Pouring One Down For Season Seven’s First Major Casualty

So last week I talked about how the show is trying to even the playing field between Daenerys and Cersei. That trend continued in dramatic fashion as the Queen of Thorns was dismissed along with what we may presume was the rest of Daenerys’ fleet. Jamie is proving to be the better military tactician while Tyrion seems to be several steps behind for the first time in awhile.

The result is that Daenerys continually needs Jon Snow more and more as her allies continue to fall. At this point she has not one serious house backing her. Though still capable in terms of land forces, her plan of conquering Westeros with the Westerosi is in shambles without the North at her back. However, she provided Jon with the dragonglass he wanted free of charge. It still appears that there is nothing that she can offer to force Jon Snow to budge his forces. Is Jon Snow going to march South just out of the goodness of his heart?

My guess is definitely not which means there is a plot point coming that will either force Snow south or Daenerys north as I believe that these two characters will be highly intertwined from here on out. My best theory at this point is that perhaps Jon Snow and Daenerys together will be the ones who will unite the seven kingdoms (as he is both Stark and Targaryen Jon Snow is in a better political position to unite both halves of westeros). That still seems highly unlikely even at this stage as she has the dragons and forces capable of fighting. The other point is that Jon Snow doesn’t really help on the naval side of things where Daenerys continues to experience the greatest losses, both in terms of fighting power but also in terms of maneuverability. As mentioned in the episode, the unsullied are now cut off, vulnerable, and entirely separated from the rest of their allies in hostile territory. As a result, Daenerys probably can’t afford to stay idle for long. 

A lot of episode time had passed since Bran had been reintroduced. Bran arrives back at Winterfell to a rather frosty reception. It’s clear Sansa and Bran have changed to the point that they have little else in common beside their last name. Sansa is busy trying to get the North ready for war and famine while Bran is sitting by a tree voyeuring his way through the seven kingdoms. I have no doubt Bran is going to be key for the upcoming battle as he is pretty much the ultimate scout, but he’s been downright useless for so long I’m getting tired of holding my breath. You killed Hodor, Bran. That blood is on your hands.

So as Daenerys wanes, Cersei grows stronger and evidently has way too much free time on her hands, cause all she does is dream up ridiculous ways to torture and kill people. The true hero of this episode was Lady Olenna who dropped a truth bomb on her way out of the series. She didn’t win the battle or the war but damn that’s gonna drive Cersei bonkers. She also tried to sow the seed of doubt into Jamie who is perhaps the most likely person to truly end Cersei. I think there are three outcomes which fulfill the prophecy Cersei was given about dying from her brother. The obvious is Tyrion helps defeat her at the side of Daenerys. But as already discussed she isn’t doing a good job so far. If Cersei continues to feed her darkest desires and in fact weds Euron, Jamie could turn on her and kill her himself. I still have a tough time believing this as Jamie went through a rather serious finding yourself quest with Brienne of Tarth. We all thought he would be reformed and he did show some resistance to Cersei before he gave right back in and did the deed. In the end, he seems to be falling back into his old ways and he knows what Cersei is capable of doing. I just don’t know what would push him over the edge of betraying her after all this time. The third possibility is Arya impersonates Jamie and kills Cersei herself. We still aren’t totally sure what Arya’s plan is as her plot line was dropped in the last episode and my guess is it will disappear for awhile until she (surprise) bad assedly kills another hated character. She was either on her way to rejoin up with the Starks but her experience with her former Direwolf may have brought her to the realization that this was no longer her path. Either way her long term goal is to kill Jamie and Cersei. She can make that happen either with the Starks or going rogue as she is now somehow one of the most overpowered characters in the series. But at this stage in the game this actually seems like the most likely outcome as everyone else is too busy fighting white walkers or being incompetent.

Which brings me to the White Walkers, I’m not surprised we have seen so little of them, but honestly what are they doing over there? But that pales in comparison to the question, what makes the White Walkers so bad? We know they are evil. But why are they evil? My main gripe with the White Walkers is they don’t really have a reason to be bad. Which someone would say “dude they’re just evil. They’re monsters.” However they clearly have displayed some intelligence and reasoning capability. So what exactly is their motivation? Their origin story helped explain their creation but they seem to be way out of control and are now unto world domination? What if the White Walkers are actually the good guys of the show. They are up in the north like, “Guys we have to intervene. We have a humanitarian crisis on our hands. How many civil wars can one little island have here. Winter is coming and these people are grossly unprepared.” They may be just trying to help Westeros out you know?