Game of Thrones Episode 7 Theories: “The Dragon and The Wolf”
Game of Thrones Episode 7 Theories: “The Dragon and The Wolf”
What on viewers minds after the thrilling finale to Game of Thrones Season 7? Incest, Clegane Bowl, Littlefinger’s justice, Theon’s survival and Tyrion’s master plan. This week’s Small Council also examines your emails on redemption arks, Lannister and Stark babies, and whether Ned Stark was a fraud. With more than 100 emails submitted for this episode, it’s a power-packed edition of On The Throne.
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Game of Thrones Episode 7 Summary: “The Dragon and the Wolf” is the seventh and final episode of the seventh season of HBO’s fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 67th overall. It was written by series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Jeremy Podeswa.
The episode’s plot includes a negotiation between Cersei and Daenerys, and a rift between Cersei and Jaime; Theon rededicates himself to Yara; Sansa and Arya unite against Littlefinger; Jon Snow is revealed to be the child of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen; Jon and Daenerys’s romantic relationship comes to fruition; and the Army of the Dead penetrates the Wall.
“The Dragon and the Wolf” received positive reception from critics who listed the meeting at the Dragonpit, the full revelation of Jon Snow’s lineage, Cersei’s lack of cooperation to defeat the White Walkers, Aidan Gillen’s final performance as Littlefinger, and the demolition of the Wall as highlights of the episode. The pacing, however, was met with mixed reviews, and Rhaegar Targaryen’s physical portrayal in a flashback sequence was criticized for being too similar to his brother Viserys Targaryen. In the United States, the episode achieved a viewership of 12.07 million in its initial broadcast, making it the highest rated episode of the series. The title of the episode refers to the sigils of House Targaryen (the Dragon) and House Stark (the Wolf) and their newfound alliance.
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Um actually…I’m not sure this is an um actually. Also, I apologize in advance for this novel of a post.
There was discussion on this episode about how people will be upset if the ending is predictable, doesn’t make sense or if you figure it out ahead of time. If those are your criteria for success then I think, as a host of a podcast that discusses theories, your enjoyment is doomed. Game of Thrones has two writers. ASOIAF has one writer. The Song of Ice and Fire subreddit (just a portion of the online community) has 400,000 users with access to tools that can search the entire text of all of the books for clues. That’s basically a heuristic supercomputer being used to analyze the books and show and they are all trying to guess the outcomes for the various storylines. Three writers, no matter how talented they are, can not stand up to that kind of analysis and produce a work that is emotionally satisfying, logical, and also not guessable. What’s more, those 400k users (with all of their ideas), are going to vote the most interesting, logical, and emotionally satisfying guesses to the top. Meaning that not only is the ending going to be guessed by someone, but that ending (if it’s good) will most likely be voted into the view of the wider audience (like the audience of your show and even yourselves) well before the ending is revealed. At that point, what ending would not be predictable? Jon’s parentage was guessed over a decade ago, but it would not have been broadly accepted knowledge without the online community.
Look, none of this would matter if the fandom wasn’t participating as a group. I could turn off your podcast and stop looking at Game of Thrones discussion boards like Reddit and not be exposed to the theories ahead of time. I doubt that I would, by myself, be able to guess the ending. But your show can’t exist in a vacuum like that because your show is part of the community that is doing the predicting. I get that theorizing is fun, but if it is actually ruining anyone’s enjoyment of the material then I don’t know why we’re doing it or why we should listen.
I really like your show, but I’m also not basing my enjoyment on the community’s inability to analyze the material. I don’t think that there is any work of art in history that could stand up to the level of scrutiny described above. It’s frustrating to listen to a show and have a host indirectly imply that the point of the show is to ruin their enjoyment of the show’s subject. If GRRM and/or D&D can put together a satisfying ending that a group of 400k people (or millions of watchers) can’t collectively predict then they aren’t just the greatest writers since Shakespeare, they are the greatest writers to have ever existed.
I won’t be upset if I can see the ending coming. I will be upset if there are no surprises along the way. I think that’s the general sentiment of the audience, especially now that we’ve gone off-book.
Umm… actually… you forgot something big.
When you talked about not quite understanding Eddard Stark violating his intensely high sense of honor by lying about Jon being a Targerian, think again. There are two big reasons.
Stark made a promise to his sister when she had the baby. He promised to protect Jon. There is absolutely no way he would violate this. They both knew Jon would die if anyone knew who his father was Jon would probably die.
And there would be war. And Eddard would also die.
And the man who would kill him out of anger would be Robert Barathian. Eddard would have to tell him that they started a war on false pretenses., that the love of Robert’s life walked away from him and into the arms of his great enemy.
How do you think Robert would react to that?
Add to this the fact that Robert is essentially Edwards brother and best friend… doesn’t this explain why Eddard kept his mouth shut even with Jon?
Great points, Anne. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on the Small Council, but I acknowledged that Ed was keeping the secret to protect Aegon’s life, knowing any Targaryen child would be slaughtered. As I told Big D, this was revolution, and anyone related to the Mad King would be wiped out.