Spoilers Game of Thrones: The Final Season

My speculation about the outcome of next episode:

I can't wait to see this episode but also dreading it since many characters could die. I don't expect either side to have a decisive victory. If the good guys win and the Night King is destroyed then it will make the rest of the series less suspenseful as there has been a lot of build up for the Night King and the army of dead. If the bad guys win then the next battle will be army of dead vs Cersei's army and the audience will not like either side. I think the latter is more possible given the history of the series. If they want to surprise us then most of the good guys have to survive.

So I expect no decisive victory. The army of the dead will still be strong and keep marching south with at least one zombie Dragon. Some of the good guys will survive and will have to join forces with Cersei with her being the lesser of 2 evils. At least one good Dragon will survive too.

 

Exacty and right now he has other matters to attend to with priority before such matters can be talked about it in earnest. Maybe he even wanted to settle it then and there in the crypts before the alarm went off and everybody rushed out.

How this plays out could be another game changer.. i don't see Dany giving up her destiny so easily and she already went pretty petulant by insinuating Jon was making it all up ("your brother and your best friend"). I don't see Dany coming to her senses soon and stepping down but if Jon senses she'll be a bad ruler or she actually hinders the effort to survive the onslaught for her egoistic reasons then he needs to make a hard choice again and i believe he would.

 

I have a different prediction. I suspect that Winterfell will be wiped off the face of Westeros. Most characters in/around the castle will die. A few will escape, but the atmosphere will be, holy shit we're fucked and running for our lives. What do we do now? Fade to black. I think they're going for a shock as big as the Red Wedding.

The solution to the later victory probably involves somehow drafting Cersei's forces, probably eliminating Cersei herself, the red witch's magic, sea superiority (the navy fleets and iron islands), air superiority (2 dragons to 1), Bran and his intelligence gathering capabilities, and Arya with her stealth and assassin abilities to ultimately take down the Knight King.

 

Where is Melisandre anyway?

 

Preparing to pull a Gandalf at Helm's Deep at the end of next week's battle.

 

I don't know, but I'm sure her and her magic will make an appearance and play some sort of role in how this plays out!

 

Melisandre has to return at some point because she is "fated" to die in Westeros (as is Varys, apparently), and with only two major plot points left to resolve that involve battles, she either has to show up during the Battle of Winterfell or during the fight to take the Iron Throne from Cersei.

 

I didn't really see that as petulant. Look at it from her perspective. Sansa (Jon's "sister") had just told her that the North won't be bowing down to her, and now Jon is claiming he has a stronger claim to the throne based on the words of his weirdo brother and his best friend (who just yesterday found out she had burned his father and brother alive). And Jon is claiming this right before the battle to end all battles. Of course she's skeptical. It sounds like the Starks are plotting to depose her (just like their father helped Robert usurp her father).

 

It's not really clear why Jon chose to tell Dany about his Targaryen blood (other than the writers wanting to create an unnecessarily melodramatic rift between the two characters), but it's not because he has any designs on the Iron Throne (we know this because the people involved with the series have explicitly said that he doesn't want the Iron Throne).

 

He's Jon Snow.
Saying/doing the right thing at the wrong time is his whole thing.

 

Very true. He's an okay fighter with a sword at best. He's not a very good strategist, got himself killed by his own brothers (and never saw it coming even though most of them openly hated his guts), pissed off and insulted the entire North who showed extreme trust in him by being made King in the North, only to later bend the knee to Dany and he has zero clue how to interact competently with women. Ygrette really had profound patience with him.

He really is kind of an idiot. And yet, he's 50% of the entire epic, with the other 50% being Dany (Ice and Fire).

 

Not really.

 

Yes, really, for all the reasons 137 Gebrig laid out. He has always been an idiot, so why would now be any different? Ygritte didn't say "You know nothing, Jon Snow" just for shits and giggles.

 

Precisely... and those are just the ones I could pull out of my addled long-term memory with relative ease. I'm 110% sure there are more examples of Jon acting like a lovably clueless dork.

 

You forgot his real crime, he's too short to be a proper hero. This is about as sophisticated as the show's politics and strategy get.

The notion that Jon Snow is a bad strategist is nonsense. His plan to block the tunnel would have saved Castle Black.His plan to try to assassinate Mance was the only chance left, slim as it was. His plan for the Battle of the Bastards was sound as it could be, given that Sansa lied to him about the forces available (possibly to make Jon and the others look like---and be, for a while---sacrificial bait to lure Bolton forces onto the field where the Valemen could slaughter them.) Yes, he lost it and tried to save Rickon, but it was Davos and the others who defied his orders. It was Olly's betrayal Snow didn't see coming. Thorne needed Olly to bait the trap because it was the easiest and safest way to murder Snow. The notion that a boy would take up murder went unremarked as far as I know, but I don't think anybody really saw that one coming. It wasn't entirely implausible, at least. (This objection really seems more like a vague feeling Snow should have been murdered.) Doing anything to get Daenerys' help was absolutely sound strategy, including the expedition beyond the wall. Accepting Daenerys was good strategy, and insulting the North doesn't matter unless the real goal is to be King, period, and fighting the dead matters less.

It is not clear how having "zero clue how to interact competently with women" would be so damning, even if it were supported by what's on screen. The main women in his life were Caitlin Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, that septa who favored Sansa so much and prostitutes he saw with Robb and Theon. He got along fine with the only one willing to accept him. As for Ygritte's "You know nothing, Jon Snow," nobody knows what that could possibly mean. They just like a woman demeaning a short guy. Given that Ygritte screws over her own people by hiding Jon Snow's loyalty to the Night's Watch, supposedly in the name of love, then tries to murder Jon Snow, I would say it Ygritte who knows nothing. I did believe she would ignorant enough to be pleasantly surprised by cunnilingus. No, I don't care about moronic dialogue that says shooting a man three times but not killing him outright, and knowing that he won't fall off his horse, then get caught, on top of that! That's too stupid to take seriously.

 

Cunnilingus with a woman who probably hadn't bathed properly in months.
You're a brave man, John Snow.

 

So all the people in the crypt are getting eaten by long-dead Starks, right? In a battle against the undead they put the people who can't fight into a... cemetery?

 

Maybe there is a reason why there should always be a Stark in Winterfell, could it be to stop the Stark dead from rising as wights?

 

Speaking of which...what are the chances we'll get a Sean Bean cameo if things go the way we're expecting?

 

With, or without a head?