Just re-watched season 5 and I no longer thing Stannis is dead. Not sure exactly why he would but I think Podrick kills her from behind with the axe we see him pick up after he tells her about Stannis.

Seems like when Stannis says "Go on, do your duty" he is talking to someone approaching from the right of Brienne rather than to her. I have not re-watched the earlier seasons so I forget who exactly Podrick is, does he have any links to Stannis? A few other things lead me to believe it too. The noise she makes sounds more like she has been hurt than the scream she's make from swinging her sword and her actual swing is too close to her body to reach Stannis from where she was standing, like she was going to move forward but getting axed in the back meant her arms fell down before she could.

Also there is the scene where she tells him how nobody knows who he is and he can leave, but he refuses. Game Of Thrones doesn't just have meaningless scenes to fill episodes there is more than enough so every scene has some kind of reason for being there.

Another thing why I believe Stannis must be alive, but has nothing to do with Podrick. There is a scene where him and Sam meet in the library and Sam tells how he killed a White Walker with Dragon Glass. Stannis says "I know what it is, we have it on Dragon Stone". Then later then Jon returns and tells Sam he lost the Dragon Glass Jon says "It wouldn't make a difference, not unless we had a mountain of it". Sam didn't seem to click in at the time but I think that he will if he "keeps reading" and Stannis will eventually end up meeting Sam again, taking him to Dragon Stone and then they will return to The Wall with all the Dragon Glass they need.

I also saw the spoiler on CNN. ****ing clickbait site.

I'll go rewatch now but this sounds insane. Why would Podrick kill Brienne? He's been super loyal and a friend to her the whole time, what would possibly make him do such? He's never even seen or talked to Stannis.

The only way this makes any sense is if the Lord of Light did it with divination intervention, like possessing Pod and making him do it.

Yeah I don't know why, but then I also don't know why he picks up the axe after Brienne goes to find Stannis. He has quite an aggressive look about him as he does so, first time watching I thought he was going to back her up. However when we next see Brienne, he is nowhere to be seen.

After posting that message I remembered he is a relation to the executioner who's tongue was ripped out. Maybe Podrick is done with being a squire and wants to follow in his family name of protecting the king? That would fit in with Stannis last words "do your duty". This seems like an odd thing to say if he was talking to Brienne. Watch the scene again it looks to me like Stannis see's someone coming up behind Brienne and to me he has the look of a man who is anxious rather than a guy who has resigned to the fact he is going to get killed and just wants it over with especially when she prepares to swing.








On another note, didn't read all of this thread but saw some people saying Dany dropping the ring was to mark her location for Dario to find her.

I saw it as she removed her wedding ring hoping that the leader of this Dothraki hoard fancies her and wishes to take her as his wife. I think that if they saw she was married then they would just treat her like any other woman and take turns raping her.

It makes no sense for anything like this to happen off camera. Are we supposed to start second guessing every scene in case there's another character lurking off camera who may dramatically change the outcome the moment we switch scenes? At the end of the Blackwater episode, when Tywin burst in and announced his victory, should we have assumed there was still a fair chance that a smoke monster might possess Cersei and cause her to kill the entire royal family?

I'll be livid if Stannis isn't dead, as it would be horrible story-telling and it would devalue the whole show. In fact, the sheer volume of seemingly deliberate vague endings to scenes in the s5 finale has already pissed me off.

Podrick killing Brienne doesn't make sense but maybe he's onto something. Wouldn't it be possible that someone else intervenes?

Maybe Ramsay comes up, kills Brienne and captures Stannis?

Stannis is ****ing dead guys. End of story.

Awesome piano music. As far as the music video itself, you'll know in the first :30 if you think it's awesome or hilariously bad.