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I think I could perhaps understand the Sansa / Northerners whining bullshit more if D&D had written it they didn’t actually believe Jon about the AOTD. Like, last season Team Dany were understandably skeptical about Jon’s claims until the wight hunt. Dany even said that she had to see it to understand. If last season Sansa and the NL had been skeptical of Jon, it would have actually made sense that they were pissed he went to Dragonstone and were talking about replacing him with Sansa 2 seconds after he left. Sansa could have maybe even legitimately worried that Jon’s resurrection scrambled his brain a bit and made him paranoid etc. If Sansa and the NL were skeptical then it would make more sense that they are annoyed when Jon rocks up with Dany and 100,000 more mouths to feed, having bent the knee. Assuming the AOTD show up in 8x03 that could have been Sansa and the NL’s “see it to know” moment. (I know Bran is the 3ER but considering his lack of personality last season I think people also being skeptical of him too is pretty valid). However, as it stands, Sansa and the NL apparently believe Jon about the AOTD. He left the 10,000 strong army of the North and returned with 2 dragons and like 100,000 men. What the hell else do they want from him? It makes Sansa and the NL look stupid when the AOTD is marching for them and Team Dany is the only hope of saving the North. Surely political genius Sansa would 1) weep with joy at the sight of a massive army that’s come to save her, 2) try to ingratiate herself to Dany and make sure Team Stark and Team Targ are close allies, and 3) suggest a Dany/Jon marriage to ensure the North is a top priority if/when Dany takes the IT and to get Jon out of her hair so she can run the North with minimal interference.

GRRM apparently thinks the LOTR ending is bittersweet though. This quote of his gets bandied around a lot: "I haven’t written the ending yet, so I don’t know, but no. That’s certainly not my intent. I’ve said before that the tone of the ending that I’m going for is bittersweet. I mean, it’s no secret that Tolkien has been a huge influence on me, and I love the way he ended ’Lord of the Rings.’ It ends with victory, but it’s a bittersweet victory. Frodo is never whole again, and he goes away to the Undying Lands, and the other people live their lives. And the scouring of the Shire —brilliant piece of work, which I didn’t understand when I was 13 years old: ’Why is this here? The story’s over?’ But every time I read it I understand the brilliance of that segment more and more. All I can say is that’s the kind of tone I will be aiming for. Whether I achieve it or not, that will be up to people like you and my readers to judge.” If GRRM truly does think LOTR has a "bittersweet" ending, then it may be that GOT will follow a similar structure.

Another option might be that he gives the "kiss of life" or whatever they want to call it to Dany/Jon etc. and sacrifices his last life. I've got to say, I'm pretty confused with what they are doing with the Tyrion promo stuff. These quotes about Tyrion having to pick between Cersei and Dany and not wanting his sister to die seem designed to plant the idea that he might switch sides back to Team Lannister. If Friki's leaks about Tyrion are true, it just seems weird that HBO would be teasing his betrayal right from the get go. I would have thought they would want it to be more of an "OMG" moment where the audience is shocked. I guess they could be going with the sledgehammer approach, like they did with the Dany/pregnancy anvils from last season.

Yeah I feel like we had some set / filming spoilers earlier that seemed to suggest that Lannister / GC forces attacked in ep 3, however the NK showed up in the middle / end of that battle. Man, poor Dany and Jon if they head out for a bit for some dragon riding lessons and as soon as they leave ALL their foes attack WF lol. I mean, what are the odds? On a more serious note, presuming D/J race back to join the battle, I wonder if Dany will be limited in what she can do on Drogon? If it’s human foes fighting in close combat then it may be difficult for her to release some dracarys without torching her own army along with the enemy. I wonder if Dany will sort of be on ice a bit until the AOTD show up? Then we might have Jon (sadly) giving her instructions to burn WF in order to kill the AOTD. The Starks purposely agreeing to torch WF would definitely be some good drama. Of course it could end up being the NK using Viserion to burn WF, but I think I actually like the idea of the good guys making a play to sacrifice WF to take out a big chunk of the NK’s army better.

I agree. Also, from an "in-show" perspective, it make sense that they wouldn't want to strand Sansa, Gilly, Missandei, Sam etc. at Winterfell with nothing much to do. Having them tend to the rebuilding of Winterfell would be awfully boring when you presumably have Jon/Dany and co dealing with Cersei and the remaining NK army.

If the WF battle really is the final stand with the AOTD, does that contradict Friki’s claims about Tyrion? Wasn’t he supposed to be locking the gates to KL or something?

I was annoyed that Julie named her daughter Lucy because it turned out Lucy was an awful person who sold her daughter for drug money. I guess poor Julie never realised this so she thought she was doing a nice thing for her dead Mom, but ughh. I would have much preferred the daughter to be named after poor Will (Willow or Willa etc.), since we saw how much the siblings cared about each other.

I'm curious as to whether Friki is still going to get his usual detailed episode spoilers from his dubbing source this season. From memory, he would get these a week or two before the episodes were due to air.

That is so weird! Unless there was a BTS issue and everyone hated the actor, I really don’t get why they would ditch Glover. He and Lyanna M are the only Northeners that have had any prominence.

Yeah, I am really shocked there is no Glover. I fully expected him to be leading the Evil Foreign Whore chants as soon as Dany and Jon arrived at WF.

Dany getting pregnant isn’t certain, realistically nothing much in s8 is certain as we don’t have many 100% legit spoilers (BSB and/or Friki could have legit info but neither of them have provided any real proof). However, D&D are often criticized for not being subtle, and they were anything but subtle in s7 about Dany’s false belief in her infertility. Towards the end of the season we had Tyrion telling Dany she needed an heir and Dany bringing up her alleged infertility, and then Dany telling Jon that can’t have kids in their conversation on the boat in 7x06. Finally, in 7x07 Dany again told Jon she couldn’t have kids, and he flat out told her MMD was probably lying and insinuated that he would be happy to impregnate her. D&D, Kit and Lena even joked about Jon wanting to impregnate Dany in the DVD commentary for that scene. The season then ended with J/D having unprotected boatsex. We were essentially hit over the head in s7 that Jon is going to impregnate Dany. Just like we were hit over the head that the Northern lords are going to hate Dany when they first meet her etc.

For sure. Dany pretty clearly has a miscarriage in the books after accidentally eating abortion berries. It seems likely the baby was Hizdar’s, suggesting Daario could have been shooting blanks. So it appears that GRRM is setting it up so that Book!Dany has never actually been infertile, a fact she will probably discover after sleeping with Book!Jon (if/when GRRM ever actually gets around to writing this lol). The show appears to be going in the same direction with Dany’s fertility. D&D had Jon straight up tell Dany that MMD was probably lying, and basically offer to prove MMD wrong by knocking Dany up.

Okay so in one of the recent seasons of the Bachelor AU there was much betting drama. One girl was identified as an early favourite and people who didn’t even watch the show were placing bets that she would win because everyone seemed to know her sister’s cousin’s friend etc. who confirmed that she was indeed the winner. By the time it got to a couple of weeks before the finale there was so much betting activity that her odds were ridiculously low. Anyway, cut to the finale night when the Honey Badger (yes, the guy gave himself this nickname) pulled a Kelly Taylor and picked himself. Dude incurred the ire of a nation, especially the punters. Luckily for the punters the bookies declared it a wash and refunded people’s bets. I will be interested to see if the Bran stuff is legit or if it’s another Honey Badger situation.

Yeah, I would be very surprised if the epilogue didn't show at least one Stark overseeing the rebuilding of Winterfell. For example, Sansa walking through the courtyard in summery weather, giving instructions to a couple of builders and being greeted by some random Northerners etc. I would say that show!Bran has been an afterthought for the writers and casual viewers pretty much since he split up with Osha and Rickon. The only memorable things that have happened since then are his ToJ vision, the Hodor thing, and seeing the Rhaegar/Lyanna marriage. It just seems like a really weird choice for D&D to backburner him if he is going to be the endgame ruler. Bran actually proved to be a pretty good ruler when he was acting LOW back in s2. He was fair and just and seemed quite willing to listen to advice from trusted older advisors. However, back then Bran had compassion, empathy and actually cared about other people. Robo!Bran doesn't even have enough humanity to realise that bringing up his sister's rape isn't exactly a great conversation starter. Not to mention, Bran has shown numerous times that he doesn't have a good grasp of his powers and is nowhere close to being an all-knowing, omniscient being. He needed to see the ToJ vision twice to get all the details as he somehow did not hear Lyanna tell Ned Jon's true name when he was in the room the first time! Sam also needed to be the one to tell him about Rhaegar's annulment and marriage because he didn't get the memo. Bran also did nothing about and/or didn't realise the extent of the Sansa and Arya situation last season. Arya came very close to cutting Sansa'a face off and Sansa sent Brienne away so she and Littlefinger could get rid of Arya if necessary.

Maybe 8x04 is going to be when they throw in all the sex scenes for the season lol? I mean, it's GOT so we know there's likely to be a few. Besides, after the Winterfell battle but before the KL battle is probably the best time. Jon and Dany can have "we're alive, we're related and don't GAF, and we're probably having a baby" sex, Jaime and Brienne can have a romantic interlude before his probable death, Bronn might visit a prostitute, and Missandei and Greyworm can do "many things" again.

Seriously, forget the Night King, forget Cersei; those statues are the true evil that needs to be defeated in s8 lol. The Starks need to lure a talented statue-carver to the North pronto to make sure their attractiveness is correctly captured in perpetuity.

Since the promo was basically just the actors slo-mo power walking, I’m guessing they thought having Bran rolling along would ruin the aesthetic.

Haha yeah I agree the statues were pretty dodgy. They don’t really look a whole lot like the actors! But yay that we only have 3 month wait!

If someone does get kidnapped on Cersei's orders, then I suppose Sansa does make the most sense. Given Jon and Arya's proficiency with weapons it seems less likely they could be overpowered by Cersei's goons. Dany normally has a gaggle of unsullied/dothraki close to her, plus the dragons would surely roast any would-be kidnappers in short order. Bran and Sansa are both unable to defend themselves, and could possibly get separated from Brienne/Arya/Jon etc. during the WF attack. However, Sansa and Cersei's previous relationship would probably vault Sansa to the top of the victim list.

Also, as if HBO give a flying fuck about GRRM’s demands lol. He has no power to force them to do anything and hasn’t really had any involvement in the show for years. Plus, Dany may well die but there’s no way she is dying early in the season lol. If a Dany/Jon/other main character is dying it will be in the last episode.

Yeah I agree, they seem to be trying to hype this up exactly like the Jon/Sansa conflict from last season, and we all know what a non-event that was. Two episodes of bitching and then they didn't see each other for the rest of the season lol. If this Sansa/Dany stuff was anything other than unimportant fluff they wouldn't be pimping it so hard in interviews and promos.

Regarding the AA prophecy, it always makes me giggle to think how anyone could keep a straight face if Mel brings it up. Like, girl has a terrible record with prophecies. Terrible. If she starts spouting that Jon's AA and he needs to kill (presumably) pregnant Dany, there would be a gaggle of people laughing her out of the building. I can just imagine the speech Davos would give about her failures, and her previous insistence that Stannis was TPTWP and the whole Shireen debacle etc.. Mel has a massive credibility problem so I can't imagine Jon, or anyone else, being willing to risk killing someone they love on her flimsy say so. I guess you could argue that maybe if Bran brings it up and asserts that it's the real deal then people might decide it has to be fulfilled. But even then, Bran is not exactly infallible himself (Hodor says hi). The NK has messed with his magic / visions in the past, and Bran is still figuring out how to really use his powers. I mean, the dude saw the Ned/Lyanna vision in s6 but somehow managed to miss the massive important secret of Lyanna telling Ned Jon's trueborn name even though he was right there, and had to go back into the vision a year later to hear that important nugget. Also, can you imagine Mr "you looked beautiful the night you were raped" delivering the message to Jon that he needs to kill his pregnant girlfriend/wife lol, I'm sure Bran's new lack of human emotions would make for a lovely conversation.

It's also possible the AA prophecy is not straightforward and is not going to end up as a duplicate of the story we've been told. For starters, prophecies have been shown to be pretty damn fallible. Rhaegar was convinced for years that he was TPTWP, Mel killed Shireen because she thought Stannis was TPTWP etc. Even if the AA prophecy is true, it doesn't have to mean that someone purposefully sacrifices themselves ala the tale. There are a few popular fandom theories that the "stabbing" is sex and Jon or future baby Targ are lightbringer etc.

Lol that sounds so fake, I really doubt every main character is going to end up dead. Also, I cannot fathom how it would be possible for Tyrion to kidnap Dany. Even if he someone managed to make off with her, she has a telepathic connection with Drogon and could simply get him to dracarys everyone, allowing her to walk free.

So, do we think Friki's source is supposed to be an extra/double, or just some Spain rando who may have found a nice position to watch some of the filming? It seems a bit weird to me because the source clearly only heard minimal dialogue and apparently didn't have access to a script, as evidenced by the fact that Tyrion's exact crimes are unknown, the King/Queen/ruling situation in unknown and Friki doesn't know whether J/D are alive or dead etc. Yet, apparently the source could hear at least one line of Tyrion's dialogue, the alleged "they deserved it" bit. I would have thought an extra from this alleged trial would have been able to give way more dialogue info than one measly little line. I swear at this point I'm almost more interested in the spoiler battle between BSB and Friki than I am in the actual GOT ending lol.