WMG / Game Of Thrones Unconfirmed

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Unconfirmed

Drogon didn't burn that child in Season 4, the Sons of the Harpy did.

• They burnt the child because they knew suspicion would fall on Daenarys' dragons, forcing her to lock them up, thereby driving a wedge between Daenarys and her dragons so that they would be less trusting of her and willing to aid her in battle against the Sons of the Harpy.
• That scene where Drogon killed that goat is an obvious Red Herring since we see him in action as "the black shadow" and burning that goat. But even there, Drogon deliberately flies away from that child focusing only on the goat. It's clear there that Daenerys trained him well to leave humans unless she commands it. That burnt skeleton could either be faked or from an already dead child, burnt in the pyre. As to who did that?
• Other potential suspects: Hizdahr, the Meereenese ruling party or probably Tywin Lannister who sends letters to Meereen, we see him "out" Jorah's former treachery to Dany, he's not beyond killing children, and it is the kind of manipulative trick he'd pull to force Dany to imprison her own dragons.

The Targaryen Olenna had originally been engaged to was Maester Aemon

• Considering how striking she must have been when she was young and how Maester Aemon still seems to have feelings for her, it would be a very sad What Could Have Been, especially considering that their union might have actually produced a more stable, less Crapsack World with a sane king and a competent and intelligent queen.
  • Maester Aemon is a hundred years old(in the books and his actor is in his 90s) while Olenna is a good twenty-twenty five years younger. Of course given the age difference its possible. Moreover, Olenna is quite dismissive of that Targaryen Prince and mocking. Given that Aemon's brother Aegon V, "Egg" became the last good Targaryen ruler and in the lore, he married for love but forbade his children from doing so, and the fact that Olenna is a contemporary of Tywin, at least in the show(where he's 67), its likely that Prince was Aerys II, which means that Olenna dodged a real bullet just as she ensured Margaery did with Joffrey.
  • It's probably not Aemon. In The World of Ice & Fire, its revealed that Olenna Redwyne was engaged to Daeron Targaryen, son of Aegon V (a.k.a Egg). That guy backed out of the marriage because he was gay...which makes Margaery a History Repeats.

Rattleshirt will replace Tormund and the Weeper

...as the wildling leading the remaining part of the army that is not captured or surrendering right after Stannis defeats Mance. Tormund, on the other hand, will replace Val as the wildling sent to treat with him, accounting for the fact that in show continuity Tormund is south of the Wall rather than north.

• Or this subplot could be trimmed down simply to Tormund being sent north to treat with the army on behalf of the captured Mance.
• However, Rattleshirt will refuse Tormund's terms, and be captured in a second battle later. This will earn him a visit to the pyre, sparing us the ADWD Rattleshirt/Mance glamor switcheroo nonsense.
• Casting sheets say that Varamyr Sixskins is being cast for season 5, and he could easily replace the Weeper or Rattleshirt.

Tywin and Shae

Wasn't something they were doing on a regular basis, but a one-time thing. Tywin was driven to hire her services after that conversation with Cersei made his world come crashing down.

Obara Sand will fight....

As part of the recent casting sheets publication, it has been revealed that Obara Sand will have a fight scene with a series regular that never meets her in the books. Given there are scenes being shot in Dorne it is almost certainly gonna take place in Dorne itself, and given the need to introduce her as a badass, said character will need to be a capable fighter themselves. Thus let us begin our speculation.

• Bronn: Maybe he and Lolys (who is also scheduled to be cast) run away to Dorne in order to escape a wrathful Cersei and end up embroiled in the politics there.
  • Less-than-semi, but still confirmed: Bronn did go to Dorne, but with a different companion and for different reasons.
• Jorah: Now he is banished and wandering the world, maybe he ends up in Dorne for a time before or during his joining up with Tyrion.
• Yara: The Ironborn are raiding everywhere they can, and given the alterations made to the Ironborn plotline it isn't unfathomable she might try to raid Dorne.
  • I would count Yara out, on the grounds that she's already been thoroughly humiliated once. She's still supposed to be a formidable warrior, but if she's bested by both Ramsay and Obara, it would be hard for anyone, in or out of universe, to take her seriously again.
  • Jossed; she didn't appear in S5 at all, and only met them as part of the greater Targaryen alliance in the beginning of S7, then was tasked with escorting them to Dorne which got her owned by Euron for the time being.
• Daario: Is also out of Meereen and known for wanting to take a proactive stance with regards to potential enemies of Dany.
• Loras: erm....maybe he gets sent to Dorne by Cersei to make sure Myrcella is protected.

However if the story is modified to have her in Kings Landing (i.e. to bring back her father's body) then that opens up the possibility of...

• Jaime: Given her likely psychotic hatred of the Lannisters, he seems an obvious target and it could be a reversal of his fight scene with Ned in season 1.
• Ser Meryn Trant: Because everyone wants to see this guy get repeatedly stabbed.
  • He could easily be sent to Dorne as a guard for Myrcella if the role of Arys Oakheart is cut, too. (Same with Loras should he join the Kingsguard in season 5)
• Gendry: It would give him a chance to make a cameo....okay, I'm reaching with this one.
  • Jossed; he didn't appear before Season 7.
• Maybe she will take over for Quentyn Martell and marches with Tyrion and Co. to Essos to find the Dragon Queen, along the way she could meet say, Jorah Mormont, Ser Barristan, Daario, Grey Worm and finally decide to free the dragons and get roasted.
  • Jossed; Obara (along with the rest of her half-sisters and her stepmother) only met Dany at the Dragonstone, then was sent to secure matters in Dorne. Gladly, she didn't make it there.

Ghost was captured accidentally, and Karl keeps him around to fuck with Rast's head

Summer fell in a trap. It only makes sense that Ghost fell in another, or even the same one, in the first place. Who built that trap? Craster. He lives in the asscrack of the world and needs every pelt and bit of meat he can get his hands on, moreso in winter. It also provides defense against predators (like direwolves) or even other wildlings that might smell his tasty pork getting fried and want to raid his place. He's only one man and his wives don't seem battle trained after all. Which leads us to the question of why, once Ghost fell on a trap laid by Craster that the mutineers probably didn't even know existed, they decided to *not* kill him and make him a nice cover. It's because Rast hates Ghost, going back to that incident in Season 1, and Karl wants to fuck with Rast because he is a bully. So Karl makes Rast care for Ghost, even if it costs him food, because he finds it amusing.

• It's unlikely this will ever be confirmed due to the whole...dead mutineers thing.

Dagmer Cleftjaw is still alive.

Ramsay claimed that he flayed all the Ironborn alive at Winterfell, but Dagmer might have been too smart for that. Book!Dagmer wouldn't have betrayed the Greyjoys in the first place, so maybe, after handing Theon over to Ramsay in order to save his own ass, he joined Yara and her men in an effort to redeem himself.

Balerion is still alive

Unless of course he is reincarnated as Drogon, which is suggested in the books.

• I believe in the books it was strongly suggested that the dragon skull Arya hides in in season 1 while Varys and Ilyrio are plotting belonged to Balerion, but I don't know if it's stated explicitly.

The Lord of Light and The Drowned God both exist.

They are both powerful spirits that people have chosen to worship as gods. The Lord of Light dwells in the sky and and the Drowned God in the sea, only the followers of the Lord of Light call the Drowned God the Great Other and the Ironborn call the Lord of Light the Storm God. I know there is no evidence whatsoever to support this, but it has at least been implied that the Lord of Light is real and it would be awesome if these two beings both exist and are at war.

The Great Other will finally make an appearance near the end.

And he'll turn out to be a pretty cool guy. But in all seriousness he will be surprisingly friendly and non-malicious if disinterested in normal mortal affairs. Mostly he just cares about getting R'hllor to chill out a bit. Also his and R'hllor's dialogue is going to be Ice and Fire puns.

Ramsay Snow is the Author Avatar of George R. R. Martin, not Sam Tarly as is commonly believed

Ramsay chains up a character and continually tortures him in creative ways. He even says: "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." George R. R. Martin figuratively tortures his characters, in some cases to death, and by extension tortures his readers until they cry 'Stop!' but like Theon, they can't escape the torture.

Ramsay is planning to transform "Reek" into his mother

Castration is only the beginning. Next will be the Westerosi version of a boob job.

• The scene in the books where Reek is telling Roose Bolton that he has "wounds" under his clothes will certainly have a new horrifying meaning. A forced sex change with medieval tools...more Brain Bleach, please.
  • Biggest Fake!Arya crackpot theory: She will be Trans!Reek. Reek knows Winterfell. Ramsay always wants Reek by his side. Reek's demeanor is so different from Theon that no one will recognize him in female clothing, even less so in Winterfell where everyone who knew him there was killed or taken in chains to the Dreadfort by Ramsay. Instead of saving Fake!Arya, Reek will save himself when Ramsay wants to get intimate. Roose and Walda's children, if they have any, will be passed for Ramsay's.

Jon Snow will play a key role in the Starks winning the war.

In the very first episode when the wolf cubs were found, Robb and Bran tried to protect them while Theon seemed willing to kill them. Jon Snow solved the problem. This could be some major foreshadowing of future events.

Jorah Mormont will die protecting the Khaleesi.

Furthermore, he will die in her arms and it will be a crowning Heartwarming Moment without there ever having been any romance between them.

The unused S3 melody "For the Realm"

...was originally part of a deleted scene showing the fates of the Northerners bodies after the Red Wedding.

The Tarly that Robert killed was the heir to House Tarly

Either Sam's uncle or an older brother. He had been carefully groomed from birth to lead the Tarlys in the future, but Robert put an end to that during the rebellion against Aerys. This set in motion a chain of events that ended with Sam, a kid who wouldn't have hope of inheriting originally and had not been prepared as a result, as heir presumptive.

• Does your chain of events include Sam's father, Lord Randyll? Because whether or not he was meant to inherit, he's done a fairly good job lording the house. ...Well, if by "good" we include "forcing your son to join the Night's Watch because he would make a poor lord," but let's be honest: he might have been a jackass about it, but he was not wrong.

Since Joyeuse Frey has been Killed Off for Real in the adaptation, the producers could easily have him reappear and take Devan's place, which would gender-invert the marriage pact that was made in the books. Also, Emmon Frey was an It's All About Me Jerkass who loved to boast about being the new Lord of Riverrun, which wouldn't be at all out-of-character for the old weasel. Even better, with the Brotherhood Without Banners at Riverrun "making plans for the wedding", Lord Frey could suffer a Death by Adaptation at the "Red Wedding 2.0".

Tormund is Ygritte's father

He is old enough to be her father and promiscuous enough to not be sure about it. The two are also redheads and take an instant liking of Jon Snow despite having little reason to do so.

• I like this theory. I think he knows she is his daughter. In "The Climb", when she is about to fall, he is more worried than he was when all the others fell.

Margaery Tyrell does anal, or is bisexual

• In season 3, when she's trying to comfort Sansa about the positives of marrying Tyrion, she mentions that he's said to be quite skilled, and that women are very hard to pleased, among other things. Sansa asks her how she knew that, and if her mother had told her. Margaery hesitates, as wondering if she should screw with Sansa's innocence and adoration for her or not, and then she unconvincingly says that yeah, her mother told her. Now, for her to be betrothed to Joffrey, having Loras vouch for her maidenhood wouldn't be enough. Surely there would have been some sort of official "checking", so she must be a maiden still. Now, what would they be looking at to confirm she's a maiden? Exactly. So if she's indeed "versed" in sex, she must have either had only anal sex with men, or have non-penetrative sex with other women. The second option wouldn't be so far fetched, considering what his brother is like, and how nonchalant her grandmother was when confronted by Tywin about the rumors about him.
  • While this could be true, we cannot take for granted that she is Technical Virgin. Checking the hymen isn't very reliable, since many women lose their hymens while riding, and characters in the books (including Cersei, who would love to find a way to get rid of Margaery) freely admit it.
  • Because non-penetrative sex between heterosexual couples doesn't exist, obviously.

In the series verse Syrio Forel is Jaqen H'ghar.

Syrio Forel's discussion on death sounds a heck of a lot like a faceless man. Alternatively he just knows it well being of Braavos.

• The whole speech did seem to imply his familiarity at the very least with the book's Many-Faced God. Might be the creators have a little inside info that they need to hint at a connection to The Faceless Men and Syrio for some reason. However they could just as easily be using a native Braavosi to introduce Arya to the concept of the god of death without it seeming like heavy handed exposition. Just simply planting the seed for the future story lines. I do hope it is the case as it's one of my favourite theories or failing that Syrio returns in some other way.
  • Er, what? Isn't "Not today?" the exact opposite of "valar morghulis"?
  • Eh, "All Men Must Die." doesn't mean it has to be today they die. "All Men Must Die but Not Today."?
• The motto is two parts; "All Men Must Die; All Men Must Serve." There's a WMG somewhere that proposes that as Braavos is a former slave city, "serve" is next to synonymous with "live", as in "I can't die today, I'm busy serving".
• Interestingly, one of Jaqen's other identities, The Alchemist, is actually described in the books as looking a fair amount like TV!Syrio- he has thick, black curly hair and a fairly large, hooked nose. This would make it easy for the show to confirm this theory, by having Jaqen be a different actor, and then transform back into (a disguised) Syrio as The Alchemist. Still, as noted below, it's hard to believe that Syrio survived his last appearance- if Trant/Syrio is alive, then Syrio/Trant shouldn't be.
  • Actually he could be. If he could somehow escape the room (either by disarming Trant or simply escaping through the window), it's unlikely Trant would tell anyone that he was outmaneuvered by the little girl's dance instructor. Trant could have easily coerced his guards into backing some story of Syrio's demise to save himself the embarassment/punishment.
• Possible evidence in the season 2 finale; When Jaqen says goodbye to Arya, he calls her "Arya Stark", despite Arya never telling him her name.

Syrio Forel did not die in episode 8.

You can hear several death screams after Arya ran out of the room. Clearly Syrio picked the sword from one of the downed soldiers and made quick work of all of them. He just didn't want Arya to see the slaughter.

• Why stop there? I'm pretty sure the season finale will end with the Lannister and Stark armies converging on King's Landing, the gates swing open, and all we'll see is Syrio Forel, standing atop a pile of shishkebabbed Lannisters.
• We last saw him face Ser Meryn Trant in a fight to the death. Meryn Trant has survived the encounter as he hits Sansa in the season finale.
• Not to mention, one of the heads on spikes in the same scene may be his. It's difficult to tell, but it may be the one to the left of the Septa's.
• In the books, it's never elaborated on whether he was killed or not, or what happened to him. The only reference to him up through book 5 is a brief reference to him—still referred to as Arya's dancing master—interfering with their attempt to grab Arya resulting in her getting away.
  • Additionally, George R. R. Martin has never actually confirmed that Syrio died, only vaguely hinted at it, which is highly unusual since he has confirmed outright every other offscreen death thus far. It's possible he's leaving himself an opening in case readers and viewers want Syrio to make another appearance.

Gendry (Robert's bastard that Ned met) is actually Cersei and Robert's legitimate heir.

• Cersei, not wanting a son by Robert on the throne, had him sent away (or he was smuggled away to prevent Cersei from killing him) under the guise that he died as the black-haired baby that Cersei told Catelyn about. After Cersei found out that Ned had been looking into Robert's other children, Gendry's master sent him off to the North to save him from being killed by her. Alternately, Gendry is not Cersei's but Robert and Lyanna's, and Cersei resented him for being the son of a dead woman / thought he would be a threat to any other children she had.
  • If Gendry was Cersei's son and she sent him away right after his birth, wouldn't someone have noticed that she was pregnant?
  • It's canon in both the books and the show that Cersei had a kid before Joffrey; in the books she aborted the pregnancy with Jaime's help (it was Robert's kid and she only wanted to have Jaime's), and in the show she actually gave birth to a child by Robert, specifically mentioned to be blackhaired, and he died very young, presumably not long after birth. It *is* possible, but highly unlikely.
  • There's no reason to believe Cersei was telling the truth about having Robert's child in the show.
    • There totally is. That scene is important because it showed the audience 1) that Cersei still has some feelings left, and 2) it's the first sign for the audience that something's wrong with Joffrey's... genealogic tree. Had she been lying, the revelation of that (and Ned figuring that out on his own) comes from too much of a left field.
  • Gendry states that his mother had yellow hair, adding to the slight possibility that Cersei could be his mother. If she was his mother (at least on the show only), then Cersei was probably content to have a trueborn son until Joffrey was born and she decided a true Lannister was better than a Baratheon on the Iron Throne. She claims the older boy (no more than a toddler) fell ill and died so that Joff becomes heir, yet loves her firstborn enough not to kill him and sends him to some trusted household in King's Landing.
    • How does that work with Maggy the Frog's prophecy that "the king will have 20 children and you will have 3"?

The Stallion that Mounts the World prophesy was actually about dragons.

• This was noted on this Westeros site's forum and I noticed part of it too. There may be a Prophecy Twist in that the death of Dany's son didn't disprove the Stallion prophecy- instead, it started the chain of events that will bring it about. The "Stallion" is actually a dragon that Dany will ride and will use to Take Over the World. So, if the witch thought she was preventing Dothraki expansionism by killing Dany's son, it's quite likely she actually made it possible. Incidentally, Dany's stillborn son was described as having scales and a tail- maybe that gave Dany the idea; maybe it would have been a human/dragon hybrid...
  • In the series Danys was much younger when she married, so that the child growing within her to be the stallion who mounts the world is actually Danys. It turns out Old Valarian had no gender...
    • Except the Dothraki don't speak Old Valyrian, so this particular Prophecy Twist only applies to prophecies written in Valyrian. That is, only the the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy.

Some musings about Westeros' climate

• Putting it here cos this dips far into the theoretical field of things. Not sure how physically possible this is or not, but make up your own mind about it. The seasons on the world where Westeros and the rest are situated are not caused by the planet's tilt or by an elliptical orbit, which causes seasons on most worlds. On the contrary; Westeros-world has a small axial tilt and as near a circular orbit as is physically possible. The seasons are in fact caused by the planet's precession. On Earth and other worlds, the rate of precession is slow and constant, with Earth's precession rate averaging 26,000 years or so in length, and is a major player in causing Ice Ages and warmer periods. On Westeros-world, the precession rate varies wildly, whether caused by a nearby large gravity well or otherwise, the rate can't stabilise. Mention is made of a prominent moon and that there may have at one time been two (loss of a moon leading to wildly fluctuating precession rate?). The precession rate is also phenomenally fast, taking as little as 15-30 years to complete.
  • I'm obsessed with this too. While the moon is "prominent" in their night sky, that could only indicate its proximity, not its size. It's entirely possible that their moon is smaller than ours and has a weaker gravitational pull. It would be fascinating to see an approved chart of the planet's solar system, with orbits and satellites, etc, similar to The Map of the 'Verse from Firefly.
  • Word of God says the reason for this is supernatural, not scientific.
  • Yep. IMHO, you're looking at a tidal aetheric energy type deal, similar to what you had with The Lord of the Rings, with the elves having to leave there, because they were dual physical/astral beings, who couldn't co-exist physically when the aetheric tide was that low/veil between the two was that thick. Best guess, the Wall between Westeros and the North was built close to the end of the last aetheric high tide, which is also why there was talk of runes being in the Wall's design. Back then, the humans would have had magick users who knew how to do such things. At another guess, that is also why the dragons died off, and why they're coming back now. The aetheric tide is rising, which not only coincides with Winter coming, (and is probably partly tied into it, more than any scientific/physical reason for the change in seasons) but would be a big part of the reason why the Walkers are able to come back. At aetheric low tide, you get no magic, and nothing but mundane types of people and animals, which is also why you get people becoming materialistic and thinking that science is all that exists, because low tide periods can last longer than living memory, so non-magickal stuff is all anyone living can remember.
  • If the orbital tilt is zero, precession is by definition zero. If precession makes the orbital tilt non-zero, you will get seasons which won't change the average temperature of the planet, and not a sudden "winter". Since years are used as a measure of time, they must have the same length, so the orbit can't change. This leaves fluctuations of the star's intensity, but that wouldn't explain the "long night" - a period in the lore where the sun didn't shine at all, something which would mean the destruction of any physical star because of the lack of photon pressure. This leaves as only option technology. Either the star is simulated, there's a dyson cloud or dyson sphere which is mostly translucent between the planet and the star, the planet contains machines to alter its rotational characteristics, it's all a computer simulation, or multiple of the above. There is no natural phenomenon to explain this, and no simple technology either.
    • Maybe the title sequence is more realistic than we realize, and Westeros is on the inside of a malfunctioning Dyson Sphere; the sun in the center has started to wobble, causing the random length of the seasons.

Bronn is a deserter from the Night's Watch

• He admits to having been north of the Wall for some unexplained "work". He's not exactly the most honorable guy, and could have been a criminal who was sent to the Wall as punishment, then fled, escaping the law and becoming a sellsword to make his living.
  • He mentions the first person he killed was a woman who came at him with an axe. Sounds like a wilding to me.
    • I kind of thought the woman he killed before he was twelve was his mother, who he says was abusive.
  • They don't send kids to the wall though - he killed her before he was twelve. Maybe he is a wildling, or he could be a bastard from one of the brothels in the North.
    • What about Lommy or Hot Pie? They might not *condemn* children to the Wall but they definitely *recruit* them.

The Faceless Men masks are poisoned, the suicide fountain is the cure.

This is hinted at when Arya goes blind. Jaqen states the masks only work if someone is “no one.” After Arya uses the mask to kill Merrin, she goes blind. Then she drinks from the suicide pool to restore her vision. Jaqen says she has nothing to fear if she’s “no one.”

The reality is the chemicals in the pool and the chemicals in the masks will neutralize each other, but will act as poison if consumed separately. The poisoned masks prevent people from stealing them and using them for their own purposes. Nobody dares consider the fountain a cure for anything since its the go-to source for suicide.

Women from the kingdom of Dorne taste like blackberry jam

Robert is heard to comment to a prostitute that she tastes like blackberry jam. When asked 'what's the strangest thing you've ever eaten,' Tyrion replies, 'do Dornish girls count?' Maybe the prostitute was from Dorne, where all the girls taste of jam, much to Tyrion's surprise the first time he slept with one.

• One would assume the reason any woman would taste like blackberry jam would be that they're using a type of lotion, perfume, or cream derived from blackberries, specifically for flavor enhancement. Perhaps this is especially common in Dorne.
• Slight correction, but I believe Robert's words were that the girl smelled of blackberry jam. Though if that was a result of a perfume or skin lotion she may have tasted like jam as well. Seems like something a prostitute would do.
• Ha! In the book version of his introduction, Mance Rayder is singing a song called "The Dornishman's Wife"...
  "Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,

  the Dornishman's taken my life,
  But what does it matter, for all men must die,

  and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!"

Jon Snow and Daenerys will team up to form a rock band at some point

Their first hit will be called "A Song of Ice (Snow) and Fire (Daenerys)".

• I picture them sounding a lot like the White Stripes.

They'll return the favor and parody The Simpsons opening.

An aerial shot of a rebuilt Winterfell as a modern city, complete with Lard Lad Lemoncakes sign and billboard advertising snow tires with the slogan "Winter is Coming", descends into a classroom window. Bran is Writing Lines on the blackboard: "I will not warg into the class gerbil"...

• Or maybe "Asshai is not pronounced ass-high".

Bronn is a Self-Made Orphan

The woman that attacked him with an axe when he was 12 and was his first kill was his mother (who he said was physically abusive to him). His father, who was also abusive, was either already dead by then, or was Bronn's second kill.

It wasn't a cow pie.

For one, there was not a single cow in that crowd.

• Maybe somebody traveled with it from a field?

Syrio is a Faceless Man, but he isn't Jaqen.

Actually, he killed Meryn and has been posing as him ever since.

Qarth does not exist.

The whole city is just an illusion created by Pyat Pree.

• Jorah might agree with the idea, but Dany and the khalassar disagree when looting. Why would there be unlooted treasure in ruins, if there was no living city? Why would there be any loot at all if there are no ruins and no city?
  • There is no loot.
    • There also weren't any chains in the tower, and we saw what happened to them because they didn't exist. The loot, on the other hand, exists because it didn't turn into dust or ashes.
    • That's what Pyat Pree wanted you to think.
  • Alternatively, the treasures of these ruins didn't get looted until now because Pyat Pree lets every potential looter think that there is a living city.
  • Or Qarth is something, but not a city. It has treasure that it cannot use or sell for unknown reasons, so it lures adventurers in and spins them a fantastic illusion-powered story of corruption, violence, and sacks of loot for the taking, while taking some unidentifiable thing from the adventurers in turn.

It's actually VERY easy to open Xaro's vault, both from the outside and the inside

Of course, the vault is actually empty, hence why all the people that were offered whatever was inside still went home empty-handed. This means that Xaro will survive his incarceration as he is still alive in the books canon, though perhaps not Doreah, who was Killed Off for Real.

• While 'went home empty-handed' can be interpreted that way, I doubt it. The key to Xaro's power is that no one knows the vault is empty. I don't think he would just let those who know go home, especially considering they must be very angry about the way he tricked them.

Jaqen H'ghar was caged because the man wanted to.

(This troper hasn't read the books yet, so he doesn't know if he's talking out of his ass.)The man is a skilled stealth fighter, yet the first time we see him, he's locked up like a common delinquent, with other two criminals. How WAS he captured? Perhaps he let himself be, in order to closely follow Arya (who the man knows to be a Stark) without raising suspicions.

• This gives more weight to the theory that he's either Syrio OR cooperating with him.

The world of Game of Thrones is an inverted globe.

This is purely based on the map of the opening, which is indeed a hollow globe with all the continents on the inside, and the sun in the middle. If there's some kind of partially open sphere between the sun and the surface, it could account for day and night, the stars, perhaps even the Long Winters and Summers.

Varys is actually the true and greatest evil.

Lord Varys the eunch is really a dark and powerful sorcerer waiting for his best opportunity to strike. He is using the Varys skin and persona as a disguise to hide his true form which is both terrifying and gigantic. On top of that he is already mind controlling many people using his power. Maybe even Joffery.

• Well, the kings who listened to Varys' council had a tendency to either go mad (like Aerys or Joffrey) or become decadent (like Robert). In the books, there are rumors that Varys had something to do with Aerys' mental state. After Varys' disappearance however, the king ( Tommen) has shown no sign of madness or decadence.

The pardon delivered to Jorah by one of Varys's little birds in Essos was a last ditch attempt to thwart/botch the assassination on Danaerys.

• Jorah seemed to go into sudden suspicious mode after receiving it. He put two and two together: If he was being pardoned, he wasn't needed to spy on Danaerys and was being rewarded for services rendered. And that would only mean that Danaerys would be... handled. It also gives Varys a convenient excuse to not only carry out King Robert's deathbed order of calling off the hit, but also to botch it and set things up later.
  • Given how slowly mail travels in this world, this is pretty unlikely. The pardon was sent well before the assassin, Jorah simply knew enough about Robert Baratheon to anticipate an attempt.

Gregor Clegane was suffering from, or just suffered, Yellow Fever in the second season

Hence the loss in weight/muscle size. He probably contracted it while camping next to a mosquito-infested cesspool somewhere in the Riverlands.

Sam was not put on 'firedung collection' duty at the end of Season 2

Instead, he tagged along Grenn and Edd because he couldn't shut up about Gilly and they are the only ones that would tolerate his talk without punching him. Hence Mormont's comment that sending the ravens was Sam's "only job".

The reason the showrunners have made Podrick a Sex God is...

George R R Martin has revealed his planned ending to Benioff and Weiss. And part of that is that Podrick Payne ends up married to Brienne of Tarth. The showrunners, realizing that Brienne's many fans might not be satisfied with this, are laying the groundwork to ensure that the eventual reaction (many years from now) will be less "wait, Brienne has to settle for Pod?" and more "aw yeah, Brienne's wedding night is gonna be epic".

TV!Shae is a faceless woman

At one point in season 2, Tyrion is talking about people who might be dangerous and Shae responds with "I will cut off their faces." That's a very specific threat.

Stannis is not Shireen's real father

Unlike in the book, where Shireen shared it along with Stannis' square jaw and some other ugly features Shireen has not the trademark Baratheon dark hair. Melisandre blatantly says that Selyse gave Stannis "nothing, only stillborns", and Selyse also says "I gave you nothing" when she is first introduced. When Stannis says that Shireen is his daughter and that he wants to see her (keep in mind that he has her alone in a tower and offered to name Renly his heir ahead of her last season, although that could be a bullshit offer given what happened later), Selyse says "You are a king. You don't need my permission." - Not "You are her father".

TV series isn't an adaptation of the books...

...it's a sequel. At the end of the last book, a Reset Button will be pressed, restoring everything to the way it was before, but without undoing the passage of time, which explains why many characters received an Age Lift. However, the characters still subconsciously remembered what happened, causing their actions to be slightly different. For example (feel free to add more):

• In the books, Ned didn't want to go to King's Landing and Catelyn talked him into going. In the series, Ned knew he was supposed to discover something and wanted to go, while Catelyn subconciously remembered losing him and tried to stop it.
• In the books, Tywin was betrayed by the Brave Companions, so TV!Tywin never hired them.
• TV!Tyrion knew not to trust Mandon Moore, so he dodged a bit earlier, saving his nose.
• At some point between the Reset Button and the start of the TV series, Willas and Garlan Tyrell died, making Loras the heir to the Highgarden.
• Edric Storm, to avoid almost being sacrificed, found himself a better hiding place.

Euron Greyjoy will be more skilled and powerful in magic in the show then in the books.

Similar to Pyat Pree's own Adaptational Badass state, when Euron comes in, he will similarly so have more powerful and notable magical abilities, being a quasi-Warlock himself like Pree.

Sam will get the dragonglass back from Coldhands

This way, he'll firmly establish himself as a well intended character that can be trusted despite his uninviting aspect and nature. Even if Coldhands saved Gilly and Sam from wights like in the book, they (and the viewers) would still have reasons to wonder if this is just a bigger fish situation.

• Unlikely as of "Mhysa" ( Sam is back at Castle Black and Coldhands' part in leading him to the other side of the Wall has been cut) though technically still not jossed.

Shae is Lord Tywin's spy.

Whether or not she was one from the start, she seems both too improbable and all too beneficial to Tywin's purposes to be a coincidence. A camp follower who turns out to be not just extremely devoted, but outright clingy and jealous for her highborn employer? She keeps Tyrion from frequenting brothels like he used to, just as Tywin would want it, and Tyrion keeps her hidden in turn due to Tywin's threats. Also, the way she keeps begging Tyrion to just abdicate with her to the Free Cities would suit Tywin just fine, since he'd like nothing more than to have an excuse to disown Tyrion and make sure that he no longer embarrases the Lannister house with his existence. Finally, Tywin must know that the way he treats Tyrion isn't going to improve his loyalty to his family, and he must have an informant close to him to ensure that he doesn't start to plot against his house or the King in revenge.

Pyat Pree is still alive.

People seem to accept his death a bit to easily. We need to remember 2 things:

• 1) He is still alive in the books.
• 2) He can make copies of himself and the one we see die could be just another copy.
  • We don't have confirmation that he's alive in the books; indeed, the implication is that he was killed by Euron and fed to two other warlocks.

In the far future, Tyrion will be worshiped as the god of tits and wine.

Because it is too good not to be so.

Series!Joffrey is asexual.

Or, rather, he has no interest in sex per se. He gets off solely on violence and torture. He would have raped Sansa, but not because he was attracted to her - he just wanted to see her suffer.

• This really doesn't seem to be the case. Joffrey often appears sexually turned on. Unfortunately the only thing that does turn him on is violence, directly or indirectly. That is not the same thing as asexuality, however.
  • Without Joff having any nude scenes to see if he's getting an erection, we can't say that he's getting sexually turned on, just excited by violence.

The Karstarks will become important.

Robb's army was destroyed by Frey and Bolton treachery and Tywin has named Roose Bolton Warden of the North. But remember that the Karstarks still have their army, they marched home after Robb killed Lord Karstark. So, the heir of House Karstark might still contest Roose Bolton's claim in one way or another.

• Book spoilers: The Karstarks actually end up being Bolton supporters in the book, aligning with Stannis and being The Mole for Roose. This holds true with the show as well..

Old Nan was right all along. They really do live inside the eye of a blue-eyed giant named MacCumber.

This completely explains the wonky seasons in ASOIF (stick with me on this one). MacCumber is so huge that the entire world fits inside his eyeball, and We Are as Mayflies compared to him. When MacCumber blinks it lasts for hours, and that's what the world knows as "night". When MacCumber goes to bed it lasts for months or years, and that's what the world knows as "winter". The Southern kingdoms are at the back of MacCumber's eyeball, and that's why they're so much warmer (they get direct unobstructed sunlight). The North and the Land of Always Winter are on the sides of MacCumber's eyeball, and the lack of direct sunlight makes them colder.

Khal Drogo will come back

When Dany asked Mirri Maz Duur "When will he (Khal Drogo) be as he was?", MMD replied "When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again and you bear a living child. Then he will return and not before." Now that sounds like a poetic way of saying "Never," but there are so many prophecies that contain "impossible" occurrences that end up occurring (eg. "When Burnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane") that I wonder if they might not actually occur. Maybe a volcanic eruption ("The mountain moving" causing the sky to light up "in the West") of some sort - though it needs elaboration.

• BOOK SPOILER! While you can never tell with prophecy, that may just have happened by the end of the fifth book. The son who rose in the west and set in the east is a Dornish prince who died on Essos. The Dothraki sea is undergoing a drought, and the mountainous pyramids of Meereen, the third slaver city after Astapor and Yunkai, were overset by Daenerys's dragons. And Dany found blood on her thighs for the first time since her son's stillbirth. Book Five has a lot of particularly cryptic stuff, but once the fandom pieced this together... And trust me, we feel pretty cheated after his cameo at the Houses of the Undying, which was invented whole-cloth for the show.

Westeros has a Portal Network

It explains how Littlefinger managed to randomly be everywhere in season two. With the birth of the dragons and the return of magic in season one, Littlefinger decided to test it out by activating his own network, which he used to get around. It also explains why this happens less in seasons after this: he knows it works, and so he can rely on mundane means now rather than whatever unreliable Blood Magic (which is basically how magic works in Westeros) the portals use.

The series will jump ahead in time

Pure WMG here. Martin initially planned but discarded the idea of doing a time-jump between books III and IV. Since the series appears to be vaulting ahead on some of the slower-moving plot lines (like Brienne's and Bran's) and it seems unlikely that we are going to get some of the plotlines from Book IV (Dorne, the Kingsmoot) at all, it seems possible that the show will do what Martin did not. Between seasons 4 and 5, two years will pass. This will help with the problem that the young actors are visibly aging faster than their characters.

• This would have also have the advantage of cutting down on the drawn-out qualities that both Jon and Dany's plotlines have in Book V.

The Starks are (unbeknownst to themselves) the human incarnations of the 7

The seven Starks of Winterfell, Ned, Caitlyn, Robb, Sansa, Bran, Arya and Rickon are the earthly manifestations of the Seven.

• Ned is the Father, as he represents justice and honor, and he serves as Father to the Starks
• Caitlyn, while born a Tully, is still a Stark by marriage, and serves as the Mother
• Robb is the Warrior, as his strength in battle and battlefield command are great enough to decimate the Lannister forces.
• Sansa is the Maiden, as the chaste, innocent and ladylike Stark daughter.
• Arya is likely the Stranger, due to her fascination with the god of death, and her connection to ones such as Jaqen H'ghar.

The last two are somewhat tricky, since they are given less import during their screen time due to their age and relative unimportance to the plot, but:

• Bran is named after the Founder of the Stark House, Bran, the Builder, which seems to indicate he is possibly the Smith. In addition, his nature as a "broken thing" possibly indicates, with some irony, that he is intended to be the Smith.
• Rickon, lastly, would be the Crone. This is probably the weakest connection, but as the Crone represents wisdom, it is possible that his wisdom has simply not been seen yet, due to his age. Likewise, if there is irony intended with the "broken thing" of Bran to be the Smith, it is possible Rickon exhibits similar irony, in being the youngest Stark, but still the crone.

Under this theory, it is quite possible that all Starks will "die" and either this will mean that the seven will be dead (leading to another faith, such as the red faith taking it's place) or that they will return to their immortal forms by the end of the books.

• The only problem with this theory is that the Starks are more commonly associated with the Old Gods and worship of the weirwood trees. That is very important for Bran in particular but also Jon (who takes his Night's Watch oaths at a godswood along with Sam, who decides to convert then and there). Even Sansa spends a lot of time at the godswood. Arya meanwhile seems to have caught on to the Braavosi God of Death. So, even there the Starks are not associated with one specific religion over the other.

The White Walkers just like babies.

And they're invading Westeros in order to stop all of the crimes against babies that are going on down there.

Their wrath could have first been triggered by the deaths of the Targaryen children and the no doubt numerous child deaths that occurred during the sack of King's Landing and the rest of Robert's Rebellion. Then Craster starts leaving out his sons who they graciously adopt and make their own. They begin to amass in numbers, just in case. And then the War of the Five Kings starts, Robert's bastards except for Gendry are hunted down and killed, which only serves to piss off the White Walkers further, along with the death of Dany's unborn son.

They aren't mindless evil ice demons, they're doing it all for teh behbehs.

Everyone they've killed? Guilty of crimes against babies. That's why they keep not killing Sam despite having ample opportunity to do so as well as the ability. He's innocent of baby hurting. The White Walker Sam killed looked so pissed that Sam killed him because he was just trying to help, man! What's the big deal, stabbin' him like that?

When the White Walkers descend, they will usher in a new age of child welfare, and Westeros needs it.

Robin will fly!

It's practically a given that Littlefinger will get rid of Lysa Arryn as soon as possible. Afterwards, he'll use his "stepfather" position to consolidate his power in The Vale, and after he no longer needs Robin, he'll shove the dumb kid down the moon gate.

• He had it coming, mind you. Throwing an expensive crystal bird figure through it, in full view of the one who presented him with the gift? That's not proper protocol.
  • In 4x07 Robin says that he will throw off the Moon Door anyone that annoys her, then proceeds to annoy her... he, he.

Unconfirmed (II)

Tywin intentionally provoked Tyrion into killing him

Remember what happened earlier in the episode? Cersei told him about herself and Jaime. Realising that everything he had worked for has failed, Tywin saw no reason to live anymore. So, when Tyrion appeared with a crossbow, Tywin, at least subconsciously, wanted Tyrion to kill him and provoked him by calling Shae a whore.

• Judging from his reaction, he didn't want to be killed just for being disrespectful to a common prostitute, but he may have provoked Tyrion further if he had the chance.

There are more than three living dragons.

It's been a long while since I've read the books and I don't know if this has been expanded upon or pointed out, so bear with me. During Bran's first dream where he encounters the three eyed crow, he is falling endlessly until just before he hits the ground. At that point, he begins flying and sees everything that is going on with the other characters. He sees Robb training with a real sword for the first time. He sees Catelyn in her cabin as she sales across the Bite and Ser Rodrick getting seasick on the deck of the ship. He sees Ned arguing with Robert over the fight between their children, followed by Sansa crying and Arya laying awake in her bed quietly. He sees Jon sleeping at Castle Black, or at least near it.

These are all things that happened or were foreshadowed in the previous chapters, all things that really happened. Before he sees Jon, Bran flies across the narrow sea to Essos, over Vaes Dothrak and ultimately over Asshai.

"He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the Narrow Sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise."Everything else Bran sees in his dreams are things that are happening at that very moment. At this point in the story, Danaerys had yet to hatch her dragon eggs, yet Bran sees dragons stirring beneath the sunrise. I don't think that was just thrown in for flavor, I believe that dragons other than Dany's are still living in the mysterious Asshai by the shadow.

• In that context, "stirred" could be used in a past tense to refer to the fact that dragons had once stirred there, but no longer do currently.
• Alternatively, it could have doubled as foreshadowing and a Red Herring, it's talking about Essos, right? AT this point, Vicerys is still doing his "you don't want to wake the dragon" thing, so it could be interpreted (at that point at least) that he's gonna "become the dragon". What it could really mean in that context is that Dany is the dragon about to wake (i.e. She'll come into herself).

Podrick didn't have sex with those prostitutes.

Despite being absolutely -ahem- fascinated by these ladies, Podrick actually chose not to go on with the act, maybe because of a moral reason like Jon's or because he's a hopeless romantic or whatever. But he didn't want to tell Tyrion, so the prostitutes came up with this idea just to pull Tyrion's leg (and the whole town's, for that matter). That's why they told Ros the experience was "hard to describe" because there was nothing to describe, and of course because they wanted to keep the mystery. And think about it, if so many prostitutes were dying to sleep with Pod for free, what would keep him from visiting one every once in a while, which we never see him doing? I know the fact that it wasn't shown on screen doesn't have to mean it didn't happen, but then why would he still get so utterly captivated by the elastic lady's body that he gets totally lost looking at her.

GRRM created the word "Khaleesi" by warping "Colossus"

Listen to the Game Grumps near the end of episode 10 in their Shadow of the Colossus Let's Play.

The Children of the Forest underestimated the White Walkers' powers when they created them.

It's possible the Children believed that possessing dragonglass weapons would be enough to keep the White Walkers on a leash. And maybe it worked for a while. Then the White Walkers figured out how to make wights...

Braavos will eventually be conquered by some family to cancel their debts and seize the Iron Bank's gold.

• The Iron Bank will be revealed to be a massive fraud. They only have gold plated iron bars in their bank.
  • Why do you think they are called the Iron Bank rather than the Gold Bank?
  • Foreshadowed by the "Richest" man in Qarth story line.
  • The Iron Bank isn't rich because they have lots of physical gold in their vaults, but because of all the debts owed to them across the world. That is not fraud, but capitalism. Whether they also have a large reserve of gold or not is irrelevant.
  • Invading Bravos will be extremely difficult due to all the natural barriers surrounding the city, and it being the home of the Faceless Men. Not to mention the Iron Bank can easily gain allies by paying them off or cancelling their debts.

Melisandre was never a slave

The story she tells Gendry is word by word the same told by the red priestess in Volantis to the slave crowd. Evidently, it is a pre-written speech that red priests tell to people to gain their trust, and has nothing to do with reality.

• Slaves are hardly a rare species in Essos, and it makes sense that the Red God would be popular among several freed slaves since the Priesthood is more social mobility then they can get anywhere else. In the books, a POV chapter confirms she was indeed a slave and bought at an auction. The TV show could tell us something different anyway so who knows.

Theon has a bastard son.

The son's mother is the daughter of the captain of the ship which took Theon to the Iron Isles. Theon will eventually become King of the Iron Islands and will aid the Starks in the wars. This ironically is the reason he was originally sent there.

Bran has been warging into Drogon

Even though Bran was confirmed to not appear in season 5, he was told in the season 4 finale that "he would never walk again, but he would fly". Thus far in season 5, Drogon has been acting uncharacteristically flighty. Season 4 established him as being the most aggressive of the dragons, in addition to being responsible for the carnage that Rhaegal and Viserion were locked up for.

So what caused the change in Drogon's mood? Why appear meek to Daenerys after the riot in Mereen, and then simply take off without causing mass chaos as he'd done before? Why is Drogon just flying around, even going as far south as Valyria? He might be following his instincts, or it might be Bran flying with him.

The Night's King will not feature in the Novels.

• The Showrunners decided to introduce him as one of their divergences from the books, and he is not something they got from their insider knowledge that Martin's given them. Rather, they lifted the idea from Green Ronin's invented White Walker/Other big bad, the King of Winter, tweaking the concept a bit to call him the Night's King to make him more recognizable to book readers.
• Partly confirmed. George RR Martin stated that he intended the Night's King to be a made up in-universe story, and intends it to be a legend and not The Legend of Chekhov.

Tormund just accidentally killed Mance.

• Melissandre actually DID switch Mance and Rattleshirt, and somehow managed to get him to Hardhome. Then Tormund killed the person he THOUGHT was Rattleshirt, but actually killed Mance instead. Because that would be hilarious.

Anyone Can Die will play a role in the White Walker storyline

• If the White Walkers defeat the Night's Watch and Widlings, they cross the Wall and start reviving the characters who have died since the beginning of the series as wights. Most of the character's deaths have pushed plotlines forward, but it would be interesting if all the dead characters in Westeros come back to fight for the White Walkers. The living characters of each House in Westeros put aside their vendettas, political scrabbles, and greed to team up against the White Walkers. If they do not team up, all of Westeros will be screwed.They are forced to ally with Dany Targaryen since she has dragon's fire breathing powers to take out the White Walkers. It would be great way to end the series since it has been building up all these tangled stroylines to diverge into one epic final battle.

Hizdahr really was the leader of the Sons of the Harpy.

Hizdahr was the original leader of the Sons of the Harpy, and he formed the group as a way to try and force Daenerys to restore Meereen's old traditions. However, it soon became a case of Gone Horribly Right. After Hizdahr achieved his objectives of restoring the pit fights with becoming Daenerys' husband as a bonus, the rest of the Sons of the Harpy began to see his marriage as a betrayal to them. During the pit fight, when Hizdahr returns from making "preparations", he was really making sure the Sons of the Harpy were ready to attack in case Daenerys reneged on her promise. However, the Sons of the Harpy took the chance to betray and eliminate Hizdahr.

The Iron Throne is important but not for the reason everybody thinks.

One theory about Valyrian steel is that it is iron forged by dragon's breath. All the swords of the iron throne were transmuted into Valyrian steel when they were "forged in the fiery breath of Balerion the Dread." Valyrian steel is one of the few things that can kill a White Walker.

Sam will rediscover the process of smithing Valyrian steel

Seems possible.

Jon Snow's suspected parentage, the necessity of royal blood for Melisandre's magic and him getting stabbed to death are going to add up to something

Insert obligatory "R+L=J" comment.

The Mad King wasn't really mad

• He had good reasons for burning his enemies alive since they were demons who could only be killed by fire.
  • Perhaps he received a vision of the oncoming White Walker apocalypse and was driven to madness by trying to stop it.

House Reyne was founded by a Lannister bastard

Their House was founded by a Lannister bastard named Rain. Rain was a bastard's named at the time. For some reason they were able to found a house. They changed their name to Reyne. The Lannisters despised them, for they had similar wealth and even took the lion on their coat of arms. The destruction of the house was mainly out of spite.

Stannis is now a Revenant Zombie Cursed with Awesome.

This theory first came to me when I was wondering how Stannis, and Stannis alone, survived that battle. My answer: he didn't. The Lord of Light intervened after the battle and brought him back, unaided by any priest (magic is getting stronger, remember). However, this isn't because he's Azor Ahai. Accepting that the Lord of Light is a Good Is Not Nice god, burning Shireen could very well have been a Secret Test of Character that Stannis royally screwed the pooch on. Now the Lord of Light has made him unkillable to prolong his suffering. Season 6 will open with Brienne hacking him to pieces again and again, and the pieces reassembling themselves, until she feels better.

The Lightbringer is going to look like this◊

...well probably not, but that would simply be the most awesome thing ever. Matti 23

The Boltons' flaming flayed man is...

Stannis. The sight of a flayed stag seen ever-so-briefly in the Telltale game was shrewd foreshadowing of the highest degree. Things seem to be turning in direction of a second attempt at reclaiming Winterfell, by a host that seems likely to include poor Davos. The fire is ironic mockery on par with what was done with Robb's corpse... "Here comes the Son of Fire!" With what we know of the Boltons' "treatment" of prisoners, it seems like Stannis was lucky to go out the way he did...

Arya will learn to warg

Since she got blinded, Arya would ended up discovering her warg powers when she starts having dreams of her inside her direwolf, Nymeria, who is hunting in the Riverlands. This would become useful in her training as a Faceless Man.

The Wildings will take over the Dreadfort

And they'll settle in Bolton lands, eventually.

The entire Dorne arc is executed poorly by design

Because what with the death of Shae (who was cast for similar reasons) at the end of season four, they had no big players to distract viewers from Emilia Clarke's poor acting by means of comparison (the fact that her arc progression had slowed down to a crawl around this time didn't help). Enter the Sand Snakes, hapless Xena rejects whose godlike levels of cringe could make Megan Fox look like Helen Mirren. As a consequence, they'll stick around until someone worse comes along... at which point, the White Walkers might as well come and end it all. It is known...

Nymeria Sand will die in Season 6 because of her actress’ commitment to Iron Fist (2017)

Since Jessica Henwick is cast as one of the main leads in the Marvel Netflix show, it’s possible that Nymeria might die at some point in Season 6. Similar to the books, she will be in King’s Landing; however, she might be there to kidnap or kill someone (maybe Tommen, Kevan, Pycelle etc.). Then, she encounters Ser Robert Strong who will kill her in possibly the most brutal way (maybe similar to how her father died or not). Of course, Finn Jones is also cast as Iron Fist but he didn’t say if Loras will not survive Season 6.

• He didn't. (Loras, that is.) Nym does, though. But only two episodes into Season 7.

Ellaria does not have full control of Dorne

Seriously, why would everyone (and I mean, everyone) in Dorne would follow a bastard woman who is not a Martell or not even married to Martell? There are probably some Dornish houses who are still loyal to Doran (maybe House Yronwood or House Tolland) and they wouldn’t forgive Ellaria for murdering their liege lord and ordered the Sand Snakes to commit kinslaying. It’s possible that there would be a civil war in Dorne and since Ellaria is not as smart as Littlefinger or Tywin, she might get overthrown.

Someone will take over Casterly Rock from the Lannisters and isolate them to the Crownlands.

• They've got Tommen "Baratheon" on the throne and all, which is great for them, but who's got control of Casterly Rock right now?
  • Tywin's dead.
  • Tyrion (the legal heir, no matter how much Tywin hated it) is expatriated to Essos and basically in a steward role for Meereen in Daenerys' absence.
  • Jaime's in King's Landing - and as Kingsguard, gave up his claim to Casterly Rock anyway.
  • Kevan (Tywin's brother, next in line after Jaime and Tyrion) is serving as Hand of the King, also in KL. And if the books are anything to go by, probably won't live to see Casterly Rock again.
  • Lancel - who would be at least interim Lord of Casterly Rock as Kevan's son while Kevan served as hand, is also busy in KL raising seven hells as part of the Faith Militant. (And implicitly gives no fucks about the fact that he could actually have a legal right to rule Casterly Rock right now.)
  • Hell, even Alton, Stafford, Martyn and Willem Lannister are all dead.
• Most likely candidates:
  • The Iron Islands. Whoever ends up as the King of the Iron Islands could very well elect to make it their first target. In fact, if you pull up a map of Westeros, Casterly Rock is actually one of the closest things to the Iron Islands. And clearly with some recent developments, it's obvious that their part in the greater story isn't done yet. Also Euron Greyjoy, if he wins the Kingsmoot or even if he plays second fiddle to someone else, seems just the type to be crazy enough to pull this sort of stunt.
  • Dorne. Remember, Dorne's never really liked the Tyrells or the Lannisters ^{In the books...} The Martell family had a grudge against the Tyrells because Oberyn Martell crippled Willas Tyrell's leg in a tourney some years back. In the series, it could probably just be explained away as the fact that the Tyrells took up with the Lannisters just to get Margeary on the throne., and could well declare war on the somewhat weakened alliance and make a push for Casterly Rock. There are still obviously things to be done at first.
  • The Tyrells could always stab the Lannisters in the back. The Reach geographically sits between the Crownlands and the Westerlands anyway, and they've got the pull to really put what's left of the Lannisters in a tough spot.
    • With the very much unconverted Margaery's insistence that Olenna return to High Garden, this may very well be what she is planning
• Whoever does take it over will also discover that the region's gold mines are empty and thus the Lannisters aren't nearly as wealthy as they were in the past.

Dragonglass has mystical properties that absorb heat

The Children created the first White Walker by pushing a dragonglass dagger into a man's chest, which is why White Walkers look like frozen desiccated corpses. The reason dragonglass weapons can kill them instantly is because they rob the White Walkers of what little body heat they still have, completely turning them into ice. Valyrian steel may have similar properties, which may also explain why it's so difficult to work it.

The White Walkers also absorb heat and need it to survive

This is the reason why flames go out when they approach and why normal weapons freeze and shatter on contact. The reason their home territory North Beyond the wall is perpetually frozen over is because the White Walkers keep draining the environment and atmosphere of its heat. They also have the power to create more of their kind by draining heat from newborns similar to how the Children first created them by draining heat from humans with dragonglass. This might even explain why they are invading with the advent of the Long Winter. During the other Long Seasons there's still enough ambient heat in the world to keep them alive without major effort on their part. But it's so cold during Winter that the White Walkers have no choice but to go on the hunt for as much heat and/or life just to survive.

The Night's King uses newborns to make White Walkers for a reason

The reason he creates new White Walkers from newborns isn't because he can't do the same to adults. He can, but it's too risky. He knows firsthand how badly turning someone who hates you into a powerful living weapon can end. By using newborns instead, he can raise his lieutenants to be loyal sons to him and him alone.

Dany fed her new white horse to Drogon.

She rides off to make peace with Drogon (off-screen), but her horse never comes back. She also would have no use for a horse if she can ride a dragon. It also would serve as symbolism, rejecting the cultures of Essos by bonding with her house's "sigil".

• Or it's symbolic of her embracing both her heritage and the environment that gave her the backbone she has now. She is a dragon (Targaryen), but the horse (Dothraki) is inside her, giving her strength.

The Waif wasn't lying about being highborn.

She may have belonged to one of House Stark's rival houses (possibly the Freys, who have so many members that a missing granddaughter would hardly be noticed) and fled or got smuggled out sometime around the Red Wedding, which would explain her weirdly personal dislike of Arya.

Bran is the cause of the Mad King's insanity.

That flash of the Mad King crying "Burn them all!" in Bran's flashback reel was there for a reason. During one of his episodes, something goes horribly wrong and Bran and King Aerys encounter the White Walkers and the wights. Something in the vision will involve the words "Burn them all!", likely in reference to setting wights on fire. Bran and Aerys escape the vision eventually, but Aerys is driven mad by the experience and can no longer distinguish between the vision and reality, leading him to his infamous mania for burning everyone, thinking they are wights.

• So, you're saying that Bran also made Aerys insane when he had Ned's brother Brandon tied on a noose while he slowly roasted Lord Rickard Stark? Or when he abused and raped his wife according to the History and Lore on the Kingsguard?

Dany and Yara will hook up.

Yara's Adaptational Sexuality came a bit out of nowhere, but it could be leading up to something. Dany is herself Ambiguously Bi, although it's seriously downplayed compared to the books. And if Daario turns out to be the Harpy/gets killed/turns out to be the Harpy and gets killed, Dany could use Yara as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, at least for a time. Since Euron claimed he was going to seduce Dany with his big cock, it would be ironic if she was seduced by one of the Greyjoys with no cock, and the chances of poor Theon pulling that off are... limited. (Although Dany and Theon might form a complementarily intense emotional relationship, so really she'll be seduced by both of them.)

The castle that Jaime promises to Edmure is the Twins

.Jaime has been ordered to capture Riverrun for the Freys, but nobody said he's supposed to let them keep their own.

The White Walkers are invading because they are sick and tired of all the backstabbing and betrayals and suffering in Westerosi politics

.The Night King is one of the most benevolent rulers in the entire world. Every single one of his men follows him loyally without question, and neither he nor his men have ever once tried to harm someone who wasn't trying to harm them first. One of his White Walkers lets Sam live because he knows that Sam is an innocent who has never tried to hurt anyone in his life. The Night King and the White Walkers are only trying to do what's best for Westeros, and are trying to establish a kingdom where everyone is happy and there is no betrayal. The only reason he brings the dead back to life is because he knows that the only way he can take Westeros is with an army. But once he is actually in power, he will guide Westeros into a new age of prosperity by turning all of the backstabbing politicians into loyal ice zombies who will all work together for the good of the nobles and smallfolk alike. Then he'll bring all the characters we love back to life and everyone lives happily ever after.

• ... We're talking about a man who zombifies babies, makes snuff art, and issues challenges in the middle of battle just to show off.

The rumor Qyburn confirmed to Cersei in No One is about the coup in Dorne.

Cersei has a great deal of reason to care about the affairs in Dorne, and the Dorne subplot hasn't been touched since the season premiere. It may or may not factor into her plans to come, but if anyone still cares about what's going on in that part of the Seven Kingdoms, it's the mother of the late Princess Myrcella.

• Actually in "Oathbreaker", Jaime and Cersei already know about the coup in Dorne when they interrupted Kevan's small council meeting. But it's possible that the rumor Qyburn's talking about is that there's a civil war between those who are loyal to Doran and those who are loyal to the Sand Snakes.

Arya has become the God of Death

At least this would be a more interesting theory than her simply surviving her wounds because of Plot Armor while other characters have died from much less.

The Slaver's Bay/Daenery's Arc is a parable for the War on Terror

Both conflicts see an outside force invade/liberate a far off land for the purpose of ending a horrible institution, such as terrorism or in the case of Essos, slavery. Both see initial success, but later descend into chaos and resentment starts to form against the foreign occupying force and even worse groups replace the ones that were overthrown, in our case it is ISIS, in the case of Game of Thrones, it is the Sons of the Harpy.

Tormund will become Lord of Last Hearth, and head of the newly-created House Giantsbane

With the Umbers’ betrayal of House Stark, it’s unlikely that Sansa or Jon would be willing to overlook their transgression, especially after Rickon’s demise. The Wildlings are going to need a new home to settle in after everything is said and done, and considering how close Last Hearth is to the Gift and the Wall, they could very well settle in the Umber lands after House Umber is stripped of their lands and titles for treason, and Tormund could be made the new Lord of Last Hearth.

• Although, given that such a position would put the Wildlings immediately after the Watch as the most in danger should the White Walkers actually breach the wall, it would kind of come off as the North using the Wildlings for cannon fodder. (Which is precisely why a guy like, say, Littlefinger, would suggest it.) Better options include Deepwood Motte, where the Starks could strip the Glovers for their failure to aid them against the Boltons... or the Dreadfort itself, which is conspicuously vacant of any Boltons.
• Stripping the Glovers of their land and titles seems a bit extreme, considering that they had legitimate reasons not to get involved and they were far from the only House to stay out of the conflict. However, the Karstarks are also good candidates for punishment alongside the Umbers and Boltons.
  • A clearheaded ruler would probably either pardon the Glovers or make their punishment less severe, sure. But combine everything Jon and Sansa have gone through as of late with the potential influence of Littlefinger (who House Stark is now indebted to, no matter how much they may distrust him, and whom they certainly can't afford to have as an enemy) and the fact that this is Westeros, and there's no guarantee that the clear heads prevail.
  • Giving the Wildlings Umber land seems like a bad idea, politically, because the people of The Last Hearth have been warring against Wildlings for generations. They lost more men to the Wildlings than any other Northern house. Putting a wildling in charge just feels like spiting them. Giving Tormund the Dreadfort, however, there's an idea.
    • Since Wildings generally dislike the ways of southerners and kneelers, it seems odd that Tormund would want to be a Lord. Tormund and the Wildings like Jon, though, and as all Stark soldiers were slaughtered in the Red Wedding, so they may simply settle around Winterfell.
    • It's less a matter of making Tormund a lord and giving him lands and titles than it is making sure an important fortress is manned and defended for the wars to come. Tormund may not want a lordship, but he probably wouldn't mind having a keep, and you don't need the former to have the latter.

Alternate to the above - Littlefinger spent the majority of his absence from Season 6 attempting to court Ellaria Sand. For that matter, maybe Ellaria's coup and the resulting murders were orchestrated by Littlefinger himself.

• Frankly, the two seem perfect for each other - or, at least, Ellaria seems like the perfect tool for Littlefinger and a guy she might consider falling for. And after the reveal that Littlefinger basically triggered GoT's whole damn plotline, can you really put anything past the guy?

Eventually, Jon and Sansa will get married.

It would make sense, if only Jon's parentage is publically revealed making them cousins.With Rickon's death and Bran's disappearance (and don't forget his disability) Sansa is the eldest daughter and thus the heir.Jon is a Targaryen, nephew of Daenerys(who will eventually take back Westeros), but also a Stark on his mother's side. The two of them will agree that get married is a the best chance they have to restore House Stark and keep Winterfell, which they already have conquered.

• And of course, in that waste land that is Sansa's love life, probably Jon is the best husband she could find.

Jamie will kill Cersei.

Season 6 put a lot of emphasis on the fact that Jamie will do anything for Cersei but stressed at the same time that he wanted to be an honorable person. As of the season 6 finale, Cersei has gone completely mad - burning down the city just as the Mad King once tried to do before Jamie killed him to save King's Landing. He will have to do the same with his sister. The long lingering shot of the two of them as she is crowned foreshadows the inevitable confrontation.

• As further supporting evidence for this, the books mention Maggy the Frog's prophecy that Cersei will be killed by the valonqar (High Valyrian for little brother), and that she thinks this is Tyrion (I don't think the show mentions this as well, but he certainly seems to give her a Death Glare when he returns in the season finale, and I don't think the producers would change something this important). Given GRRM's fondness for Prophecy Twists, Jaime is by far the most credible candidate for killing her, especially since every single one of Maggy's prophecies have come true this far.
• Don't forget, Cersei is the older twin, meaning Jamie is an younger brother too. And Cersei has been so confident in her control of him, she has completely dismissed him as a threat. He could easily kill her simply because she cannot comprehend him acting against her, despite her actions making his sacrifice of his honor and everything he worked for worthless. With Tyrion, Cersei has believed him to be her prophesied killer since she has heard the prophecy (or since he was born, depending on which happened first,). So she gets a hint of him coming near her, especially after she tried to have him executed, and she'll be too paranoid for him to get near. She'd do anything to keep him away.

Jon's true name is either Aegon or Rhaegar

Let's think about it: Jon Connington has been Adapted Out and his arc transferred to Jorah Mormont. Because of this it is rather unlikely that we'll ever get to see Aegon in GoT.What if his arc is transferred to Jon Snow and thus he was named after the first Targaryen ruler?We know Rhaegar had already an Aegon back in King's Landing but he had no say in this naming because, well, he's already dead at that point.Or...simply Jon is a Dead Guy Junior who's named after his father. And revealing of that naming will be the ultimate confirm that he's indeed Rhaegar's son, which it's not overtly stated but implied with the strength of a sledgehammer by Lyanna's suggestion of Robert killing her son.

• Aegon, Rhaegar's son with Ellia, had been born before Rhaegar died, and Rhaegar explicitly named the boy himself - in fact it's strongly suggested that the toll Aegon's birth had on Ellia - she was frail and unlikely to survive a third birth - is what prompted Rhaegar to look for another babymomma to fulfill his "The dragon has three heads" prophecy. However, Rhaegar was very much dead by the time Jon was born. Given that Rhaegar would have had to rally the Dornish forces, march up to King's Landing, rally the Royal Host, and march to the Trident where he died, and that Ned then had to march an army down to King's Landing, where he apparently waited for Robert to show back up, then march an army to Storm's End to relieve Stannis, and only then set out to the Tower of Joy where he happened to arrive the day Lyanna gave birth, Rhaegar died several months before Jon's birth. While it's hardly uncommon for couples to pick out names for their kids that far in advance, it's a debatable point as to whether or not that's the kid's 'true' name until it's born to be given the name. In any event, if Rhaegar and/or Lyanna did pick out a different name, Lyanna apparently chose not to pass it on to Ned, either because she knew it would be a tip off to his true parentage, or because she was a very unwilling participant in the whole thing and didn't want to honor her rapist's wishes for the name of her son. As it stands, Word of God is that Ned named Jon, almost certainly after Jon Aryn.
  • What I was suggesting there is that Jon isn't indeed his true name, but the one chosen by Ned to cover the more "Targaryenish" one Lyanna gave to him.

She did actually choose to tell Ned and actually whispered what said name was, but Bran failed to hear it. It has been Ned's choice to change that in Jon to protect him.I have suggested she may have chosen Aegon without Rhaegar's knowledge because at that point he has already left to battle and likely dead, with the only flaw in this theory that Rhaegar's son with Elia was named Aegon. The other name I would pick is Rhaegar, making a case of Dead Guy Junior.But again, whatever that name was, Ned thought was safer to change it in a more average "Jon".

• Attempts at lip-reading from the Reveal episode are giving increasing support for the name Jaehaerys, which was the name of two Targaryen kings (one of them being Aerys' father) as well as a son of Aerys/younger brother of Rhaegar that died in infancy.
• This troper studies linguistics and is fairly certain that the name begins with a vowel, which is immediately followed by a non-bilabial consonant. This would rule out two of the most popular suggestions, Jaehaerys and Aemon. Note that Jaehaerys also begins with the very prominent post-alveolar affricate d͡ʒ, which is, however, not visible in her lip movements.

• My money's on Jaehaerys. Why? Rhaegar's first son was named Aegon (after the conqueror), and his daughter Rhaenys (the sister Aegon I married out of desire). While I have a feeling that Rhaegar had hoped for another daugther (and named her Visenya), he got a son instead. Which name should he have? The name of the longest serving and arguably most well liked Targaryen king there had been.

Arya did die at the Waif's hands.

How did a badly injured, bleeding Arya beat the Waif when she never could before? If she did, why didn't we get to see their fight? Simple: the Waif actually killed Arya and took her face. The Arya who confronts Jaqen afterward is actually the Waif, wearing Arya's face and getting really deep into character. In the finale, "Arya" was able to use a mask. The real Arya refused to become No One, and would not have used the masks again, knowing what it would do to her.

• Except this wouldn't have been the first time she stole a face and went rogue. Remember Meryn Trant?
  • I think the point being made by the OP is that she should have learned her lesson after the Meryn Trant incident; using a face without authorization lead to her going blind - though the exact cause and effect on that is still somewhat unclear.
• Waif would have no desire to go kill Walder Frey and then brag about it to his face in his dying moments, or to go Frey Pie on him, so it is highly unlikely to be Waif doing a Kill and Replace.
  • She would because that's what the real Arya would've done. The disguise has to perfect. There are still people in Westeros who knew Arya and knew of her Kill List. There has to be absolutely no reason for anyone to get suspicious.

Cersei & Jaime are going to try and turn various Reach and Dornish houses against Olenna and the Sand Snakes

• At this point their only move to maintain power is to sow unrest and rebellion against those who are rebelling against them. Fortunately for them, those rebels are in a particularly weak position - Olenna is all that remains of House Tyrell, making it effectively extinct given that she's well passed her child bearing years, and House Martell is actually extinct, given that Ellaria and the Sand Snakes are all bastards. For the Reach, at least, it probably wouldn't be too hard to convince Randal Tarly to turn against Olenna and try and seize power for himself - Tarly's a fairly big player in the books and his actor is too perfectly cast not to do more with than have him show up for a single awkward dinner.

Bronn will switch sides to the Targaryen Coalition.

• This isn't going to be a particularly noble move on his part even though he'll be fighting for one of the less evil sides. Simply put, Bronn's got no interest in dying loyally for the losing side if someone else can help him survive. The Crown's already in debt, probably worse off than before with the Reach defecting, and the Lannister coffers are completely empty. Whatever Daenerys's side comes along and offers would have to be more appealing than dying in the Crownlands, especially because the Lannisters keep reneging on their promises to him. It doesn't hurt in the slightest that the Targaryen Coalition contains Tyrion, who was his friend after a fashion - or Tyene Sand and her "bad poosey".

Qyburn is Varys' double agent.

Qyburn came essentially from nowhere, yet he established a spy network that rivals the Spider's in King's Landing in the matter of months, even winning over his 'little birds' with little trouble. And he remains inexplicably loyal to Cersei even in her most self-destructive moments, even though a man of his intelligence should know that she's liable to drag him down with her. He encourages her every excess and kowtows to her every absurd plan, seemingly with nothing to gain — even his grand experiment has been completed successfully. And now, in Season 6 finale, he kills Grandmaester Pycelle with the same methods and words as Lord Varys did in the books. With all these facts in mind, it's not at all improbable that he is Varys' mole, and his job is to ensure that Cersei will become a suitable villain for Daenerys to conquer that she'll gain the gratitude of all the Seven Kingdoms in doing so, easing her access to the Iron Throne immensely.

• Cersei's villainous excesses also help to drive allies away, and make them more amenable to alliance with Daenerys. Dorne and the Reach have already thrown their lot in with Dany, and the North is in an amenable condition as well since they're still sore from the Red Wedding that the Lannisters and their allies perpetrated.

Cersei will kill Jaime.

Cersei's been clearly set up as a Gender Flip spin of Aerys, and one of the things that happened to Aerys as he grew more and more insane, was that his distrust and paranoia extended to even close friends and family. Of course, Jaime may well have no intention whatsoever of killing Cersei no matter how far she goes in her attempt to hold the Iron Throne. But Cersei, knowing that Jaime has killed a king already, will grow to distrust him in the end. Of course, killing one of her few allies will prove to accelerate the inevitable.

Arya posed as a Faceless and obtained a contract from someone to kill the Freys.

Sure, she would have done it anyway, probably, because It's Personal for her, but why not profit off the fact that you're not the only one who wants Walder Frey dead? Also, even though she's not officially a Faceless, she has the skills of one and, in Westeros, there's really no one left that can rein her in from using them. Obviously, to a Westerosi that wanted someone dead, the difference between a "true" Faceless (i.e. working for the organization) and someone with the correct skillset posing as one would be nominal. Here are possible candidates:

• Edmure Tully, for reasons that should be obvious.
• Varys, for some greater purpose no one knows yet.
• Jaime Lannister, who hinted in that same episode that the Freys had outlived their usefulness. And wouldn't that be a twist, for Arya to kill Walder Frey like she was planning to do anyway, and then get gold from the hated Lannisters as payment for the killing?
• Bronn, maybe hoping that vacating the Lordship of a castle and then requesting it from the Lannisters as payment may move his status along a bit.
• The Maegyr family - maybe Arya stopped in Volantis on the way back to Westeros? In all this time (likely about 2-3 years) it's not so much a stretch for them to have found out that a Westerosi lord had their daughter murdered.

The War Against The Night's King will drastically alter Westerosi geography in the end, perhaps either extending its Reach north past the Wall or by making parts or all of the North completely uninhabitable.

• To say nothing of political borders - the sudden extinguishment of so many Great Houses may prompt some reshuffling for whoever is left as the winner. Particularly if it's Daenerys, who may opt to do anything from annexing parts of Essos she controls to granting certain regions independence or autonomy (like the Targaryens did with Dorne) to doing away with the regional designations altogether.

Jon, Sansa and Bran will rule as a triumvirate.

• Each of them will fulfill one of three roles that are ususally taken together by the same person: Jon has already been hailed as the King in the North, who will defer Sansa to be the Lady of Winterfell; meanwhile, Bran (who won't be seen as a "proper" leader on account of being disabled, and has other fish to fry as the Three-eyed Raven) will be handled the responsibility of siring trueborn Stark children, so the family can live on.
  • If that should happen, Meera Reed will surely be Bran's first choice for a wife.
  • ...Sort of? The series ends, in essence, with the three as leaders over a section of the continent. Bran is elected the new King of the Six Kingdoms, as the North declares independence and anoints Sansa Queen. As for Jon, on paper he is exiled back to the Night's Watch. But as the Night's Watch no longer exists and the Wall has been destroyed - not to mention the threat used as the reasoning for either of these is no longer there - in truth Jon reunites with Tormund and the rest of the remaining wildlings to return north of (what was once) the wall, where he will likely be that group's leader in all but name.

Cersei will meet her end similar to Rhaenyra I

For those who have read The Princess And The Queen and watched the DVD extras regarding The Dance of the Dragons, remember that Rhaenyra I is the Foil to Cersei herself. And History Repeats where Cersei will become more paranoid and insane since Dany is heading back to Westeros with her new allies. Then, Jaime will be just like Prince Daemon Targaryen who will marry her but realize that Cersei is completely nuts and defects either to Dany or Jon or be with Brienne (who could like Nettles). Then, he will have a Duel to the Death with Frankenmountain. In the end, Dany conquers King’s Landing and feeds Cersei to Drogon.

The opening credits in Season 7 will have a complete makeover

Since Tommen Baratheon is gone and Cersei is now the queen, the Baratheon stag sigil will be replaced with a lion sigil to symbolize the Lannister regime. We still get to see Winterfell and the Wall. Then, we might get to see Storm’s End, Sunspear and/or Oldtown since Dany left Essos unless we get to see what Daario and Jorah are up to.

Oldtown will be the new King’s Landing and base of operations for Dany

Unless they get Dragonstone which is currently owned by no one after Stannis died, Oldtown would be the perfect place for Daenarys to settle in which is the site of the Citadel (where the order of Maesters is based) and the headquarters of the Faith of the Seven (High Sparrow’s order is just a small faction of the Faith). This will also be the place where Dany meets Archmaester Marwyn, who would educate her about the history of Westeros etc. and probably the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy. Then, Euron will attempt to invade Oldtown just like in the books and Yara and Theon will try to stop him.

Bran will be asked to be the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch in Season 7.

• This is the same position the Three-Eyed Raven (Brynden Rivers/Bloodraven) once held.
• Bran knows the most about the Night's King and the White Walkers through his tutelage with Bloodraven.
• There has already been precedent for boys as young as ten serving as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch in extraordinary circumstances - and that was back before Aegon's Conquest, where the Night's Watch was implicitly much larger and better organized than it is presently.

The Night King will take full Big Bad status this season.

Seeing as most of villains are dead (Joffery, Tywin, Roose, Ramsay and Walder), or in over their heads (Cersei making too many enemies and on the verge of loosing her remaining allies), Sansa refusing to be Littlefinger's pawn, Euron already being in Big Bad Wannabe status this season, the Sparrows and the Sons of the Harpy being wiped out, the only real threat now are the White Walkers. This lends to one of two situations; A. The watch and the North will be preparing heavily for the White Walker invasion, or B; the Night King will continue being Bran's Arc Villain of the season but will cross the Wall as the seasons cliffhanger.

• Given that the showrunners are calling for 2 more seasons for a total of 13 episodes, it'll probably be Cersei for a seven-episode Season 7 and the Night's King for a six-episode Season 8.

Daenerys will run into trouble invading the North

How used are the Unsullied, the Dothraki or their horses to cold climates, now that winter has come, and how well do dragons fly then for that matter?

• Aegon the Conqueror never needed to invade the North. All the Northern Lords at the time saw all the Andals to the south getting curb-stomped by these Valyrians with dragons, and wisely bent the knee outright when they learned these conquerors were coming north. Providing the old animosities towards the Targaryens from Robert's Rebellion have subsided, a similar exchange might happen. That still doesn't mean inclement weather won't be a problem when the White Walkers come a-knockin'.

Cersei will blackmail Daenerys with the wildfire.

Basically, she makes it known that if Dany attacks King's Landing with her dragons, they will inevitably set off the remaining wildfire caches, setting the whole city ablaze, denying Dany her reward and costing hundreds of thousands lives. And she'll set them off, herself, if a conventional army tries to breach the gates.

• And then Jamie will end up killing a second mad ruler who wanted to Burn Them All before the order can get out, fulfilling the prophecy that she would die at the hands of a younger brother (since Jamie was the second-born twin).
  • Also, if this happens, it will parallel the death of King Aerys. Cersei will order Jaime to kill Tyrion and/or Daenerys, then order Qyburn to "burn them all" just to spite Daenerys. Jaime will first kill Qyburn then kill Cersei.

Theon Greyjoy will fight as a Greyjoy, but will die as a brother to the Starks.

Theon feels guilty still for what he has done. After finding out he had inadvertently lead to Rickon's death, Theon will realize that while he is a Greyjoy by blood, he was raised a Stark. Yara, understanding, will let him go and tell him that while he was a terrible Greyjoy, he would always be her brother... but that he was the brother of the Stark children as well and that this was something he has to do. Theon will die defending Jon Snow in some way that allows him to fulfill the 'comes back stronger' part of the prayer to the Drowned God, atoning for his crimes. He will be buried with the Starks, with the Greyjoy banner as a shroud.

Sam will literally become a wizard.

Remember when he confessed so long ago that it was what he had always wanted? Well, now he is in the Citadel, which contains a massive number of volumes on secret arts, that most Maesters overlook because everybody knows that magic doesn't really work. But after the return of the dragons it's a very different story, and those would be the very first thing that Sam would look for to find ways to repel the White Walkers. Unfortunately, it will probably also cost him his good-natured innocence in the process.

Dany have an Entitled to Have You attitude towards Jon

Since Griff has been Adapted Out and it's very unlikely that even if Jon discovered his heritage he'd be interested in becoming Dany's Hot Consort, it would make more sense for Dany to assume that Jon would marry her without question as they are the last Targaryens and she has, thus far, never encountered a man who did not want her. Just like in the book, Tyrion will be the one to give her a reality check and point out that just because she and Jon are the last Targaryens and she is considered the World's Most Beautiful Woman, doesn't mean Jon would automatically agree to marry her and abandon his role as King in the North.

• Ok, so, let's start by tackling the question of "How would she know he's a Targaryen?" As far as she or anyone besides Howland Reed, Meera, and Bran know, Jon is Ned's bastard and all of Rhaegar's children are dead. In theory, Bran is going to tell Jon and possibly Sansa, and in turn they could tell Dany when she shows up, but would Dany have any reason to believe them? Would it actually be in Jon's interest to publicly claim the name, given that his support in the North is based on the idea of him being Ned's kid, and the North in general has no interest in the Iron Throne, merely their own independence? While a political marriage with Jon would be benefitial to Dany in bringing the North back into the fold, it would be more beneficial for her to marry Jon Snow or Jon Stark than it would be to marry Jon Targaryen, because as Rhaegar's child his claim would arguably be better than hers, which would throw her legitimacy as ruler into question.

Dany will take over Storm's End when she will land on Westeros

Since Young Griff is Adapted Out, Dany's conquest will be similar to his. But since Storm's End is heavily fortified to withstand a siege, Dany might apply the same tactic that she did to Yunkai. Or she might use the same strategy that Jon Corrington had (I forgot what it is but it has something to do with sneaking inside). The Stormlands used to be under Stannis after Renly died and since Stannis is dead, they're neutral and they'll never side with Cersei after the horrible things that she side. So, Dany has to woo the Storm lords to their side if she wants to get Dragonstone, which is Aegon I's base of operation during the Age of Conquest.

• Jossed. She went to the Dragonstone first, as it was left vacated. Storm's End hasn't even been mentioned. Although a certain Baratheon bastard is still in the wind somewhere.......

How Westeros will respond to the White Walker invasion, assuming everyone whis alive now will be alive then (feel free to add your own, or alternatives)

• The Northern Houses; since they are pretty much up to speed with the existence of the Night's King. Since they are already preparing for winter, they will be sending as much men as possible to help the Watch. However for the sake of Complexity Addiction this will take a toll; some houses will loose resources to protect themselves in an effort to help the Watch.
• House Lannister: Cersei, being Cersei, will be completely indifferent to them and what little thought she puts into them, it will be minimal compared to her own problems. Jamie however will show concern and decide that he can't do much as a Kings Guard and will join the Nights Watch as an alternative, perhaps as a final penance. Either way it's another nail in House Lannister's coffin.
  • Bloody confirmed; Cersei didn't really care about the White Walkers or Wights even after being shown one in full action, but Jaime did care.
• The Iron Islands; Since Euron's plot to side with Dany is down the tubes, he will plot to side with another powerful ruler on the verge of Westeros; The Nights King. We know Euron isn't right in the head and might have a borderline God Complex, so teaming up with omnicidal beings to gain power couldn't be put past him. Perhaps the Horn of Winter will be involved. This will add fuel to the fire for the inevetable civil war in the Iron Islands. The question being is if the Nights King is the type that accepts deals or alliances considering the apparent deal between Craster and the White Walkers, or going by Euron's failure to side with Dany, he will be killed after a humiliating failure.
  • Jossed; Euron, visibly frightened by the live demonstration of a wight, declared neutrality and fleeing to the Iron Islands, but later returns to help Cersei's side out.
• House Tarly: Besides the North, other Houses may send men to the wall to help the Watch. Randyll Tarly will lead some of his men to the wall as a testament to valor, with Dickon lording over his house. Throughout this, people on the Wall will talk to Randyll about how is unfavorite son Sam was the first living human to kill a White Walker and praise Sam, much to Randyll's irritation. Bonus points if unlike Sam, Randyll will be killed by one of the White Walkers, without putting up a fight, or choose to flee at the mere sight of them.
  • Jossed; Randyll sided with the Lannisters to retake the Reach and ended up barbecued by Drogon, along with Dickon.
• House Targaeryen: Daenerys and her armies set sail to conquer Westeros, not to fight zombies in the North, so they will focus their efforts against Cersei. Both Varys and Tyrion will be very aware of the extent of the threat from the White Walkers, and will impress this on Dany, and both will probably be aware that only dragons have a chance of really defeating them, but they will have differing advice. Varys will suggest that she focus on taking the south, let the North and the Vale wear themselves down holding off the White Walkers so that she can conquer them with ease, and then stop the White Walkers herself. Tyrion will urge her to send a contingent of her army and the dragons to see off the White Walkers, and make an early alliance with the North and the Vale, saving their lives and winning them over to her side that way, then together take the south. Dany will take a middle ground: she will put helping the North and the Vale on her to-do list, but will focus all her forces on retaking King's Landing first, as she will be unwilling to risk not having the Iron Throne after all her effort. Depending on how long this takes, by the time she's finished the White Walker invasion may be right on her doorstep, along with a refugee influx.
  • Jossed in the end; Dany, after a bit of hesitation (and losing one of her precious dragons), signed up to fight the Walkers and even called for a truce with Cersei to do it.
• Littlefinger and the Vale: The Walker invasion will bring about a gradual Villainous Breakdown in Littlefinger. He never considered or took into account their existence in his long term plans. And would have little knowledge of them. The threat of the White Walkers are a threat to all his ambitions and plans. And he will adapt to it; it is said that Littlefinger would burn the whole country if he could be King of the Ashes, and it's no doubt that his 'chaos is a ladder' philosophy will be at play. Pragmatic Villainy has virtually no place with the Nights King on the horizon. Because Sansa is no longer his pawn, Littlfinger will retaliate by refusing any aid for the North in the White Walker threat, but since they are a threat to all of Westeros, in lieu of burning Westeros, he will allow them to pass, perhaps have his men kill any House armies heading to face the threat, he will burn any food and resources for their protection ala Ramsay in season5, and will refuse refugee aid. Whatever it takes for him to live to see his kingdom of ashes.
  • Jossed; Littlefinger tried to sow dissent between the Stark sisters to take over Winterfell, but it didn't go well at all.

The Season 7 opener will be a recap of the events from Season 1 to Season 6 in the form of the puppet show from A Feast for Crows

The puppet troupe will then suffer the wrath of Cersei just like in the book in order to show her ongoing paranoia and Sanity Slippage.

At the beginning of Season 8 or towards the end of Season 7, Tyrion will go North to broker peace with the remaining Starks

Tyrion is the only southern member of Danaerys's court who's had any positive interactions with the Starks and sees the value of the North. In addition, the remaining Starks in the north (Jon, Sansa, and Bran) all have had positive impressions of Tyrion despite their families' animosity (Jon and Tyrion's Odd Friendship in Season 1, Tyrion being kind and supportive towards Sansa even after they were forcibly married, Tyrion designing the special saddle for Bran, etc). Jon in particular would probably be in favor of making peace with the South since, as it's Winter and the North has suffered horrible losses in manpower due to the War of Five Kings and the war with the Boltons and their allies, they need all the help they can get.

• It appears the opposite has happened, with Jon and Davos coming south to Dragonstone to attempt to ally with Daenerys.

The coming war will go as horribly wrong as it possibly can go

Because this is Game of Thrones, and because Season 6 ended with far too many good guys coming out on top (feel free to add your own speculations):

• Littlefinger will assassinate Lord Royce and frame the Wildlings for it. Jon will be forced to make an impossible choice between his most loyal supporters and his most powerful allies, and the North will be plunged into chaos and civil war. Jon will be ousted and/or killed, and Littlefinger will place Sansa as his Puppet Queen In The North.
  • Jossed: the Wildings have left Winterfell for Eastwatch-By-The-Sea, so they aren't around to frame. And Littlefinger, after a season-long Humiliation Conga, finally got his long-deserved Karmic Death.
• Dany's invasion will not be the Curb-Stomp Battle we all think/hope it will be. Cersei will dig in at King's Landing and will make the invasion force fight for every inch. The dragons will die in the fighting, which will break Dany psychologically. History will repeat, as Jaime is forced to kill another mad monarch for the greater good. But he will wait too long, and before he works up the nerve to kill his own sister, King's Landing will be reduced to ash and rubble. In the aftermath, with Dany no longer in any condition to lead, her coalition disintegrates. The faction led by Tyrion and Varys will hold what remains of the city (at least until a half-crazed Jaime Lannister emerges from the rubble and murders his brother for starting this whole mess), the Tyrells and the Dornish will wrestle with each other for control of the surrounding Crownlands, the Dothraki will run wild throughout Westeros, and the Ironborn will turn tail and run.
  • Partly Jossed: The Tyrells, the Dornish, and Yara and Theon's faction of the Ironborn were wiped out by Episode 3, and Dany is no longer in any position to lay siege to King's Landing. In addition, Jaime simply fled to the North after a failed attempt of brokering truce/alliance between Stark/Targaryen union and the Lannisters.
• Brienne and Podrick will never make it back to Winterfell. Much like their book counterparts, they'll be captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners, who now count among their ranks Sandor Clegane and the Not Quite Dead Blackfish. With Clegane already aligned against Brienne, and the Blackfish assuming the role of Lady Stoneheart, they don't have a chance of coming out alive.
  • Jossed: At the beginning of Season 7, Brienne and Podrick have made it back to Winterfell without incident, and the Brotherhood Without Banners haven't slid into fanaticism yet.
• Arya will lose her mind completely, carving a bloody swath through the Riverlands. At some random roadside inn she will meet Gendry again, who tries to help her but is murdered for his troubles. Watching him die, Arya comes back to herself, and commits suicide in despair.
  • Jossed; she made it safe to Winterfell and happily reunited with Sansa. And while Gendry is back indeed, he and Arya haven't met yet.
• The Bay of Dragons will fall apart, because Daario's an idiot.
• Meera and Bran will die of something terribly mundane, like hypothermia or starvation, forgotten about in the far North. The Night's King will stumble upon their bodies in his march south, and he will laugh.
  • Jossed; they make it back to Winterfell early in Season 7.
• In the midst of all this chaos, the White Walkers cross the Wall. They can't bring their undead army due to the magic barrier in the Wall, but fortunately the wars have left plenty of corpses around. The Zombie Apocalypse begins.
  • Likely confirmed, except they broke through the Wall using Viserion, Dany's former pet hijacked by Night's King's ice spear in the neck.
• Winter Comes.
• The End.

The casual killing-off/diminishing of the direwolves actually has nothing to do with budget. It was planned that way from the beginning.

The story starts with the Starks discovering the direwolf pups, which quickly becomes a case of Dwindling Party. Lady is executed in the second episode, Nymeria is Put on a Bus, Grey Wolf dies along with Robb, Summer dies trying to protect Bran, Shaggydog is killed (presumably) trying to protect Rickon, and Ghost disappears from the narrative without a trace. Readers/watchers were convinced these direwolves were going to have a much greater significance because that's usually the norm for a fantasy novel. But GRRM's stock in trade is setting up these fantasy tropes and then subverting them brutally. Of course, people that knew that then tried to gauge and predict the story for the Starks based on the fate of the direwolves. But things don't really match up properly. Lady was the first direwolf to die in the series but Sansa is still alive and (threat of encroaching White Walkers aside) in a much better and safer position than when she started. Ghost, who, based on what happened to the other Stark boys, probably could have been killed off trying to protect Jon Snow from the Night's Watch coup (or shortly thereafter), seemed to live through everything, but just wasn't seen again.

The direwolves weren't important characters that were made unimportant. They were never supposed to be important or symbolic in the first place. All they were, were what they appeared to be - loyal pets that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Arya and Hot Pie have already reunited off-screen.

Arya has learned many skills over the course of her travels, but they mostly revolve around stabbing, not baking. Yet when she returned to Westeros she was able to transform two dead men (or at least, choice cuts of two dead men) into an extremely delicious-looking and quite beautifully glazed pie. There's only one person she knows with the skills necessary to make murder look that tasty...

Littlefinger knows about Jon's heritage and will use this knowledge to create yet another Succession Crisis

Much like in Season 1 with him leading Ned Stark to the knowledge of Joffrey being the bastard son of Cersei and Jaime, he will manipulate Sansa and use a trail of breadcrumbs to lead her to the revelation of Jon's parentage, all the while playing on her insecurity about her status and the sense that Jon does not appreciate her. Once the secret is out, it can go one of two ways, both of which would benefit Littlefinger. Either Sansa will confront Jon directly with proof of his heritage and he will do the honorable thing and abdicate so that Sansa will become the new Queen in the North or there will be yet another war between two claimants to Winterfell, which will most likely be won by Sansa's faction since she already has the Vale on her side and most of the Northern lords would most likely follow Ned Stark's legitimate child rather than the bastard son of Rheagar Targaryen. Either way, Littlefinger would expect to become the de facto power in the North with Sansa ruling as his Puppet Queen.

The Mad King knew about the White Walkers all along.

Why else would he be stocking up on Wildfire? He knew they were coming and wanted to be able to wipe out the Wights should they ever reach King's Landing. The only problem is that due to his Sanity Slippage, much of this idea is lost and he decides to use the Wildfire on more trivial matters.

The Starks and the Greyjoys will negotiate Asha's plan from ASOIAF.

Euron will probably not endear himself to the newly-minted King in the North and continue raiding the weakened North. Yara, on the other hand, will see the value of making peace with both the North and the South and will negotiate a temporary alliance with the Starks. Jon, knowing the North needs peace to bolster its forces against the upcoming war with Winter's King, will agree and the Starks and the Greyjoys will hammer out a long-term agreement, including the ceding of Sea Dragon Point, Stony Shore and other coastal lands to the Iron Islands so they have means by which to sustain themselves and keep to the promise that Yara made to Daenerys to end the Ironborn's reaving ways.

Dany and Jon, and their respective allies, have a great chance at a potential alliance, but they will have to work around obstacles awaiting them

Dany is clearly intent on taking the Iron Throne, which is far from the North. Jon, for his part, has no interest in it, because he knows the White Walkers are by far the biggest threat. Dany, considering her assets and the Lannisters' very weak positions, should not have too much trouble taking King's Landing and the surrounding areas (unless Cersei has a massive trick up her sleeve). Once Dany succeeds and word reaches the North, Jon, knowing his character and goals, will know better than to resume old family feuds with the Targaryens, and will try to form an alliance with Dany. There are many reasons why it should work:

1. Jon and the North will respect Dany, given her reputation as a just ruler who got rid of slavery and is also willing to be ruthless, but only when it is absolutely necessary. In other words, she has made it clear she is not her father.

2. Jon and Sansa both have positive views of Tyrion, who treated both of them as best he could (as a Lannister). They will sympathize with his situation and listen to what he has to say.

3. Bran (who hopefully will return) will tell Jon what he's learned about Jon's heritage. Dany, if she finds out, will likely want to work with Jon even more so, as she values her family, and she is certainly not a petty and spiteful person like Cersei.

4. Jon will be inclined to forgive Theon, given what Ramsay did to him and how he saved Sansa, and welcome his help.

5. Varys, Olenna, and Tyrion, as well as Dany herself, are all pragmatic and reasonable enough to know that the White Walkers absolutely must be stopped, and that there is no place for squabbles, as everyone must work together in order to have even a remote chance at succeeding.

6. In case Dany resents the North and the Starks for deposing her father and helping Robert Baratheon, Varys and Tyrion will vouch for Ned Stark, given his integrity, and their history. Dany's brother kidnapped Ned's sister and forced her to give birth to Jon (her nephew) and her father killed Ned's father and brother in a truly horrific manner. Furthermore, Ned made it clear that he despised the brutality inflicted on the Targaryens by Robert and the Lannisters and wanted them held accountable. Not to mention Dany did not seem happy when Tyrion told her how both their fathers helped destroy House Stark.

7. If Jorah Mormont can find some way to survive his greyscale infection and come back to Dany, he will be inclined to work with Jon, who not only was close to Jorah's father Jeor but also led the men who killed the mutineers and avenged Jeor's death. Dany will also vouch for Jorah as a man who atoned for his past sins and redeem him in the eyes of House Stark.

Of course, even with all these factors, Jon and Dany will have to be aware of and overcome massive obstacles, such as resentment of the Wildings, distrust and hatred towards the Targaryens and Ironborn, and Littlefinger, who will most certainly be playing everyone against each other and constantly pouring gasoline on any fires. All in all, while excellent alliance potential is there, it can either go really well or really horribly...

Daenerys will become the Big Bad of the series.

• She really comes across as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, no? Wants to retake the Iron Throne and smash the wheel of succession. Her crusade has largely been of using force to take what she wants, particularly when it comes to slavers. She had been able to unite and ally with the other houses on peaceful terms, but should they overthrow Cersei, what happens next? Would Daenerys be accepted as Queen? What if the other houses don't want her, or they do something she doesn't like? Would she just send her dragons to sack Winterfall or The Iron Bank? Would her success go to her head and Daenerys ends up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope?

Gendry's future

Since Joe Dempsie has been seen in Belfast, it's likely he's coming back with a huge role. Since Stannis, Robert, Renly and Shireen have died, House Baratheon is virtually extinct. The logical choice for Daenerys or whoever will take the throne is to legitimate that boy and restore House Baratheon of Storm's End, and the Seven know if there's need of new meat in Westeros' nobility.

Melisandre will reunite with the Brotherhood Without Banners in Season 7

Beric and Thoros (with the Hound in tow) intend to go north. Melisandre is now exiled from Winterfell (and by extension, the North), so it's logical that she would go south. They're natural allies against the White Walkers, so it's probable they would team up.

Parallels between the Stark children and the dire wolves

Both Robb and Rickon's wolves got murdered just like them. Arya's wolf ran away like her, and Ghost fought like Jon.So Summer gave his life for Bran, and Lady got murdered in place of Arya's dog. If the parallels continue, then Bran will give his life for someone else (Jon maybe?) and Sansa will get murdered for something Arya did. Maybe Arya will kill Jaime (she doesn't know that he has changed for the better) and someone will kill Sansa for that.

Bran won't be the one telling Jon about his parentage

Bran will die in Jon's arms (possibly giving his life for him if the wolf-parallels continues) before he can tell him who his mother is. It's Game Of Thrones after all.

Yara Greyjoy isn't gay; she (ze?) is Transgender

One of the characterization differences between Book!Asha to TV!Yara is that Yara doesn't want to put an end to the Rape, Pillage, and Burn Ironborn lifestyle, and in fact objects when Dani names that as one of her terms. This is because Yara identifies as male, has embraced the Ironborn ideal of manhood, and in fact typifies it better than a lot of other male Ironborn (especially her brother). It's just this is Medieval Times and nobody understands the concept.

Tyrion will betray Dany in season 7 or 8.

Mostly because their scene together included a couple of notable parallels to scenes between Robb and Theon back in season 1, most notable the whole "are you scared? ... Good," conversation, but also the line "now and always" (which, admittedly, could just be coincidence). And we all know how that worked out. Also, in the books it's prophesised Dany will know three betrayals, and the last one will be for love. It's quite possible the answer to this is one of the plot points D&D know about, and Tyrion will betray Dany out of love for his brother Jaime.

One of Ned's companions he brought to the Tower of Joy was Dornish.

The third one cut down by Ser Arthur Dayne is wearing a turban similar to the one worn by the Dornish guards and he looks similar to a younger Alexander Siddig, who played Doran Martell, as shown in a closeup when Arthur pulls his sword out of his body.

Theon and Jon will have a Jacob and Esau-type reunion

If Euron capturing Yara and the Sand Sisters theory is true then Jon is the closest person at hand who can raise an army to take on the Iron Islands. Theon will go North to ask for Jon's help, fully expecting Jon to either refuse or outright murder him. But Jon will instead forgive Theon, or at the very least be pragmatic enough to ally with him, and join forces with what's left of Yara's followers to take the Iron Islands from Euron.

• Sort of. Jon and Theon reunite, but Jon says basically verbatim, "If it weren't for what you did for Sansa, I'd kill you."

Melisandre is Maggy.

Cersei's story about the witch Cersei met as a child is mentioned in the season 6 premiere, the same episode where we see what Melisandre really looks like. So clearly she can change her appearance and has a proclivity for very accurate predictions, including ones involving people's deaths.

• Except we met Maggy back in the flashback that opened Season 5, and she didn't look anything like either of Melisandre's forms.

Shaggydog is not dead

The Umbers don't really want to hold any alliance with Ramsay, they are just making him think so by sending Osha and Rickon to him - they will later get Shaggydog inside and watch the fireworks when Ramsay tries to (a) attack Rickon or (b) set his dogs on him.

The TV show just introduced Tyrion's long-lost daughter with Tysha.

The TV show introducing another dwarf with speaking lines should set off alarm bells. She may be the TV version of Penny from the books - and among book readers there's a fair amount of WMG rampant speculation that Penny is actually Tyrion's long-lost daughter with Tysha that he never knew about. Points against this are that any daughter with Tysha would have to be around 20 years old at this point...but it's difficult to tell how old this female dwarf character is actually supposed to be, as she's a dwarf and all.

• I don't think the show will have enough time to introduce a new character or divulging over Tyrion's tragic story with Tysha which is already long forgotten since Season 1. In the show, they never have Jaime telling Tyrion the truth about Tysha being a commoner girl so it's already moot to show that again. And they have 13 episodes left with Season 7 having 7 episodes and Season 8 with 6 episodes.

Tyrion will do what Daario suggested to Dani

He is gonna fake a deal with the backers of the Sons of Harpy only to kill them at diner. Him becoming like his father would add conflict to his character and it would show that Daario was right in that danaerys should have Shoot the Dog.

Oswell Whent hasn't been adapted out.

• He's just inside the tower itself, attending to Lyanna personally.
  • If that's the case, why didn't Ned encounter him by the time he barges into Lyanna's room and rushes to her side? Also, I doubt Oswell would be just standing there while Lyanna was telling Ned to promise her and had the maid gave baby Jon to him. And don't forget, Ned is desperately yelling, "Give her some water! Is there a maester?!" at the maids.

Umbers are in cahoots with Littlefinger

Giving Rickon to Ramsay was his idea - as far as he is concerned it worked with Sansa, so why not do it again? That would also mean Ramsay is still in for a nasty surprise, even after Osha has failed.

The High Sparrow is ready for the armed response

I highly doubt he thought Tommen would keep the penance walk secret from his mom or confidants and it might cause a bread riot times ten if the Tyrells are shown slaugthering the holy man. Cersei was loathed but if the Tyrell pull the "I am of blue blood I can place myself above you and buy my bread now that the only other food giver is dead" that's another Broken Pedestal. The image of perfect monarch was already destroyed when the queen was held captive but now it shows that the nobility are all violent.

The "Pink Letter" was written by Littlefinger, not Ramsay

Despite his obvious psychopathy, Ramsay Bolton is not usually given to making the kind of florid threats contained in the letter. It reads more like a caricature of him written by someone who's aware of his insanity, but not familiar with how it manifests. Also, the letter makes repeated use of the phrase "come and see" - the same phrase used by Littlefinger when talking to Robin Arryn earlier in the episode. It's possible that the letter was written by Littlefinger to manipulate Jon into moving on Winterfell.

• Except his letter to Balon was pretty much in the same style.
• It can't be Littlefinger because 1) it was brought by a rider from House Bolton who aren't going to be passing on messages from other houses, 2) has House Bolton's seal which Littlefinger probably doesn't have a copy of, 3) mentioned Rickon and his killing of shaggydog which Littlefinger would have no means of finding out about and 4) as the above troper stated it's consistant with the letter to Balon.

Arya secretly made an alliance with Olenna Tyrell between seasons.

• Which would provide a plausible explanation for where in the hell she got enough of what appeared by its symptoms to be the 'strangler' poison (that killed Joffrey) to off Walder Frey's whole brood in one fell swoop.
  • I figured she got a bunch of it with her from Braavos.
  • Or she made it herself. Her blind training involved mixing some kind of potion.

In order for her to be able to have children again, Daenerys will have to lose her dragons.

• Daenerys has said more than once that her dragons are her children, the only ones she will ever have. It's heavily implied in the show that the reason she was able to hatch her dragons from their petrified states were because of her Targaryen blood and because she sacrificed three lives in order to get them - her unborn son Rheago, Khal Drogo and Mirri Maz Dur. The dragons helped Dany to conquer Slaver's Bay, but they came with their own set of problems. Now, Dany wants to rule the Seven Kingdoms, but considering the damage dragons did when they conquered Westeros (such as Harrenhal), it might be that the people of Westeros are reluctant to have a Queen with three firebreathing monsters at her beck and call, especially given the actions of her father and their previous Queen, Cersei. So maybe the people will bend the knee to Dany on one condition - the dragons have to go. If this happened, them perhaps the sacrifice of Dany's surrogate children will reverse her infertility with the same ancient magic used to hatch them in the first place. After her dragons are dead, Dany will have three children, one for each dragon.

The Archmaester will act as a Stealth Mentor for Sam

• In "The Queen's Justice", the Archmaster reacts angrily to Sam's healing of Jorah, but then immediately compliments him on saving Jorah's life and completing a surgery that is, apparently, notoriously difficult. He then assigns Sam a seemingly menial task of reading and copying a bunch of old scrolls and books that are apparently literally rotting from age, chiding Sam for expecting some kind of reward for his successful surgery on Jorah. It's possible that these old scrolls and books hold some of the keys to defeating the White Walkers, or perhaps hints to Jon's true parentage. The Archmaester knows that Sam is trying to solve the problem of the White Walkers, so it feels like telling Sam to read these old works may be a way to seemingly punish him, but really give Sam what he actually wants: knowledge.

Littlefinger planned the fall of Houses Stark and Tully years in advance.

Littlefinger, angry and bitter over his near-fatal injuries inflicted by Brandon Stark, plans to get his revenge on Brandon. He gets wind of Lyanna's abduction/elopement with Rhaegar, possibly even seeing it. Lyanna possibly writes a note sent to Brandon to not go looking for her. However, Littlefinger intercepts the note either at Riverrun or on the road and says that Rhaegar abducted her. Brandon, with 200 men, rides to King's Landing, says the wrong things, gets arrested and imprisoned. Lord Rickard rides to King's Landing, gets arrested, Lord Rickard and Brandon are executed by fire and strangulation. King Aerys calls for the heads of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, Jon Arryn refuses to give them up, leading to Robert's Rebellion.

Littlefinger hadn't intended to cause a continent-wide Civil War, only intending for the deaths of the Starks and Tullys, but he learned the power of words and what damage the wrong word can cause. He bided his time, gaining favor as a customs master in Gulltown, then as Master of Coin to Robert Baratheon. When he found that Jon Arryn was looking into the parentage of the Lannister children, he had Lysa poison Jon and frame the Lannisters to make it look like Jon was killed because He Knows Too Much. Ned is appointed Hand of the King, Lysa writes to Catelyn, Ned finds out, gets arrested, loses his head, and the War of the Five Kings commences. Also, when Sansa talks about what Rhaegar did to Lyanna as the public knows them, Littlefinger gives her an odd look, that he knows more than the general populace knows about what happened.

Arya will kill Littlefinger, using her mother's face.

Not only would fans love to see the otherwise absent Lady Stoneheart make SOME kind of appearance, but what better way for that particular character to go out? Not that she needs any more motive, but if Arya finds out what Littlefinger did to contribute to her fathers' death, they're already BOTH in Winterfell right now, and she's got his dagger. Who better to catch him off guard than the ghost of the woman he loves, when it's actually Arya masquerading as her dead mother and finishing him off with his own blade? If anybody could find the body, it's Arya...

• Half-confirmed, half-jossed. She did execute Littlefinger but she did it without need of any faces.

Arya, having killed Littlefinger

, will now skin his face offscreen for use in Season 8.Face it, he was filthy rich in aristocrat favors and spy networks, which is the main reason Sansa tolerated his abhorrent company. By simply killing him off, all those favors would normally be unsalvageable. NORMALLY. Arya, however, can simply slice his face from his corpse, using it as a basic disguise to quickly cash in all those army markers he was hoarding up, as well as get a few assets from the spy network before they catch on. Having Sansa on edge as her sister wears her former sponsor's face and speaks in his voice would be a great drama mine.

• Not a bad excuse to keep him on the show a little longer.

Ser Jorah's Greyscale was a metaphor for Shingles.

There are some similarities to Shingles, specifically the rash resembles Shingles, and Ser Jorah's age is mentioned as a factor.

Dragonglass isn't obsidian.

Real-life obsidian is too brittle to be made into weapons as big as the dagger Jon used to dispatch the wight. It's not a Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp" situation; dragonglass is something else entirely, more durable and possibly magical in origin.

It is not the sword but the hand who wields it.

There's nothing inherently magical about Valyrian Steel. Jon was able to kill a white walker with it because he has Valyrian blood. In anyone else's hands, it would just act like a regular blade.

• There are multiple Valyrian steel swords in Westeros, and in the final battle there are a number of them being

wielded by people descended from several of the ancient cultures. If that's what it took, then nobody but Jon Snow would be able to kill a White Walker with a Valyrian steel weapon.

The Northern mountain clans are adapted out

Thus why Jon and Sansa didn't turn to them in the show, and explaining why Ned's Dornish party was short a man (there are seven in the books, one of which, Theo Wull, is a Northern Mountain clansman. If they ever existed, they died out years ago.

Daenerys will win but it's bad news for the North

Daenerys wins. However, she has Sam and Bran silenced so that the news of Jon's heritage does not get out. Jon is tossed in a dungeon somewhere to keep him out of the way, and Sansa can rule Winterfell however she wishes as Warden of the North.

Tyrion's competence and intelligence is, for some reason, inversely proportional to the length of his beard.

He is at his most effective/competent in Seasons 1-3 where he is clean-shaven, where he bribes his way out of a Sky Cell, wins over the Vale Mountain Clans, coordinates the defense of King's Landing that manages to hold until reinforcements arrive, and figures out that Littlefinger has been robbing the Crown blind. Come the later seasons where he has grown a full beard, most of his plans have ended in failure. Peace treaty in Meereen? The slavers besiege the city. Plan to take Westeros in Season 7? Half of the alliance is crippled; Ellaria and Yara are captured, the Sand Snakes are killed, the Unsullied take Casterly Rock but can't hold it and Olenna is executed with poison by Jaime. Kidnap a wight to convince Cersei to join forces against the Army of the Dead? Viserion is killed and the Night King gets a dragon to burn down the Wall. Furthermore, Cersei has no intention of joining up and Tyrion had no idea.

The Night's King was a Targaryen.

As Jon proved, while the white blonde hair is practically a trademark of a Targaryen, it isn't guaranteed, The Night's King was a very early Targaryen captured by the Children, the Children had learned that certain people were beginning to learn to control dragons, so, when they were creating their weapon against Man, they needed someone from the "Blood of Dragons" bloodline and caught a Targaryen whose fire immunity would mean dragons were useless against him, with his new power as The Night's King, amplifying the effect to the point dragonfire wouldn't work at all.

Tywin secretly honors the Old Gods and gave Cersei the order to have Robert killed.

• He's dressing a stag, the symbol of House Baratheon, when he's supposed to be getting revenge on House Tulley. In a deleted scene, we see him catching more fish when dealing with Riverrun, and we see him sending fish as a threat. It's not a coincidence; he doesn't need to threaten Robert (it's an assassination, so that'd defeat the purpose), but he kills the stag anyway. He's basically doing a pagan ritual that honors the house sigils as totems of members of that house in the same tradition that has Jon see the direwolf pups and know the Stark children were meant to have them.

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