Eugh, is it 2018 yet? Game of Thrones season 8 is still aaaaaages away.
There's only one thing for it. Our imagination's going to have to take over. So we've made up our own predictions for what's going to happen to each of the show's main characters by the very end.
Yes, this is mainly guesswork, leavened with some serious fan obsession and mixed with a load of geeky theories, and we'll probably be proven wrong instantly by the next episode, but we're hoping to get at least some of them right.
If you called the following spoilers, you would be displaying a lot of confidence in our predictive powers, so thanks for that.
1. Tyrion and Sansa will end up together
Remember, these two are still actually married, and they were pretty cute in the brief time they had together. We reckon that they'll bump into each other when all the Iron Throne hopefuls collide, and he'll help convince her of Littlefinger's bad influence. She, meanwhile, will realise that he's the one guy that she can trust. Especially when he rides in on a dragon with Daenerys and melts the White Walkers AND HER HEART.
And if you take the York vs Lancaster Wars of the Roses as the model for the show – like George RR Martin does – then the marriage of Stark and Lannister would be a suitable ending, like when Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York.
However, we can't help but feel that there will be at least one more heartbreak for the Starks, and we're predicting that Sansa maybe won't be around at the very end.
2. Jaime and Cersei will both be dead by the middle of season 8
Now that the main baddies outside of the White Walkers are the remaining Lannisters and their followers, there won't be much need for them when the final battle between the living and the dead comes around. But before that, Jaime will kill Cersei, no question. She never loved him, she just enjoyed shagging him, whereas he gave up his honour and every chance at happiness to be with her.
To reclaim his honour, he'll need to destroy her, but will probably kill himself in the process, maybe by saving Brienne, who has represented his lost honour throughout the series. And in the books (spoiler warning, seriously this time), Maggy the woods witch prophesied that Cersei would die at the hands of "the little brother". Jaime is a few seconds younger than Cersei, and we're clearly supposed to think Maggy meant Tyrion, like book-Cersei does.
3. The White Walkers will TALK
So far, the WW have been rather shy in the conversation department. You wouldn't invite them to your dinner party.
But who's to say they can't speak at all? They were created from man in the first place. We reckon that at one point, perhaps after the inevitable massive battle, a dying Night King will shock Jon Snow by giving a Blade Runner "tears in rain"-style speech that actually makes us feel sorry for them all.
UPDATE: Or perhaps not... as GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have since insisted that The Night King will never speak. We'll see...
4. Daenerys will (almost) become the Mad Queen
Just like her pops, Dany will start getting a bit mad with power. You can't blame her, just look at all her ships, manpower and DRAGONS.
However, we don't think she'll stay mad for long. This is maybe where Jon's presence will help her, as he, Varys, Tyrion and whoever else will save her from herself and she'll bring democracy to Westeros by abolishing the monarchy entirely. She wanted to "break the wheel" and end the game of thrones, remember?
5. Littlefinger will sit on the Iron Throne, for an episode
By scheming and plotting away, we wouldn't be surprised if out of everyone, Petyr Baelish actually manages to win the Iron Throne a lot earlier than thought.
But it won't last. Sansa will double cross him in some way and will have to kill him to get his negative influence out of Westeros for good. Probably with the help of Littlefinger's old rival Varys, maybe with Arya's skills.
6. Jorah may be cured, but he'll still die
Now cured and reunited with Daenerys, he'll do something heroic in battle and then die. But he'll still be in the friend zone.
7. Arya will complete her kill list and spark THAT big fight
Now that she has the Faceless Men's skills, Arya will continue her killing tour. But each murder will take her further from happiness and fulfilment.
Along the way, she will reunite with The Hound again, but she'll spare him, allowing The Hound to help her in finally killing off his brother The Mountain once and for all.
In a perfect world, we'd then like to see her set up a swordfighting school with Gendry, but that might be taking happy endings too far.
Plus, if The Mountain doesn't kill off The Hound, please say he'll end up retiring to a farm with a load of chickens. Every chicken in the place.
9. Theon will find redemption by sacrificing himself
It's easy to forget that Theon did some truly unforgivable things to the Starks. We can never forgive him for his botched beheading of Ser Rodrik Cassel and generally being a dick to prove his hardness.
He's helped redeem himself a bit by saving Sansa, but to truly find redemption he'll have to sacrifice himself to save another Stark. We can easily imagine Uncle Euron killing off both Yara and Theon, but not before Theon takes him out while saving Bran, Arya or Sansa from being killed.
10. Bran will become stuck in time
Now that he can harness his true warging powers, Bran will most likely guide the action of the war through magical means and provide key players with key information at the right time.
However, his warging ways will lead to him getting stuck in the past. Because he is now the Three Eyed Raven (through some kind of unofficial Jacob in a Lost-style election), he can live for a LONG time, and will become every Bran ever from the past (this is where we bring up our All Bran joke again), including Bran the Builder, the bloke who built the Wall in the first place.
11. Varys will be killed by Littlefinger
These two old rivals will finally be reunited when everyone returns to King's Landing. But it won't be a happy reunion.
While we'd love to see Varys as the Hand of the King or Queen by the end game, we also don't think there will be an Iron Throne at the end anyway.
As we've previously mentioned, Varys would probably have a hand in killing Littlefinger, but not before Petyr finds a way of offing fan fave Varys first. The Master of Coin and The Master of Whisperers, the conniving masters, will eventually take each other out.
12. Samwell will end the show
He'll end up with Gilly, and will turn out to have written the whole story of Game of Thrones in an epilogue, like his namesake in The Return of the King or Christian Slater in The Name of the Rose.
13. Bronn will have to choose between his bros
The best bromance on GoT was originally Bronn and Tyrion. Now it's Bronn and Jaime. He's going to have to choose when it comes down to it.
Whoever's side he's on, he'll no doubt die by going down fighting, taking down at least 45 White Walkers and going out uncharacteristically heroically.
14. Davos will kill Melisandre
We expect Davos to become an influential general during the war between man and the White Walkers, but will sadly die during the epic battle.
But before this, we expect him to finally get revenge over Melisandre's killing of Shireen, perhaps by (ironically) burning her to death.
We also love the idea that before his death, he'll be a positive influence on Arya. She could fill the void left behind by Shireen, and she could do with a positive parental figure after all the crap that she's been dealt.
15. Tormund will try to kill Jaime, but lose
In what we can envisage to be a heartbreaking tale of misunderstanding, Tormund will attempt to win over Brienne's heart by taking on Jaime, after (understandably) thinking that he's their enemy.
However, even with one hand, Jaime will somehow win the fight and Tormund will die thinking "WTF?" as Brienne looks on, going: "Dude, I never said I liked you."
Note: we seriously hope this doesn't actually happen. Can Brienne and Tormund just get married instead?
Oh, and Pod will probably become a knight or something.
16. These main characters will still be alive at the end
- Tyrion
- Jon
- Arya
- Daenerys
- Bran
- Samwell
- Brienne
Mark our words.
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