I think it's viable, and that it's the stronger story. I actually have a $200 bet that Tyrion is a targ. I just think that the show has shown very little to support this, and if they follow through on it then it'd be more out of left field than Arya killing the NK.

yeah I like your theory honestly.

I think there's still a small chance that the show will end with Tyrion being a Lannister but the books developing into him being Targaryen.

I can totally see the showrunners reaching a point where they don't know how to whittle down Dany's forces enough so that she can't crush Cersei easily and also not knowing how they can explain the AotD getting past the wall so they said, **** it, who cares about a prophecy from season 2 and deciding to kill off the dragons.

In the books there are more options.

One thing the show has done a really poor job on ... and it seems like such a minor thing ... but they could have done more on the history of the Golden Company. If they had, then there would be all kinds of delicious plausible conspiracy theories to get into this week. People are still coming up with them, but it's easy enough to discount them because they don't make any sense in the context of the show.

Another one would have been Jaqen visiting the Citadel at the same time Sam was there. At this point Jaqen showing up would probably be really stupid but I half-expect it given how much the show has just turned itself over to fan service.

When you go back and rewatch this show it'll be interesting to see how many times the name "Aegon Targaryen" has been mentioned in conversations with Arya, Sansa and Dany.

"Aegon" is also the first word that Davos learned to read in his sessions with Shireen.

I don't think Arya killing him was out of left field. She's supposedly a top level assassin. The problem may have been with exactly how she pulled it off. It absolutely could have been done in a way that would have seemed to have flowed from the story.

There's no way to make Tyrion a Targaryen that flows naturally (from what has come in the show so far). I guess with two volumes left to work with GRRM could maybe pull it off in the book version.

It’d probably be a silly bet on my part. Anyone that would bet it with me has likely poked around in Reddit for spoilers and knows the actual answer, so nah.

And I don’t want to read spoilers, no matter how dumb I think B&W are.

Let’s please have a debate about whether Tyrion being a Targaryen would be a deux et machina.

That was a good movie.

Errbody claiming at f7 is probably correct.

Ya I don’t at all get how anyone can think Arya sneaking up on and killing NK with Valyrian steel is “out of left field.” Do people really think the show runners should have spent MORE time demonstrating how Arya learned to be a sneaky assassin armed with a Valyrian steel dagger?

Even if you missed all of season 5 (where she trains to be a sneaky assassin) you would have still seen Arya sneak up on and kill all of the Freys, sneak up on a resurrected Lord Commander in his own backyard, and be handed the dagger by Bran with a wink as he says she’ll probably make good use of it.

It was still surprising (which is great writing, IMO) but they beat us over the head with why it was plausible for literally years.

6. All those dragon skulls hidden in Kings Landing, with the last dragons being basically stunted dwarves. There's a bit of symmetry there.

Still close to zero chance in the show. If that was going to be revealed it would have been a full season ago not the second to last episode. And his character arc would have been different: they wouldn't have chopped off his balls and made him a dumb idiot.

I was making a joke about the previous conversation.

Which brings us to why did they chop off his balls and make him an idiot?

Where could they be going with that? Do they even know they've made him an idiot....are they even going anywhere with it?

I've lost all faith in the show and assume they are just mashing buttons and lobbying for CGI polar bears (and subverting expectations ldo) at this point.

TIL that YouTuber Preston Jacobs (who is this obsessive book theorist who tries to read way too much into everything) refers to show Arya as "Wolverine", which I love and am going to adopt.

Benoiff wrote the screenplay for that super awful terribad Wolverine Origins. The one with Liev Schriber who it turns it was super OP but somehow Wolverine won or something....it was soooooooo bad.

I wonder if that's why Jacobs refers to Arya as Wolverine.

Dany hasn't gotten any good advice from anyone in years.

They made a point of her being angry with Tyrion this season, only to have Jorah tell her he believed in Tyrion and she should too. That doesn't really make sense from his character's perspective but I assume it was done for a reason and presumably something more than ratting out Varys?

I don't think it makes sense from a timeline perspective as Dany and portions of her army are already at KL, but I thought she was going to be pregnant and Tyrion could use the same speech on her that he did with Cersei. Dany and Jon having a child was foreshadowed about 6 different times last season but nothing's come of it so far.

it's just disrespectful to the audience, we've invested all this time and emotion only to be given a 1 shot kill. It's a classic low IQ writers solution to conclude any tricky scenario. Like Jeff Goldblum destroying the mother ship, or Tom Cruise taking out the aliens in War of the Worlds. You have all this buildup for a seemingly invincible foe and not only does our hero defy the odds, they do so with ease. It's the lack of struggle in the final moments and a simple "1 hit kill button" that vanquishes the foe. The protagonist should not be able to just press E and use his Ultimate ability to kill the endboss.

The NK can only be killed by Valyrian steel piercing his heart. How else is it the end going to be for him? If he gets melted by Drogon's breath is that more satisfying? If Jon Snow engages him in a classic swordfight only to shatter him with one hit, is that better?

Invincible enemies being brought down by a single shot or through finding the one single vulnerability is the theme in countless stories in myth and fiction: Goliath, Achilles, Smaug, Sauron, the Matrix, etc.

Sure, but those were clever attacks. A random hail mary pass with no suspense is just insulting to the enemy. It also makes no sense given the context of his abilities. NK just caught Arya in mid air, clearly he's pretty situationally aware. So then he dies thanks to a looky loo stab wound? I'd rather see Bran pull it off with a retractable blade tucked up his sleeve than this "Heeeeyaawww!" death.

That's the point. The show didn't build a strong enough narrative for any demise of the NK to be believable.

I shouldn't have brought it up.

Remember when Cersei blew up the sept of baelor? That was an example of strategic planning via the underdog. We didnt see it coming, but it was well thought out and planned. Imagine if the High Sparrow simply died to a random crossbrow arrow to the head (like the ****ing dragon dying). Or if The Mountain died because Oberyn pulled out a revolver from under his vest.

Oberyn had Mountain dead to rights, he failed because of his arrogance. The Night King similarly died due to his arrogance.

If it makes you feel better, think of the demise of the Night King as the result of careful strategic planning by Bran, who set all the pieces in motion and had arguably been planning it for years, possibly millennia.

Totally agree, which is why the NK was a really bad idea in the first place.

To sort of soft-defend the show a little bit, I think a lot of book readers don't have a good conception of exactly how big a mess D&D had to deal with. The number of plotlines going on in the books is totally out of control and they were always going to have to be ruthless to trim things down to the point where the show would hold together and they could navigate towards a conclusion.

So while I'm fine with the necessity of a bunch of plot lines getting the axe, the problem is that they either didn't replace them with anything or they replaced them with tropey stuff that sucks. Like in the books there will clearly be an entire plot that goes in between a) "wow, these ice monster things are a huge problem" and b) "phew, ice monster invasion dealt with". I personally don't think GRRM even knows how that plot goes yet, but even if he did, it's completely reasonable that the show wants to do something simplified. But they didn't replace it with anything, really, instead they just dialled up the Mothership Trope and went directly from a) to b). They needed to make the solution something driven by Bran, because all that Old Gods/greenseers/weirwood/3ER type **** is his wheelhouse, that's the whole point to his existence in the story. And since they performed botched major surgery on the plot, he now has no point. His point in the story is to learn that Jon is a Targ and to act as bait for the Night King. That's the upshot of 7 seasons of a relatively major character.

Instead, Bran should have had the major role in beating back the Walkers, AND, he should probably have died doing it, because that should be the conclusion of his story.

So why didnt Obery just kamikaze leap at the mountain, then drop a knife with his right hand into his left and stab him in the eye? Because the threat was real and he still had to be careful. What Arya did was just outlandish comic book style nonsense.

And I love the idea that Bran foresaw these events and used himself as bait, and such a concept is sophisticated enough to treat the audience with respect. But you cant just have the NK suddenly die as a result of his careful planning. Otherwise Arya could have just done that any day of the week.

The NK wasnt arrogant, he was the goddamn NK! He doesnt fall victim to a laughable slight of hand trick. I'm willing to forgive the star wars inspired central point of failure theory that if he dies all the walkers die with him, even though this is a very tired and played out endgame strategy used in oh so many films.

I wouldnt even mind if the NK died to a simple stab wound since the white walkers are vulnerable to dragon glass, but it must be clever and inspired.