To be honest, the show could use big shocks and shake-ups. The producers' writing without GRRM's material to follow hasn't always been stellar. Just a framework for the big moments, most of them involving the dragons. Although I do feel we're in for some "holy s***" moments. When you put white walkers and wights alongside our intrepid heroes, yeah. Bad things afoot.
Not that it wouldn't be interesting to just have some selection of characters die... BUT... if it is just, there's eventually battles between White Walkers and everyone else and as a result some characters die (which would be completely random, they could write it a ton of different ways and just have some number of random characters die)... that's not really "holy ****" "red wedding" esque surprises. There's a battle. People die in battles. Dany getting on a dragon and burning down all of Winterfell and killing everyone cause they just piss her off... that'd be a surprise. Stuff like that. We shall see.
Melisandre did say that the Lord of light has a plans for him. Where the hell is Melisandre anyway? I could see your events happening only to have Jon never get over it and become yet another Mad King, carrying on the tradition of the Targ name.
What I meant was, characters turning into White Walkers / undead. Cersei undead. Bran jumping up from his chair and becoming the next great kicker for Winterfell College Division III. Cat Stark's shuffling corpse showing up at Winterfell. Starks rising from the dead in the crypts as the Night King shows up (we sure have gone down into the crypts a lot so far; foreshadowing, or no other place suitable for deep conversations?) Dying in battle, sure, people die. That's gonna happen. Rising from the dead? Hmn. As you say, we shall see.
She returned to Volantis when Jon arrived at Dragonstone last season.....she did tell Varys that she would return because she, like Varys, were destined to die "in this strange country..."
Yep, that type of stuff would at least be a bit more interesting for sure. That said, I wonder if they've somewhat boxed themselves into a corner. Because you even have to do that exactly right.... otherwise it just borders on "over the top stupid" and "shocking for shock sake". Red Wedding worked (for us non-book readers) cause it came at the right time in the series, out of the blue, and was completely believable from a story/strategy/human perspective, if that make sense.
Have the dragons just kill every single character. Come out of the tv and kill you and I also. Unless something dramatic like that happens everyone will be at least little disappointed.
It was believable. The unbelievable part was, "Yeah, let's put ourselves in the jaws of a big shark and ask it not to eat us." The Starks had a history of not asking, "If I were as duplicitous as the Lannisters, how would I approach this?" The show did add an extra level of violence to the Red Wedding (stabbing a pregnant woman in the belly). Being HBO, they up the violence and sex quotient (I'm no prude, but I appreciate when the scenes are somewhat integrated with the story; and I'm glad the sexposition is largely gone).
The Starks do have that trait, but that was most obvious to me when I rewatched season 1 a few months ago. I don't recall watching it the first time thinking "how naive are these folks?!?!". Relative to the Red Wedding, you were at that point at least thinking "be careful" all the time, but even then, it was shocking. That's just part of the Starks because historically that's just not how they operated. Of course now, for those that are left, it is how they operate (Sansa and Arya with Littlefinger last year, Sansa vs. Tyrion in S8, E1, etc.). As @peleincubus noted, at this point, it will be hard for them to do it to satisfy everyone, regardless of how "shocking"
No way the show can satisfy everyone. My wife's favorite character is The Hound; who doesn't think he'll fight Zombie Brother and win but die of his own wounds? (The surprise would be if this didn't come to pass.) I don't know if I have a favorite character, maybe Tyrion; many speculate that Tyrion will die, and why not? Make the fans sad. But if Tyrion is killed off, will the ending make some sort of sense or will it be viewed as gratuitous? Or will you have two distinct camps, like the love-Trumps and hate-Trumps? No pleasing everyone. They can only aim for "as many as possible, although trolls never go away".
Is the ending following a Martin intended outline of some sort or are they just completely doing their own thing?
btw -- hope ppl spoiler any actual spoilers about this. i'm not interested in internet theories recast here, either. be original I don't know, but looks like Arya wants Gendry to be her Q, like James Bond, and build her a Gadget weapon. Looked like part of it was the neck of a guitar, that pulls apart from something. Of course, not a guitar neck, but something that doesn't actually look like a weapon....a Gadget. It also kinda reminded me of a Nimbus 2000 -- haha tricky Arya likes to surprise her victims
Yeah, I'm thinking it's something she'll throw, and best guess is dragonglass tip. Not sure why she needs Gadget-detachability like that. Like Gendry said, "Why do you want that?" Guess the arm provides torque to throw the spearhead??? but more than an actual spear?? And wouldn't that just offer you one, single use.
