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I wouldn’t be shocked if they ignore the iron born independence stuff next season. Theon pretty much acted like Dany was his Queen in s7 from what I can remember.

If we really do get a Jacqen scene then I hope we get to see Arya and him kick ass together. It would be funny if Cersei hires a FM to kill someone in team Dany/Jon, but when Jacqen shows up he can’t bring himself to kill a girl or her family. Then J/A team up to kill Cersei and her goons. I just don’t want to see Jacqen trying to kill Arya, I would seriously cry.

Damn, I was excited for a second that we might get another Jaqen / Arya scene.

Yeah I agree, they did have Sansa mention Cersei a few times last season so there was some foreshadowing that they would meet again. If Cersei does indeed send her army / the GC to attack Winterfell circa 8x03, then it's definitely possible that someone could nab Sansa during the attack. Then Cersei could try and use Sansa as bait to lure Jon into surrendering, possibly giving a reason for that Kit/Lena scene that we saw some photos of a while ago. However, Jon and co could presumably come up with a plan, perhaps Jon meets with Cersei and pretends to surrender while Arya and Gendry bust some heads and extract Sansa. Then...party in the dragonpit lol?

Man, I really have no idea what could be going on with the dragonpit stuff. Sansa has said she wouldn't go near Cersei again, so does it mean Cersei must be dead / removed from power if Sansa is in KL? Or could one of those spoiler leaks about Sansa getting kidnapped by Cersei and Jon/Arya going to rescue her be true?

Do you think they are going to try hard to hide Emilia for the later eps, because I'm guessing she will have to be wearing a fake belly in at least eps 5 and 6? I know we all know Dany is going to be "miraculously" pregnant in s8, but I'm sure D&D don't want the paps or fans snapping a pic of Emilia in costume that outright confirms it. Much easier to hide for the indoor shoots, but anything outdoors and they are almost certainly screwed. I do wonder if they are going to try and minimise any outdoor scenes for her.

I do like that theory, mainly because Bran's current lack of emotions make him the most likely candidate to decide that nuking KL is the best option. I'm not sure Jon, Dany and co would be able to bring themselves to kill a million people, even if it is the best way to prevent the NK's army from growing. Whereas Bran would just shrug it off and decide it has to be done.

Based on GRRMs other romances, I wouldn't be shocked if he ignores all the troubling aspects of R+L and just portrays them as love's young dream. I mean, didn't Ned think something about how he held no ill will for Rhaegar, which is ridiculous given all the shit that went down? But of course, GRRM is never actually going to get around to writing any R+L stuff so I guess it's a moot point. I do wonder if we might get 1 or 2 more scenes of R+L in s8, maybe with Bran narrating to Jon to tell him a bit more about his parents.

Is this another book about the Targs lol? I wonder if the fact that the show will “spoil” the ending means GRRM is never going to have the motivation to finish?

Does anyone really expect the Northerners to bitch about Dany for more than 1 or 2 episodes? Like, I know they are massive idiots, but they would have to be the biggest dumbasses on the planet if they tell Dany to take a hike when the army of the dead has breached the wall and is heading straight for them! The Northerners have 10,000 fighting men, compared to Dany who has at least say 50,000 men plus two dragons. If the Northerners are so offended by Jon bending the knee and delivering the North its best chance of survival, it seems to me they have 4 options. 1) Suck it up and accept Dany as Queen, and work together with her army to try and defeat NK. 2) Tell Dany they don't accept her and demand her and her army leave, and then face certain death when the NK's army easily defeats the puny Northern army in a few weeks. 3) Tell Dany they don't accept her and engage her in battle before the NK arrives, wherein Dany's superior army will easily defeat the puny Northern army. 4) Fall into line with Dany to ensure they have her help to fight the NK, then after the battle the survivors can try to obtain Northern independence through negotiation or battle. Frankly, I don't even really expect there to be too much conflict between Sansa and Dany. I bet there will be friction at the start as Sansa was annoyed at the end of last season when she learned Jon had bent the knee, but I wouldn't be at all shocked if they were on good terms by the middle of the season. Dany and Sansa have both been forced into marriages they didn't want and have been subjected to rapes by their husbands. They have both been physically assaulted and verbally abused for prolonged periods (Sansa in KL and with Ramsey, and Dany with Viserys) and eventually enacted brutal revenge on their abusers. Given these unfortunate shared experiences I would image that Dany and Sansa will eventually be able to relate quite well to each other. Also, Sansa will quickly come to learn that Jon and Dany are in love with each other and that Dany risked her life and lost a dragon in the process of saving Jon beyond the wall. One would expect Sansa to be grateful for Dany's selfless actions to save her brother's life. Furthermore, give it a few episodes and Sansa (and everyone else) will likely discover that Dany is carrying Jon's child. Given the Starks are all about family I can't see any reason why they won't all welcome Dany into the "pack". Finally, if Sansa is as smart as she thinks she is she would realise it is in her best interest for Dany and Jon to marry and sit on the throne in King's Landing. That way she gets to be Warden of the North with minimal interference from Jon and Dany, who would presumably love her and trust her enough to leave her to her own devices (like Robert did with Ned). If Jon sticks around the North he gets to be the one in charge and Sansa has no real power and no guarantee that her opinions will be considered. We already saw in s7 that Jon doesn't consult Sansa before making decisions and doesn't appear to agree with any of her ideas.

Well, I was more thinking about legitimisation in respect of the Stark name, as I would assume any Northerners throwing their daughters at Jon would want their daughter and future grandchildren to be Starks not Snows.

It's kind of unrealistic that none of the prominent Northerners tried to forcefully encourage Jon to legitimise himself and marry one of their age-appropriate daughters in s7 (with wedding and bedding happening quickly before he left for Dragonstone). I would actually be intrigued at Jon's reaction if highborn Northern women started flirting with him in s8, especially considering these woman would have almost certainly given him a wide berth if they encountered him when he was growing up. Would he feel a little resentful that women who likely thought he was a bastard unworthy of their time 7 years ago would now consider him prime marriage material?

I agree, Jon and Sansa's relationship is very realistic. Sure they are family and love each other, but most of the time they annoy the shit out of each other. They are the kind of siblings who have nothing in common and if they weren't related they would never be friends (like Sansa/Arya), whereas if Jon wasn't related to Robb and Arya and met them randomly he would still want to pal around with them. I find it baffling when people who ship Jon and Sansa try to compare them to Ned and Cat, and say that Jonsa will marry for political reasons but grow to love each other etc. From what I can tell Ned and Cat seemed pretty compatible and had a solid partnership, and apart from the Jon situation didn't appear to do a whole lot of bickering. Honestly, if Jon and Sansa ended up married they would be much more like Robert and Cersei imo. Jon still pining for the love of his life who died, and Sansa wanting more authority and power than just being Jon's wife but Jon not listening to her and keeping her in the backseat. Given the constant bickering and disagreeing about everything that we saw in s7, their marriage would surely be incredibly unhappy. I'd give it a few years of frigid bitterness before they are both taking lovers on the side (or Jon might stay celibate since he seems to favour only sleeping with women he's in love with) and Sansa is passing off some hot fool's kid as the Stark heir lol.

Yeah I agree, a dragon might not die via the NK's hand in the books but that doesn't mean all the dragons survive. I can see why D&D went with wight!Vis bringing down the wall, because someone blowing a horn and the wall just falling down is a really lame visual. Also, there is that other dragon tamer horn thing that might result in one/all the dragons being under the control of someone else for a while in the books. There was a lot of discussion in s7 about how Tyrion was suddenly a pacifist and that Dany should have taken out Cersei etc before going North. I'm guessing the main reason for that situation is that Dany with her armies and dragons can obviously defeat anyone quite easily. However, if she defeated Cersei and co in 7x02 then there is no way the show could be dragged out to s8. GRRM has the same problem in the books, I'm guessing. Dany is in Meereen to learn to rule, but mainly because if she gets to Westeros she could easily defeat the Lannisters etc and take the throne. To stop an absolute whitewash and keep the tension going Dany probably needs to lose some/all her dragons in the books too.

Re the apparent rape scene, I wonder if it will have plot purpose. Perhaps it will be one of Dany’s soldiers that is the attacker and will lead to even more tension in the North, or someone will save the girl and have a redemptive moment (maybe Theon or Jaimie, which will make the North soften to them slightly). Not that GoT needs more rape scenes... We’d better get some consensual love scenes in s8 too...

Haha I guess Dany is serving fierce looks in s8. I would think she would have to be wearing wintry attire in most of the episodes, so hopefully she gets some more bitching coats like from 7x06. The timeline for s8 is going to be all over the shop, but surely Dany won’t develop a visible belly until maybe ep 4?

Yeah, GRRM is definitely hitting some cliche BATB tropes with SanSan. I don't ship SanSan either (tbh it creeps me out, especially when show!Hound looks old enough to be Sansa's father), so I am hoping the show stays away from it in s8. GRRM is just...terrible at romance. Of his Big 5 characters, the 3 that have had romance arcs have been a hot mess. Dany and Jon both had pretty horrible first loves and the books and the show painted them as romantic love stories (although Dany did acknowledge being raped in s7, so baby steps I guess). Dany was repeatedly raped by Drogo and IMO developed a kind of Stockholm Syndrome love for him. Meanwhile Ygritte (in the books) coerces underage Jon into a sexual relationship and was often quite verbally abusive (I think 80% of her dialogue was insulting Jon and calling him an idiot). The fact that Dany and Jon had consensual sex, respect each other's opinion, are willing to take advice from each other and appear to have compatible personalities basically shoots them to the top of the show!GOT leaderboard with Robb/Talisa and Missandei/Greyworm as the few non-terrible couples. Short-hair or long-hair, I just want to see Dany with a more relaxed hair style at least once next season. The amount of braids they give her now is ridiculous, she has at least 3 times the amount of hair the average person has. When Dany and Jon finally got it on I couldn't help but think she must have been so uncomfortable lying on all those braids. R.e. Jonsa, if that was going to be a thing Jon would have spent s7 falling in love with Sansa and working together as co-rulers, instead Jon and Sansa proved to be totally incompatible rulers and Jon was quickly dispatched to go and make heart eyes at Dany. Besides, Jon is clearly the Big Male Hero of GOT, and the fantasy genre being generally pretty sexist dictates that if he lives his "reward" will be the #1 female i.e. Dany. Dany is stated to be the most beautiful woman in GOT, she has dragons, she has armies and she has a royal bloodline. In the world of GOT Sansa simply doesn't have enough cache to end up with Jon, because there is no way the Big Male Hero ends up with a second tier female who is "beneath" his status.

I’m also curious about what was filmed in Iceland with Kit and Emilia. Aa far as I can remember no other cast members were spotted there, although that doesn’t preclude them from being there and just not being spotted. Are Dany and Jon going beyond the wall again, or are they just supposed to be having a conversation in the North and for whatever reason D&D wanted real snow etc as the backdrop?

I don’t necessarily think Sansa is going to die, but I don’t think being the top candidate to rule Winterfell rules her out of dying either. If she did die Arya could step in, so her death wouldn’t leave a Winterfell power vacuum. Hell, Sansa dying could be one of the things the cast members think is surprising, since most people assume she will be in charge of Winterfell in the end.

If Jaime does die in ep 4, I wonder if the theory that Arya will kill Cersei with Jaime’s face is correct? If she is in the same vicinity as J/B fighting the WW she could easily save his face in anticipation of seeing Cersei later.

With Ned and Cat though, they were basically forced to marry each other by the marriage pact their father’s made. I cannot see any situation where someone would force Jon and Sansa to marry. Furthermore, since Jon and Sansa are not in love and have shown no sexual attraction to each other, I would think it’s incredibly unlikely that they would suddenly start thinking of each other romantically and thus want to marry for love. If Dany died and left Jon with a baby, Jon would presumably be King of the 7 kingdoms and Sansa probably Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North. They would have no political reason to marry and Jon’s advisors would surely be encouraging him to forge a marriage alliance with a different powerful family.

All these book theories just make me think that GRRM will never finish the books because he has no idea how to get the major players to their endgame lol. Jon has two books to get resurrected and deal with that drama, possibly fight the Boltons and retake Winterfell, get crowned KiTN, reunite with Arya and possibly his other siblings, meet Dany and fall love with her, and join forces with Dany’s crew to take out the WW and Cersei. He will also presumably get told by someone about his true parentage and have some major angst, and maybe hook up with Val prior to meeting Dany. Meanwhile Dany has two books to deal with the Dothraki situation, sort out Mereen, sail to Westeros, meet Jon and fall in love with him, and join forces with Jon’s crew to fight Cersei and the WW. Oh and I guess fAegon must fit in there as well.

Yay for Davos! I need him to survive so he can be Dany and Jon’s official babysitter.

If Dany and Jon do both survive and rule together as equals, then I guess I could see the cast calling it surprising because there is always normally one official ruler and one throne etc. Also, if Dany and Jon destroy the iron throne (complete with breaking the wheel speech lol) as part of becoming joint rulers, then I could see people thinking the destruction of the iron throne is surprising considering all the fighting over that chair for 7 seasons.

If there is a coronation in the last episode for whoever ends up in power, I wonder if they would be too afraid of spoilers to have extras there? They might do some green screen or other filming tricks to insert the crowning and main cast into random crowd shots of people cheering etc.?