'Game of Thrones' Weekly: The big conversations heading into episode 3
Game of Thrones is ending. But there's still plenty to talk about — and that's what we're going to highlight every Sunday until the final episode airs.
Of course, as we round into Season 8's third episode, there's only one topic on everyone's minds: death. Specifically, who's going to die, and how horrible will it be?
See, the third chapter in Game of Thrones final season brings us to a momentous showdown: the battle of Winterfell. The White Walkers and their wight army have finally reached the gates to the Stark stronghold and they're fixing for a fight that the gathered armies of Westeros (minus Cersei's forces) are set to deliver.
Let's see where the conversation is at.
For starters, pick a website on the internet and you'll probably find some manner of "Who will die in the battle of Winterfell?" poll or speculation post. Let's start with Vox, which turned to actual military experts for insight.
Without stealing their thunder, the across-the-board consensus seems to be that the living beings currently occupying Winterfell are screwed, but it's not going to be an immediate rout. They have inferior numbers but a superior defensive position, a weapon capable of defeating the enemy in Dragonglass, and an army that's at least partially comprised of the most powerful warriors in the Seven Kingdoms.
As World War Z author Max Brooks (also a Modern War Institute fellow) notes, Thrones creator George R.R. Martin once told him "my characters always make bad choices." So any advantages Winterfell's defenders possess are more likely be undermined by human impulses interfering with good sense than than they are by the White Walker army's numerical advantage.
The AV Club took a different approach, offering straight-up Vegas-style odds for character deaths. It's part of a series that's running throughout Season 8, but the battle of Winterfell is obviously fertile ground for long-lived characters to eat it.
The death odds favor Grey Worm the most, for obvious reasons: he spoke hopefully about his future in the second episode. Big mistake. Brienne is the next most likely to die based on the odds -- I don't buy it for this week, but we'll see -- followed by the seemingly surer bet in Jorah Mormont.
The actual post runs through specific odds and the reasoning that fuels them, so it's worth a closer read than you're getting here.
Many have observed that the Winterfell plan to protect women and children (plus brainiacs Tyrion Lannister and Samwell Tarly) is blindingly stupid, Mashable included. But The Ringer took that thought a step further and crunched some hard data.
Did you realize, for example, that Westerosi's human dingbats preached about how safe the Winterfell crypt is a total of eight times during the second episode? It's a whole lot of not-at-all-subtle foreshadowing that suggests the underground chamber full of dead things isn't going to be a chill place to hang as the massive undead army draws near.
That said, there are reasons to believe that hiding away in the Winterfell crypt isn't the obvious death sentence it seems to be. The Ringer's lengthy breakdown explores both Game of Thrones canon and A Song of Ice and Fire canon to make some well-informed predictions around a number of different crypt-related scenarios.
There's one other wrinkle, as Mashable's own Jess Joho discussed at length already. In this theoretical scenario, the grand Winterfell plan to bait the Night King is doomed to fail because the White Walker leader won't even make it to the battle.
Instead, Jess posits, ol' frosty face will fly far to the south on the back of his recently acquired undead dragon, Viserion. There, the two will encounter a relatively unprotected King's Landing. Cersei and her forces are still there, as is the Iron Fleet. But entire armies have fallen to dragonfire before. And this is undead dragonfire, with a seemingly immortal zombie-king on its back.
That could mean lights out this week for Cersei Lannister. (But don't count on it. Her story isn't done, and even if this is happening, the Night King's ruse could conceivably slip into next week while episode three focuses entirely on Winterfell.)
When you get right down to it, there's not a whole lot of varied conversation heading into the third episode of Game of Thrones Season 8. Bloodlust is on everyone's mind. The battle of Winterfell is said to be the longest ever in filmed entertainment, and it will also deliver some of the first truly significant deaths of this final season.
Who will they be? Everyone has their own ideas. USA Today. Boston Globe. CNN. IGN. Variety. The Hollywood Reporter. I could keep listing them all day. Everyone's fixated on mortality in Westeros as the long-anticipated battle of Winterfell approaches.
Topics Game Of Thrones HBO
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
