GOT Redux

Published May 23, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

Hey guys, taking you up on the offer to write a GoT “What If?” scenario for what could have been done differently.

Season 7: Runs 10 episodes including a supersized finale for the Battle of Winterfell. The season unfolds pretty much like the season we knew only without the jetpacking. The season concludes with the Battle of Winterfell. My changes are:

Jon Snow tells Sansa and the North that the only way the North survives is to become allies with the Dragon Queen. Jon pledges to the North once that war is won, he will pledge his life to make the North free. On the ship ride to Dragon Stone Davos asks Jon how he can trust Daenerys, a woman he’s never met. Jon says when he returned from the dead he felt a kinship to her that he can’t explain. The two meet and instantly fall in love. Daenerys tells Missandei she knew Jon was the one when she saw how her dragons took to him. The rest of the season plays out much as it did with the reconciliation of the Starks, however, we see Sansa and Arya share the horrors they’ve been thru and Bran tells his sisters while they’ve all been transformed, and he’s no longer sure what he is, he knows they are his family and he will protect them. While everyone comes to the North to prepare to battle the Night King, Jon, and Daenerys, after another in a series of dragon rides, ask the Septon present at Winterfell, to marry them on the eve of battle. Upon their wedding, Daenerys declares Jon to be Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and that once the Night King is defeated, the North will join her in taking King’s Landing and once victorious, she will declare the North free and independent under Sansa’s rule. As Jon prepares to go into battle with the Night King, Sam and Bran tell the newly married Jon his wife is his aunt. The season concludes with Dany mourning the death of Jorah, the loss of another of her dragons in battle and the confession from Jon that he is the rightful heir to Winterfell.

Season 8:

Daenerys feels Jon knew he was the rightful heir before he married her and did this to distract her from claiming the Iron Throne so he could do it for himself. Dany orders what’s left of the Unsullied and Dothraki, along with her advisors to return to Dragonstone to fight this war alone as the people of the North cannot be trusted. Jon, defying Sansa’s wishes, marches his army North. Tyrion attempts to broker peace between Daenerys and Jon but is rejected when Dany tells him she will allow Jon’s troops to fight against Cersei but will not allow the North or any other part of the Seven Kingdoms to be free. Varys having learned about Jon’s lineage from Tyrion (who learned it from Sansa), sends ravens to tell everyone. Missandei is again captured and executed. On the eve of battle, Jon proclaims his love and loyalty to Daenerys but she rejects him. She states since she was a baby she has been used by men and denied what was rightfully hers. She will take what is hers thru blood and fire. King’s Landing is again decimated. Arya again goes to the Red Keep to kill Cersei where she encounters Jaime Lannister who tells Arya that he owes her family debt and that a Lannister always pays his debts. Jaime tells Cersei he loves her but stabs her thru the heart to atone for the evil the two of them have done together. With the building falling around them Jaime shoves Arya to safety atoning for the injury that crippled Bran. Daenerys delivers a horrifying speech telling her soldiers that lands in the Seven Kingdoms will be leveled starting with Winterfell. Tyrion protests and is imprisoned. Jon and Arya know what they must do. While Arya slays Grey Worm and then dons his face to take out more of the Unsullied and Dothraki, Jon encounters a clearly unhinged Daenerys. Jon tells Dany he truly loved her, he never wanted the Iron Throne but can’t let her kill any more innocents and stabs her in the heart. With Varys’s ravens having reached their targets, the world accepts Jon Stark as the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. Jon tells the assembled gathering of House Lords that he doesn’t wish to rule and that he is not a Lord and will never be one. Jon states Tyrion should be the man to lead the now Six Kingdoms as the North will be ruled by Sansa Stark with Bran serving as an ambassador to all people so that this violent history is not repeated. Tyrion accepts on the condition that going forward, all of the six kingdoms have a say in selecting their leader. Arya goes West, Sansa becomes Queen of the North and Jon disappears into the snow and wind of the real North with Torm

Eric Furniss

Subscribe Now