Dead Pool: Game of Thrones Season 7 — Episode 3
Long live the Lady Olenna Tyrell.
Pour one out for the real one Cam, she was too pure and good for this world. With seeing Lady Olenna bite the dust we’re still out here on our 0 for whatever track record when it comes to predictions. At this point, we’re probably doing worse than Nate Cohn did with the 2016 elections, but the show is in fact picking up steam. Game of Thrones always impressed me for being able to have so much happen when it’s just people in rooms having conversations about consolidating power. In the end, someone does die. Let’s talk about it.
Cam: Man, this season went from 0 to 100 very quickly. After doing what amounted to two episodes of table-setting, “The Queen’s Justice” devolved into chaos more rapidly than the climax of a Tarantino film. This episode had a little bit of everything (and was a solid return to form after what I thought was a very lacklustre episode two) and ended with one of the bossest deaths of the entire show. The Queen of Thorns went out the way we all aspire to: peacefully, without pain, while drinking wine and talking shit about our enemies. But, alas, it’s also meant another major death that we haven’t seen coming this season. If this season were ten episodes long, the mob would be breaking my fingers to get gambling loans back.
Cersei Lannister (The Re-Up)
Serge: If we know anything about George R. R. Martin’s modus operandi is that the moment a character starts to elevate their despicable game the booming build up begins to the crescendo of their very painful and very deserved death. The question is, how much more rope will he provide for them to hang themselves. For about two seasons Ramsay Bolton has done some pretty vile things and pushed the line whenever we thought there was no line left to be pushed. Eventually he became Pedigree though in one of the most poetic “cool chicks don’t look at explosions” scenes on TV. At this point I expect Cersei to die in great agony over the course of like 3 episodes (and it’s just a close-up of Jaime choking her out).
I think it’s coming and I think she doesn’t make it through this season because eventually we will need to focus on the Night King. Or maybe that’s just me being hopeful and in the world where Trump is president hope is a false narrative.
Bet: 50$
Cam: I watch every Thrones episode with a group of 6–10 people, and it’s now operating theory in the group that Cersei doesn’t make it through season six. It makes narrative sense to wrap up the war in the south before a final season devoted to enduring the long night. But it’s also just been a reality of this show that whoever appears unbeatable at the season’s midpoint will be super dead by the last episode. Cersei appears ascendant at the moment — her fleets control Westeros, her armies are encamped at Highgarden, her enemies are being driven before her, and nobody really seems to care anymore that she’s openly sleeping with her brother.
But there’s growing understanding in Jaime’s eyes that was quite obvious in his conversation with Olenna. He knows what Cersei is, and there’s only one way that can end.
Bet: $50
Euron Greyjoy
Cam: In keeping with the operating assumption that the war in the south is wrapped up by season’s end, that means Euron Greyjoy needs to go, his enormous fleet and weird inquiries about butt stuff all. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that his death comes at the hands of family: if George RR Martin had written this season, I’d be very confident that Theon’s miserable life will remain miserable or end miserably. But B&W have become fond of their redemption arcs, and it feels as though Theon is finally due for one. Killing Euron seems a fitting conclusion for Theon’s time on Westeros.
Bet: $40.
Serge: Here’s the thing. You don’t introduce a major character this late in the game and not have him play a role. On the other hand, they dove into the deep end of crazy with Euron. Even Ramsey had some sort of calculated build up where you possibly considered his moral fiber and were at least a bit surprised when he decided to skip Pedigree and feed his dogs that good organic. Euron is playing with fire, sometimes quite literally and his end might not be as far as people may think. The only saving grace for him at this point I believe is that we are facing a shortened season and he may hang on by a hair until season 7, otherwise known as the year 2019 if we make it that far with the current administration.
Bet: $25
Missandei
Serge: A person close the queen, protected by the walls of the most impenetrable castle in the realm as well as three giant fire-breathing lizards. What can possibly go wrong? And that assumption is her deeming flaw. The problem with George R. R. Martin is not that he doesn’t give you hope, it’s that he dangles it just within your grasp just to pull it away at the last moment on some “bitch, you thought…” malarkey.
As much as I love Dany’s arc, she has so far sailed for Westeros without incurring true loss. The war was always going to have casualties and I don’t believe for a second Yara and Ellara meant anything more than specs of sand on the beach to Dany. Cersei tends to cut deepest at those closest to your heart and at this point there is no one closer to Cersei than Missandei.
Bet: 100$
Cam: For a couple of reasons, nah. First, I can’t figure out a plausible plot scenario that involves putting Missandei in harm’s way — assassins at Dragonstone seems too contrived and tired as a plot point, and Missandei is unlikely to be in the thick of any assault on King’s Landing. I think the show has set up Grey Worm dying relatively cleanly — counter-sieged at Casterly Rock, their ships destroyed, Highgarden in Lannister hands. While I admit that Missandei dying would be an interesting twist on the “love interest goes off to war and dies” trope, I just don’t see it happening.
Bet: $40, because now that I’ve written the above it almost certainly means I’m wrong.
Littlefinger (re-up)
Cam: The more this season progresses, the more I think it’s unlikely that Littlefinger is breathing in a couple episodes. His Diplomacy player on shrooms “fight everywhere and everyone” speech aside, it feels as though this season has passed him by and that the walls are starting to close in. The internet is also circulating with buzz that one of the Stark sisters will end up killing Littlefinger very soon, and the pieces seem to be falling into place: the elder Stark girl has come into her own as a ruler and player of the game of thrones, while the younger one is a trained assassin with an infinite number of faces. The older clearly harbours some deep resentment and lingering fury over being handed off to Ramsay Bolton, and the younger has hated Littlefinger since his betrayal of their father. We also know that Arya is heading to the north, that Bran has returned to Winterfell (upsetting Sansa’s claim to the north), that Sansa has learned from Cersei and Baelish and Ramsay. I put this bet on the table in our first week, and I’m doubling the hell down.
Bet: $100
Serge: We’re so focused on Dany and Snow getting it on because, well — sexy incest, we forgot about the potential Stark/Snow Re-Union tour. The band does seem to be getting back together and to full-strength of four people (five if Rickon had an idea what lateral mobility was). While I think this is too late to throw another Stark into this (if you read the books, you know who I mean) I do think Sansa will not kill LIttlefinger. Given her rise that tends to parallel that of Cersei she likes to get other’s to do the dirty work. Luckily, her sister has no problem of stabbing people with the pointy end.
Bet: $150
Theon Greyjoy
Cam: Who are we kidding? This is Westeros. Nobody gets redemption and resolution in Westeros. People’s lives start bad, remain bad, get worse, and then end in the most miserable, horrific way possible.
Bet: A cool $40 hedge on the Euron bet.
Serge: Theon has been around since the very beginning and in many ways he has endured a faith worse than death as a perpetual floor mat to whoever happens to be in a five meter vicinity of his person. That being said, so much greater will be the catharsis of him saving the day with one move before dying with his next (in season 7).
Bet: $0 for season 6, 150$ for season 7
