Winterfell

SPOILERS AHEAD – Don’t read if you’re not all the way caught up on Game of Thrones…. And if you’re not, why not??

This morning it occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought through what’s about to hit Winterfell. The Night King is on the march towards the wall, or at least towards Eastgate, and possibly around The Wall. He’s got a shiny new dead dragon to probably blow a hole through that Wall. That’s the immediate future. What’s after that? Winterfell.

One of several things is going to happen there:

Littlefinger will stage a coup to take over Winterfell. He has the troops on his side, and thinks that Arya is going to do his dirty work for him and get rid of Sansa. If that was going to happen, she probably would have done it last week while she had that knife in her hand. (That knife is the one the assassin tried to kill Bran with, and was stolen by Littlefinger after Ned Stark’s death. It was on Ned’s desk in King’s landing). So, I don’t think Arya’s going to do Littlefinger’s dirty work for him, because chances are pretty good she’s on to him. Arya could outright kill Littlefinger.

I think there’s an additional possibility that would be a lot more interesting. In the midst of plotting how to take care of Littlefinger, Bran intervenes and tells Arya and Sansa they have to get the heck out of Winterfell. Sansa will probably resist, thinking that she’s got to stay at Winterfell to hold the family home. Arya would tell her that Littlefinger has been plotting, and they need to run for their lives. On the face of things, it’ll seem that is what Bran is warning about.

Cut to Sansa, Arya and Bran getting the heck out of Winterfell. Littlefinger enjoys his victory at taking over Winterfell – and then the thing that Bran was really worried about happens – The Night King and the Dead arrive, and swarm the castle. Bet Littlefinger hasn’t thought through all the possibilities and has come up with that scenario.

A much worse scenario would be for Sansa to be stuck there only to die when the dead take over. Since Bran presumably has to survive through all this, it could just be that Arya and Bran end up leaving. Or they could all end up hiding in the family catacombs. Wouldn’t be very good to be hiding out down there, with the Night King wandering through bringing back their dead relatives though.

Arya’s Fate?

Unknown

SPOILERS AHEAD

About an hour and forty five minutes until this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, and I’m going to throw this out there so we can all point at it and either say “Ha! He didn’t have any idea what he was talking about” or “Ha! He figured it out!”

I’m talking about Arya’s stabbing during the last show. First, I don’t think she’s going to die. I say that because they’re not going to draw something like that out across two shows.

Having said that, I’ve heard a theory that goes something like this: It wasn’t Arya that got stabbed, it was actually Jaqen H’ghar in disguise! Why? Because Arya named him as someone that he has to kill, and he never took the third life (this goes back a season or two) that he promised… therefore, he’s fulfilling his promise. Or something like that.

I don’t like this theory. Arya told Jaqen at the time that he wouldn’t have to kill himself if he helped her escape, and he did that. She did not, however, ever name the third person to kill.

What I think is going on is this – Arya was sent on the mission to kill the actress and didn’t… I believe this was all part of her training – that she shouldn’t kill someone that didn’t do anything wrong. Jaqen is also testing the Waif who, you’ll note, didn’t make it “quick” the way Jaqen suggested. With Arya staggering through town, Jaqen is probably nearby watching. At some point Arya, the Waif and Jaqen will all be together… and Arya will get her final requested kill: The Waif. At this point, Jaqen will kill the Waif, save Arya and tell her this is all part of her training.

The reason I think this is part of her training is that they’d never send her out into the world to kill people without having to be able to deal with being attacked in some way.

Anyway, I think this is at least partially plausible. I still think that “third kill” is in play (I really don’t recall if Jaqen killed that person for Arya or not), and that’ll be the Waif.

Of course, that could happen and then Arya could get saved and still be on the run with a death sentence on her head… That’s probably more likely, since it would be much more dramatic for the show. Not sure I like that happening though. Arya would have to be constantly looking over her shoulder. And if that happens, I’d be surprised if she survived to the finale and beyond, because the Faceless Men will catch up to her.

Tell me in the comments what I missed… I’m sure I missed something!