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I agree a formal happy ending would be a cop out. But then, so would 'and no-one wins, goodnight'.

It has to be bittersweet. It has to be at least a wee bit controversial, without being at all contrived.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooooooooh.

A Greyjoy Theon Theory...

Last we saw of old Nonads, he was off to rescue his sister from the clutches of his Uncle.

And the last we heard of his Uncle, he was nipping over the sea to Essos to recruit The Golden Company.

My prediction? Theon manages to free Yara, possibly losing his life in the process. Uncle bites the dust whilst still at sea. Leaving Theon/Yara in command of the Ironborn fleet, which just happens to be packed to the gunnels with Mercenaries, paid for by Cersei.

And I fully expect them to then take The Golden Company to fight for Dany. After all, they've already been paid.....

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
My prediction? Theon manages to free Yara, possibly losing his life in the process. Uncle bites the dust whilst still at sea. Leaving Theon/Yara in command of the Ironborn fleet, which just happens to be packed to the gunnels with Mercenaries, paid for by Cersei.

And I fully expect them to then take The Golden Company to fight for Dany. After all, they've already been paid.....

OOh I like that idea. Golden Company shows up, Cersie gets all smug, then suddenly at their head is Yara!

Would be a pleasing twist.

Could even echo Tywin's sacking of Kings Landing. Open the gates my King, we're here (shut up Dave) to relieve (Dave, stop tittering, you'll give the game away!) the city!

OF ALL IT'S VALUABLE BLARG GRIBBLE RAVAGE BLEEP PLUNDER!

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

Hence the

 LunarSol wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

Hence the

There must always be a Night King....

 Grimskul wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

Hence the

There must always be a Night King....

Why?

Because it sounds cool?

Plus, possibly a necessity in GoT land to keep winter in check?

 Alpharius wrote:
Because it sounds cool?
Just wondered if there was something I had missed in the book?

Plus, possibly a necessity in GoT land to keep winter in check?

I thought they did the opposite and brought Deep Winter - the Ice in the Song and the Dragons have been awoken to counter them / balance them as two elemental forces.

Maybe the moon will open and the rest of the Dragons emerge.

Not sure if there has been stated anything the Night King wants - or if they are like Nagash and want everything to die.

 Mr Morden wrote:


Not sure if there has been stated anything the Night King wants - or if they are like Nagash and want everything to die.

I think the show producers confirmed the latter in a recent interview.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

Hence the

There must always be a Night King....

Why?

I was just referring to the infamous line in Wrath of the Lich King for WoW, where Terenas said "There must always be a Lich King" after he dies since they brought up Arthas earlier. I don't expect that to be the case though for this coming season's GoT. I'm in the camp of "first half of season vs Night King, 2nd half against Cersei".

 Grimskul wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
The Night King is defeated but without him the undead run unchecked. Jon takes the title of Night King and keeps the undead threat contained to the north.

Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar...

Hence the

There must always be a Night King....

Why?

I was just referring to the infamous line in Wrath of the Lich King for WoW, where Terenas said "There must always be a Lich King" after he dies since they brought up Arthas earlier. I don't expect that to be the case though for this coming season's GoT. I'm in the camp of "first half of season vs Night King, 2nd half against Cersei".

Ah right - I only played WoW for a few hours and got bored so didn;t get it

I'd be happy with that - as long as the right people live and die

Agreed. I think the main thing is that certain conflicts need to be resolved. I.e. CLEGANEBOWL, (assuming the Hound survives the North, he comes back to confront his brother), Cersei dying by Jaime, etc. With only so many episodes this season its really not the time for sudden plot twists and surprises, more in the proper delivery in wrapping up the plotlines before the show ends. And we know GRR Martin is just using this as a litmus test for whenever he bothers to try and finish off the book series anyways.

Yeah, as far as I am concerned CLEGANEBOWL can not happen soon enough. So looking forward to that confrontation

Since Season 8 is only 6 episodes*, I think everything might feel rushed and possibly not really all that well thought out.


*Ep 1 is 54 minutes long
Ep 2 is 58 minutes long
Ep 3 is 82 minutes long
Ep 4 is 78 minutes long
Ep 5 is 80 minutes long
Ep 6 is 80 minutes long

Maybe not after all?

In terms of episodes vs time, this is one of the lengthier seasons, so far as I can make out.

Most are 10 hour long episodes. This is 7 (I think) Of typically 1h20m episodes, with some longer?

 Alpharius wrote:
Since Season 8 is only 6 episodes*, I think everything might feel rushed and possibly not really all that well thought out.


*Ep 1 is 54 minutes long
Ep 2 is 58 minutes long
Ep 3 is 82 minutes long
Ep 4 is 78 minutes long
Ep 5 is 80 minutes long
Ep 6 is 80 minutes long

Maybe not after all?

I'm actually glad they took this route, because then the pacing won't be as restricted to the previous timeslot of only one hour and certain scenes won't have to be cut to make it fit. Hopefully they'll take advantage of it to the fullest and we have less of the teleporting issues from the last season.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Are people really still going on about "teleportation"? Jesus...

I'm of two minds when it comes to teleporting:

On one hand, I appreciate that it circumvents a lot of the problems the series developed as it meandered through the part of the narrative that should have been handled with a time skip (IE, most of the last 2 books) and gets the plot going. It also is worth pointing out that its mostly done through ship travel and dragon flight, which has always been how certain characters (Little Finger and Varys) are able to move around pretty freely. It's really not so much an inconsistency as a matter of our protagonists generally not having access to affluential modes of travel. After all, even a the start of the series things moved from Winterfell to King's Landing rather quickly.

On the other hand, I also appreciate that much of the brilliance of the early story relies on the tension of things happening largely because the right person to stop them simply couldn't be there on time. The series loses a lot of its potential for surprises when you don't have 3-4 characters each starting up a plan or two without seeing how the others resolve first.

The only travel bit I had a porblem with was

"Run to the wall and fetch Dany"

other than that it was mostly good that "time was passing"

I have a certain dreadful feeling that whoever sits the Iron Throne at the end, surrounded by all the other characters bodies, will reach up and pull a scooby doo revealing Arya wearing the victors face as a mask.

 dracpanzer wrote:
I have a certain dreadful feeling that whoever sits the Iron Throne at the end, surrounded by all the other characters bodies, will reach up and pull a scooby doo revealing Arya wearing the victors face as a mask.

Hmm could be worse but wouldn't be my first choice - something that Arya might well do though.

Still salty over Stannis tbh. Will watch just to see the end. Hopefully The Hound has a good ending and that Jaime dies. Wouldn't mind Cersei being on the iron throne in the end.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 dracpanzer wrote:
I have a certain dreadful feeling that whoever sits the Iron Throne at the end, surrounded by all the other characters bodies, will reach up and pull a scooby doo revealing Arya wearing the victors face as a mask.

Hmm could be worse but wouldn't be my first choice - something that Arya might well do though.

I wouldn't be happy with it, but it seems like a George R.R. Martin thing to do...

 Gael Knight wrote:
Still salty over Stannis tbh. Will watch just to see the end. Hopefully The Hound has a good ending and that Jaime dies. Wouldn't mind Cersei being on the iron throne in the end.

Yuck.

Do you play Tyranids too?!?

I'm also unhappy about how Stannis wound up. Maybe I am biased from the books, but burning Shireen was not only genuinely out of character for Stannis, it did't make much sense from any kind of logical perspective. It felt like they betrayed a great character.

Brienne killed stannis off camera, didn't she? I'm finding his death difficult to remember.

Yes.

Maybe it will be one of those "aha, you thought he was dead, but she couldn't do it" things. Where he has been in the meantime would be a mystery. As would her reason for pulling the blow, but you still have hope. That would probably be even worse though, wouldn't it?

Yeah, I assume he's dead. I'm good with that.

I think there is actually a good possibility of them stopping their subversion of classic tropes by there being a happy ending of sorts. The cast has finally grown some plot armor, enough that only the more minor characters are in danger. I think that Jon and Danerys will survive to rule over a shattered and broken land. Worst case though, Jon might die but Danerys will survive. Danerys is also most likely pregnant by now.

A prediction. I think Drogon and Rheagal will lay a clutch of eggs. I believe that scene with Dany and Jon walking up to the two of them in the snow is the reveal scene, with the eggs being in the pile of scorched remains and edited out for the teaser.

Death predictions.

Completely Safe: Dany, Arya, Sam, Tyrion.

Most likely safe, but could die: Jon, Sansa, Jamie.

Most likely going to die: Greyworm, Jora, Bran, the Hound. Greyworm, Jora, and Bran probably die during the siege of Winterfell. Greyworm and Jora in the battle itself to give us the requisite named character body count, while Bran 'dies' in some magical act of enabling Jon to strike the mortal blow to the Night King. Maybe involving time travel into the past to set future events in motion. The Hound probably ends up dying as well, possibly at the battle of Winterfell OR while fighting in Cleganebowl(which he will win but die of his injuries).

Definitely going to die: Cersie, the Mountain.

Unknown: Tormond and Brienne. I could see us losing Brienne, which will cause Tormund no small amount of grief. A reverse is also a possibility, with Brienne realizing she'd liked the hairy lug after he's dead. But I think there is a very strong possibility both of them survive and go on to have those "great big world conquering babies" Tormund wants.



I like the theory that the Night King gets stopped halfway through the show, and the rest of it is the mopping up of the whole mess.