I think maybe that’s the point of the brief scene of Gendry fast asleep, and Arya wine awake and staring. Not that she’s going to kill Gendry and take his face, but that she’s still very, very detached from most human emotions. She was the aggressor in their hook-up, but I got the impression it was just one more thing for her to check off of a list. Perhaps somewhere inside she hoped she would feel more, but it looks to me like she did the deed and got…essentially nothing out of it, at least on an emotional level.
I don’t think they’re romantic; I think she feels a genuine debt of gratitude for how Theon treated her during her marriage to Ramsay, and for his helping her escape. With all of the loss she’s endured, having someone who was on her side show up not dead would be heartwarming. I read her embrace of him as noting more than a survivor genuinely happy to see a fellow survivor of the same tragedy re-appear in her life.
Couple of notes: I expect Daario to be in that Golden Company and to save the day somehow.
I would have liked to have seen a ‘general call to arms issued’. There’s still got to be hedge knights out there at least who ascribe to the notions Brienne does.
Maybe we’ll see a second stand near KL with Dorne and Essos pitching in.
We also still havent seen the third jaw-dropping twist and i have no real idea what it could possibly be. Other than maybe Tyrion dies next ep, but Peter continues in the role with it actually being Arya having his face.
About Arya’s sex scene, one YouTube pundit did point out that it was one of the healthiest sex scenes on GoT. They’re doing it because they want to. There is no incest or manipulation or political gain or ghost babies or money being exchanged. Arya had full agency. And she also made Gendry acknowledge his consent, “I’m not the Red Woman. Take off your own pants.”
It’s just a WAG, but my sneaking suspicion is that “Jon kills Dany” will be one of the big shockers of this season. She’ll do something he think hurts the chances of the Living, like hop on her dragon and skeedaddle to the Sharp Chair to beat him to it before the Battle of Winterfell is over. Jon “sacrificing” Dany will also have some king’s blood magic that ensures the Azor Ahai/PTWP prophecies come true. Though it’s possible it will be some sort of accident, mirroring Dany’s accidental blood sacrifice of Drogo in Season 1 which hatched her dragons.
Is it possible that Tyrion is a Targaryan? That he was a Lannister/Targaryan bastard and it was covered up by Tywin to avoid further shame to his family? That would explain why Tywin hated him so much and refused to give him his familial right to Casterly Rock.
Tyrion was always fascinated by dragons. The dragons seemed totally cool with him when he went down into their dungeon. Like Jon Snow, Tyrion’s mother died in childbirth. The inbreeding of Targaryans might also explain his dwarfism.
That would certainly be a major surprise still to come. But you’d think that if that was the case, Bran would know about it.
I don’t know why everyone didn’t ask Bran “Hey, can you check to see if Cersei is REALLY sending her army?” and “Hey Bran, can you check to see if Euron REALLY went back to the Iron Islands?”
That’s been a popular fan theory, especially with respect to the fact there were three dragons and another dragon rider was needed. (Though Tyrion would certainly need some kind of saddle.) Now that there are just two (live) dragons it’s less likely.
I watched the knighting ceremony with dread, half expecting Jaime to chop off her head. Maybe if GRRM was still providing the source material; it seems like the kind of thing he would have written.
The second very talky episode in a row - and no Cersei in this one - made it a bit of a yawn-fest for me. But, in addition to several points that have already been covered here, there were a couple of things that led me to think about what will happen down the road.
Dany’s insistence that she be recognized as Queen and that everybody bend the knee has clearly been ramped way up of late. But this didn’t come out of nowhere. I think she was sincere about wanting to “break the wheel,” and I think she truly wants to be a benevolent ruler. Thing is, the more power she gets, the more she seems to crave. She can’t help it, and it clouds her judgment.
One of the things people keep saying over and over is “She’s not her father,” which seems to foreshadow that she may turn out to be more like her father than anyone suspects. Now that she is aware of Jon’s claim to the throne, she may indeed feel threatened by him and become unexpectedly villainous. She may, though, also begin seeing how little Jon cares about being a king, and some of that attitude may rub off on her, tempering her worst impulses. Either way, I’m certain it will be addressed. We’re seeing her flaws for a reason.
I’m also sure they wouldn’t bring up the North’s sovereignty without ultimately addressing it. I’m guessing that, one way or another, the North will be free, and that Sansa will become Queen in the North.
And, yeah, it’s ridiculous that anybody gives a shit about any of this, given the threat they all now face. But after all, the show is not called “Game of White Walkers.”
The lack of intelligence (all types) has been a constant problem on GoT. Why isn’t there a CAP of dragons over Winterfell? More important - why isn’t Bran feeding them constant position updates on the Army of the Dead? If Bran can see (or access) anything from the past, he can give real-time data to the Good Guys. After all, the past begins now. There is no excuse for being surprised by anything the Night King does.
Except that Jon is an idiot and will get everybody killed.
It seems that Bran can’t/doesn’t know specific things unless his attention is pointed to them i.e. by the original Three Eyed Raven showing him incidents in the past or Sam telling him about a diary entry. He sees the big picture and is probably getting better at narrowing down things but he’s not there yet. He would need something to happen that would make him look at that event. Maybe something involving Tyrion and the dragons. Is there anyone around who could have been there when Tyrion was born? (Besides Jaime and Cersie, of course.)
The previous deaths have all arisen out of the plot and the characters taken to their logical conclusion. Having Jamie kill Brienne at this point would be a pointless shocker with no reasonable basis in the story.
