Game of Thrones so far..
Before Season 7, I made some predictions Melisandre-style. Am I trending in the right direction? A recap of this season so far!
As you may recall, before the season started I used my best abilities as a Maester to bring 7 predictions to the page for the upcoming Game of Thrones season. (If you don’t recall, check them out starting here). With 3 Episodes on our collective conscience as of the first of August, I wanted to take a look at how these predictions are trending.
No corrections on these predictions.
I will swallow the pills of incorrectness if I must, but this will not only tell you if I’m right or wrong, but where we’re at so far this season. Let’s start there. What has happened so far?
**MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD**
Episode 1: Dragonstone
We opened the season with Arya brutally murdering the entire Frey family dressed as Walder Frey. Winter came for House Frey and we learned here that Arya can likely use the abilities of the Faceless Men away from Braavos. Whether there’s some magic in use here remains to be seen. While on her way to King’s Landing to take out Cersei next, she runs into some Lannister soldiers who are making their way to the Riverlands. It appears that she has every intention of killing them, but ultimately decides not to in a move that perhaps may be her rediscovering her humanity after she just poisoned an entire House.
As King of the North, Jon Snow makes the ruling that Houses Karstark and Umber will not be punished for fighting along side House Bolton in #BastardBowl2016. He does this without the council of Sansa who’s salty at this decision.
Bran and Meera make it to The Wall and are greeted by The Night’s Watch while Bran is warging to see the army of the dead marching further towards The Wall. And they have giants. Zombie Giants. (And no I don’t think any of them are Wun-Wun).
Samwell is at the Citadel still getting his Karate Kid on and realizes that this isn’t helping get to what he was sent there to do: learn how to kill White Walkers. So Sam decides to break away from the Karate Kid motif and go full Harry Potter by breaking into the restricted section of the library. There he discovers that Dragonstone is sitting on a mountain of Dragon glass which can indeed kill White Walkers. Some of us may also recall Stannis stating that this was fact a few seasons prior. Oh, and Jorah is there at the Citadel in quarantine while the Grey Scale consumes him.
Cersei and Jaime discuss plans to defeat their enemies as Cersei has a giant map of the 7 Kingdoms painted on the floor, which could’ve probably been useful a long time ago. They are surrounded on all sides and need a strategy. Curiously enough, when discussing, Cersei is standing on The Neck located in the North while Jaime is standing on The Fingers. POSSIBLE FORESHADOWING?! *Rap air horn sounds.* Euron Greyjoy also makes his way to King’s Landing to proposition Cersei, essentially. Boom, he’s on their side.
Daenerys makes her way to Dragonstone and is finally, after 6 seasons, in Westeros.
Episode 2: Stormborn
Grey Worm and Missandei get it on! That’s all that matters here. Let’s go to episode 3.
Okay, fine, more detail. Cersei and Jaime close in on an alliance with Randyll Tarley (Sam’s father, and of The Reach) and Dickon (Sam’s brother, and only worth mentioning so I could type out Dickon). Qyburn also has another trick up his sleeve: a big crossbow to slay dragons a la The Hobbit.
Arya runs into Hot Pie, who’s still very much alive and baking bread and shit. He tells her that Jon is King of the North. This prompts her to abandon her plans to make for King’s Landing. By heading North she rendezvous with her old Dire Wolf, Nymeria, who decides that she’s got a pack to lead and won’t go with Arya.
Jon receives word from Sam that Dragonstone has Dragon glass while also receiving a raven from Tyrion to come to Dragonstone so they can build an alliance. Jon decides to go despite that Starks have a bad history of going south at the behest of a ruler, but he leaves Sansa as Wardeness of the North so she’s not salty anymore.
Daenrys and Tyrion announce plans to split their Armada and have one group ride south to Dorne to get forces and storm King’s Landing with them and the Tyrell Army. The other group, the Unsullied group, will sail to Casterly Rock which is located on the complete other side of Westeros. The group riding south is led by Yara, Ellaria, Theon and the Sand Snakes. Their group is intercepted by Euron’s fleet. 2 Sand Snakes are lost; Ellaria, Yara, and Tyene are captured and Theon’s PTSD causes him to leap overboard. Huge L here for Team Daenerys.
Episode 3: The Queen’s Justice
Jon reaches Dragonstone and the meeting we’ve all been waiting for with Daenerys has finally come. Their conversation largely consists of them attempting to convince the other that they shouldn’t be held responsible or accountable for the actions of their ancestors. Very evident here of the dichotomy between the two as well. Dany believes it’s her right to rule, while Jon is reluctant to accept the role placed upon him. Jon says that he will not bend the knee and that the real war is with the White Walkers. Dany doubts they exist, but eventually allows him to mine the Dragon glass. Unsure how long Jon will be here, but Dany sure could use his military experience.
Bran arrives at Winterfell in a super weird state, but I assume this is just how you become when you have to learn all things and live in a tree for a few years. He tells Sansa he knows what happened to her at Winterfell and things got uncomfortable. We should really take a moment to talk about this. Bran could have picked literally any other thing to tell Sansa to demonstrate his power. Such as: It was a smart move to reach out for the army of the Vail to help Jon or you were braver than most during the Battle of the Blackwater. But no. He decides to drudge up her horrific wedding night rape. Apparently, being the Three Eyed Raven allows you to see past events, but not social cues.
Anyways.
Euron returns to King’s Landing like a rockstar with his prisoners. He’s part of the team now. Cersei poisons Tyene with a slow-acting tonic and leaves Ellaria to watch as her daughter fades to bones over time. Meanwhile, The Unsullied have taken Casterly Rock, but it was easy. Too easy.
Jaime has taken the majority of the Lannister army to Highgarden. Euron and his ships show up and sink the Unsullied’s ships, either stranding them or forcing them to take the long way across Westeros by land. Jaime takes Highgarden and Lady Olenna is offered poison rather than a brutal death. She accepts, but also informs Jaime that it was her who helped orchestrate Joffrey’s death some years ago.
Phew! That was a lot. Given the trajectory, how are these predictions looking?
Queen Cersei’s Reign: Actually looking pretty good up to this point. She’s acting more like Tywin than an erratic revenge seeker. I’m still confident it’ll come to an end, but maybe this is a turning point for Cersei and definitely something that Game of Thrones would do by having evil triumph.
Stark Reunion: Bran and Sansa are together! But Jon is gone. And Arya is coming back! But I feel like someone will leave before Jon gets there or something will still hold up Arya. My prediction here is still strong. The Stark reunion may have to wait until the final season.
Jon Targaryen: Bran not so subtly mentioned that he has something to tell Jon and has already proven to Sansa that he can see certain events. We only need Jon to come back, but I do think Jon needs to find out about his parentage in order to advance the story.
Daenerys’ Super Team: Boy did this team implode! Not in the way we thought about — petty squabbles — but in the more obvious way: death. So this wasn’t like a Kobe-Shaq breakup. It was more like the 2013 Knicks. A team with a whole lot of promise, but ultimately crumbled because of poor management and bad knees. They still have the best chance to win, but we are finding out that Euron is like D-Wade on the seas striking fast and Jaime is like LeBron James in the way he sees the military chess board (yes, the Lannister unit are the 2011 Heat in this analogy).
The Mad Queen: My guess is that Cersei is still likely to go mad and that her calm demeanor early on is the calm before the storm. If things start to go south for her, we could see a snowball effect of bad decisions. Daenerys has been catching a lot of L’s early, but she has a better supporting cast to pull her out of the rut.
3 Heads of the Dragon: Not as much insight into this as I would have liked, BUT we did get a little line about Daenerys not being able to ride all 3 dragons. We also got some details about Tyrion and his time as Sewer King of Casterly Rock. A little insight into his backstory is a good sign to me. I’m iffy on this one, but we still have 4 episodes to get some more insight into whether Tyrion is the 3rd Head of the Dragon.
The Wall: We’ve gotten a White Walker marching scene and that’s about it. Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed a change in the opening credit sequence that could give us clues as well. We’ll see if The Wall even needs to come down. I’m skeptical, but I’ll hold firm in The Wall coming down.
We’ll see how the future episodes will shape up. At this point, Cersei is in the lead with a lot of momentum. Sansa is proving herself an excellent leader up North, Jon is still brooding, and the looming White Walker threat is being largely ignored. It could all turn on it’s head, though. Will Jaime make it home with that Tyrell gold to pay off the Iron Bank? Will Euron continue to be a loyal soldier? Is there a mole in Dany’s camp?
We’ll find out soon. In the meantime, remember:
When the snows fall and the White winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.
