HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

I kinda liked the episode.

That is all.

i enjoyed this week's episode just for re-establishing a lot of relationships, and the "biding time" dialogue was immeasurably better than similar scenes involving Tyrion, Grey Worm, and Missandei over on the other side of the sea. A low bar to clear to be fair...

Theon and Sansa have more chemistry than Daenerys and Jon, i'll say that much.

I'm trying to figure out not so much who is going to die as who seems likely to survive. I feel pretty safe in predicting Sansa and Arya to be safe. They're not going to kill all the Starks except one, and Bran isn't even a Stark anymore i guess.

I've gone many seasons now not knowing who Edd is or where he came from but here we are

I assumed Tormond will die just so they can resolve his love interest in Brienne easily and with dignity. but I guess Brienne dying would do the same.

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/something-bads-going-to-happen-in-that-crypt-huh-1834224453

They've "hidden spoilered" it so much that I almost wonder if they'll pull a cheeky bait and switch and *not* have Sean Bean playing the headless zombie Ned Stark that gets raised from the Winterfell crypts to feast on his surviving children

He was magnificent as the statue of Ned at the end of the previous episode

Wait wait... where is Cate buried? Is she in the crypt? Will we finally get zombie Lady Stark!?

Arya be like... #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/QxvaZrBXIo

— Chris Masi (@chris_masi) April 22, 2019

she’s got a second list of dudes

my outlandish crypt theory is that the night king isn't the only one left in westeros who can raise the dead.

that's not bad - it would at least explain how Uncle Benjen came to be

No I mean there’s a red woman out there who’s def anti-night king and has to return at some point.

ha, duh that makes sense

OK that then goes along with the "that little girl with the burnt face is Melisandre" theory.

(which Mandee posted upthread)

How are people seeing romance between Sansa and Theon!? Their looks/reunion is one of two people who went through hell at the hands of the same man (Ramsay) and surviving it.

Because their bonding over those traumas was already addressed in the previous couple of seasons, so giving them two emotionally loaded scenes seem to be hinting at something else rather than just replaying those same sentiments. Though of course it's quite ambiguous, and there might be no romance at all. And since Theon is probably the most likely main character to die in the battle for Winterfell, so he can redeem himself of past sins against the Starks, we'll probably never find out.

I quite enjoyed the sense of freezing dread about the whole episode, it's probably the last chance we'll get to spend time with a lot of these characters so give them all their moment I guess.

Still, no way have they kept Gendry around all this time and re-emphasised the Baratheon bastard thing just to kill him off now, although you never know.

We probably need a Game of Thrones Death Pool thread by now right?

Gendry and Arya for King and Queen?

I’ve given up trying to make predictions - I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride/make petty criticisms like wtf was Davos doing serving up soup in a castle full of servants?

My guesses for the deaths by the end of this season:

ALMOST CERTAIN
Night King
Cersei
Euron
Theon
Jorah
Jaime
Mountain
Grey Worm or Missandei
Melisandre

LIKELY, BUT NOT CERTAIN
Varys
Brienne
Tyrion
Bran
Bronn
Podrick
Edd
Davos
Tormund
Hound
Beric
Yara
One of the two surviving dragons

UNLIKELY, BUT COULD DIE FOR SHOCK VALUE
Jon
Daenerys
Sansa
Gilly
Baby Sam
Lyanna Mormont
Both of the surviving dragons

ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT DIE
Arya
Sam

WILD CARD
Gendry

As for the reasoning behind the certain deaths and certain survivals:

- Night King, Cersei, and Euron will die for being the main villainous characters still left.
- The Mountain will die because the writers will give the fans the Hound/Mountain duel they've been waiting for (foreshadowed in the season 7 finale), which will lead to either the Mountain or both of them dying.
- Jorah is the perfect character to pull a heroic sacrifice, most likely for Dany.
- Jaime and Theon will die to atone for their numerous sins.
- Melisandre will die because of the prophecy that she's bound to die on Westeros. And she's yet another character who could pull off a heroic sacrifice to pay for her sins.
- Either Grey Worm or Missandei will die of dramatic irony, because of the plans they made in this episode to grow old together. One of them will be left alive to mourn for the other.

- IMO Arya and Sam are the only ones who are certain to survive, because they're the sort of underdogs people root for, and they've been both been given deep character arcs where they rise beyond anything anyone exptected of them, so to kill them off would anticlimactic, which is not something the show has done since the first three seasons.

- Gendry is a wild card because we don't really know whether him being Robert Baratheon's bastard was always just a red herring; if it was, he'll probably die in the next episode for similar dramatic irony as with Grey Worm/Missandei. If, like Matt pointed out, the bastard aspect was emphasised again for a reason, it could be that the show ends with him (or his and Arya's kid) sitting on the Iron Throne, after all the other candidates have died or refused the throne.

I'd put Bran in the Certain group. I think a huge part of the ending is the old magic being taken out, and that means Bran is a goner. And I suspect he knows.

Yeah that list makes sense. I'd bump Dany up a category though since she's already displaying Mad King tendencies. I can easily see Varys surviving as well.

I know everyone in this is an idiot but has it occurred to even a single character that when you're fighting an army of the dead, perhaps putting all your most vulnerable citizens in a crypt is not a great idea?

varys & tyrion having a chat on a balcony seems like a decent bet for the final scene

I know everyone in this is an idiot but has it occurred to even a single character that when you're fighting an army of the dead, perhaps putting all your most vulnerable citizens in a crypt is not a great idea?

Even though they're obviously supernatural, the wights seem to require to have at least some meat around their bones to be able to move, as we haven't see any skeleton wights. And the crypt seems to be reserved only to the deceased members of the Stark family, most of whom have been dead for decades or centuries, so they wouldn't be in a state where they could be risen. The only one's who could are Catelyn and the headless body of Ned, I think? Was Robb's body ever brought to Winterfell?

I suspect there will be a moment when Dany can save John, and she demurs or ignores his peril. He won't die then, though.

oh shit Zombie littlefinger

xps the Gendry and Aria ending is foreshadowed back in the very first episode so definitely possible. Wouldn't it be great and brutal if they did just eventually kill everyone though?

Wow, why is GOT denying me the Yara / Gilly meeting I've been clamoring for all these years? I love those two characters soooooo much I've always wondered what they would say if they finally met.

Even though they're obviously supernatural, the wights seem to require to have at least some meat around their bones to be able to move, as we haven't see any skeleton wights.

Gotta admit, it would be awesome if the finale were state of the art CGI dragons and zombies vs. Harryhausen stop animation skeletons. And that goes for pretty much every show, not just this one.

Was 2014 that long ago?

There were some Harryhausen skeletons that came to life back in the S4 finale—they killed Jojen

Jinx

I mean, if you have a scale with state-of-the-art at one end and 'Harryhausen' at the other, those are wayyy down the first end of the scale.

they were animated skeletons fighting with swords and shields, doesn't matter how realistically rendered they are, they owe everything to Harryhausen

Even though they're obviously supernatural, the wights seem to require to have at least some meat around their bones to be able to move, as we haven't see any skeleton wights.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, April 23, 2019 5:14 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes we have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHzQ44f4hz4

I'm in a GoT death sweepstake - the aim is for your randomly selected characters to survive, and you get an extra £10 if one of them has the Throne at the end of the series.

I have Cersei, Sansa and, um, Edd.

the real deaths were the friends we made along the way

How did I not realize before that this season is just a remake of Army of Darkness?

checks out

I'm really glad Edd has survived this long, and they've kept him around -- he was one of my fave characters from the books

It also continues to be absolutely amazing to watch Sean Bean perform all roles simultaneously using hand puppets, mannequins rigged into an intricate system of pulleys and levers, etc. A true tour de force

waiting for lots of Sean Beans to get killed next week

i think Ned has just "bean" waiting for the right moment to return

He was incredibly good as the beans being eaten in the last ep, although it was a little too on-the-nose, casting wise.

hope he brings some glue to keep his head on

why is no one on my tl talking about miss sophie referring to gendry as an easter bunny hop hop hopping into that PUSSAY? pic.twitter.com/aA9budFhwz

— maia (@maia419) April 22, 2019

I hate to say I'd already seen that and seriously wish I hadn't

well you were duly warned

sunday. bran is in the godswood. white walkers breach the walls, begin full scale assault towards bran. theon throws himself in front of white's spear, is impaled--bran goes catatonic. time slows to a freeze. smash cut--it's george rr martin at his apple 2e. his eyes go white, and he begins to type furiously. bran has warged into george, and finishes the remaining books. the picture dissolves into a release date. 4/29/2019.

balance is restored to the world.