towards the psychological torture he himself lives with.

    4. On that note, I don’t think she’ll kill Cersei. I know some show viewers think D&D eliminated the last line of the prophecy, about the valonqar, in order to leave open the possibility that someone other than Tyrion or Jaime would kill her. Imho, the reason D&D did this was to shock non-book readers/non-fansite participants when it happens. Of course, that’s pure speculation on my part.

    5. And in that vein… There’s a part of me that would love it if, somehow, Arya is the one who kills the Mountain. I never liked the Cleganebowl theory; as much as the Hound (rightfully) despises his brother, I always thought becoming a kinslayer would reverse the emotional gains he’s made through his relationships with Sansa, Arya, Brother Ray, and now, the very-much-changed Beric and Thoros. (Not to mention, it would be one more utterly fucked-up thing he’d have to live with, justified or not.) I would find it far more satisfying if, in true Faceless-Man style, Arya paid the Hound for saving her life by taking the Mountain’s life.

    6. I’m really looking forward to that soooooper-awkward conversation between Arya, Brienne, and the Hound.

    7. And finally… NYMERIA!!! Oh, please, if the gods are good, let us have a reunion.

  31. So i learn that there is new spoilers and decided to see what its about…and this is what I have found ..

    I have never seen a place so shitty like the way Freefolk is …

  32. debbie: Am I the only one still hoping for an Arya/Gendry ship ?

    I assumed an Arya/Gendry ship from the way Gendry was written. He admired Arya’s intrepid, seemingly fearless actions, and respected her knowledge. He was intimidated by her high-born rank, and backed off when the Lord of Starfall called her “my Lady.”

  33. Wolfish: There’s a part of me that would love it if, somehow, Arya is the one who kills the Mountain.

    The Mountain being killed by a girl instead of a knight or warrior parallels tLoTR Witch King being killed by a women to fulfill the prophesy that he could be killed by no man. The Mountain would have to be killed in a special way because he is undead.

  34. Wolfish,

    OH!! I love your number 5! THAT would be awesome. To off The Mountain in a way that The Hound either sees for himself or hears about from someone else, and then he gets the opportunity to “tip his hat” to her in some way–one killer to another.

    And number 7 is a must. I don’t care how expensive and difficult the direwolves are to do. Nymeria’s fate MUST be shown. BCog, if you’re lurking, please make it so!

  35. Marlana,

    That hadn’t occurred to me, but it would be a nice tip of the hat to Peter Jackson (not Tolkien… Wimsey will probably know, but I don’t think that’s the way Tolkien wrote it).

    Ashara D,

    Thank you! And yes… I don’t think D&D will leave us without Nymeria closure. 😉

  36. debbie,

    I am hoping for it too. He will be Lord of the stormlands and she will be his Lady and family. The hound will be their Lords guard. Hotpie their Chief. Robert said to Ned I have a son and you have a daughter let’s join our houses. Even Ned told her she would keep a Lords castle and her sons would be Knights, Lords, and Princes. It is known.

  37. Wolfish,

    Great post. I love Arya but am concerned about the path that she may take…

    1. I would like to see all of the surviving Stark siblings settle in Winterfell for the rest of their lives. Maybe they can have Sunday BBQs and watch movies together. However, I’m fairly sure that isn’t going to happen. I agree that Arya will eventually set-out for more adventures.
    2. She and Gendry have to meet again. I’m not a “shipper” but I want them to have time to catch up after so many years of living dangerously.
    4. I also don’t think that she will kill Cersei. I don’t think that Arya is heading back to KL.
    7. Definitely…she and Nymeria need to see one another again.

  38. dragonbringer:
    So i learn that there is new spoilers and decided to see what its about…and this is what I have found ..

    I have never seen a place so shitty like the way Freefolk is …

    There are new “spoilers” and “leakers” on Freefolk every single day. In fact after the (fake) “script” leak yesterday, another “leaker” has already appeared, questioning yesterday’s “script” leaks and hinting at more spoilers.

    I wouldn’t take anything that came out of that place seriously anymore lol.

  39. ghost of winterfell,
    Yeah, FF has finally devoured its own. Funnily, we may get an unspoiled Season 8 yet!

    Ahh, it’s good to be coming to the end of a series. It’s like that feeling you get when you’re nearing the ending of a single-player game, have the endgame equipment, have completed the sidequests… Now, just a few steps and even the endgame boss will be over.

  40. Jon Snowed,

    I can see a faceless man taking her life after her “quest” is done.. or ive also thought if she gets to a tragic end and feels like “no one” that she return to the house of the black and white and surrender to them.. drinking the potion and allowing her face to go on the wall.

  41. Good theories, I like both of those.

    I know GRRM talked about the story not ending with the battle against the white walkers but also touching upon what happens next so Arya must surely have that sort of twist if she makes it that far.

  42. Sadly a lot of season 7 detail has leaked, probably more than any other season which I can recall but I am sure there is still plenty we do not know about. That said, I really hope spoilers for the final season remain like as I can’t help my curiousity and I genuinely want to watch it as unsullied.

  43. Wolfish: but I don’t think that’s the way Tolkien wrote it

    Tolkien wrote that a hobbit and a woman dressed in armor killed the king of the nazgul, so a better parallel would be Tyrion stabs the Mountain in the knee and Brienne stabs him in the face.

  44. Dee Stark,

    We do know the outline of the entire season, almost all (maybe all) the big events, what happens to all the characters. It’s the context and the details that are missing.

  45. Hoo boy, Wolfish, I like the way you think! Arya has killed, sure, but with right on her side. She don’t need redemption, she needs normality. She’s protected some folks and avenged others. Its time shes on the receiving end of the good stuff she’s done. Mebbe togetherGendry, hotpie, Jon, Hound, Nymeria can break through Arya;s stern survivor’s heart and revive the loving and determined little nonconformist of Season 1. Heck, prolly a good talking-to from Davos would do that. If she survives the end-game that’s what ought to happen. Yeah, George says BITTERSWEET, so it won’t be happy-dappy perfect, but you gotta hope she can reach some sort of safe, decent untroubled life. In season2 it sure looked like they were setting up a future Arya-Gendry thing, so maybe theyll get each other. Lotsa bad things could happen instead, but it would send a bad message to anyone, specially a female, who is or wants to be different, break boundaries, push back or lean in.

  46. Marlana: Tolkien wrote that a hobbit and a woman dressed in armor killed the king of the nazgul, so a better parallel would be Tyrion stabs the Mountain in the knee and Brienne stabs him in the face.

    LMFAO!!! That visual has made my day. ?

  47. Seven save you friends, long time watcher, first time poster here.
    Just an off topic post about possible castings & upcoming parts.
    There was plenty of speculation before S6 & it’s quite funny looking back at some of the suggestions for actors to play certain characters.
    Anyway, an actor I’d like to see appear in GoT is Jimmy Nail & I think he’d be a good fit for the part of Howland Reed (Crocodile shoes anyone……?) although I’m not sure about his height as he is 6’2″ but Jojen was also quite tall. What do you folks think, any suggestions? Another suggestion would be Richard Armitage for Howland Reed but I’d Jimmy for the part.
    Also, I think I’ve heard all the suggestions for Rhaegar but I really think the usual suspects are all too old & I he was only 24 when that character was snuffed out at the trident. It’s because of this that I think a younger actor should portray him like Nico Mirallegro, don’t you think he looks quite a bit like Kit Harrington?
    What say you friends?

  48. In all seriousness, I have no idea what Howland Reed is supposed to look like, so it’s hard for me to say who should or shouldn’t play him.

    As far as Rhaegar is concerned, I don’t know who should play him either, but I hope that they won’t go too far out of their way just to make Rhaegar a pretty boy and nothing else. The casting is always pretty awesome for GoT, so I have total faith that they will find someone right for the part.

  49. Pigeon,

    If we were to carry that image even further, to kill a King instead of the Mountain, Tyrion would need the dagger that was used to try to kill Bran, now in possession of LF, and Brienne already has a Valyrian sword, so that Tryion and Brienne can team up to kill the King of WWs. No prophecy yet that no man can kill the NG.

    If the Mountain could be persuaded to fight the WWs, it would not be necessary to disrupt his molecules, and Arya would not need to kill him in her own way.

  50. Pigeon,

    Or maybe if the Tyrion/Brienne combination is needed to kill a King, Tyrion can acquire the dagger that was used to try to kill Bran ( from LF), and they can team up to kill the King of WWs with their Valysian swords.

    Then Arya can threaten to kill the Mountain if he won’t go north to fight the WWs.

  51. debbie,

    No, you’re not the only one, I was hoping for it even while Gendry was still rowing… anyway, Robert Baratheon wanted his son married to Ned’s daughter 🙂

  52. Pigeon:
    Arya, Houndie, and Gendry, the Triumphant Trio.

    That sounds really sweet! Although I love him, I have never thought of calling him “Houndie”. I suppose I will, giving you the copyright.
    BTW, one of us fans should buy a dog and name him The Hound, very meta.

  53. mariamb,

    Thank you!

    I’m not sure about “Sunday BBQs,” though. Assuming all the wights may have to be incinerated, it might be a few generations before anyone in Westeros can cope with BBQ again… 😉

    Marlana,

    Thank you for the clarification on Tolkien (I only read LotR once, and it was a long time ago). Tyrion and Brienne… Now there’s a mental picture!

  54. Abel,

    All excellent points! And I love the way you thought of a potential Davos connection, which hadn’t even occurred to me. He does have a wonderful, fatherly-but-not-condescending way with girls and young women. Given that all he has are sons, now it makes me wonder if he’s always secretly pined for a daughter.

  55. Dee Stark,

    Well the leaks have been out since September 🙂 . It took a while for people to actually start believing them though. Some people are still in denial, but all the filming spoilers/ Wotw spoilers that we have received so far have only confirmed the leaks.

  56. Shy Lady Dragon: That sounds really sweet! Although I love him, I have never thought of calling him “Houndie”. I suppose I will, giving you the copyright.
    BTW, one of us fans should buy a dog and name him The Hound, very meta.

    I used to affectionately call my dog ‘the hound’, but that was prior to reading/watching GoT! Even better – get an actual hound breed and name him Sandor. I’m sure there are a few out there already!

    Marlana:
    Pigeon,

    If we were to carry that image even further, to kill a King instead of the Mountain, Tyrion would need the dagger that was used to try to kill Bran, now in possession of LF, and Brienne already has a Valyrian sword, so that Tryion and Brienne can team up to kill the King of WWs.No prophecy yet that no man can kill the NG.

    When I picture Tyrion and Brienne teaming up, I get the image of the best game of ‘chicken’ ever. And then they’d even be taller than the Mountain!!!

    Marlana:
    Pigeon,

    If the Mountain could be persuaded to fight the WWs, it would not be necessary to disrupt his molecules, and Arya would not need to kill him in her own way.

    There’s always the risk that the WWs could re-aggravate his already disrupted molecules, and turn him into an enantiomer of himself!!! ??

  57. There’s always the risk that the WWs could re-aggravate his already disrupted molecules, and turn him into an enantiomer of himself!!!

    I might be confusing the books with the show here (all those storylines spinning through my undercaffeinated brain), but didn’t Qyburn use the wight’s hand Alliser Thorne delivered to KL to create the FrankenMountain? Ever since certain leaks came out about

    what potentially happens at the Dragonpit, I’ve wondered what might happen if FrankenMountain is indeed called upon to fight a wight. Will his dim little reptilian brain recognize it as a “parent,” or will they neutralize each other in some weird way?
  58. Broken Wolf,

    Nope. You’re not alone there. I don’t know if I would hate the character this much if I had picked up the books before season 1, but I’ve wanted to throat punch Maisie Williams since the first time I saw her face and heard her voice. That visceral reaction has certainly colored my opinion of the character herself.

  59. Wolfish: the wight’s hand Alliser Thorne delivered to KL

    Here is an underlying quality I would like to see revealed:

    1) Alliser’s hand became dead and decayed before he had access to the king for show and tell. When he admitted the hand had decayed, Tyrion mocked him and offered him shovels to take back to the NW.

    2). When Bran’s wolf was very hungry he dug up from the snow a wight’s arm and ate some, whereupon the author tells us, “the arm remembered it was dead.”

    Does that mean the energy that keeps the wights from decaying and provides motion to the dead body and body parts when wights are chopped up dissipates over time or distance from the wall?

    What about the ability for wightiness to turn on and off as shown when two NWs were discovered dead north of the wall, and then come back to murderous “life” after the dead men were carried into CB.

    What about the fact that wight’s energy only seems to go up to the brain stem, while Beric is revived through his whole brain but does not eat or sleep, while Jon is revived through the brain but seems to eat. Jon seems more alive than Beric, though previously dead longer.

    Finally, Beric transfers all his revivedness to Catelyn, even though she has been dead too long and only retains vengeance in her mind.

    If all these qualities result from the same principle, what is that principle and can the SWAT team going north and the armies to go north capitalize on that and kill the zombies? Time for that reveal.

  60. Whether that script leak is legit or not I do not know, but if it’s real, I don’t really get why everyone thinks it’s so bad. Seems pretty standard stuff to me. I dunno.

  61. Mr Derp,

    Leak

    I think people are upset because a lot of the content in those pages, as well as the elaborations on some of the existing leaks, seems tailor made to push Freefolk’s buttons. I don’t know what to make of Lads 2.0, since Kaysen would have to either be lying or experiencing a psychotic break to claim inside knowledge of his legitimacy if he’s bogus, but I have noticed that certain characters and plot elements are coming across very differently from Lads 1.0 to Lads 2.0’s descriptions. For instance, Lads 1.0 was pretty defensive of criticized plot points such as the wight hunt, whereas 2.0 is making it out to be a botched operation from start to finish, with no planning or forethought going into it. Lads 1.0 claimed that Jon lays down his title in exchange for Dany’s help, reasoning that he doesn’t want to rule over a dead kingdom, but 2.0’s script has Jon doing it impulsively and needlessly. 1.0 spent more time answering questions and didn’t really care if people believed him, whereas 2.0 is spending more time taking on doubters and ignoring very simple questions that might lend him more credibility. Who knows what’s going on, but for the sake of my sanity, I’m just sticking with 1.0’s info until a trailer sheds more light on all this.
  62. Marlana,
    Yes to all those points and questions. “Wightiness”… I like that! We do need more explanations about it; for example, clarification on the magic embedded in the Wall, which Benjen can’t pass through. Does that mean that dormant wights can be brought in by men, but they can’t traverse it on their own? Or were they not wights at all when they were brought back, and were reanimated inside CB by the NK? Hmmm…

  63. Wolfish,

    I feel that the explanation for these phenomena will provide a means to deal with the WWs and wights. Does the curtain of energy at the top of Westeros (described in book1 Bran’s first 3ER vision) supply the force to activate dead mammals? Do the WWs take in and direct this energy?

    Is there a relationship between protections in the wall and WWs use of reanimations? Does the wall keep in the cold rather than keep out the WWs?

    Can a SEAL team penetrate to the WWs lair and deactivate whatever propels them? Going north of the wall to retrieve one wight seems trivial compared to a mission to annihilate WWs once and for all.

    Back to the question of reviving south of the wall: Beric transmits what the author calls “the flame of life” to Catelyn. Flame suggests relationship to the red God and Mel and other priestesses.

    These issues underlie the causes of humankind’s problems here and the explanations have not been revealed. Looking forward to the answers.

  64. Arya Stark is already dead. She was killed by the Faceless Man known as the Waif for betraying the House of Black and White by failing to carry out her assignment.

    The Arya we saw at the end of season 6 was actually the Faceless Man who had previously used the face of the Waif. Now he uses Arya’s face and retuned the Waif’s face to the wall of faces.

    He is in Westeros now playing the role of Arya Stark in order to infiltrate the court of the King in the North and to kill him to pave the way for the White Walker invasion, to bring the gift of death to Westeros.

    This is the third shocking twist that GRRM told to D&D. I have this from inside sources. Just wait and see. 🙂

  65. Catspaw Assassin:
    Arya/Hot Pie 2017!

    hahaha

    Shy Lady Dragon:
    debbie,

    No, you’re not the only one, I was hoping for it even while Gendry was still rowing… anyway, Robert Baratheon wanted his son married to Ned’s daughter

    Why would that drunk moron ruin Arya’s life ? Lyanna left him for a reason.

    She’s too good for that. I see you like Gendry but he’s so painfully average , not to mention he abandoned her. I can see it happening in the show though, they try they best to deprive ASoIAF of its debt.

  66. D’ARcy:
    I don’t think it indicates that she survives season 7, though surely she does.

    I think any actor who is killed off would say something similar.

    I think Arya will survive, I worry about Sansa

  67. Red Nightmare: The Arya we saw at the end of season 6 was actually the Faceless Man who had previously used the face of the Waif. Now he uses Arya’s face and retuned the Waif’s face to the wall of faces.

    I’ve been off here for a while because of the holidays and other stuff. This is as good a time as any to start back in, because I hate this idea so much. I’m not getting on your case for presenting it, not at all. Please understand that. You have a right to whatever theories you want to present. I’m just going to voice my displeasure with it.

    I’ve seen this theory before and all I can say is that if it turns out to be what happens, I won’t ever be able to re-watch GoT again. It will sour the whole darned thing for me. I disliked the character of the Waif to begin with, and if turns out that now this is “NOT-arya” it will be a huge rip-off of fan faith, at least for me. I would rather then that our Arya had actually died of her wound and her story had been terminated in Bravos, than to be jerked by the throat through the rest of the story and find out it’s been the stupid Waif all this time.

    I’ve had this happen with movies and other series, where something about the ending was so weird, off-kilter or disappointing to me, that I can not re-watch even the beginning of it. I love rewatching the old Game of Thrones episodes. I’ve already started re-watching Westworld episodes. But if your Arya/Waif bit comes true, GoT will be dead to me, I fear. I’ll watch the series until the end, of course, then never again. I won’t lambast anyone else who could accept this. And I never before have been so up-in-arms about any other incident that’s been portrayed that I said “oh, I’m quitting Game of Thrones.” Not Ned’s death, nor Robb’s or Catlyns; not with the rape scenes, nothing else bothered me quite as much as this theory does.

  68. mau,
    Not to mention, no matter how great an assassin the Waif might have been, I doubt she would have used the symbolism of the Rat Cook in the way she killed Black Walder and Lothar, or even, for that matter, pretended to be Arya at all. She hated her; it would have made no sense for her to gleefully pretend to be Arya while killing one of the latter’s archenemies.

  69. Wolfish,

    It can’t be and we saw why. Arya removed the serving girl’s face before killing Walder. The FM aren’t able to wear multiple faces at once over their own. This other unknown FM would have had to have Arya’s face on and inbetween his/her own and the serving girl’s, which wouldn’t provide the bond to become her.

  70. ghost of winterfell,

    A lot of people have lot of time on their hands but seriously even posters who act nice in westeros act differently there…

    Mr Derp,

    Everyone will keep speaking about jon …

    But the most stupidest thing in those leaks is what jorah and cersei says…

    jorah says dragons can’t tell difference between living and dead and human and from children…. This line after last season tyrion scene. Do you think writers would have done it …
    Especially the addition of children its mocking of dany because you don’t have anything to prove that dragons are into eating children… Even that one girl is killed either accidentally or the whole thing was staged …

    Next is the conversation between tyrion and cersei …
    Cersei knows something that tyrion doesn’t know which happened between two people in their private rooms…
    And calling him pet northerner his exactly what’s people were bitching about and now that line came and people are saying how correct they are and giving credit to themselves…

    And these are just two examples and there are others ..

    The most annoying thing is people act like those are real and start thrashing dany and sansa ..or moan about how much dumb they are making Jon…
    And its get more annoying when they name its a dany fans who creates this leaks ….if that’s the case wouldn’t she come off as better in at least one of them..

    One should ask how in any of the leaks that only Jon and tyrion comes off as sympathetic and good while others comes as arrogant idiots and power hungry ..
    So yes its made specifically to make certain sections of fans angry and bitch while subtly mocking the other characters..

  71. Clob:
    The FM aren’t able to wear multiple faces at once over their own.

    Are you sure? What about the incident right before Arya went blind, when she thought Jaqen had poisoned himself? She pulled a whole series of faces off before she saw her own, which was when she lost her sight.

    Or… Does that scene have some sort of meaning that completely escaped me?

  72. Wolfish,

    I have still not understood the meaning of that scene. How could Arya see her own face, when she had not yet died and nobody had carved off her face?
    The only explanation I can think of is that she was given something that made her hallucinate and that what she saw did not actually happen.

  73. Flayed Potatoes,

    The reason I don’t believe them is because the Sansa stuff at the end with

    Arya

    sounds like it was written be a Sansa Stan frankly and it doesn’t sound like D&D.

    Secondly the guy himself claims to be Lads and yet his writing style, language everything sounds different from the original one. Besides, there were some minor changes from what Lads 1 claimed.

    So I still have hopes that those pages were fake lol.

  74. As we know, that was a show created scene. In the book Arya goes blind from simply drinking a glass of milk given to her by the Kindly Man. I think the show made that scene mostly for the weirdness, provide some mystical magic and to just straight up screw with the viewers. It really made no sense and one reason why some theorize that she did indeed drink the poison and the following was hallucinating prior to the blindness.

    The descriptions alone of wearing a face would seem to make it impossible to wear more than one. The faces are more than just a mask, the wearer essentially becomes the person. As I mentioned in another thread, Arya even has the girl’s nightmares when she wears her face. The FM bond the face to their own with special preparation to include their own blood. If already wearing one there wouldn’t be a connection to their own skin. Even if there were how would they not become multiple people at once?

    Now, none of that prevents the show from doing whatever D&D feel like of course…

  75. ghost of winterfell,

    Its completely fake …scenes maybe legit but I don’t think that’s the exact script or legit dialogue..
    I think someone mad it up based on The first leaks to ignite feud between some sections ..

    If those scripts are legit …the. More power to D&D ..I look forward to tearing up those scenes myself ..

    Another thing I forget is what’s with the obsession over boat sex jonsa and jonerys …really annoying ..

  76. dragonbringer,

    I don’t know. I’m not obsessed about it but I am one that does want them to come together… er… get together. Bad feelings about Jon losing his Ygritte and Daenerys needing a love she chooses. Did very many truly like any of the Daarios, book or show? Besides, I’m also one that believes Ice & Fire is Jon & Daenerys so their coupling is the culmination of everything we’ve seen and read, imo.

  77. Clob,

    Iam same like youyou and I agree with you on what you are saying but iam afraid very few people see it as that way …I always said we should acknowledge the possibility of this pair happening in the series…I have my fair share of fear about its execution and pray its well excited and gives time to breathe ..

    But when I say obsessed its because whenever I see someone mention Epic boat sex scene ..it looks like they are taking dig at that scene and mocking it atlesst thats how it looks to me…and people act like its the only thing the leak
    I personally don’t like this shipping business and naming it as jonsa and jonerys and jonarya.
    And funny thing is those who support one shipping thrash other shippers as if they were any better ..I see no difference between either of them

  78. dragonbringer,

    Yeah, the naming thing is weird. When did that start? The first one I remember is for Jim and Pam on The Office (US).

    I have noticed people choosing one side or the other on this topic, and like you mentioned, there has been some mocking and bitterness. Personally, when/if we see the scene I think it will be fine, make sense and hopefully be pretty emotional.

  79. ghost of winterfell,
    Clob,

    Yes and yes. I remember being really, really confused when I watched the scene (especially having read the book), because it was so fundamentally changed in a way that didn’t make sense to me. So, yeah… giving Arya the bad acid makes sense. 😉

  80. Clob,
    My first recollection of the phenomenon is Braniston (Pitt and Aniston), followed shortly thereafter by Bennifer (Affleck and Lopez). UGH.

  81. Clob,

    Yeah I hope that too..

    I don’t know when it started in the first place…
    But in this fandom I think this all started with after season 5 and pre season 6 with jonsa thing …
    And in book fandom i can only recall SanSan….
    I find it funny sansa is present in both situation…


  82. Wolfish,

    My first recollection is Brad and Angelina ( Brangelina ) and casket (is that rightly spelled ?)Castle and Beckett from the show Castle ..iam sure there is some term that is being used for Sam and dean from supernatural but I don’t know what it is ..

  83. mau: It won’t be true ofc. Arya is a main character. The Waif was a minor antagonist

    Oh ok, I feel better, a little. I read that theory months ago, and was horrified at the idea that spirited survivor Arya’s essence would essentially be gone replaced by the treachery and meanness of the Waif. Even just the thought of Arya not truly being Arya was saddening. Of course, it would be ok for Maisie, because she’d still be in the show, one way or another. But seeing her face in the scenes, knowing that she was portraying the Waif portraying Arya, would be confounding and … sad… it wouldn’t be the same show for me if another Stark had been undone.

  84. Wolfish,

    Lol yeah I knew they were an item but didn’t knew about the term also existed before ..if not for characters themselves mentioning in one of the episodes I would never known about casket..they solve murder together so they thought it was appropriate..

  85. Jon,

    The “drunk moron” considered Ned his best friend, so he knew something 🙂 Of course, I was just pointing out the coincidence, Robert didn’t know Gendry and didn’t care for him or his other bastards. Yes, Lyanna was right to follow her heart, although she started a war 🙂 At least she was happy for a short time and gave us Jon.
    I like Gendry because of his qualities: he’s hard-working, talented in his trade, friendly, basically “a good lad”, but, more important, Arya liked him. She feels good among common people, appreciates them and knows how to relate to them. I think they would be good for each other. It was not shipping just for the fun of it, I love the Hound, but I don’t consider him a possible match for her. Just a friend for life.

  86. ghost of winterfell,

    D&D are Sansa stans though.

    Just look at how they threw other characters under the bus last season to prop hers up because her fans were upset about her arc in Winterfell.

    dragonbringer:
    ghost of winterfell,

    And its get more annoying when they name its a dany fans who creates this leaks ….if that’s the case wouldn’t she come off as better in at least one of them..

    One should ask howin any of the leaks that only Jon and tyrion comes off as sympathetic and good while others comes as arrogant idiots and power hungry ..

    In the eyes of certain Dany fans she does come off better here because this is what they want. In their headcanon, Dany is a goddess who can do no wrong and everyone bows down to her and becomes her lapdogs. They don’t see Jon and Tyrion as sympathetic or good or even complex characters in their own right, but as clueless idiots who need Dany to rule them because they don’t know any better. All of Jon and Tyrion’s qualities and accomplishments are swept under the rug because, in the eyes of those fans, nobody is as good, kind, caring, experienced, smart as their Dany is. Anyone who they think might be a threat to Dany or capable/more capable in certain matters is quickly neutered.

  87. Shy Lady Dragon,
    The Hound’s never thought of her that way (an excellent thing, imho); she’s more like the daughter he might have had in another life. I’m still hoping for a dénouement where they openly admit how much they have in common, both in life experience and in temperament.

    I can understand why some people don’t necessarily want to see Arya rushed into a romantic relationship, but (perhaps like you) I really don’t understand the objections to Gendry. He’s intelligent, trustworthy, courageous, and hardworking. Furthermore, both because of her aforementioned temperament and because of all the time she’s spent among the smallfolk, I just can’t imagine Arya being happy in a relationship with some lord who’s never gotten his hands dirty. If she winds up with someone with a title, it’ll need to be someone with qualities like Jon, Davos, and/or the Hound: men for whom titles must be justly earned, or they’re not worth having.

  88. Flayed Potatoes,

    Execpt of course in every leaks she is being questioned and doubted by tyrion and evrry decision and step of her is being questioned and tyrion always keeps acting as he is morally above her .. he and cersei acts as a fool in dragonpit while Jon and tyrion try to talk sense into them..
    If in any leaks as you say happened I would have agreed with you but I never seen one like that …and that Kag something ( even in westeros) has been calling dany fans ever since the leaks came out especially when no one said they like them..
    I envy those Jon fans who has been very loud with their dumbing down and how sansa is pushed before him…wish we had people like that for dany because its happening the same way here but people who raise these are not vocal enough

  89. Flayed Potatoes,

    And this not only happens in leaks but also happens in the show …if people think tyrion is nothing but a mindless object under dany’s feet and dany is this awesome goddess ..people cant be any more deluded than that and I would like to see that version of story myself ..

  90. Wolfish:
    Shy Lady Dragon,
    The Hound’s never thought of her that way (an excellent thing, imho); she’s more like the daughter he might have had in another life. I’m still hoping for a dénouement where they openly admit how much they have in common, both in life experience and in temperament.

    I fully agree with you. I kept the beginning of the quotation just to say that I can also see another type of relationship between Arya and the Hound: student-teacher.

  91. dragonbringer,

    Tyrion is questioning her and, to be honest, you’re the only Dany fan who I’ve seen acknowledge this. Most Dany fans sweep him and his concerns under the rug.

  92. Flayed Potatoes,

    Then I have to question them whether they are even dany fans or understand the character ..
    But while speaking with you i come to realize that line between hater and fan is becoming very bluranotherwadays because what you say about dany being godess is wanted by dany fans is exactly how l see happening with Jon too with his fans being his major critics …
    I guess this is what happens when the character gets together and stories merge and share the story with anotthr major character…

  93. dragonbringer,

    They are her fans, but have their own headcannon, which I mentioned above. Just like certain Sansa fans think she should be the queen of everything because she survived up till now.

    As far as I’m concerned I want Jon to survive with his dignity intact and with a good storyline and decent characterization. And it seems like it won’t be happening now that he’s

    reduced to a “Northern pet”, and made to kneel while naked and injured and without telling anyone in the North because he “sees what other have seen” in Dany.

    This is what some Jon fans take issues with:

    a character who wants to make his family proud, who gave up his love for Ygritte because of his duty to the Night’s Watch, who learns from his mentors and channels Ned’s values is forced to submit because of….true wuv, according to the leaks and now the scripts. In the first round of leaks he submits because he realizes that it’s not worth being king of the ashes and saving the kingdom is far more important, which is ok. In these leaked pages he submits because he’s smitten with Dany. See the difference?

    All the characterization and development in the last couple of seasons seems thrown out the window to prop up the characters the showrunners like most.

    I won’t speak for the ones who want him to wield all the Valyrian swords in Westeros while warging Ghost and riding all the dragons simultaneously. Those theories are ridiculous.

  94. Flayed Potatoes,

    What D&D did with Sansa and Jon last season was a result of the backlash that the Sansa rape got more than favoritism imo.
    While I do think that Sansa has been their favorite, I don’t think they would let that influence their writing to the extent that they literally rip off dialogues from Sansa fanfictions.
    I mean

    Arya saying that she knew she would never be as good a – (lady?) as Sansa, so she was forced to become something else. Arya saying that she would never have survived what Sansa did? Her saying that she is just the executioner while Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell. WTF!! These kind of scenes have been part of Sansa fan fiction for years now and I can’t believe that D&D would find their inspiration from such places.

    I believe these “scripts” are fake. I will believe that till the show airs. If it turns out to be true though,

    if there is such blatant glorifying of Sansa and Dany at the expense of the characterisation of Jon and Arya,

    I will give up on the show.

  95. Rhaenys Stark,

    Yeah his writing style, his language everything was different. Lads 1.0 did not really care much if people did not believe him, where as 2.0 gets very defensive. 1.0 was very defensive of Jon, he seemed to like him, he went out of his way to explain Jon’s pov when people kept questioning the

    wight hunt and the kneeling

    , while 2.0 doesn’t seem to care in the least. And he also failed to answer certain questions that people put to him, which he should have been able to if he had the scripts with him.

    I really don’t think this was Lads.

  96. Flayed Potatoes,

    Except they are his fans too right similar to dany and sansa fans who wants them to queen of everything …there are Jon fans who want him to king of everything ..

    And despite the difference in both leaks you believe it to be true ..
    My issue is this exactly ..
    The whole northern pet thing is so obvious that it takes a dig at the leak ..
    And it is being used to pat their backs as if they have guessed this all correct that this will be like twilight wuv( whatever this means ) ..
    And his fans already start playing the victim card and blame dany fans fpr coming up with this..even though its not happening and the script is fake ..in one leak he comes a sympathetic and honorable guy who doesn’t want power and in another as a victim…
    While the scripts keep taking dig at Dany and her dragons …no one is there to play the victim card for her ..
    Like I said you talk about throwing away two seasons of characterisation and I feel sorry that there is no one to talk about the absence of characterization for three seasons now..
    In the first leaks its Jon and tyrion who comes of as good and sympathetic ..
    And I doubt it will change when we see show ..
    Iwill leave this at it..

  97. I agree that the supposed latest leaks are fake.

    As for Sansa I think you are partially correct in that they took some feedback on board after season 5 but I also feel they are still following her book arc albeit loosely. I full expect her to come North with the Knights of the Vale in Winds of Winter, I hope though that the interaction and dialogue is better in the next book.

  98. ghost of winterfell,

    They are fake. Someone made a very long and detailed post at free folk analyzing everything about this “leaker” and it is obvious that he is fake.

    What I find really offensive is that some fans would really believe that this is on level of GoT writing. I mean, really? Really??

    D&D’s writing is the strongest when they combine different characters from different storylines in one scene. Those scenes were always either great or fine. It is clear that those interactions is what inspires them the most. Walder Frey and Jaime, Dany and Tyrion, Bronn and Jaime, Yara and Dany, Olenna and Ellaria, Stannis and Jon, Tyrion and Jorah,…

    I’m completely confident that scenes with Dany and Jon will be good.

  99. ghost of winterfell,

    They ripped off some Sansa fanfic dialogue last season when Jaime and Brienne were talking about her.

    It was something like:

    Jaime: In my experience, girls like her don’t live very long.
    Brienne: I don’t think you know many girls like her.

    Not to mention

    the battlement scene with Arya and Sansa is identical to the one of Sansa and Jon in the season 6 finale, but a bit more cheesy.

    dragonbringer,

    I’m not denying that there are Jon fans who want that, just like there are LF, Sansa, Dany, Stannis etc. fans who want the same thing.

    I’ve always thought that either Jon, Dany or both will end up ruling, but not because it’s something I want from the bottom of my heart but because there’s evidence and forshadowing in the text that it can/will happen. There’s a difference.

    We’ll see in a couple of months when the episodes air and people will call Jon an idiot instead of a ‘sympathetic and honorable guy’. They were ripping him to shreds after BtoB and this will be no different, because for them honor/sympathy = stupidity. Everyone should act like Tywin or LF it seems.

  100. Rhaenys Stark,

    I don’t know if that guys is legit, but I have information that the scripts were changed and there are different drafts. I have that information from one of the writers of this site. I won’t tell what was changed, because I promised that I won’t and it is not that interesting or important, but it shows that the things were changed in the process of writing.

    If that person gave me the permission to share that information I will, but what that person said to me gives some credibility to Faraday80’s claims that the scripts were changed in some details.

  101. mau,

    As long as the quality of the writing remains good and/or becomes better, rewriting some scenes is fine by me. I’m 90% content with David and Dan so far, I trust them to do justice to all the characters.

  102. oh god, I’ve read the scripts.

    #IDon’tKnowHowToUseTheSpoilerTags

    I love both Arya and Sansa, but that dialogue….I liked it and I hated it at the same time, I mean, it was very beautiful of Arya to recognise Sansa as a survivor and Sansa for recognising Arya’s strength, but the part of “I could only be the executioner? wait, what? Arya it’s not only an exectioner, it’s an strong, loyal and fierce woman!
    I hope that doesn’t cringe that much on screen (because I really think it’s legit)

    BTW LF’s death was bad, really bad, I expected something else, I Don’t know, something more calculating I guess?

  103. Flayed Potatoes,

    Yeah that’s the sad part and I sort of find it frightening ..you will see iam very confident jon and tyrion will be the least damaged compared to other characters the upcoming season..

    mau,

    I guess that’s why they release some parts as leaks basically testing waters and how fans react ..
    So whoever is most vocal will be satisfied by the change ..

  104. dragonbringer,
    Sam and Dean is Wincest. I’m not quite sure how I know this to be honest, but it stuck in my mind because it’s fairly clever.

    Shy Lady Dragon,
    Hello there your shyness *waving as always*. I saw your message to me in another thread but thought I’d reply here to be sure of catching you. To be honest, I’m beginning to think my giant killer penguins are going to be wasted on GoT. People will be looking at huge dragons and white walkers and stuff and some of the GKP’s awesomeness will be lost in comparison. Especially if they do the supergroup thing with the flying zombie nazi sharks. They really need to be able to shine on their own. Having said that, if the ending of the show is the WWs defeated and everyone breathing a sigh of relief that it’s all over and starting to rebuild Westeros, THAT would be the time for them to appear! 😀

  105. Lulus Mum,

    Lol yes it is clever .. I don’t know the name because when they mention it in the show they always say sam/ dean something like that

  106. ghost of winterfell,

    Yes I agree about the backlash as well. It’s a mix of the two things.

    mau,

    No obviously. Tyrion said some nice things about her, for example, and there’s no problem with that. But there’s no denying the showrunners are compensating very hard because of the heat they got from Sansa’s Winterfell arc. The reason they even put her in Winterfell was because they wanted to give her more to do (this is something they’ve said they’ve done in the past for other characters or actors they like).

  107. People actually think D&D changed things in their story/season 6 scripts to please Sansa fans and respond to the criticism received after the whole Winterfell wedding and what not?

    hahahahaha

  108. ghost of winterfell,

    I don’t follow the leaks, I just read what appears in the comments. But I think the dialogue you referred to can’t be real. I’m positive you will stay with the show and I’m glad for it.

  109. Man there is so much uncovered leak talk. I hope none of it is real. this is a non-spoiler post damn it!

  110. mau:
    ghost of winterfell,

    They are fake. Someone made a very long and detailed post at free folk analyzing everything about this “leaker” and it is obvious that he is fake.

    What I find really offensive is that some fans would really believe that this is on level of GoT writing. I mean, really? Really??

    D&D’s writing is the strongest when they combine different characters from different storylines in one scene. Those scenes were always either great or fine. It is clear that those interactions is what inspires them the most. Walder Frey and Jaime, Dany and Tyrion, Bronn and Jaime, Yara and Dany, Olenna and Ellaria, Stannis and Jon, Tyrion and Jorah,…

    I’m completely confident that scenes with Dany and Jon will be good.

    Yeah interactions among major characters have been great normally (the only exception being the Jaime- Cersei ones imo). And I expect they would have paid special attention to writing the

    Jon-Dany interactions since this has got to be the biggest character meeting so far in the story.

    They would want to get this right, so I believe they will be really good.

    Shy Lady Dragon,

    lol thanks! I can’t really believe they are genuine as well.

  111. Dee Stark,

    Sometimes I envy your strength to wait to watch the real thing! But I’m curious and I know that my joy watching GOT won’t be affected by reading the spoilers… although there are some scenes and dialogues I can’t accept to be true.
    Anyway, I greatly admire D&D and I’m sure that I’ll enjoy next season immensely.

  112. Lulus Mum,

    Hi, sweetie! *waving like crazy*
    The darkest solution: the WW win, but they are killed by the deus-ex-machina giant penguins, who are in the end the only inhabitants of Westeros and nobody dreams of spring. Dark, ha?

  113. Alvaricomg,

    You should place your comment between [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler] like this
    [ spoiler ] comment [ /spoiler]
    Then you delete the blanks within [ ]:

    comment
  114. Flayed Potatoes,

    I doubt the “leaks” have anything to do with it.

    After all the spoilers that came from the outdoor filming in Spain (post the Lads leaks in September), I don’t see why they would be that worried about Iceland. One of the crew members did say on their Instagram that they would be there only for a couple of weeks, so it was probably always going to be a 2 week thing.

    I don’t think there is any more outdoor shooting left and it’s only indoor scenes now. There are supposed to be filming till the end of february.

  115. I’ll like to see Arya stop her killing spree and go home. I saw kill Frey last season as a faceless man. I really don’t need to again unless she was forced to.

    And punishing the Sons for their fathers actions… Ned wouldn’t be please. idk how she would know who was involved.

    As for these supposed leaks, I’ve only seen the stuff posted on this site. I’ll just wait for the season to see if they’re true or not.

    I would prefer more Jaimie and Dany scenes over her ones with jon but whatever, it’s D&D show.

  116. Abbie,

    I agree about Arya. I’m all about Arya getting revenge and such, but I don’t want to see her turn into some blood-thirsty serial killer type. For example, I was glad she killed Meryn Trant, but at the same time I thought that scene was a bit excessive.

  117. The only problem I have with the possible Arya scene(s) is the (show) timing.

    I understand that within the time frame of Westeros it would/will be shortly after her scene with Walder. For we viewers though, we saw her kill him in the finale and thought, “Okay, that’s done. Check! Time for her to move on, go home.” Then a year later as next season begins we’re going to see her still there messing around with the Freys? If she’s going to do these leak specific things at The Twins I think it should have been wrapped up last season.

    The scene itself I don’t have a problem with. As I wrote earlier in the Bradley thread, as soon as she’s disguised as Walder there are a number of ways she could gather everyone involved in the RW. It’s easy enough for them to write a plausible method. Taking them out with poison is much less gruesome too than having her going around “Tranting” them one-by-one. I think the scene could be very good, but I think it would have worked better and been more satisfying if it was within the same episode as her killing Walder.

  118. ghost of winterfell: if there is such blatant glorifying of Sansa and Dany at the expense of the characterisation of Jon and Arya,

    Recently, some commenter on a Pete Peppers Youtube video summed it up perfectly:
    GRRM: Ok, so the main characters are Arya, Jon, Tyrion, Bran and Daenerys
    D&D: The main characters are Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys and… Sansa, got it.

    And yes, it does look like Arya and Bran have been somewhat shunted aside to the greater glory of Sansafication. IMO D&D need to rectify that.

    You and others like Flayed Potatoes also mentioned the reasonD&D have exalted Sansa is the flack over her Winterfell victimisation. I totally agree. They probably shouldn’t have put her there in the first place, but they lazily went for consolidation. Who knows: maybe they’ll exalt Arya in S7 to answer gripes about her uncharacteristic behaviour in “Broken Man” and hyper-healing in “No One”. I’m convinced it was was all Arya’s dangerous but calculated gamble to lure Waif to her dark lair. The inconsistency of it is mostly Mark Mylod’s fault. Nonetheless, I don’t want to see them exalt her in a way that warps her unique personality and history, which have been so carefully built up in the books and show. Sansa shouldn’t be warped either, even though she seems to be benefiting from it.

    AS I mentioned elsewhere, I’ve read the script pages, heard Frikidoctor’s analysis (though my Spanish isn’t very good), and read reams and reams of comments–I think the pages are phony or an unpolished early draft.

  119. Hmm my previous comment won’t get posted, so I’ll have to summarize.

    Clob,

    I think the season finale had plenty of shocking and big moments, so adding this Arya one would have been overkill (heh). They need some suspense going into season 7 for Arya because nobody knows what she’s going to do after killing Walder. I also assume there are numerous other plot points left to wrap up in the Riverlands, so the showrunners put them in season 7 to deal with them properly, as opposed to cramming them in season 6 episode 10.
  120. dragonbringer,

    You are correct. Bennifer was the first supercouple portmanteau, and Braniston was invented later to reference the past relationship of Pitt and Aniston. However, the concept itself is very old, as ‘Pickfair’ was used to reference the estate of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.

  121. So many unanswered questions still remain to be answered. The end of season 2 with Sam watching the White Walker/wight army walk right past him… They see him, yet don’t do anything to him. I’m still trying to figure out why that was the case. Anyone know why Sam wasn’t killed during that scene?

  122. ghost of winterfell,

    Unfortunately, I noticed that a bit too late.
    It is a spoiler free post so I wasn’t as careful.

    Hopefully what I have read is based on fake information

    Shy Lady Dragon,

    Thanks!! 🙂 its easy for me because I go in not knowing and just enjoy the amazingness that these creators produce

  123. Abbie: And punishing the Sons for their fathers actions… Ned wouldn’t be please. idk how she would know who was involved.

    Ummm one son slashed her mother’s throat, and the other one massacred her brother’s wife… sooooo

  124. Mr Derp,

    They were trying to send a message… whats the point in killing one scaredass guy?
    They wanted him to go back and say he saw the army of the dead

    Just like, at the end of Hardhome, after massacring a bunch of people, they let the rest go. Im sure Night King could stick his pinky in the water and freeze it up and not allow these people (JON and CO) to leave. lol

  125. Dee Stark,

    Um…those two sons are already dead. The user is talking about something else. I think it’s best you watch out here because there are a lot of spoilers in the comments and not all of them are covered. The article in itself is spoilerish so….

  126. Dee Stark: They were trying to send a message… whats the point in killing one scaredass guy?

    Dee Stark,

    I would assume that the point would be to add another member to their army of the undead. Why would the Walkers care about sending any messages? Especially when no one believes it anyway. The deserter in the pilot episode pretty much did exactly what you said, and still no one believed him.

    Dee Stark: Just like, at the end of Hardhome, after massacring a bunch of people, they let the rest go. Im sure Night King could stick his pinky in the water and freeze it up and not allow these people (JON and CO) to leave. lol

    Dee Stark,

    I feel like if that was the case then why didn’t he do exactly that instead of letting them go? Seems a bit silly to let them go if you’re just gonna end up trying to kill them in the end anyway 🙂 Especially when one of them just took out a White Walker

  127. Every post I send is either awaiting moderation or doesn’t go through. What the heck is going on? Am I doing something wrong?

  128. I don’t venture to Reddit sites, Free Folk, whatever, and reports here by some who have, demonstrate why. I find these “fan wars” utterly boring and pointless. (Sure, there’s some of that even here but mostly WotW is a reasonable and friendly place.)

    I’m a fan of the story, book and show. I like nearly all of the characters (“good” and “bad”), for the interesting characters that they are. Of all the characters in the books and show, I can say that Ramsay is the only one I don’t like. He’s too villaneous in both book and show – though Iwan Rheon did an amazing job with what he was given.

    I don’t buy this mentality that if you like Jon, you’re a Dany hater, or vice versa. Or Arya/Sansa, Stark/Lannister or whatever. This is a story that does not have one single hero or good guys vs. bad guys. It’s complicated and grey, morally ambiguous, that’s the point.

    The show has had to streamline some of the complexity of the book story, and simplify some of the moral ambiguity. I can live with that. It’s an adaptation of an unfinished book series, which will apparently end pretty much the same as regards the main characters/the final resolution as the books (if they ever get published).

    I should have more cause than most to complain because my favourite book character has been one of the worst “butchered” by the show (to service another character’s storyline) but I can understand why the show is doing it. I grind my teeth, grin and bear, and eagerly anticipate each new season, in the hopes that now it will happen… only to be disappointed. Oh well.

    leaks

    According to the leaks, it will happen this next coming season, hooray! Thank the gods, old and new!

    I don’t understand why people (not necessarily here) are getting so het up by some “script leaks”.

    One, those leaks might not be legit. (I won’t go into the “investigation” as to their status. I’ll just say people have strange hobbies.)

    Two, even if they are, they might not be the final – scripts can be changed during the writing process and even in the filming situation if the director thinks the exact script does not work.

    And three, written scripts are only one part of the final product. Direction, acting, camera work, lighting, costumes, props, CGI, everything go into the final product. A line that seems “bad” or “off” in the script can become brilliant due to context (other scenes) and the direction and acting and all of the things mentioned above.

    Stupid to pre-judge a whole storyline (or the whole show!) based on a tiny glimpse of it before you see the finished product.

    Ugh, sorry for the rant.

  129. talvikorppi,

    Agreed. Getting all emotional and carrying on about the leaks is a bit self-defeating. Judgement should be ultimately reserved for the final product in 6 or so months. I can only imagine what this place is gonna be like once season 7 actually airs.

  130. Grayven Reyne:
    dragonbringer,
    You are correct.Bennifer was the first supercouple portmanteau, and Braniston was invented later to reference the past relationship of Pitt and Aniston.However, the concept itself is very old, as ‘Pickfair’ was used to reference the estate of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.

    Ah, I love me some history. So this blending of names has been going on since at least the 1920s in the US popular press, in the US popular mind.

    The things you learn by reading WotW comments. 😀

    Thank you, Grayven Reyne.

  131. To add a bit more to this portmanteau history lesson, “sexposition” is an example of a portmanteau that became popular from GoT itself 😉

  132. Mr Derp,

    Haha! Even this fairly reasonable place will be a seething mass of heated, emotional, opposing opinions when S7 airs, haha!

    It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It shows how emotionally invested people are in this show. It’s the reason HBO has been able to sell it worldwide, reap the money to make more seasons. That’s surely a good thing.

    What I dislike is the polarization effected by rabid fans of any X and Y, and the way anyone thinking Z is sidelined, because if you say Z, both X and Y rabid fans will round up on you for supposedly “hating” their chosen and unquestioned one.

    Silly. Not worth the effort to try to explain. The rabid X or Y fans won’t change their minds, and I’m not interested in changing their minds anyway. It’s just a book series and a TV show. It’s not real life. If I was fighting for the survival of my country, I’d try to explain, give it all I have. But to argue about a book series/TV show? Nah.

    First world problems?

  133. Shy Lady Dragon,

    Maybe the penguins’ dream of spring is a world without humans and WWs fighting each other and wreaking havoc. If they are the only ones left, but have a very happy and peaceful penguin society, that would count as the bittersweet ending lots of people are convinced is coming. And I don’t think many would predict it, in fact it would be the third WTF moment D&D said GRRM revealed to them. Woah, maybe I’ve stumbled across the ending. I’ll have to change my name to Lulu’s RR Mum 😀

  134. Agreed once again. I like both Daenerys and Jon Snow, so it’s definitely possible to like them both without pitting one against the other. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be. Hell, I like most of the characters on this show. I also very much like Sansa’s character even though I didn’t really enjoy her contribution in season 6. Seems rare that fans of those 3 characters in particular can have a conversation without turning it into a pissing contest. It’s a damn shame really.

  135. For all Maisie’s fans (like myself), I have just watched The Book of Love and her acting is great, as usual. I can’t imagine how it will be when she starts taking adult roles – in the above mentioned film her character is 16 and easily mistaken for a 14 years old. It’s not that I doubt her talent, I’m sure she has a bright future ahead, but I can’t stop wondering what she will be like when she won’t have her youthful charm. I look forward to see a 35 years old Maisie in different roles – good for me, I have found something nice in my getting old 🙂

  136. Dee Stark: They were trying to send a message… whats the point in killing one scaredass guy?

    Dee Stark,

    Hello Dee 🙂 I would assume that the point would be to add another member to their army of the undead. Why would the Walkers care about sending any messages or whether Sam was scared or not? Especially when no one believes that the Others are real anyway. The deserter in the pilot episode pretty much did exactly what you said, and still no one believed him.

    Dee Stark: Just like, at the end of Hardhome, after massacring a bunch of people, they let the rest go. Im sure Night King could stick his pinky in the water and freeze it up and not allow these people (JON and CO) to leave. lol

    Dee Stark,

    I feel like if that was the case then why didn’t he do exactly that instead of letting them go? Seems a bit silly to let them go if you’re just gonna end up trying to kill them in the end anyway ? Especially when one of them just took out a White Walker

  137. Grayven Reyne,
    Excellent point on Pickfair, although Pickford and Fairbanks named it themselves. 🙂

    I’m not even touching all this leak discussion at this point!!!

  138. Lulus Mum:
    Shy Lady Dragon,

    Maybe the penguins’ dream of spring is a world without humans and WWs fighting each other and wreaking havoc. If they are the only ones left, but have a very happy and peaceful penguin society, that would count as the bittersweet ending lots of people are convinced is coming. And I don’t think many would predict it, in fact it would be the third WTF moment D&D said GRRM reviled to them. Woah, maybe I’ve stumbled across the ending. I’ll have to change my name to Lulu’s RR Mum ?

    Ah yah, killer penguins.

    Silly humans think they’re just cute waddling little butlers in their black tailcoat and white shirt.

    I’ve seen actual penguin hoards rise from the sea, in their hundreds and thousands, and I tell you, it’s scary. They single-mindedly make their way to their burrows, ignoring humans, slipping underground to plot their evil schemes.

    Puffins are the northern hemisphere poor imitation. Black tailcoat, white shirt, check, and extra “cuteness” for the stripy, multicoloured beak. They’ve got better feathered wings than penguins, they can actually fly on air before diving and hiding under the sea for safety. They’re pudgy and round and fat, it’s a miracle they actually fly. But I saw them fly, last summer when we sailed the Arctic Ocean over the top of Norway. Plenty of other birds there, but puffin sightings were our favourites. “Lunni! Lunni! Lunni!” (lunni is puffin in my language).

    Yah, so, I’m all for killer penguins, but keep innocent, cute, fat puffins out of it, OK?

  139. I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the explosive leaks surrounding the alleged conclusion of the series where

    Tyrion and Arya flee Westeros, by sailing west, finding the previously unknown continent of Middle Earth, and become the founders of a society of dwarfs.
  140. Dee Stark<

    It's really nice to see your input. You're such a positive and cheery contributer. But, dear, if you want to remain unspoiled, stay away. The threads are long, dark and full of spoilers.

  141. Dee Stark,

    I can’t imagine why. If I have to find a fault, I’ll say the script is not original. Maybe Jason Sudeikis, who’s a comedy actor, was not the best choice for the part, although I found him convincing. But imo Maisie was sweet and touching as always and the film is worth giving a try.

  142. talvikorppi,

    I had no idea these were not penguins! I have seen them only on tv, but still… Indeed, there’s always something new to learn on WOTW!

  143. Mr Derp:
    Agreed once again.I like both Daenerys and Jon Snow, so it’s definitely possible to like them both without pitting one against the other.I don’t know why it wouldn’t be.Hell, I like most of the characters on this show.I also very much like Sansa’s character even though I didn’t really enjoy her contribution in season 6.Seems rare that fans of those 3 characters in particular can have a conversation without turning it into a pissing contest.It’s a damn shame really.

    Yeah, it seems stupid and pointless to me as well, but fandoms (=rabidly loyal fans) are beyond reason. Just let them be, let them spout their thing. Ignore them and focus on the story.

    WotW comment threads have quite a lot of reasonable people. Not rabid fans of X, Y or Z, but people who want to discuss the bigger picture.

    The TV show has taken its own way, different from the books. Many narrow-minded acolytes of the books hate the show because it isn’t exactly like the books or their head canon of the unpublished books. Dum-de-daa.

    Dee-de-dum. Da- daa. Yes? You were saying? Ha hah, de-dum.

  144. Shy Lady Dragon:
    talvikorppi,

    I had no idea these were not penguins! I have seen them only on tv, but still… Indeed, there’s always something new to learn on WOTW!

    A-ha!

    We’re uncovering a conspiracy here. Penguins only live in the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere. Fairy penguins intimidate humans at Phillip Island (near Melbourne, Australia), divert attention from their dastardly plan with their northern cousins like puffins.

    Yeah, I can see their grand conspiracy forming. Fat little puffins with their colourful stripey beaks, humans underestimating them, calling them cute and fat… The humans have no idea of the evil mind of puffins, who want to take over the world with their southern hemisphere and Antarctic cousins. We people have no idea. We’re doomed.

  145. Wolfish:
    talvikorppi,
    I always get excited when he gets to be Jaime just for Jaime, not to illuminate Cersei.

    Seven blessings! And when he gets to be Jaime around Brienne it’s even better!

  146. talvikorppi: A-ha!

    We’re uncovering a conspiracy here. Penguins only live in the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere. Fairy penguins intimidate humans at Phillip Island (near Melbourne, Australia), divert attention from their dastardly plan with their northern cousins like puffins.

    Yeah, I can see their grand conspiracy forming. Fat little puffins with their colourful stripey beaks, humans underestimating them, calling them cute and fat… The humans have no idea of the evil mind of puffins, who want to take over the world with their southern hemisphere and Antarctic cousins. We people have no idea. We’re doomed.

    I just have to jump in here, excuse the intrusion! As someone who has rehabilitated injured and orphaned songbirds and other wildlife for about 16 years now, I can tell you that ALL birds are in on this! Look up ‘Chipping Sparrow’, for example. Adorable, right? Tiny little friendly birds – but along with feeding their young various insects and seeds, they FEED THEM INFORMATION. Gazing adorably into the tiny black eyes of a baby yellow warbler, I once noticed that when she blinked, there was a distinct sound of a CAMERA SHUTTER!

    Pigeons are also smarter than they look (hence why I adopted the screen name ‘Pigeon’ – I too aspire to be smarter than I look). They may seem like vacant feathery bowling pins, but just look at their networking skills!!!

    We who recognize these creatures for the intelligent masterminds that they are, and show respect, will likely be spared the most terrible of fates.

  147. Pigeon,

    Wow, Hitchcock lost a lot by not hiring you as a consultant! If time travel proves real in short time, you should pay him a visit to help him make the film I’m obviously referring to even scarier.

  148. Shy Lady Dragon:
    Pigeon,

    Wow, Hitchcock lost a lot by not hiring you as a consultant! If time travel proves real in short time, you should pay him a visit to help him make the film I’m obviously referring to even scarier.

    Hee! Wouldn’t that be something. Having had crows for several years (RIP Cheeky, Frosty, and Edgar Allan Crow!), I can reassure everyone that they prefer popcorn and hot dogs over eyeballs! ?

    A couple of seasons ago I tried attaching a plastic googly eye to Cheeky’s forehead in homage to the 3-Eyed Raven, but that didn’t turn out to be much appreciated…..

  149. Lulus Mum: Maybe the penguins’ dream of spring is a world without humans and WWs fighting each other and wreaking havoc. If they are the only ones left, but have a very happy and peaceful penguin society, that would count as the bittersweet ending lots of people are convinced is coming.

    This puts me irresistibly in mind of the dolphins saying ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’ and teleporting themselves away from Earth moments before the planet is destroyed by the Vogons in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Dolphins, penguins and puffins all being charismatic marine creatures, surely they are all part of the same massive global conspiracy, wouldn’t you say?

  150. Pigeon,

    I’m very sorry for your crows (I know how it is, but with cats). Even I have never met them, I’m sure my favourite would have been Edgar Allan Crow. BTW, what’s the difference between crows and ravens? I’m asking from a biological point of view, they have different names in my language, too.

  151. This is OT, but whatever….
    I just read at that Good Omens (Gaiman-Pratchett) is going to be adapted by BBC & Amazon. Starz is already premiering American Gods soon so Gaiman has gotten some stuff going. It’s nice to see another one of my favorite authors get some adaptions. Now, if Dan Simmons and Connie Willis could only get some…

  152. Clob:

    I just read at that Good Omens (Gaiman-Pratchett) is going to be adapted by BBC & Amazon.Starz is already premiering American Gods soon so Gaiman has gotten some stuff going.It’s nice to see another one of my favorite authors get some adaptions.

    This is such exciting news! People, if you haven’t read Good Omens yet, you absolutely must. A fun way to pass some time while you wait for Season 7 and/or TWoW.

  153. Shy Lady Dragon:
    Pigeon,

    I’m very sorry for your crows (I know how it is, but with cats). Even I have never met them, I’m sure my favourite would have been Edgar Allan Crow. BTW, what’s the difference between crows and ravens? I’m asking from a biological point of view, they have different names in my language, too.

    Aww thank you. They had many good years with me (were permanent ‘residents’ in our aviaries due to unfixable wing injury, despite our vet’s best efforts). Extremely smart! Edgar was very funny and was blind from….hatch? Lol. So he’d yell at any shadows he saw blocking his path (my dog, a rock, whatever, hee hee).

    Ravens and crows are in the same family along with jays and magpies, but ravens are quite a but larger and have different tail feather shapes. Most crows hang out in flocks and head south from here during the winter, whereas most ravens stay and don’t mind the cold.

  154. Shy Lady Dragon,

    Crows, ravens… They’re all corvids.

    The way GRRM writes, crows are the smaller ones. He obviously thinks and writes about North American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) or western European (British) carrion crows (Corvus corone), which are black. The ordinary crows (Corvus cornix) in most of central, eastern and northern Europe are grey and black, very smart and now adapted to urban living. Ravens (Corvus corax) are black, bigger, and live in the woods.

    Planetos, Westeros obviously isn’t a one-on-one match to our world, so we shouldn’t try to match the exact species. The symbolic connotations are more important. Black ravens/crows have been associated with messengers between the living and the dead, death, and wisdom in plenty of European folklore. Dark wings, dark words, eh?

  155. Incidentally, Edgar Allan Poe was born on this date (January 19) in 1809. His obituary in the Richmond Semi-Weekly Examiner was to die for (pardon the pun):

    “He was then remarkable for his general cleverness, his feats of activity, his wayward temper, extreme personal beauty, his musical recitations of verse, and power of extemporaneous tale-telling. In 1825 he went to the University of Virginia. The University was then a most dissolute place, and Mr. Edgar A. Poe was remarked as the most dissolute and dissipated youth in the University. He was already a great classical scholar, and he made huge strides in mathematics, botany, and other branches of natural science. But at the same time he drank, gambled, and indulged in other vices until he was expelled from the place.”

    https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/10/07/obituary-of-edgar-allan-poe/

  156. Wolfish:
    Shy Lady Dragon,

    A page I’ve used more than once, because unlike Pigeon I’m not an expert, and the photos and drawings really help:
    http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/facts/crow_vs_raven.html

    Incidentally, what is your language? Your English is excellent!!!

    Oh far from expert, just interested in the little guys! ? That’s a great link.

    talvikorppi: “…, quath the raven.”
    Edgar Allan Poe’s bird is a (north American) raven, not a crow.

    Yeah, it was a cute play on words for a name, not a literal description.

  157. This x100. I’ve often thought that would be an interesting spinoff too.

    mau: I think that the perfect bittersweet ending for her will be that, after everything is said and done, she sails west of Westeros.

    I hope that that great scene with Lady Crane was foreshadowing.

  158. Wolfish,

    Aah, to be remembered in those terms… Thank you, Wolfish, for this piece. I’ll now go and get my collected works of E.A. Poe to read in bed before I’ll sleep and have nightmares. 😉

  159. Clob,

    I recently read that Maisie said that due to a technical glitch her final filming last season was cut short. I wonder if they had planned to do Twins follow-on scenes and couldn’t for some reason.

  160. ThisGirlHasNoName:
    This x100. I’ve often thought that would be an interesting spinoff too.

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Beyond the Sunset Sea, there is dark chocolate just waiting to be discovered by some bold adventurer from Westeros. And it will be bittersweet!

  161. mau,

    I would also love to see this. As I wrote earlier, as much as she loves the North and Winterfell, I think Arya’s character has gone way beyond “settling down” anywhere.

    Pigeon,

    Sounds fascinating. If I hadn’t had cats/lived with people with cats for most of my life, I would have spent a lot more time with rodents and birds. (Had peafowl for a while, since they could outrun and outpeck the cats and the Rottweiler. They were a blast.)

    talvikorppi,

    You’re most welcome! I found it last year on this date, and dug it up again because it’s so wonderful.

  162. Pigeon: Aww thank you. They had many good years with me (were permanent ‘residents’ in our aviaries due to unfixable wing injury, despite our vet’s best efforts). Extremely smart! Edgar was very funny and was blind from….hatch? Lol. So he’d yell at any shadows he saw blocking his path (my dog, a rock, whatever, hee hee).

    Ravens and crows are in the same family along with jays and magpies, but ravens are quite a but larger and have different tail feather shapes. Most crows hang out in flocks and head south from here during the winter, whereas most ravens stay and don’t mind the cold.

    I always understood that CROWS were the generic name for the family of birds that are basically scavengers and live mainly off carrion. A bit like vultures, but smaller. I think one member in the crow family is actually called a ‘Carrion Crow’. Others being Rooks, Jays. Magpies, Jackdaws and probably a few more. The Raven is the largest. They don’t give a shit if the weather is bad or cold and seem to survive well in cold climates.

    A mate who lives near Anchorage says he often sees them around in the snow. More often than not outside the McDonalds! They must have developed a taste for quarter pounders with cheese and Big Macs LOL 😀 😀

    They’re certainly very intelligent birds and great scroungers as is the one sitting on my shoulder in my avatar. He along with others live up on the mountain on this island all year round and the bitterly cold weather in winter doesn’t seem to bother him. Providing there’s a few tourists around he can scrounge food off, he’s quite happy!

  163. elybe,

    Just to answer your question; I am not lying and I am not psychotic as far as I know. But really I was absolutely persecuted by the freefolk over it all, so I am not getting involved any further.

  164. Stark RAven’ Rad,

    Really!? I haven’t seen that! I do think it reads as things that should be or should have been in close conjunction with each other. If there’s any fact behind it I wouldn’t be surprised.

  165. Wolfish,

    Thank you so much, it’s very good to hear that! I’m Romanian, I have graduated English Language and Literature at the university in my town, Timisoara. Where are you from?
    I really enjoyed the page about crows and ravens, it’s well explained and the photos are helpful.
    Beautiful description of Edgar Allan Poe, fit for a man who created such imaginative works!

  166. Pigeon,

    Thank you for your explanations about crows and ravens. You painted such a vivid scene around Edgar, it was easy to imagine him.
    It seems that I saw crows all over the fence at a friends’ house in a neighboring village. Magpies can be frequently seen in my town in a small piece of land with many trees (too small to call it a park) near a supermarket where I go shopping. They look cute with their black and white feathers.

  167. talvikorppi,

    Thank you for your explanations. Living in eastern Europe, I wonder if I have ever seen grey crows.
    I love Edgar Allan Poe as well. Speaking about nightmares, I recall watching some loose adaptations of his works on TV at night, alone, when I was a teenager. It was quite a coincidence when a poster fell from the wall behind me. I was too terrified to scream 😀

  168. talvikorppi:
    Shy Lady Dragon,
    Crows, ravens… They’re all corvids.

    The way GRRM writes, crows are the smaller ones. He obviously thinks and writes about North American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) or western European (British) carrion crows (Corvus corone), which are black. The ordinary crows (Corvus cornix) in most of central, eastern and northern Europe are grey and black, very smart and now adapted to urban living. Ravens (Corvus corax) are black, bigger, and live in the woods.

    Here in the British Isles we also have Corvus Cornix where they are know as “Hooded crows”, they are found in NW Scotland as well as the whole of Ireland.

    My favourite crow, not found here, are the Alpine Choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus) which can be very tame and will take food from the hand in Alpine resorts. There are Red-billed chough in the far western coastal fringes but not common, and mostly what we have here locally in gardens are Jackdaws which get ever more numerous and people tolerant of late.

    Anyway, enough of the OT “Birds of my Neighbourhood”! We need more news…

  169. Aryamad:

    Crater: Gendry

    Gendry

    I’m cool with Gendry and Arya. Perhaps the Hound needs a date for the wedding though? Some sexy peasant girl? He’s the only main cast character not shown with a woman. Even Pod had sexy times with the ladies. And the Hound said he liked fucking, and drinking and singing . . so why not show it?

  170. KaySen,

    It’s all the same to me no matter who you really are. I don’t buy 2.0 anymore than I buy that your namesake bounced because of hurt feelings.

    ghost of winterfell,

    To add to that, Emilia and Kit are both due to start filming their next projects in February, and Lena’s only doing pickups this month. What are they supposed to be filming in February with no mains?

  171. elybe,

    Liam Cunningham had said that they will be filming till the end of Feb. That’s still more than a month away. Reshoots maybe? And something like the Wall falling (non-cgi parts) with extras ?

  172. Shy Lady Dragon,
    My parents and American and I was born and raised in Brazil, so I have dual citizenship; my mother’s the only person with whom I spoke English until I was 11. Coincidentally, she also has a degree in English literature, so you’d have a lot to discuss! I’ve now spent most of my life in the U.S., and she’s spent most of her life in Brazil, so I tease her about speaking both English and Portuguese with accents now.

    Dark Lark,
    I’ve wondered about that myself; the closest D&D have ever come to showing that about the Hound was in the conversation with Bronn in the brothel before the Blackwater. Bronn was shown with a girl in his lap, while the Hound and a companion were sitting alone at a neighboring table. I still suspect D&D might go the book route and give us SanSan in the end, which I know would rile up a large number of people because of a) the greater age difference between the characters on the show, compared to the books, and b) the dubious turns Sansa’s character has taken. But, yeah… I’d love to see him happy with someone, although it might take a bit more than “a sexy peasant girl” to understand his tortured character.

  173. Too many people to reply to so I’ll write a list instead. What I really meant, but didn’t actually say, was if all the pesky humans and their WW and wight counterparts were wiped out, the giant killer penguins could live in harmony with the other animals. There is a reason I blather on about GKPs in GoT but it’s a long one…..

    * I saw an episode of Supernatural where all animals speak the same language and can understand each other – sounds legit. If some of them are in on the conspiracy, they could easily all be. Those of us with cats know what contempt they treat humans with, they are unlikely to be alone in this.

    * Edgar Allan Crow is an awesome name, even if not strictly correct.

    * Little known fact, there are some (quite rare) penguins that live in the Northern Hemisphere in the wild. They are in the Galápagos Islands which straddle the equator, so can be in the Northern or Southern.

    * Nice animal facts guys, I find out so many interesting things from this site.

    * Baby puffins are called pufflings squeeeee 😀

  174. Just seen this on Buzzfeed. It’s then and now photos of the GoT cast. Some of them look really different; I’m amusing myself at the idea of Stannis (the character) looking at the old Stephen Dillane photo and mocking his Three Musketeers style 😀

  175. Wolfish,

    You seem to have had an interesting life. I’m sure I’d have liked to talk to your mother because I enjoy talking to you 😉
    I have this childish obsession to want the characters I like happily shipped, so I want “Houndie” (quotation from Pigeon) to enjoy shared love, but I don’t think Sansa would be the girl for him. I’d rather find Tyrion and Sansa a suitable couple, they were getting along well after their marriage. They may have learned a lot about real life, but they both seem to feel at ease among highborn people. Problem is I can’t find a girl for “Houndie” and I so much want to be one…

  176. Lulus Mum,

    Age become those actors, I like more as they look now – but I have always preferred older men. Pedro seems to have always looked hot.

  177. Shy Lady Dragon:
    Wolfish,

    You seem to have had an interesting life. I’m sure I’d have liked to talk to your mother because I enjoy talking to you ?
    I have this childish obsession to want the characters I like happily shipped, so I want “Houndie” (quotation from Pigeon) to enjoy shared love, but I don’t think Sansa would be the girl for him. I’d rather find Tyrion and Sansa a suitable couple, they were getting along well after their marriage. They may have learned a lot about real life, but they both seem to feel at ease among highborn people. Problem is I can’t find a girl for “Houndie” and I so much want to be one…

    “Houndie” was the result of a strange autocorrect and it just stuck with me, hee! Considering he’d probably kill someone for calling him that…. ? Other classic GoT autocorrects in my texts have included Roosevelt Bolton, Baloney Greyjoy, Tyrese Bannister (?) and Ser Gregorian.

    I’m not a ‘shipper’ per se, but if Jaime and Brienne is not to be, I think it’d be rather kickass for a Sandor/Brienne pairing. She’s already kicked his butt and I can somehow see him begrudgingly respecting that. Think of the School for Knights they could oversee! Lol. I love Tormund, but…

    I think that Sansa and Tyrion would actually be an awesome turnout, as much as I tend to dislike her. I think that it could be good politically, and he was respectful to her and did try to make it work. She was not in the frame of mind to reciprocate, but I suspect that at some point now she has grown and might realize that there is something to be said for a man who treats her with dignity.

  178. Pigeon,

    Roosevelt Bolton 😀
    Nothing says more future marital bliss than a good sword fight ornated with insults! So, Houndie and Brienne sounds interesting… but Jaime and Brienne must be written in the stars. Because of sword fight and insults, of course!

  179. Shy Lady Dragon,

    Thank you (it keeps getting more interesting… yay for aging like fine wine!), and I enjoy conversing with you as well! On another note, um, lots of us “want to be one”… 😉

    Pigeon,

    Totally agreed on Jaime/Brienne, Brienne/Sandor, and Tyrion/Sansa, although I’d still love to see Tyrion with someone as well-read as he is. Maybe he and Sansa can rebuild the Winterfell library, and she can get some good reading recommendations from Sam. She ought to have learned by now to no longer believe all those tales of gallant knights…

  180. Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,

    I see it the opposite way. If she is truly on the hero’s journey, I think she will hear Jon’s SOS to lords of Westeros for help with the NK. She will have to choose between family and offing Cersei. She will give up the list and go North to help Jon and be rewarded with regaining Nymeria.

  181. Pigeon,
    Love it, some classics there! I once accidentally created Rosé Bolton wine and had the Targs turn into the Tarts. It’s gonna be Houndie from now on for me, along with Pidge Podge for Pod, which someone on Freefolk came up with 😀

  182. Wolfish,

    Ooh. I love your #5. I can imagine Arya slipping in with the little birds. Not sure how she would take out the mountain, but I would love to see it done.

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