Westerosi Body Count: Cersei Lannister

Can the Lioness survive the Game?

Photo: jean wimmerlin

Cersei Lannister

Ah, Cersei. To date, she's been the ultimate player of the Game, but this is a streak that cannot last. I guess if they wanted to go full tragedy, they could wreck all of Westeros and let her rule, alone, over a dead continent in ruins. If Cersei wins, then it surely has to be a Pyrrhic victory, as other victories of hers turned out to be. But I don't think she will win, because she just offers too many great opportunities in her departure. Arya really wants to off her, but I think either Jaime will take her out or she'll have to endure watching Sansa ascend to Queen and be stripped of land and titles, etc., and have to go live in a nunnery or something like that. It may actually be a combination.

Way back in Season 2, Daenerys has a waking dream of sorts in the House of the Undying where she walks through the Great Hall of the Red Keep — its roof destroyed and snow falling — with continuing service to a room with an alive Drogo and non-scaly baby Rhaego. The latter event never happened, so is it a "this is what would have happened" to contrast with the vision of "what she's going to get in return?" It's easy to imagine that King's Landing and the Red Keep get destroyed through some combination of Army of the Dead, dragons, Dothraki horde, self-immolation via wildfire, etc. Remember, too, that by killing the White Walker, you can automagically kill all the zombies the White Walker raised, so they can kill every damn body in Westeros, and still dispatch the Army of the Dead if they can just kill the White Walkers and the Night King. If Arya, with her Valyerian steel dagger, can wear the face of a White Walker, then the Night King is in some serious deep shit. Just sayin'.

If I were writing the story, Cersei would "rule", alone, over a largely depopulated Westeros — ashes covered in snow. But, I'm not writing it, and America doesn't do tragedy. Alas. This is how I think it plays out — Jaime kills Cersei at some point after having sided with Tyrion in some sort of act of redemption.

Cersei's Baby

Cersei is pregnant as we go into Season 8, presumably with Jaime's baby. Even though she shagged her cousin Lancel when Jaime was on the road, there's no reason to think the kid's not Jaime's and to have it mysteriously not would be (what Qyburn?) some pretty crappy writing, but, hey, they did the whole Jaime charges Daenerys next to the dragon (WTF?) and Bronn knocks him off his horse before he can get incinerated (WTF?) into the lake where the deep part runs right up to the shore (WTF?) aaand they swim a mile underwater in armor (W the seriously T the seriously F?). That was shark-jumping badness, so, anything is possible, but I think that was just an aberration, not a symptom of impending suckitude, in an otherwise pretty awesome episode.

Time is tricky in GoT, so I think Cersei's baby is definitely in play. A boy, that's taken as a ward into Sansa's court? Or, adopted as son to Sansa and Tyrion? They wouldn't have a pregnant Cersei if the baby didn't have a role to play. What would a daughter mean? Early flier guess — boy turned into a White Walker by the Night King.

A summary of all original and current predictions with pointers can be found at the WBC Prediction Status page.

Westerosi Body Count: Sansa Stark

Sansa Stark — the stalking horse in the Game of Thrones.

Photo: Seth Macey

Sansa Stark

Jon Snow to Sansa Stark: "You almost sound as if you admire her [Cersei Lannister].
Sansa: "I learned a great deal from her."

Sansa Stark is the stalking horse in the GoT race. For a character who started out painfully irritating and naive, she has through great suffering and abuse acquired wisdom and cunning. Jon and Sansa have an uneven understanding, but each now hold the other in esteem and with respect. There is space for this relationship to develop (I don't think there will be any romance, just aligned interest and loyalty to the Stark family) and the woman for whom being the Queen of Westeros seemed all but certain in Season 1 may have a shot in Season 8. Lots of interesting possibilities especially if Queen Sansa has a hand in how Cersei Lannister is disposed of.

Sansa is not an easy pick, as she has some serious karmic flaws against her, including the loss of her direwolf Lady who by her lying she unwittingly sacrificed in the stead of Nymeria. Does that absolve her, or does that doom her? Hard to say. One of the signals that Sansa is going to play a role is her nuclear bomb of a sister Arya has returned to Winterfell with a hit list that doesn't have Sansa written on it. So, Sansa has means (Arya, Brienne of Tarth, Stark banner men (presumably)), motive (revenge at the very least, but she was queued to be queen Season 1), and now needs opportunity, which comes after the final clash with the Night King and the Army of the Dead or in whatever scheming and alliance building required to initiate that clash.

So, if Sansa does win, does she ascend to the Iron Throne alone? And if not, who stands beside her? She was married to Tyrion Lannister once — might she marry him again? That would go a long way toward cooling the hot blood in the Stark-Lannister conflict, especially if Cersei gets taken out. I think the Tyrion angle could actually work considering that almost all of the men she's dealt with have been schmucks to downright evil (looking at you dog-chewed corpse of Ramsay Bolton). Two that she (almost certainly) has come to see are not are Sandor Clegane aka the Hound and Tyrion Lannister. Despite the karmic drawback of not having a direwolf, Sansa is my early flier bet to win it all. Will hold off on the marriage to Tyrion for now, but recognize that it's really not all that crazy of an idea.

A summary of all original and current predictions with pointers can be found at the WBC Prediction Status page.

Westerosi Body Count Prediction Status Page

Character	Will survive?	Alive?	Will win?	Won?
Daenerys Targaryen	No	Yes	No	N/A
Jon Snow	Yes	Yes (kinda)	Yes (different game)	N/A
Sansa Stark	Yes	Yes	Yes!	N/A
Cersei Lannister	No	Yes	No	N/A
Cersei's baby	Maybe	Yes	No	N/A
Jaime Lannister	No	Yes	No (not playing)	N/A
Tyrion Lannister	Yes	Yes	No (not playing)	N/A
Arya Stark	No (dadgumit)	Yes	No	N/A
Theon Greyjoy	Yes (WRONG)	No	No	No
Yara Greyjoy	No	Yes	No	N/A

Overview

The above table contains pointers to my original predictions as well as any updated prediction based on new evidence as it rolls out during the new season. Explanation for the different fields:

Character

Name and link to original prediction

Will survive?

Current guess and link to updated prediction (if any)

Alive?

Is the character still alive as of the current episode

Will win?

Current guess and link to updated prediction (if any)

Won?

Final outcome

The Will win? entry needs a little explanation, as I have overloaded its meaning. For some characters, winning means winning the Game of Thrones, and as Cersei Lannister says, "when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die." However, not everyone is playing the same game. My early take is that Jon Snow is not playing, even though it kinda looks like he is as he's fiddling around on the edges, so as gamers might say different players have different victory conditions. Many of the characters "game" is just making it through the winter (they may not know of the Army of the Dead — yet!), so I won't call them out.

The table order is oldest post descending to the most recent which roughly corresponds to descending order of importance to the story as I intuit it. Not too much should be read into that, however, since some of the characters are grouped due to some association in the show.

Westerosi Body Count: Jon Snow

The Hero's Journey from The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU.

Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen

Jon is the most traditional hero of all of the characters in GoT: noble youth separated from family, goes on quest, gets a mentor, receives a boon (Longclaw), dies, comes back, yadda, yadda, yadda, right out of the Joseph Campbell playbook. Moreover, it will be widely revealed in Westeros that Jon Snow is really Aegon Targaryen the lawful son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Targaryen neé Stark, which would put him in the front of the line for the Iron Throne if that's the way you want to see the situation (e.g., Robert Baratheon would not have, and Daenerys might not either). Certainly the neatest way to wrap it all up is just to follow the Campbellian Hero's Path leading to a restored Aegon Targaryen on the Iron Throne married to his aunt Daenerys (because that's what Targaryens do) and we are back where we started.

Back where started, here we go 'round again…

Problem is, it's too pat, and as much as fans love Game of Thrones, I don't think the GoTeratti would be cool with aunt marries nephew and lives happily ever after. Again, GoT cleaves to conventional themes even if it uses over-the-top exhibition. Inbreeding consistently gets punished through out the arc of the story (e.g., Mad King, shrinking dragons, Cersei's children all dying horrible deaths, etc.). No, I find it more likely that Jon will have to turn on Daenerys, and Sansa Stark may be involved. Moreover, Jon doesn't need to sit on the Iron Throne to complete a hero's journey and "win" if he's not playing the Game, but is on a different quest.

When predicting, it's incumbent upon one to predict. OK, we'll get to that, but we have things to consider first. A spanner in the works is Beric Dondarrion. Jon wasn't the first to die and come back. If you're not the only person to die and come back, then resurrection loses some of it's awesomeness, especially when it's just whatever the Brotherhood without Banners watches whenever Beric Dondarrion gets cut down and Thoros "Stinky McStink Breath" of Myr brings him back. Jon's status as "alive" is not entirely clear.

Consider, too, Maester Aemon's enigmatic "kill the boy, and let the man be born" advice given to Jon Snow. (HT Sistopher) This could be read different ways, the simplest being "grow up". But then Jon literally dies for saving the Free Folk/Wildlings. Jon is definitely a major hero, but is he Aragorn or Frodo Baggins? Or, is he Samwise Gamgee? The easy out is Aragorn — Ranger of the North, leading the Men of the West(North) against the armies of Sauron(Night King) and reuniting the Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor(Seven Kingdoms). Aegon Aragorn — a set up or a Tolkien rewrite with lots of sex to distract you from the fact?

Before we can get to the punchline, there is another factor we must consider: Ghost. Of the original six direwolves, only Ghost and Nymeria are still alive (Sansa is the only Stark alive whose direwolf is dead, but more on that in later post). Does this mean anything? I don't think you gum up a story with direwolves with psychic connections to each other and their humans to have it all not really mean anything. The fate of Ghost will be a tell.

As I mentioned in the Daenerys post, I don't think the whole Jon and Daenerys thing can stand. Moreover, I think it ends in tears. In fact, Daenerys may die by Jon's hand. Think about it — the whole damn show is about Jon doing stuff he really doesn't want to do, and what would be more tear jerkier than Jon "I already had to watch Ygritte die in my arms" Snow having to kill aunt Daenerys and watch her die in his arms while making some weepy confession. Jon's may already be dead, so he doesn't need to die again, but I guess that depends on the as of yet unclear definition of death in GoT. Prediction: Jon's fate is to ride into the sunset Man With No Name style after some "mission accomplished" event. I don't think it is to sit on the Iron Throne. Better said, Jon Snow will not be the last person to sit on the Iron Throne at the end of season 8. The end of Jon's hero's quest wouldn't be to have to continue to do stuff he doesn't want to do like rule over Westeros. Jon wins by not having to do any more crap. Jon is Frodo dressed up as Aragorn.

Ghost

So goes Jon Snow, so goes Ghost, and vice versa. However, the story heaps all sorts of bad stuff on Jon, so I could see them killing Ghost and bringing him back to fight with the Army of the Dead, and Jon has to rekill his own direwolf. In this case, that's not necessarily the end of Jon — it frees him from being a Stark so he can ride off into the sunset.

A summary of all original and current predictions with pointers can be found at the WBC Prediction Status page.

Westerosi Body Count: Intro and Daenerys

Welcome to Westerosi Body Count

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground. -- Cersei Lannister

As season eight of Game of Thrones approaches, it seems appropriate to review the prospects of the different characters, provide some analysis, and guess their fate. Westerosi Body Count will be a series of these analyses that I'll roll out as blog posts, followed by analysis of the hits and inevitable misses after the season starts. The only predictions I make with take-this-to-the-bank certitude is that there will be a significant body count and Theon Greyjoy won't win the Game of Thrones, though I think he's got a good shot at surviving. More on that in a future post.

One of the things that struck me about GoT as I thought about it a little was how conventional it is in some ways. That it's not obvious is a tribute to Martin and the HBO crew — they execute the familiar tropes very well. The two biggest conventions are you'll pay for your mistakes and what goes around comes around. Ned Stark isn't dead because he was a good or honorable man — he's dead because he incompetently threatened Cersei Lannister with no means of following through (after he squandered them). Big mistake. He didn't even know what the game was that was being played. Arya annihilated House Frey because those who would kill guests under their protection don't deserve to have or be a House. I would bet there is some Norse Edda that covers this in gruesome detail. I have not read any Game of Thrones sites that might reveal spoilers, etc., so if I guess right, it was just a guess, not something gleaned from a leak. So with that said, let's dig in. Thoughts and discussion welcome in the comments, but please, no spoilers.

Daenerys Targaryen

Daenerys seems to be the odds on favorite to win the Game. While like Ned Stark, she makes mistakes, unlike Ned, she usually corrects them. She's got dragons, 40,000 Dothraki screamers, 10,000 Unsullied, and her team of Tyrion, Ser Jorah, and Varys. On paper, that's unbeatable in typical Westerosi terms, but Winter has come and with it the Army of the Dead, so all bets are off. It's going to come down to whether they are going to finish it off as a comedy or tragedy, and if most of the season finales have been guides, it may be the latter. I think Daenerys is the fan favorite to win. If she does win, they're going to need some decent twist to make it not too pat. And if she does win, I'll go out on a limb and say it won't be with Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen as her king.

As of today, my guess is she's going to die in Jon Snow's or Ser Jorah Mormont's (maybe Daario Naharis'?) arms, getting Jon out of his aunt-on-nephew karmic conundrum. It may be of wounds sustained in battle or assassinated by Cersei Lannister, but it's too early to make any guesses about that. At least, for me. If there is some detail I've missed, please LMK. An early tell will be if Varys gets uneasy feeling that Daenerys is not serving the realm.

BONUS: Your Game of Thrones Name

It may not obvious to people who only watch Game of Thrones that you can turn an ordinary name into a GoT name by changing an instance of i to y. Name Tim? Your GoT name is Tym. IDK why Daario Naharis doen't have a y up in there somewhere, but that's an exception to the rule. If I had to guess, it's because Daario Naharis only does what Daario Naharis wants, and if there are no ys in Daario Naharis, it's because Daario Naharis doesn't want them there. Rules don't apply to Daario Naharis.

A summary of all original and current predictions with pointers can be found at the WBC Prediction Status page.

First post! (In almost a decade)

If ever there was a time to get back to ye olde blogge, it is in the throes of the collective mass psychosis that characterizes the Age of Trump™. However, something more important than the Mueller report is bearing down upon us, and it calls for action—immediate action—and that is Season 8 of Game of Thrones.

Trailer

I'm planning on rolling out some predictions and possibilities for our heroes and villains in subsequent posts, but right now I'm not really what I think about this no spaces around em dash convention that's all the rage outside AP.