Point, Daenerys.
In the Cersei v. Daenerys fight that has been season 7 thus far, the Stormborn Targaryen finally notched a victory, riding in on Drogon to lay waste to the Lannister army and possibly send Jamie to a watery grave.
It.
Was.
Awesome!
All those other times Dany and the Dragons (which would be a great name for a band, btw) blew shit up real nice was mere prelude to this magnum opus of Apocalypse Now meets Saving Private Ryan meets The Hobbit. Soldiers were turned to literal dust in front of Jamie’s eyes. Tyrion looked on from afar with horror in his eyes, both at what’s become of his family’s army and in fear of what Dany’s possibly turning into. The Dothraki descended upon the Lannisters as if they’ve galloped right in from Stagecoach. And in the end one of our main characters (Jamie) tried to kill another one of our main characters (Dany), signaling yet again that season 7 isn’t messing around. The glacial past at which this show used to move is a thing of the past.’
Well, maybe not completely. Even with its action-packed finale, “Spoils of War” still had plenty of scenes where people simply stood around and talked. Arya enjoyed rather awkward reunions with Sansa and Bran, the former feeling newly threatened by her and the latter prattling on in frustrating vagueness about everything he’s seen as the Three Eyed Raven (would someone press him for some damn specific answers!). Cersei placated Mark Gattis’ slimey bank manager as best she could. Dany and Jon struggled to get past the whole “bend the knee, you stubborn man.” There was even a lovely sequence with Jamie and Dickon lamenting the needless killing they’d just performed in Cersei’s name, contrasting Jamie’s classical heroism with his delusion over what Cersei has become.
But it’s the fire-breathing dragon stuff that sticks in the mind the most. It has to. From the moment Dany emerged from that fire with her baby dragons, we have been waiting for this very scene, for when the people of Westeros would look upon full grown dragons for the first time in multiple generations. As the showrunners put it in their after-episode featurette, this is the moment Westeros warfare changes for good, and while Bronn’s heroics with the Hobbit-esque crossbow proved the dragons can be killed he failed to deliver a killing blow.
The Lannister’s weapon is not so secret anymore, and before all is said and done it will probably kill one or more of those dragons. But we no longer have to merely imagine just how much damage those dragons will cause before going down because we just saw it. The destruction is absolute and seemingly backs up Dany’s theory that if she simply flew those dragons into the Red Keep this fight would be over, even with Cersei’s Frankenstein’s monster of a bodyguard.
Of course, that’s exactly what Dany always prefers to do when her back is really pushed up against the wall. Last season when the Sons of the Harpy had her dead to rights her plan was to simply fly her dragons into all of their cities and burn them to the ground before finally burning their leaders to a crisp. It took Tyrion to make her see that a mere show of her strength could be more effective than absolute destruction, a tactic she adopted successfully and got an entire fleet of ships out of it. The pattern repeated itself in “Spoils of War,” except this time it was Jon Snow’s counsel, not Tyrion’s, she turned to and trusted the most. Thankfully for her (and not so thankfully for the Lannisters), Jon agreed with Tyrion’s overall strategy of laying waste to armies, not innocent cities, and choking off King’s Landing instead of destroying it.
Indeed, the conversations throughout the episode which came laced with the most intrigue were those between Dany and Jon, especially as the “Oh, they’re about to kiss” vibes kicked in pretty hard when they were underground in that cave together. However, while the inevitable shipping has started it shouldn’t distract us from the key sequence when Jon realized he had switched places with Mance Rayder. As The Huffington Post summarized:
Dany says she’ll support him in his fight if he bends the knee, imploring him to do it for his people. She asks, “Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?” In that moment, Jon finally realizes something. Redditor xIdkTbhx notes that the Dany line is the exact same thing Jon said to Mance Rayder when trying to convince him to bend the knee for Stannis Baratheon in Season 5. In response to the line from Season 5, Mance said, “Fuck my pride. This isn’t about that.” The decision not to kneel led to Mance’s death, and now Jon understands why.
Bend the damn knee, Jon Snow. For a man forever shitting his pants over what will become of Westeros once the Nigh King arrives, this shouldn’t even be an issue. However, this episode did a better job than last week’s of explaining that Jon’s refusal isn’t due to pride but instead to the sense of responsibility he feels to his people. He’s probably right to fear what the North would think if he came back having pledged fielty to a southern woman who might not seem any better than the current mad woman occupying the throne. His Westeros equivalent of an approval rating would certainly plummet. Better that than being dead, of course.
Perhaps what they’re truly building up to is a moment where Dany earns his pledge of loyalty, or continues to behave more and more like a Targaryen to the point thus reinforcing his refusal to bend a knee. However, fans have long dreamed of Dany and Jon riding those dragons together into battle with the Nigh King, and I like to think that could still happen. There’s just some more bridge building to do before that, and the little matter of Cersei Lannister to deal with first. Plus, the dragons need to survive long enough for that vision to become reality. After “Spoils of War,” I’m not so sure that’s going to happen, but, personally, I’m rooting for the dragons.
THE NOTES
- Jamie can’t be dead because this can’t be the way he goes out, not with the vital information he has yet to deliver to Cersei (and Tyrion, for that matter). His hand and armor are surely dragging him down, and his love for Cersei might yet do him in. But, no, I refuse to believe we just witnessed his death because it doesn’t make complete dramatic sense to kill him like this. Sure, the Kingslayer who stabbed a Targaryen in the back drowns after trying to do the same to that same Targaryen’s daughter has a bit of poetry to it, but not enough.
- Not gonna lie – I don’t 100% remember everything Theon did to earn Jon’s scorn mostly because the pre-Reek days for Theon are increasingly hazy for me. He betrayed the Starks, took Winterfell for his own and executed those two boys he claimed were Bran and Rickon, right? What am I forgetting?
- Dany and Missandei engaging in some GoT girl talk is a treat I never knew I always wanted to hear.
- Similarly, Davos, Jon and Missandei discussing Westeros syntax is a conversation I never knew I always wanted to hear.
- So, Jon and Davos totally carved those pictures of the White Walkers themselves, right?
- I keep waiting for one of the dragons to sniff around Jon as if it smells the Targaryen blood in him, for that “They’d only do that if you were a Targaryen. Hold on. Who’d you say was your mother again?” moment to finally kick in, if, indeed, it ever does.
- The director devoted 6 months to planning the finale’s orgy of violence. Time well spent.
THINGS TO REMEMBER GOING FORWARD
Arya now has a Valyrian steel dagger, meaning Jon’s not the only Stark with a blade capable of killing a White Walker.
FAVORITE LINE
Davos – “Is it too late to change sides?” Don’t worry. Jon’s clearly just as smitten with Dany as you. He’s just too much of a Stark to admit it.
What did you think of “Spoils of War”? Are you a bit less certain about Jamie’s chances of survival? Are you repulsed by all the Dany-Jon shipping what with her being his aunt and everything? And penny for a thought for whatever’s going through Tyrion’s head right now? Let me know in the comments.
I’m glad you saw that Jon wasn’t refusing to bend the knee out of pride. What good is his bent knee if the people won’t follow him. We already saw a scene where his rule was precarious. Twice. He nearly had a mutiny until the young Mormont girl stood up for him. Then again when he said he was going to visit Dany. These people will only follow him as long as they agree with his decisions. He has no real power, yet.
Agreed. If he loses his support in the North then what good are all those dragonstone weapons going to be without soldiers to wield them.
Well, to that… the Unsullied and/or Dothraki could use them. But, we can’t let it come to that.
But if he had just them and no one in the North then it would be the same problem of not having enough soldiers. Plus, me thinks winter and Dothraki won’t mix well together.
–> “But if he had just them and no one in the North then it would be the same problem of not having enough soldiers. Plus, me thinks winter and Dothraki won’t mix well together.”
True, but I was answering your question about what good the dragon glass will do. And yeah, Dothraki probably won’t handle blistering cold that well, but I’m pretty sure Jon wanted an alliance with Dany even before he knew about the Dragon Glass. So we need all the armies and all the dragon glass we can get.
My only frustration with this ep was Dany’s terrible use of her dragons.
* Probably more than 100 of her men died bashing through the front line, whereas had her dragons hit the line first, there would have been plenty of openings.
* The dragons should have come from the side or behind, rather than straight on. And it would be nice if they dragons didn’t telegraph they were coming with their roars all the time. How about a stealth attack?
* There was zero coordination from the three dragons.
Oops. The other two dragons were left behind. Scratch that last line.
I also found it kind of odd that she could have just decimated the Lannister front lines with her dragons and spared so many Dothraki but seemed to more prioritize cutting off their supply line. That said, Dany doesn’t really do stealth attacks with these dragons because until now I don’t think she has had any notion of them being vulnerable. Why mess around with strategy when you have invincible dragons who can intimidate the hell out any army? Not so invincible, though. Might have to rethink her dragon fighting techniques a little.
I suppose it COULD be naivete on Dany’s part, but remember she saw Drogon get hurt BADLY in the slave arena. And that was with a measly spear jabbed by a mere human. Of course Drogon was much younger, but still. that should have give her pause.
But even if she doesn’t do stealth, it was really stupid to let the Dothraki die by the dozens by having them strike before the dragon did.
And again, flying in perpendicular drastically reduced the damage of her first strike. Much more potent had she strafed the entire line — and THEN had the Dothraki pour through.
That is 100% what I thought she was going to do. I thought we were being set up for a surprise where we could hear the Dothraki like some Native American tribe charging toward war but instead of seeing them first Dany and Drogon would swoop in out of nowhere and strafe the entire front line.
Did anyone else feel like Dany’s size and position in relation to Drogon during the battle was all over the place? Sometimes she’s tiny, sometimes big, sometimes up front at the wings’ edge, sometimes behind the wings…
(If it’s possible to post actual images, I don’t know the technique, so here are urls of different perspectives)
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/01.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/02.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/03.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/04.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/05.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/06.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/07.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/08.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/09.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/10.jpg
http://zmagic.com/images/dragon/11.jpg
Or is it just me?
Or is it just me?
It’s not just you. What I will say in their defense, though, is that immediately after this episode I re-watched Dany ‘ s dragon assault on the slavers last season. All the problems you noted here were even more pronounced last year. Plus, the dragons simply looked less believable. They have definitely improved since then, but, yeah, it is not perfect yet.
Yes, I agree that Drogon looked quite real in this ep. But, it was really disorienting to see Dany’s size and position jump all over the place. In fact, when I first watched it, I thought some of those shots were of the other two dragons because I couldn’t even SEE Dany riding it.
It was a tad funny. In some shots there’s teensy tiny Dany like a blip on Drogon’s back, in others she is there clear as day.
I don’t think Jon scratched those drawings in the cave.
I was just teasing. Lots of people were making that same joke on Twitter last night. It’s funny to picture Jon doing that to convince Dany, but that’s all it is – just a slightly snarky thing to joke about. Obviously, Jon would never deceive her like that.
Hah! Well you weren’t the first post I’ve read suggesting that as a very real possibility.
Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize there are people arguing that point seriously. To think Jon would do that is to fundamentally misunderstand who he is as a character.
I’m really hoping Arya wasn’t just showing off when challenging Brienne. I hope she was sincere in wanting to train with her. Even though she held her own, there’s a lot she doesn’t know and Brienne has more to teach than just the sword.
Plus, the showrunners commented in the after – episode featurette that it’s also possible that Brienne was holding back. Even though she appeared to lose that fight, there is still much she could teach Arya.
That’s a plausible explanation, and was probably true in the beginning. But Brienne looked like she was trying pretty hard (for a sparring match) after a bit — especially after she slammed her boot into Arya’s stomach.
Of course, we can’t know if Arya wasn’t holding back, too! 🙂
I was a bit surprised to hear the showrunners say that because for all the reasons you mentioned it really did seem like by the end they were both trying their hardest. But they wanted us to know that it is possible that regardless of appearances Brienne can still teach Arya a lot.
I do find it hard to believe Arya could actually block full swings of Brienne’s broadsword with her little stinger. I can accept dodging and sweeping but full on blocking? I don’t see how.
Anyway, as to what Brienne can teach her, Arya has mostly learned fair dueling and assassin moves. Brienne can teach her how to defend against punk attacks as well as battle strategies and fighting multiple people.
And if nothing else, Arya can improve her skill simply by having someone she’s not better than.
Agreed about the stretched believability of little Maisie Williams and her tiny sword fully repelling the swings of big Gwendoline Christie’s broad sword.
I don’t think Brienne ever LOST the fight. In each case, they both had just pulled back from kill shots. Assuming they were both going full tilt, the duel would have ended in a draw — and both of their deaths.
What do you think Littlefinger was thinking when a) he saw what a good fighter Arya had become; and b) that his blade had been re-gifted?
I’m wondering more about what Littlefinger must have been thinking when Arya turned and gave him that death stare. He clearly has something cooking, and Winter fell needs him. The Battle of the Bastards would have been lost without his last minute assist. However, Jon and now Arya seem like they want him dead and Bran seems to know some of his secrets. Whatever overthrow or clever whatever he has designed for Stansa probably just had its timeline pushed up.
Is Littlefinger on Arya’s list? I don’t recall.
No, he’s not. The only living people left on her list are Cersei, The Hound, Ned Stark ‘ s executioner, Melisandre, the eye patch guy Beric and his brother who keeps bringing him back from the dead. Plus, The Mountain, but does a zombie count?
Wow! That’s quite a memory! I don’t recall what Melisandre, the eye patch guy Beric and his brother did to get put on her list.
Melisandre took her friend from the Brotherhood Without Banners and Beric let it happen. The other Brother she wants to kill mostly because killing Beric makes no sense if you don’t also kill the one guy who keeps bringing him back.
Ahh, right!
In fact, I don’t recall her ever interacting with Melisandre.
I feel like Melisandre took her friend Gondry and had some ritualistic sex with him and killed him or something. It was way back when Melisandre was still getting naked every other scene. I don’t recall if Arya ever even talked to her or actually found out what became of her friend.
–> “It was way back when Melisandre was still getting naked every other scene.”
Speaking of that, do you recall one of those scenes when one of her nipples was way off? Makes me think they were prosthetic nipples and one of them slipped part way down her boob. Other scenes didn’t have that issue, so it’s not likely it’s a natural defect.
I actually don’t recall that.
I’m hoping Arya does a little face changing so she can spy around the keep and try to learn of any threats or concerns that need addressing.
I thought that too, but doesn’t she have to kill people to take their face? Would she really want to kill any innocent Winterfell servants just for their face? Oh, maybe she will take out one of the D-bag guards.
I don’t think that’s been established as a rule. When she first met “No One”, he was wearing a face and had been for quite some time. And it wasn’t clear that he was required to kill someone. In fact he only killed because of his bargain with Arya.
But as for rules, how is it she’s allowed to wear faces at all? The one rule that WAS established is you don’t take on a face for your own reasons. Always and only for an assignment, right? Last time she broke the rule she lost her sight.
Honestly, I am still confused about most of her time with the faceless assassins. I get the broad strokes, sure, but the specifics – such as the points you just described – are often up in the air. In retrospect, though, can’t they also take the faces from the newly dead, from those who agree to it before they go, almost like if they carry a Westerns face donors card.
I don’t recall anything about taking faces from anyone but those who come to the temple to die. But clearly Arya took the face of Walder Frey, so she must have learned the trick to it. There’s a LOT about her time with the Many Faced God that’s not explained or is inconsistent.
For example, I’m really curious to know if they actually carry the skins of the faces around with them or if it’s more of a magical talent — that involves the action of pulling off a face as if it was a mask even though there is no physical mask.
They also never address how wearing a face makes you taller, fatter or thinner, and changes your voice and cadence to perfectly match the face.
That’s right. It was only the people who went to the temple.
It seems strange given all that we happily go along with in this GoT fantasy world, but Arya ‘ s face changing is one element that has never worked for me. As you said, it has been inconsistent and poorly explained from the beginning.
I haven’t read the books, so I don’t know if it’s better explained there.
Same here.
What do we know (from the show) about Bran’s full powers now? We saw him Wharg into Hodor and it’s not supposed to be possible to Wharg into a human. That could be because Bran is more powerful OR it could be because Hodor’s mind was soft and impressionable — and as we discovered later, had already been heavily influenced by Bran in Hodor’s past.
But, how well do we think Bran can defend himself? For example if Littlefinger decides to send an assassin after him?
That would be a wonderful way of bringing things full circle, with another assassin trying but failing to kill Bran because he essentially uses magic to possess him. But that’s just about the only way I could see Bran defending himself. His transition into being the Three Eyed Raven has created a lot of questions about just what he can do now. At the moment, I’d say wharging into someone was only doable because of Hodor’s simple mind as well as the trick with time travel where he wharged into him as a child. But as the full-on Three Eyed Raven it might be possible for Bran to do that to anyone now, albeit always at risk of damaging their brain in the process. I guess I just don’t know for sure.
–> “That would be a wonderful way of bringing things full circle”
Yeah, that would be awesome!
Tangent: I always thought Return of the Jedi missed a great opportunity to go full circle — to show that Luke truly had become a Jedi. Here’s what I would have liked to see:
Luke goes back to see Yoda, watches him die, and buries him. Luke then heads back to his fighter ship and once again it has sunk into the bog. But this time he calmly focuses and floats it back out just like Yoda did on Luke’s first visit.
I hear ya, but I think Jedi already tries to do the “full circle” thing with Luke cutting Darth’s hand off and quickly realizing he’s traded places with him from their Empire fight and is thus falling right into the Emperor’s “give in to the Dark Side” trap.
BTW, how big is Winterfell. The scenes don’t show much. But we’re to believe it’s housing Jons AND Littlefinger’s armies, right?
Yes. Based upon the map we see in the credits, Winterfell is definitely smaller than King’s Landing but bigger than Dragon Stone and the Iron Islands, if that helps.
Okay. So, it’s just budget that’s causing the Winterfell scenes to look like nothing more than a reasonably sized courtyard surrounded by rooms.
That is the perfect description of the Winterfell on the show. To be fair, Winterfell is actually just the capital city of the north, and is a multi – acre castle complex. There is plenty of surrounding terrain as well as a nearby small village. I think the soldiers aren’t necessarily always directly in Winterfell itself but always in the general area. Or, like you guessed, it might just be a budget things and the stationed soldiers are always on that other side of the castle we never see.
I’m curious about your take on Bran’s lack of emotion. The actor is getting slammed on some other boards about how wooden he is — and even before he became the Three Eyed Raven, he wasn’t all that dynamic, but in this case, it seems appropriate if not very fun to watch.
The responsibility of his new powers, the onslaught of horrors he’s now seen — I mean when you watch your sister get raped night after night, you almost HAVE to shutter your emotions or the pain of it would crush you.
Add to that whatever being touched by the Night King did and it’s not hard to accept that he’d be so aloof.
But it does seem it should be possible to portray that without coming across as a wooden actor.
Thoughts?
The actor is doing the best with an impossible assignment because it really feels like we’ve missed a step. In this great evolution of becoming the Three Eyed Raven we missed the part where that meant becoming completely emotionless. That’s not quite how Max Van Sydow played it. Moreover, unless I missed it we missed the part where Bran stopped being Bran, the part where the rush of his newfound abilities and responsibilities after Sydow’s death (as well as his interaction with the Nigh King) completely overwhelmed him and consumed who he used to be and spit out this borderline robot we have now. If I am forgetting some important scenes that laid the groundwork for this, though, then I would probably be among those criticizing the actor’s performance for being a bit too wooden, no matter how traumatized he’s supposed to be from the ocean of Westeros memories floating around in his head.
No, I don’t think you’re forgetting any scenes that show the transition. That’s sad — especially since they chose to spend about 5 to 10 minute showing the disgusting, menial, repetetive work Sam was forced to do. We could have had that point driven in 60 seconds and maybe given some time to Bran’s transition.
But, I feel as though I’ve seen other shows/movies where someone was aloof and emotionless but managed to be interesting, anyway — mysterious, powerful. Not anything we saw from Bran. And that’s got to be the director’s fault as much or more than the actor’s.
The Sam stuff could have definitely been cut back to give us a vital transitional scene with Bran. I don’t really think the performance is quite as bad as some others do, but it definitely lacks the power or mystery it could have with better acting and directing. Sophie Turner’s reaction shots to weird Bran moments have been more compelling than anything else in there yet.
Oh, you really shouldn’t get me started on Sophie Turner. Bran seems absolutely animated compared to her!
I used to think the way she spoke was either bad acting or bad directing — and I still think that, but I heard her on a panel and she talks just like Sansa — that is plain and uninteresting and fake sounding.
I think Turner is good in the right situation. Some of Sansa’s nasty little asides belittling Littlefinger, her attempts to cut straight through his bullshit, have been delivered perfectly by Turner. And she put in some great work last season while Sansa reunited with Jon and kept refusing to take a back seat to him. But, yeah, in other scenes she can be rather plain.
These GoT actors have found the perfect home and don’t always play well outside of that world. Maisie Williams made an amazing transition to Doctor Who, but Sophie Turner and Emylia Clarke were beyond dreadful in X-Men: Apocalypse and Terminator: Genysis respectively.
Just watched a behind the scenes clip and one statement was that Drogo is supposed to be the size of a 747!
With that as our measure, I think the BADLY missed scale in 95% of the shots.
A 747? Yeah, I didn’t get that at all. More like a helicopter than 747. The director told THR one of his reference points was actually the helicopter from a battle scene in Apocalypse Now.
Here. I’ll bet you’ll enjoy this as much as I did…
–> “The director told THR one of his reference points was actually the helicopter from a battle scene in Apocalypse Now.”
HAH! Well, that could explain the inconsistent scaling. Bad communication among the various teams pulling this off.
I’m surprised more of your readers aren’t engaging here.
Was a truly magnificent episode. To watch the budding relationship of john snow and Deneries build was one thing along with the beuatiful locations. Was that northern island? The battle scene itself was reminiscent of end of season 6. Most of it appeared as one sequence from jerome flynn’s character falling off his horse to when he finds the huge harpoon gun. My only critism was that nobody appeared to die. No jamie isnt dead. They could have just burnt him to a crisp otherwise rather than someone pushing him to the sea. And surely Jerome Flynns character shoukd have died for firing that arrow into a dragon. Other than that it was riverting stuff. Top drama.
Was a truly magnificent episode. To watch the budding relationship of john snow and Deneries build was one thing along with the beuatiful locations. Was that northern island? The battle scene itself was reminiscent of end of season 6. Most of it appeared as one sequence from jerome flynn’s character falling off his horse to when he finds the huge harpoon gun. My only critism was that nobody appeared to die. No jamie isnt dead. They could have just burnt him to a crisp otherwise rather than someone pushing him to the sea. And surely Jerome Flynns character shoukd have died for firing that arrow into a dragon. Other than that it was riverting stuff. Top drama. Not to mention the training fight scenes with the stark girl.
It was Dragonstone, obviously, where the Jon-Dany scenes took place in the GoT geography, but I’m not sure where those scenes are actually being filmed. Somewhere gorgeous in Eastern Europe, no doubt.
Nobody of note dying – Maybe it’s because we’ve lost so many big names this season they felt it prudent to hold off definitively killing off any other big names this week. But I was positive Bronn was going to bite it in that scene, especially when his pile of gold fell beside him. Thought they were going for Judas and his pieces of silver betraying Jesus imagery. I am actually a bit disappointed that Bronn didn’t die. He serves no purpose to this story anymore. He’s the expendable one in that scenario. Well, not true. That Dickon fella is the true expendable one, and I guess Bronn might be the one to make it back to King’s Landing to tell Cersei about what he saw. So, he has some purpose, other than being a lovable rogue. Maybe I’m just still mad at him for turning on Tyrion, even though it was perfectly in keeping with who he is.
That’s totally what I expected Bronn to do when he saw his spilled gold. You could tell he was seriously considering it.
Not sure why you think Bronn would be the one to tell Cersei. There’s no way Jaime is dead. If they wanted him dead, they could have let the dragon do it. No reason to show a potential rescue then an apparent drowning if they’re really killing him off. Either Jaime will wake and remove his armor or Bronn will get to him and do it. It’s possible Bronn dies in his rescue attempt, though.
My favorite scene, however, would be to have Drogon reach down and pick Jaime up with his mouth. Not sure if I’d prefer Drogo crush him or hold him captive. Probably the latter.
You dont really want jaime to go yet do you? He is a villain but not a unlikeable one. The james bond of the piece. Besides who do you think will defeat the mountain or the hound?
Personally, I’ve always assumed The Mountain and The Hound will end up killing each other off.
No, Jamie can’t go yet because there’s simply too many loose ends for him and Tyrion and him and Cersei. We sense that Cersei might end up being the death of him, or, more specifically, his devolution to her will lead him to ruin, but not like this. In fact, if he makes it out of this it could be the exact moment he takes a step back and turns on Cersei or at least gets much closer to doing so. Oh, maybe, what if Dany or Tyrion or someone lets him go, and he goes back to Cersei expecting a joyful reunion only to find her bitter and more withdrawn, not at all reciprocating his feelings or expressing empathy for what he’s been through. Then he…
Well, all this speculation on my part will be for naught if he just drowns next week, though, won’t it?
I think I read that the prophecy of Cercei’s doom included something that sounded like Jaime would end up strangling her to death.
I’d read that, too. There is indeed a prophecy which indicates the brother will kill the sister. Many assumed that always meant Tyrion would kill her, but with what season 7 has been throwing down many are now switching track and predicting Jamie will be the one to murder Cersei, likely for the same reasons he killed Dany’s Mad King father all those years ago – she’ll plan something so evil he’ll feel compelled out of honor to stop her.
The last time we saw Bronn he was looking at a horse, and I thought that introduced the question of whether or not he simply escaped at that moment or took the horse and jumped from it to save Jamie. It’s more likely the latter, but if it’s the former then he’d be the one to tell Cersei what happened. I suppose it playing out like that has a bit of a low likelihood, though. I just wasn’t 100% convinced that the figure we saw save Jamie was really Bronn, although the only other candidate would be that Dickon fella since he already saved Jamie once during that fight. The scene was so hectic, though, that Dickon could have burnt to death without me totally noticing.
What if Tyrion somehow secretly saves Jamie? After what he just saw he might not be so sure that Dany will spare his brother’s life if he asks her to.
There is no way Tarion got his tiny legs over from the hilltop to where his brother was across the sea in time. Ok i will buy the whole dragon and white walkers but I wont believe Tarion has super speed.
I guess I was thinking more like Tyrion could order one of the Dothraki to do it, but they would never do that and then lie to Dany about it. Plus, she’s literally standing right there. There’s no saving Jamie from that river without her seeing it. At least I wouldn’t think so, unless it flows further away from her than I realized. Even so, I have this picture of Tyrion somehow interceding on Jamie’s behalf, but I guess I have no idea how that’ll be. It’ll have to come when Dany debates what to do with him, assuming he doesn’t drown and assuming he doesn’t immediately escape on his own or with the help of his rescuer, whoever that might be (probably Bronn).
Agree Bronn should have went. If you need another reason and a laugh look up robson and jerome unchained melody on you tube. Weeks at number 1 that was and no dragon to end Bronn then either. Hope Littlefinger goes too. Dont trust him at all.