GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8. Possible spoilers

[OneInAMillionYou]

Given we are only a week away from the final season, I thought we should have a shiny new thread to discuss the episodes as they are broadcast.

Anyone else going to be starting their watch at 2 am on Monday 15th?

I've watched the trailers and teasers dozens of times, and I am READY!

I have a theory that the Battle for Winterfell in Ep 3 will be lost, and they will have to move south, re assemble at Dragonstone or Kings Landing. After all, here are three episodes to fill after that!

@Aberforthsgoat ha ha imagine that! At the end of the whole series the waif is sitting on the iron throne 😂!

Read that too Aberforthsgoat, can see how it might have happened, but not getting why. Absolutely no reason for the Waif to pretend to be Arya at all.

@redforshort I just don’t get why the waif would kill all the Frey’s and bang Gendry
And also how would she know all the stuff Arya knows?!

I just think it would be a shock but not in a good satisfying way, I would feel cheated. But I’m feeling quite nervous as Arya does seem to have been a bit robotic of late..

someone convince me this is unlikely?!

Also it would be terrible for Gendry to have basically been tricked again like he was with the red woman.

@springiscomingsoon argh can you imagine?! I think I would actually have a tantrum haha!

Just popping in to share these because I find them more entertaining than the actual show for the last couple of seasons and I want to share the love:

Had to do it in two posts because my phone is rubbbbbbissssssshhhhhhh:

Well, it did not occur to me that Arya could be the waif.

There could be (at least) 2 reasons for the waif to be in Winterfell:

1. Someone took out a contract on someone else with the Faceless Men.

Only Cersei has serious money, but she chose to use Bronn. Littlefinger's final surprise? Can't see that. Who is the target?

1. The Braavosi are not big fan of dragonlords and ladies. So they could send a faceless woman.

Same with the maesters.

A few thoughts about ep1 as I've just rewatched. I really enjoyed it and so many great moments I wish I had found the thread when I first watched. I won't go full flashback now the thread has moved on but these bits stood out for me.

The Crossbow is small. Like really small. I've just seen Qyburn hand it to Bronn and it looks like a toy in his hands. I think it is going to end up back in the hands of Tyrion.
(I just Googled pics and I'm sure it seems to have shrunk a bit since it's Joffrey days.)

I really don't like when The Hound says to Arya 'You're a cold little bitch aren't you?'. The firelight is warm and orange but Arya sort of looks cold and blue. Dark shadows under her eyes seem to give her the look of a corpse. Made me shiver.

When Jon and Sam are in the crypt I noticed for the first time that there are direwolf statues. Does that mean they were buried down there too?

How come Tormund and the gang saw no sign of the immense Army of the Dead when going to and from Last Hearth?

I'm rewatching ep2 now so will save those thoughts for a separate post.

Arya is the Waif idea originated in the fact that Jaqen put on that cheesy grin when she said she was Arya Stark and she was going home and left the House of Black and White. Considering the Faceless Men are supposed to be a group of top secret assassins with well-kept secret superpowers, she was allowed to leave far too easily.

It’s a bit like trying to get out of a Virgin Media contract.

DragonglassHeart they said they'd had to go a long way round to get ahead of the Army of the Dead.

Perhaps they had Direwolf statues because they had them as pets?

I think Danaerys will end up with Yara in the Iron Islands:

1. Relationship with Jon is obviously a non-starter. She can't spend the rest of her life shagging her nephew.

1. As is always the way in tv sex, she'll be (miraculously) pregnant, Jon will be either dead or battling white walkers and she'll need somewhere to retreat to in order to have said baby/ keep the new heir safe.

1. Yara has already made clear the Iron islands are intended as a safe haven from the white walkers for Dany because they can't swim. Or something.

1. Dany always makes a point of asking where Yara is. She doesn't have to.

1. This way she still gets to 'sit on the Iron throne' . Sorry, but it is GoT, not really possible to lower the tone

And

1. Most of Dany's closest advisers are looking flaky right now to say the least.

1. It fits in with the female-centric, trying to avoid cliches thing that's quite fashionable in tv right now.

@sweetsummerchild I can see why that would make more sense but I would still hate it. It would just feel like so many of the episodes lost their meaning a bit since Arya came back to winterfell. I live in hope that since George said that his wife said she would divorce him if he killed Arya, and he’s told D&D the end so the tv show ends in the same place, that Arya is not dead.
I agree though she’s seemed... off

But then at other times like with Jon and Gendry when he first called her m’lady she was really smiley... I think it’s my most hated theory. Apart from the one where it’s all been Bran’s coma dream 🙄

But now I’m thinking maybe that’s WHY jaqen have Arya the coin to come to Bravos so he could take her face?! But he did seem to like her... I’m driving myself mad with theories haha

I read on a forum that one of the cast had revealed “one face changes everything” as a spoiler for this season but I cannot find anything that backs it up and it seems a bit on the nose so I don’t believe it

Aberforthsgoat The whole FM story is so much more interesting in the books. Arya seems to be able to ‘pass’ her training so far by cheating - she skinchanges into the cat when she is supposed to be blind. She can also warg into Nymeria from Braavos as she has seen that it is snowing in the Riverlands. She’s also utterly failing at becoming no-one, and carries on ticking off names on her list (as per the Mercy chapter).

On top of that, Jaqen is at the Citadel stealing books (maybe Sam is Jaqen haha). Given the history of the FM and the dragonlords, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of them, or even Arya, is tasked to kill Dany or her dragons. How it plays out it anyone’s guess.

The storyline may just be ditched in the show along with Dorne, fAegon, the plague of greyscale, Lady Stoneheart etc.

I really think I need to go back and reread the books. I read them a good while ago and so many details have now been forgotten. Everything you mentioned in fact! Do you think the FM story has ended on the tv show or do you think it will tie into the ending?

I really don’t know. It would come out of nowhere at this point so it would be very unsatisfying from a storytelling perspective. I think it’ll just be ignored.

I do think Arya has been given too many storylines which don’t fit what she’ll have to do in the books. In the books she shows big errors of judgment, but she’s not the psycho-killer that we’ve seen in the show. In the books it was Wyman Manderly who baked the Frey pies and Lady Stoneheart who will probably finish of the Freys.

Dany still has to suffer her third betrayell ‘for love’ and I still think the most likely candidates are Arya, Tyrion and Sam but I don’t know how it will go down or what the effect will be. I could be wrong.

I don't see how the Iron Islands would be safe. The White Walkers have frozen the lake, they bring cold so can just hang around and keep going closer as it freezes.

I also just remember at the end of the last season: how did Cersei and Euron organise their whole 'Can they swim? No. I'm off then' scene when supposedly they didn't know about the zombies before. Eh...

I've been thinking about it all a lot! I'm convinced we'll see some familiar dead characters return as wights. Mainly Hodor. But then I thought about Summer and how maybe Ghost would have to fight him/her. Then what if Nymeria and her pack came to join in the battle?

Is Meera Reed gone for good? Her father Howland Reed is another witness to Jon's true identity. Is he alive or dead, don't remember ever seeing him and not read the books.

I have a feeling Danaerys will want to dispose of Bran and Sam to conceal the truth about Jon, hence why Reed may prove important.

Meera was hanging about Winterfell wasn't she? No idea whether the rest of the Crannogmen will take shelter in Winterfell like the rest of the North? I think that bit has been a bit brushed over in the show.

Meera said she was returning home. "Bran" was indifferent. I hope we'll see more of her. I want to see her father too. Maybe he knows about Dany and the red door.

And I assume Howland Reed is alive (and possibly a greenseer / has greensight / has greendreams - however the show explained it) as he sent Jojen and Meera to help Bran originally didn't he?!

Re the wights, if they were able to contain one in a box to take to Cersei then shouldn't the stone sarcophagi in the Winterfell crypt suffice to keep them from getting out?

I don’t think we’re going to see any Reeds/Crammongmen in the story. There hasn’t been enough hints about the Neck/Greywater Watch in the show and it would come out of nowhere if the retreating refugees from Winterell suddenly ended up there.

My guess is that the retreating refugees will end up teleporting to the Riverlands where they’ll be ‘saved’ by a combination of Melissandre’s ‘influence’ and a giant pack of wolves led by Nymeria.

Re the wights, if they were able to contain one in a box to take to Cersei then shouldn't the stone sarcophagi in the Winterfell crypt suffice to keep them from getting out?

^this

Plus, skeletons emerging in the crypts is just going to look totally naff - like something out of Jason and the Argonauts. No matter how big the CGI budget, it will look like a b-rate zombie movie.

I’m hoping that if the crypts have to be evacuated because they are unsafe, it’s not because dead Starks have reanimated.

I'm still hoping its Lady Stoneheart, she would know how to get into the crypt from outside and would scare the shit out of Arya.

Wouldnt Bran know if it was Arya or the Waif? Maybe he does know but doesnt care.

Is she there though? I didn't think any of the Starks who've died in the course of the series are buried at Winterfell?