Season 8 Predictions?

[AEJON TARGARYEN]

9 minutes ago, Newstar said:

Except that Bran answers that he can't be LOW, he can never be lord of anything. Like Arya's "That's not me," if anything, it's anti-foreshadowing. 

Because he's the three-eyed raven but he won't be an old man in a tree forever. 

"That's not me." It's definitive and not circumstantial. 

"She'll be the end of you." Again, definitive, not circumstantial. 

[Newstar]

17 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

Yeah, it is sad that Bran had to lose his mobility and a part of himself to acquire his powers.

I agree, but as @jcmontea pointed out, it's in keeping with the ongoing theme in the books that great power isn't acquired without great sacrifice.

 

7 minutes ago, TRILOGY said:

Because he's the three-eyed raven but he won't be an old man in a tree forever. 

"That's not me." It's definitive and not circumstantial. 

"She'll be the end of you." Again, definitive, not circumstantial. 

He's not "an old man in a tree" at present, though, at least in the show. Bloodraven was physically fused to the roots of the tree, while Bran is not. He seems to have the 3ER's powers without needing to be physically fused to the weirwood, too.

Bran sounded pretty definitive to me: "I can never be lord of anything" is a strong statement. If he had said "I can never be lord of anything as long as I'm the 3ER," then that would be different.

I agree that Bran ending up as LOW seems more in keeping with the books than Sansa ending up as LOW, but the show seems to be pointing away from that ending, and D&D are not subtle when it comes to this stuff.

[larastone]

45 minutes ago, Newstar said:

I agree, but as @jcmontea pointed out, it's in keeping with the ongoing theme in the books that great power isn't acquired without great sacrifice.

 

He's not "an old man in a tree" at present, though, at least in the show. Bloodraven was physically fused to the roots of the tree, while Bran is not. He seems to have the 3ER's powers without needing to be physically fused to the weirwood, too.

Bran sounded pretty definitive to me: "I can never be lord of anything" is a strong statement. If he had said "I can never be lord of anything as long as I'm the 3ER," then that would be different.

I agree that Bran ending up as LOW seems more in keeping with the books than Sansa ending up as LOW, but the show seems to be pointing away from that ending, and D&D are not subtle when it comes to this stuff.

With the number of times they emphasized Sansa being lady in winterfell last season has me convinced that Sansa as LOW is a d&d only plot point. They love to pat themselves in the back for their own shit like this lol

[jcmontea]

1 hour ago, Newstar said:

I thought Arya's encounter with Nymeria and the writers' comments about the scene pointed in the opposite direction: Arya will reject domestication and life in a castle, just as Nymeria did.

 

Me, neither, which is why I previously dismissed the possibility. However, in the show, if Jon is endgame king, if Arya rejects a settled life at Winterfell in favour of adventurous wandering (as Nymeria did), and if Bran maintains his "I can never be lord of Winterfell" stance, which is where things to be heading at the moment, whom does that leave except the person who's already running Winterfell and doing a decent job of it (or at least so the writers want us to think)?

I'm not ruling out a shocking demise for Sansa--anything's possible--but right now, the show seems to have positioned her as the most likely candidate for endgame Lady of Winterfell.

As for the outline, the original outline also seemed to be hinting pretty strongly at endgame Jon/Arya (a mutual passion that would torment them until Jon's parentage is revealed in the then-final volume), which is looking increasingly unlikely in the show, so it's hard to know what GRRM has changed and what he has kept. (Ditto for the "five surviving characters.") He has insisted that he has kept the ending the same for the major characters since the beginning (and in particular Jon, Arya and Tyrion), but if he at one point wanted Jon and Arya to end up together and subsequently changed his mind about it, then GRRM's insistence that he has always had the same ending in mind for the leads is obviously unreliable.

It's possible that GRRM planned to kill off Sansa in 1993 but subsequently decided to spare her and decided to make her endgame Lady of Winterfell. It's also possible that he always planned to kill Sansa off and all he has done in ASOIAF is delay her death until the last part of the series as opposed to killing her off fairly early on as the outline suggests. I think we'll only know for certain once Season 8 airs, since her endgame in the show will be roughly the same as in the books.

 

Except that Bran answers that he can't be LOW, he can never be lord of anything. Like Arya's "That's not me," if anything, it's anti-foreshadowing. 

...To be fair, though, "never" is a tricky word in ASOIAF.

I agree. At this point my base case is Sansa survives and is LOW at the end.

regarding the original outline, would be interesting and still fit if Dany/ Jon was always the end game relationship but Jon had to give up his love for Arya in order to enter into a strictly political marriage with Dany. That would allow GRRM to legit claim the ending was always the same. Total tinfoil but that would be one possibility that squares that circle. 

[Newstar]

35 minutes ago, larastone said:

With the number of times they emphasized Sansa being lady in winterfell last season has me convinced that Sansa as LOW is a d&d only plot point. They love to pat themselves in the back for their own shit like this lol

So you don't think Sansa will be interim LOW, or you don't think she'll end up as LOW? What do you think her endgame fate will be if not LOW? Dead? Lady of the Vale? Something else? (Don't mean to come off as snarky, I'm genuinely curious and honestly don't know where she'll wind up if not LOW or dead.)

 

18 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

regarding the original outline, would be interesting and still fit if Dany/ Jon was always the end game relationship but Jon had to give up his love for Arya in order to enter into a strictly political marriage with Dany. That would allow GRRM to legit claim the ending was always the same. Total tinfoil but that would be one possibility that squares that circle. 

I suppose, but Jon being in love with Arya and forced to give her up for a loveless political marriage vs. Jon being in love with Dany instead of Arya and marrying her strike me as qualitatively different to the point where they can't be said to be the same ending, for all three characters (Jon, Dany and Arya).

[Apoplexy]

20 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

I agree. At this point my base case is Sansa survives and is LOW at the end.

Based on the events in the show, I am inclined to believe that Sansa stays the LOW. But Daenerys being the younger, more beautiful queen seems a bit too obvious to me. Also, if GRRM has a similar endgame planned for Arya, what does that mean? Will she be an advisor to whoever is king/queen? Will she be KG/QG?

[kimim]

9 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

I agree. At this point my base case is Sansa survives and is LOW at the end.

regarding the original outline, would be interesting and still fit if Dany/ Jon was always the end game relationship but Jon had to give up his love for Arya in order to enter into a strictly political marriage with Dany. That would allow GRRM to legit claim the ending was always the same. Total tinfoil but that would be one possibility that squares that circle. 

I think that the ending show/novels will be the same. As for Arya&Jon, that was in the original outline. Given Arya's age, given everything that's happened, a dire passion between Jon and Arya is, I think, extraordinarily unlikely. Dany&Jon, on the other hand, was a possibility from the very beginning in the present version of the novels. What I can't believe is that GRRM would allow it to end with the two of them on the throne.

And yeah, Sansa might end the novels as LoW. She might also end the novels dead. Her story at the Vale is really convoluted, and will involve all manner of characters we haven't met yet. I'm not convinced that she'll move North at all.

As for Bran: I think the novel Bran is on the verge of becoming dehumanized, the way show Bran is, and I doubt that he'll be healed. That would be too easy. Actually, both show/novel Bran are too powerful for anyone's good, and open too many possibilities for time travel, changing the past, some version of "it was all a dream" ending. I'm hoping that's not what we're looking at.

[jcmontea]

22 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

Based on the events in the show, I am inclined to believe that Sansa stays the LOW. But Daenerys being the younger, more beautiful queen seems a bit too obvious to me. Also, if GRRM has a similar endgame planned for Arya, what does that mean? Will she be an advisor to whoever is king/queen? Will she be KG/QG?

If not Sansa, and if not Dany... who could be the YMBQ? 

In the novels you have the Arianne thread, but in the show there is just no other candidate. 

[Apoplexy]

10 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

If not Sansa, and if not Dany... who could be the YMBQ? 

In the novels you have the Arianne thread, but in the show there is just no other candidate. 

Arya could be the YMBQ. Gendry has resurfaced suddenly in the show, it cannot be for nothing. I freely admit it seems unlikely, but it will certainly be unexpected.

[MinscS2]

24 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

But Daenerys being the younger, more beautiful queen seems a bit too obvious to me. 

It's only obvious at this stage because there's only 1 season left. Margaery was the big contender for the YMBQ-role for several seasons (she tried very hard to become the queen.) Cersei even believed this herself, it's one of the reasons she never even tried to befriend her and ultimately killed her with no thought of what her last son would think of it.

Things are bound to become "obvious" sooner or later, and just because something becomes obvious doesn't mean it won't happen. It's "obvious" that Cersei will die in S8 as well, but it will still happen.

[Apoplexy]

9 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

It's only obvious at this stage because there's only 1 season left. Margaery was the big contender for the YMBQ-role for several seasons (she tried very hard to become the queen.) Cersei even believed this herself, it's one of the reasons she never even tried to befriend her and ultimately killed her with no thought of what her last son would think of it.

Things are bound to become "obvious" sooner or later, and just because something becomes obvious doesn't mean it won't happen. It's "obvious" that Cersei will die in S8 as well, but it will still happen.

I say it is obvious because Dany has been lusting after the IT since season 1. It would seem strange to me that she does indeed end up on the IT.

[MinscS2]

1 minute ago, Apoplexy said:

I say it is obvious because Dany has been lusting after the IT since season 1. It would seem strange to me that she does indeed end up on the IT.

But it was never obvious that she would actually succeed in taking it (it still isn't), so it was never obvious that she would end up as the YMBQ.

A person actually managing to obtain the thing they've wanted for a long time in GoT does not mean that it's obvious from the get go that said person would actually end up successfully obtaining said thing, quite the opposite actually, as characters in GoT tend to either fail in their quest or die before they succeed. That's the norm. Dany succeeding would be more surprising than what it would be if she actually failed.

 

[jcmontea]

32 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

But it was never obvious that she would actually succeed in taking it (it still isn't), so it was never obvious that she would end up as the YMBQ.

A person actually managing to obtain the thing they've wanted for a long time in GoT does not mean that it's obvious from the get go that said person would actually end up successfully obtaining said thing, quite the opposite actually, as characters in GoT tend to either fail in their quest or die before they succeed. That's the norm. Dany succeeding would be more surprising than what it would be if she actually failed.

 

Agreed. Just to show how not obvious it is its worth keeping in mind how many people still don’t think it will happen. If it was obvious then more people would be predicting it. 

40 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

I say it is obvious because Dany has been lusting after the IT since season 1. It would seem strange to me that she does indeed end up on the IT.

 Its more nuanced than that. The first desire she has is actually to return home. Then the It becomes how she can return home but she abandons her quest for the IT twice during the show. The first time in season 3/4 when she makes ending slavery her cause. And the second time this year when she decides to defeat the NK amd protect the North. 

And even when she decides to prioritize the throne again after Tyrion meets with her in Season 5, she does so not out of a desire for power, but out of a desire to break the wheel. (Whatever that means). 

So there is a lot of nuance to her quest that reducing it to she lusts after the IT since the beggining really misses.

[larastone]

1 hour ago, Newstar said:

So you don't think Sansa will be interim LOW, or you don't think she'll end up as LOW? What do you think her endgame fate will be if not LOW? Dead? Lady of the Vale? Something else? (Don't mean to come off as snarky, I'm genuinely curious and honestly don't know where she'll wind up if not LOW or dead.)

in the books? i sort of think that sansa will have the fate that you believe arya will have on the show. in the books imo, the hound will die in her arms or die for her or whatever. and then sansa will just want to be free for some years and travel. i just don't think sansa ending up in a position of power (even when its of her own home) would be a good/satisfying endgame in the books because of how she was a hostage in KL and then dependent on LF.  i don't think sansa would want to have the responsibility of power after all she's been through. but thats just my interpretation of book sansa lol. 

on the other hand i think arya will end up at the wall in the books and will be very much present in the final battle against the white walkers (something that sansa won't be imo). to be fair this could very much happen in the show too especially since arya has  a valyrian steel dagger.  no idea what she'll do after that though. 

[Meera of Tarth]

16 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

Sadly, I'm also in a spot where I don't really care about Bran anymore. Sorry book-readers, I know some of you really like him (I get the impression he's more interesting in the books), but as someone who's only watched the show, Bran makes me feel "...meh".
I've found his arc (despite knowing that it''s really important) to be incredibly dull and boring ever since season 3.
As of season 7, I don't really care about Brans endgame; I don't really care if he survives or dies, or remains the robotic 3ER or reverts back to Bran. If the showrunners wanted me to feel indifferent about Bran then congratulations to them, they succeeded. :/
At this point I want Bran to survive mostly due to the fact that some characters I do care about (Jon, Arya, Sansa) would react negatively to his death.

 

Yeah, I have a simlar feeling with Jon Snow. I've never been a fan of him, but I cared about him in the books, liked his story; due to the show (last seasons, especially the last one), at this point I don't care about the character anymore.

They have destroyed many characters. I hope season 8 has better writiting and I could care about them again, and also that he is not the sole hero of the story, which is kind of boring. I will do the same with Jaime, now that he is far away from Cersei, try to "forget" tso as to enjoy the story, or at least try.

I hope the ending is more sweet than bitter, overall.

[Meera of Tarth]

1 hour ago, Apoplexy said:

Arya could be the YMBQ. Gendry has resurfaced suddenly in the show, it cannot be for nothing. I freely admit it seems unlikely, but it will certainly be unexpected.

That would make me so happy. It would be fitting, but also unexpected.

[Apoplexy]

2 hours ago, jcmontea said:

Its more nuanced than that. The first desire she has is actually to return home. Then the It becomes how she can return home but she abandons her quest for the IT twice during the show. The first time in season 3/4 when she makes ending slavery her cause. And the second time this year when she decides to defeat the NK amd protect the North. 

And even when she decides to prioritize the throne again after Tyrion meets with her in Season 5, she does so not out of a desire for power, but out of a desire to break the wheel. (Whatever that means). 

So there is a lot of nuance to her quest that reducing it to she lusts after the IT since the beggining really misses.

I agree it is nuanced. But she always had her eyes on Westeros and claiming what her father lost. The show began with the war of the 5 kings. Although Dany wasn't a part of it, she has wanted the IT right since then. All the five kings are gone, but Dany is still here. And while some of what drives her might be noble, there is no denying that revenge drives her too. And her motives for wanting the throne isn't relevant, since either ways, she is an obvious candidate.

[Apoplexy]

1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

That would make me so happy. It would be fitting, but also unexpected.

Arya being the YMBQ would make me really happy too. If Sansa is supposed to remains in WF, I've always wondered what they plan to do with Arya. I doubt she is supposed to stay in WF with Sansa.

[larastone]

Arya being the YMBQ would be really interesting but would people really buy Maisie Wiliams being more beautiful than Lena headey? idk. 

[jcmontea]

5 minutes ago, larastone said:

Arya being the YMBQ would be really interesting but would people really buy Maisie Wiliams being more beautiful than Lena headey? idk. 

Nope