Consider it EWs small council, made of two people far too obsessed with everythingThrones.
This weeks burning question:Will next episode be Cerseis last?
Well find outthatanswer next season.
Macall B. Polay/HBO
But this leads to a basic question: What is this penultimate season reallyabout?
Is it an elaborate table-setting build-up to that final showdown?
Or is it a miniature showdown unto itself, with a central antagonistic figure?
Helen Sloan/HBO
Central antagonistic figure is obviously a vague phrase to throw around on the four-dimensional chessboard ofThronesstrategy.
But some seasons are more binary than others.
Season 2 saw the rise (and swift fall) of Stannis Baratheon.
Helen Sloan/HBO
Season 4 built steadily to a climactic interaction with Mance Rayder, King-Beyond-The-Wall.
In videogame parlance, they were Level Bosses.
Jon Snow even absorbed Mances army, the way Mega Man absorbs defeated Bosses powers.
(Mance =Ice Man.)
(Ramsay =Cut Man?)
And now Im wondering: Is Cersei Lannister the Level Boss of season 7?
She started the premiere in a precarious position, enemies encircling her.
Then came the dragon.
Bye-bye, loot train!
So long, Lannister army!
Swim, Jaime, swim!
It makes me wonder if season 7 is another rise-and-fall narrative.
Do you think Cersei will survive this season?
Hell, given the rapid pace of climaxes, do you think Cersei will survive thisweekend?
Who should be our first pick on our rotating team of protagonists?
Weve chosen Daenerys to start against Cersei, but will she be as effective for the next boss?
Should we un-bench Tyrion at some point?
Is the Hound a playable character?
When it comes to the ice zombies,who will be the Goofy and Donald to Jons Sora?
THE WHITE WALKERS ARE TOTALLY THE HEARTLESS, AM I RIGHT?
Maybe all my complaints about the Lack of War this season save for the loot train!
Because if you think about it, what moves does Cersei have left to play?
The Mountain and the probably-never-happening-but-could-still-happen Cleganebowl?
Qyburn and bigger versions of his ballista?
Cerseis been backed into a corner on that four-dimensional chessboard, and queenslaying may be the only move left.
(Unless you’re free to think of something that saves her?)
Darren, what do you think he meant to get out of giving Bran Chekhovs catspaw dagger?
DARREN:Dany is Sora, Tyrion is Donald, and the dragons are collectively Goofy.
Jon can be, like, Kairi.
Few things in modern pop culture cant be explained byKingdom Hearts.
Im a little bummed if season 7 is the end of the show-length inquisition into fantasy bureaucracy.
And for what its worth, I think that the ballista strategy like a crossbow, but bigger!
was at least apartialsuccess.
It brought down a dragon!
It was just a flesh wound, but still!
But if weareapproaching the Waterloo for Westerosi Politicking, how weirdly poignant that its symbolized by Cersei.
Jesus, am I Team Cersei?
Are we still doing Teams?
As goes Cersei, so goes Littlefinger?
Ilovedthe scene between him and Bran even before the dagger appeared.
I go back and forth on my dagger theories.
I believe it when Sansa says that Littlefinger does everything for a reason.
I also cant see any clear reason for him to do, well,anything.
Hes firmly ensconced as the big man in the Eyrie, which makes him unkillable.
So why produce the telltale dagger this late in the game?
But I have to assume that dagger hassomekind of purpose?
Shirley, how seriously should we take the books version of the assassination and the implication of Joffreys involvement?
And who doyouthink Arya will kill with that dagger?
SHIRLEY:I like the idea, too, that weve never known exactly who ordered the assassination.
Its, to get a littleLeftoversabout it, letting the mystery be.
Butourjob is not to let mysteries be!
(Dad, look, I killed your best friends son!
Do I get a new crossbow now?
Which brings me to the question of Arya.
But does Arya really seem like the one wholl take down Blue Eyes White Walker?
Am I making the same mistake Sansa made by underestimating our water-dancing faceless assassin?
This does make me wonder what else Arya will be meant to do.
Has the shows decision to rid Arya of her wolf dreams diminished her larger role in the narrative?
And speaking of Jon, what did you think of Theons sheepish return to shore?
I have very little hope hell convince Dany to save his sister, but maybe you feel differently.
But I have to give Benioff & Weiss full credit for their patience.
Ive enjoyed the payoff this season, though.
Maisie Williams is playing Arya with a more murderous variation of Brans Vulcanized stare.
Shes home, but you kinda know shell never be home again.
But you bring up a good point.
Hes the last Greyjoy standing.
(Euron doesnt stand, heswings.)
On that note, Shirley: When do you think Jon will return to the North?
People travel so quickly, and we know from the trailers that theressomesort of snowfight on the horizon.
Do we think that Jon and Dany will seal their alliance before the end of this season?
SHIRLEY:Love the word snowfight.
A girl is not a TV writer, clearly.
(As an aside: The Ringer hada fun postthe other day about how little Cersei has moved.
Well see soon enough.)
But what of Daenerys and Jon?
Maybe Dany, hearing about Eastwatch, will believe Jon and his stories of the North.
Nowthatshould have been our burning question this week: When will Tyrion finally get a drink?
Game of Thronesairs Sundays at 9 p.m.
