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As Game of Thrones rushes toward the finish line, time is running out for predictions about how David Benioff and Dan Weiss' fantasy epic will end.
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00:01Hey guys, it's Neha Joy for The Hollywood Reporter News, and today I'm here with THR
00:05writer and Game of Thrones expert Josh Wigler, who's going to break down his predictions
00:10on what we can expect leading into Sunday night's Game of Thrones series finale.
00:15Josh, thanks so much for being here.
00:16Thanks for having me.
00:17I can't believe two days away as we're talking about this, Game of Thrones is almost over.
00:21But it's clearly building to a pretty tragic ending right now.
00:25Absolutely.
00:25Now obviously we have so much to talk about because we're coming off of last week's episode,
00:30which ended on such a crazy and intense note.
00:34We had Daenerys essentially burn down all of King's Landing, possibly, possibly not becoming
00:40the Mad Queen.
00:42Yeah.
00:42It's hard to...
00:43She's at least angry.
00:44Yeah.
00:45I think that she's pretty furious, we can tell.
00:48Right now we're in a place of, where do we go from here?
00:51Totally.
00:51It feels like there's still a lot to be resolved and it feels like Game of Thrones really dramatically
00:58shifted in this really important way with one of its signature traditionally heroic characters,
01:04who has now, to borrow a term from another show, she's broken bad.
01:07She's kind of had her big moment where whether you want to say she snapped or she's just decided
01:13that this is the type of queen I'm going to be.
01:15Whatever you want to say, it has had very bad results for thousands of people in King's Landing.
01:20The Lannister twins are gone, Jaime and Cersei.
01:22Yeah.
01:22There's so much to unpack from this episode that I feel like we haven't said that out loud
01:26enough that Cersei Lannister is dead, Jaime Lannister is dead.
01:31Yeah.
01:31So it's just, there's been a pretty significant shift in where the story is at right now.
01:37And only 80 minutes to resolve that does leave you wondering like, where, where is this going
01:42to go?
01:43How are they going to wrap this all up in such a short amount of time?
01:45Yeah.
01:45I think another question that's really big on everyone's mind is what we talked about
01:49with Daenerys.
01:50Is she now the Mad Queen?
01:52And if she is, does that make her the show's next or final villain?
01:56When you look back on Daenerys' arc with the benefit of knowing where she has at least
02:02currently wound up, there's a road map to it.
02:06It feels a little sudden for a lot of people, myself included, quite frankly.
02:09But I think that they had laid track for it.
02:12I think you look back at some of Dany's conquests and some of the ways in which she dispatched
02:16some of her enemies along the way and often she's really, really ruthless.
02:20There's definitely been a lot of killing from a lot of different people on this show,
02:24so she's not unique in that.
02:26But the way in which she would end the people who were in her way was often rather dramatic
02:31and sometimes pretty, pretty savage.
02:33And I think it's going to be a little bit hard to sell some empathy for Daenerys after
02:38she has just committed mass murder.
02:39But we do know her so well and we know what was at stake for her and we've been on
02:44an emotional
02:45journey with her.
02:46THR TV critic Dan Feinberg, we do a weekly column and he posited a great idea that maybe she returns
02:52to exile the way that she had started the series.
02:54I think one of those two makes a lot of sense to me, but it's hard for me to imagine
02:58any
02:58kind of ending that's happy for Daenerys.
03:00And it was a big twist for everyone, even characters in the show.
03:05And that's where I want to bring in Jon Snow.
03:07He was someone that had defended Dany from the very beginning of the season, even towards
03:13the end of last season.
03:14She defended her actions, her decisions.
03:16This is not something that he can justify.
03:19This goes against everything that he stands for.
03:22And you can even see the shock in his face during the last episode when she's burning
03:26the entire city down.
03:27How is he going to handle her?
03:29Not well.
03:30I think it's going to be pretty upsetting.
03:33But a lot of the early, immediate aftermath of Daenerys deciding to burn everybody is rooted
03:38in Jon, who is this guy who has been reconciling with who he really is.
03:44He finds out at the beginning of the season that he's the heir to the Iron Throne, that
03:47everything that he knew about himself turns out he really did know nothing.
03:52And even throughout it all, even knowing that that is his birthright, he wants nothing to
03:57do with it.
03:57He's the person with the greatest claim to power in all of Westeros, and he has no interest
04:02in it whatsoever.
04:03He just wants Daenerys to be happy, he wants Daenerys to win, he believes in her.
04:08Even as there are signs that are starting to pile up that maybe he shouldn't be believing
04:14in her the way that he has, I think that this is a point of no return for him.
04:19I think with 80 minutes left to go, he's really going to have to reckon with who Dany became.
04:24And where does Tyrion come into play in all of this?
04:27Because he was another one that had really been gunning for Dany from the very beginning.
04:31So how is he going to sort of handle this reckoning of who she's become?
04:37And also there's the fact that he lost both of his siblings too.
04:41Right.
04:41Yeah, Tyrion's the last Lannister, last Lannister standing.
04:45I think he's going to be okay.
04:46I think that there was a time where I was really worried and concerned about where the
04:51show might be taking Tyrion ultimately.
04:54And maybe some of those concerns have bared out.
04:57He hasn't seemingly made a good decision in several seasons.
05:01Every strategic choice he makes seems to be the wrong one.
05:04But I do think that his heart has been in the right place all along the way.
05:09You know, he sells his friend out in this most recent episode.
05:12He betrays Varys, but he doesn't because he really does still truly believe in Daenerys.
05:16And I think like Jon Snow, there's no way Tyrion can emerge from this past episode believing
05:23in Dany anymore.
05:24He was the one who was really trying to convince her to take mercy on King's Landing and she
05:29completely disobeys what it was he asked for.
05:32I'm ultimately not that nervous for Tyrion, but the little thing that does cause me some
05:38alarm is in this past episode, Daenerys says, the next time you wrong me, the next time you
05:44make a mistake, it will be the last time.
05:47And I think maybe eight minutes after that in the episode, he releases Jaime Lannister
05:52from jail.
05:54So if Daenerys is ever going to catch wind of that, what kind of damage, what kind of
05:58blowback does Tyrion suffer for that, especially with Dany in the mode that she is in right
06:03now?
06:03So I think that there will be a little bit of danger for Tyrion, but I think he'll ultimately
06:07escape.
06:07We can't lose Tyrion, right?
06:08They have to give us something.
06:09Somebody's got to live.
06:10Somebody's got to have a happy ending.
06:12We're rooting for it.
06:12I think so.
06:13Yeah.
06:13The end of the episode had this sort of beautiful imagery of Arya riding off towards Winterfell,
06:20we're assuming, on this white horse.
06:22Is that symbolic of anything?
06:24And is that going to foreshadow anything that's going to come in the finale?
06:28Heading into this season, I really thought that we would lose Arya.
06:31I thought that Arya would die because I think that she's somebody who is universally beloved.
06:35I think that she's one of the Game of Thrones characters who everybody can agree upon as like,
06:39that is a cool person.
06:41And along the way this season, she kills the Night King, she stops the White Walker war.
06:46That's still crazy to me.
06:47And because of that, I was like, there's no chance she's going to survive the penultimate
06:51episode.
06:52That's what I was thinking too, was that there's sort of this, her stock has never been higher,
06:57so watch it plummet.
06:58Like that's the classic Game of Thrones gut punch.
07:00And I'm really glad that I was wrong.
07:02Still one episode to go and there's still opportunity for danger, but I actually think that Arya's
07:06going to be okay.
07:07So I think when she's getting on that horse at the end of the episode, there's some people
07:11who think that maybe she's on her way to vengeance.
07:13Maybe she's going to try and get one over on Daenerys.
07:16Maybe she'll be the person who not only killed the ice monster in episode three, but she's
07:21going to kill the fire side of the equation.
07:24I think that she's just going to go live her life.
07:26I think that Arya's going to have a fairly peaceful ending, and I'm really surprised by that
07:30if that's how it ends up, but happy by it as well.
07:32One of the big unanswered questions throughout the series is Azor Ohai, the prophecy of the
07:38prince that was promised.
07:39That was something that was discussed multiple times throughout the series, but it's not something
07:42that we really got any clarity or closure on.
07:45Is that something that you think that they're finally going to answer in the finale?
07:48I think that the way that they resolve the White Walker piece of the series strongly suggests
07:54to me that Game of Thrones the show cares a whole lot less about prophecy than maybe we do
07:59as fans, and maybe people who have read the books that the show is based on A Song of Ice
08:04and Fire, George R. R. Martin really puts that up front and center.
08:07Because I feel like the prophecies were a lot more heavy-handed in the books than it was in the
08:11series.
08:12Absolutely.
08:12Absolutely, yeah.
08:12I think that for better and for worse sometimes, the show is a lot more meat and potatoes.
08:17I don't know that there is going to be any kind of one hero who fully saves the day.
08:23I guess you can make the argument that that was Arya, you know, in Killing the Night King.
08:27But I think a lot of people expected that it would be Daenerys or it would be Jon Snow.
08:33So we have the most obvious question that we need answered now.
08:36Who do you think is going to win the Game of Thrones and take the Iron Throne?
08:41Yeah.
08:41I think that there's very likely somebody who's going to be in charge of the Seven Kingdoms.
08:45I think that could be Tyrion.
08:46I think that some version of Tyrion ruling the South, Sansa ruling the North,
08:50or the two of them, you know, rekindling their marriage and ruling together,
08:54I think is something we could see in the series finale.
08:56But I think the Iron Throne will probably be out of it.
08:59Whether that's because Daenerys has already basically destroyed King's Landing
09:03and maybe in some of the Dragonfire it's possible maybe she ruined the Iron Throne.
09:09Maybe it's already gone.
09:11Or maybe Jon Snow will defeat her or dethrone her.
09:16And I have seen a lot of popular theories out there that like his first act as King would be
09:21like,
09:21so I'm not King anymore and the Iron Throne is done.
09:23This is not a thing that's going to be, you know, moving forward anymore.
09:27And that would be really cool.
09:29I think that that would be probably the right ending for the series is some version of that
09:33where the Iron Throne doesn't exist anymore.
09:36Does not exist.
09:36All right, so we know that the internet definitely loves to talk
09:41and there's a lot of thoughts and theories that they have out there.
09:44Yeah.
09:45So we're going to play a game with you right now.
09:47Oh my.
09:47And it's called Game of Theories.
09:50All right, I like theories.
09:51So we scoured the internet and we found a whole bunch of theories
09:54that range from valid to possibly absolutely ridiculous.
09:58About what's going to happen in the finale.
10:00And you need to tell me whether it's definitely going to happen, possibly might happen,
10:04or never in a million years.
10:06Okay, I love that I have a middle road option.
10:08All right, so let's play Game of Theories.
10:11All right, let's do it.
10:12Theory number one.
10:13The Night King and the Army of the Dead are going to come back.
10:17The Night King is dead.
10:18Everyone that we saw die totally died.
10:21But the first time we ever saw the Night King was because one of the White Walkers
10:25was bringing him a baby to turn into another White Walker.
10:28It's not possible that White Walker daycare exists.
10:32And those babies are toddlers now or, you know, getting close to bar mitzvah age.
10:37And perhaps they are north of the wall.
10:39And perhaps there will be some sort of cyclical ending of all of this has happened before.
10:44All of this has happened again.
10:45I feel like I've heard that phrase before.
10:47And somehow they survived this sort of over-accompassing death of the White Walkers.
10:52I'll say possibly.
10:53I don't think that it's impossible.
10:55Okay.
10:55Theory number two.
10:57Arya is going to wear someone's face to kill Dany.
11:01I'm going to say absolutely not.
11:03I'm going to go out on a limb and say I don't think it's going to happen.
11:07And this is one that I could be burned on.
11:09I feel like if Game of Thrones is really going for the fan service then this is going to happen.
11:14But I think that Game of Thrones is going to go for something a little subtler with Arya.
11:17And with Dany also.
11:18Okay, okay.
11:19All right.
11:19Theory number three.
11:21This is more of an underrated theory.
11:23Sansa is going to take the throne.
11:26Possibly.
11:27Possibly.
11:27Yeah.
11:28I'd vote for her.
11:29Yeah.
11:29I think Sansa is the most reasonable human being on Game of Thrones.
11:32So I would be very thrilled to see Westeros under her reign.
11:35If I had to change my pool halfway through I would have put Sansa at the end.
11:38Yeah.
11:38I mean I still think no throne.
11:40But I think Sansa in charge of the Seven Kingdoms is a pretty good bet right now.
11:44Yeah, I like that.
11:45Theory four.
11:46Cersei is going to climb out of the rubble of the Red Keep, find her way to Winterfell,
11:50kill Daenerys and take the throne.
11:52That's definitely going to happen and you should very excitedly look out for that to happen
11:56in the series finale.
11:57Absolutely.
11:58I'm on board with that.
11:59That's two thumbs up.
12:00A hard yes.
12:01That is the only ending that we want and expect at this point.
12:04I'm sorry that it's not going to happen but in our dreams.
12:07We can dream of that tonight.
12:08How great would that be?
12:09I mean when you talk about the unexpected of Game of Thrones, that is as unexpected as
12:13It's unexpected within reason though.
12:15I feel like.
12:15I think it's going to be hard to imagine her popping up out of however many pounds of stone
12:21just fell upon her.
12:22Okay.
12:23Theory number five.
12:25Everyone's going to die and no one's going to take the throne.
12:28And by no one, I don't mean Arya no one.
12:30Right.
12:30I mean really no one.
12:31No one, no one.
12:33No.
12:33I don't think so.
12:34I think that this past episode, The Bells, was really the big death episode.
12:39And I think that a lot of the people that we really love are going to be okay.
12:45Tormund has Ghost.
12:46Him and the direwolf, they should be fine.
12:48They're far away.
12:49Sam and Gilly, they should be fine.
12:51No one's coming after Davos Seaworth because I will riot and no one wants to see me riot.
12:55I think that a lot of the characters that we love are going to be alright.
12:58And I think that the major deaths that I'm sort of braced for, Daenerys is one of them.
13:03Jon Snow is somebody who I could see us losing.
13:08And then sort of like the existential Iron Throne.
13:10But I think that for the most part, the main characters who are going to die,
13:14I think that they're probably already dead.
13:16Alright.
13:17Well, we will see how all of these predictions pan out on Sunday.
13:21Josh, thanks so much for joining us.
13:22Thanks for having me.
13:23Such a fun time.
13:24Yeah, it was definitely fun.
13:25Alright guys, Game of Thrones series finale airs on Sunday night on HBO.
13:29For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Neha Joy.
13:33That was a great time.
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