We’ve got ice dragons Cam. ICE DRAGONS! Let us not gloss over how asinine Jon Snow’s plan was to begin with and a bunch of other things I have issues with, but all of that is overshadowed by the Dragon moment. THE DRAGON MOMENT. Which also leads us to some of our first winnings, and for those keeping score we’re six episodes in. A dragon is dead and Thoros is dead as well, which vindicates my side-bet (I was still hoping it was Beric). With one episode left, someone major is going to die, they have to, this is thrones.
Sidenote: Also, can we stop complaining about how the show portrays travel? Yes, I get time-wise it doesn’t make sense, but I also wouldn’t want to watch 20 minutes worth of shots of Gendry running through Siberia.
Cameron Climie: so on the one hand, “Beyond the Wall” was a sloppy mess of an episode complete with ridiculous pacing*, a suit of Plot Armour (Flawless) being donned by Jon Snow, a suicidal mission that seemed as much a big vehicle for the series of “OH SHIT!” moments towards the episode’s end as an actual decision that should have been made, and an increasingly confounding Winterfell subplot. On the other hand, I don’t care. The journey beyond the wall by Snowcean’s Seven gave me everything I wanted — great banter, a tense-as-hell series of fight scenes, and A FREAKING WHITE WALKER DRAGON.
It also, crucially, gave me points on the board for what was one of my riskier bets at the start of the season. I had a cool $160 riding on one of the dragons kicking the bucket, and the Night King’s spectacular javelin skills duly delivered. Viserion, you shall be missed (sort of). So it’s naturally time to do what all good bettors do and immediately re-up my winnings.
Second sidenote: if you just frame it as a faster pacing, a lot of the inexplicable teleportation makes sense. Technically, this episode seemed to play out of 2–2.5 days, where the average Thrones episode plays out over a lot slower timeline. I think that accounts for the rushed feeling of this season more than just confounding movement. It’s like fast travel: time passed,but we just didn’t see it.
Petyr Baelish
Serge: Are we supposed to believe that he is able to play both Sansa and Arya that easily against each other? Like, Arya was there at King’s Landing, she saw Sansa distraught. She was also at Harrenhal when Tywin Lannister straight up discussed using Littlefinger as a weapon against Robb Snow. Plus, Arya’s little turn from the “is she going to cut off her face” monologue to offering Sansa the knife in a “does she want her to cut off her own face” is a turn. This is a build up, and I think this is a build up to Littlefinger running out of schemes. Will Sansa use the dagger to kill the man who caused so much of her suffering?
Bet: $400 (I’m going in!)
Cam: one thing this season has done a really good job of honing in on is the extent to which Arya has become a straight-up psychopath. As much as she insisted that she was still Arya Stark back at the House of Black and White, that doesn’t seem entirely true.
But what Winterfell has crucially lacked this season is a sense of direction. It’s super unclear what anyone’s plan is, or how the myriad of tensions between the characters are going to be resolved. They somehow have to be, and the only way that makes sense is for Littlefinger’s insane scheming to be exposed, confronted, and ended in the only way this show knows how to tie off loose ends. I’ve had many critiques of this season, but leaving this series of tensions unresolved seems a bridge too far even for B&W.
It’s also just become apparent just how much the events in this show have passed him by. Littlefinger is a schemer. His place is in a city of schemes on a ladder built of chaos. There’s no room for that sort of ethos in a cosmic war with elemental death itself. He has to go, and his plot along with him.
Bet: another $150 on top of the $150 I’ve already bet on his death. When you aren’t hitting your shots, be more like JR Smith. Shooters gotta shoot.
Jon and Daenerys’s Dry Spells
Cam: never has a supposedly suspenseful plot point been so obviously telegraphed over the course of six hours of television: Daenerys has been making f*ck-me-eyes at Jon almost since the moment he got to Dragonstone; Jon nearly died (again) last episode with his “I’ll hold them off and look handsomely heroic” routine north of the wall; their advisors have routinely nudged, teased, and mocked both of them over the obvious physical attraction. At the end of Sunday’s episode, the sexual tension between grief-stricken Daenerys and shirtless, hypothermic Jon was so thick you’d need Beric’s flaming sword to cut through it. That’s without mentioning the obvious longer-arc significance of Jonaerys getting it on: the coming together (ha) of fire and ice, the fact that GRRM has telegraphed their alignment as the point of the entire series, the pivotal role they’ll both play in beating back the White Walkers. They’re definitely related, and it’ll be weird when they find that out, but the show (and Twitter) is actively demanding that we cheer for incest at this point.
Before the end of the season finale, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen will bang. I may never have made a safer bet.
Bet: Seems appropriate to bet $69 on this one.
Serge: I now have an active theory that the rise of popularity in incest pornography is directly related to Game of Thrones’ insistence that people related to one and other should at one point bang. It’s a strangely confusing transition because one of the first reactions most people have to finding out Jaime and Cersei were knocking golden boots was a very resounding “eww” and yet we have continuously ‘shipped Jon and Dany until the end of time. And she’s his aunt. I’m arguing that it’s more gross this way.
Still, there isn’t anywhere else for them to go given that their last scene felt like it already should have ended in surprise felatio. Logically, from characters’ standpoints it makes sense too. They don’t know they’re related, we do, and there isn’t a more natural way to make alliances in Westeros than by inter-house marriages. It’s just a give.
Bet: 5.8008$
Gregor Clegane
Serge: I can feel it Cam, can you? Can you feel the thundering noise in the distance of Sunday? It’s like being a child and hearing your favorite WWE wrestler’s entrance music come on before even laying eyes on the man (or woman) himself (or herself). That sound, coupled with a shot from finale’s preview that reddit managed to dissect to hell and back, is the sound of CLEGANEBOWL!
This is the first time that Sandor and Gregor will be occupying the same space, tensions will be high and Sandor has already experienced battling the undead. He shall have his revenge and one of the biggest moments of fan catharsis will be had.
Bet: $75
Cam: Nope. This isn’t happening next episode. There’s too much other stuff, and there’s no plausible way that I can see for Cleganebowl to happen on such a short notice — for whatever reason, I don’t think this meeting involves immediate bloodshed. They will meet at some point (for what is hyped may never die), but it won’t be in the season finale.
No one else
Cam: With the exception of the bloodbath at the Sept of Baelor at the end of last season, the season finales haven’t really been about the climaxing of violent action. Rather, they’ve served much the same function as season openers: setting the table and rearranging pieces on the chessboard in preparation for the next season. Most of the big moments — Ned Stark’s beheading, Battle of the Blackwater, the Red Wedding, Oberyn’s death and Tyrion’s subsequent sentencing, Drogon in the Mereen fighting pits, Bastardbowl 2016, Snowcean’s Seven — have happened in the penultimate episode. The finales have been about picking up the pieces left over. This will be much the same: there will be a lot of talking, a lot of exposition, a lot of pivotal choices by characters that don’t involve homicide (except for Littlefinger. He’s doomed). I don’t know about you, but I’m excited. Winter is here.
Serge: Oh, there will be climaxing alright. Okay, I’ll stop. I do see your point. Thrones had this unique quality to slow it down in the last episode to let us come off the fix of grand battles. It’s like an expert drug dealer letting the junkie ride the wave just long enough to make the wait for the next high seem almost unbearable. I think death will be sparse through the episode, but hints at the demise of multiple characters will be plenty, it’s just a shame w’ll have to wait for nearly two years to see which ones turn out to be the red herrings.
Cam: I want to be mad at you for shoveling this many sex puns into a writeup, but I once wrote an entire basketball piece solely to get a “Houston should sign Genghis Khan” joke onto the internet, so I have no ground to stand on.
Serge: I am a creature of habit.
