Why ‘Game of Thrones’ is heading for a Stark family victory

Bad news for some fans, good for others: it looks very much like the Starks are going to win Game of Thrones. 

Jon Snow, still a Stark on his mother’s side, will squeak through yet another unlikely, heart-stopping victory against the odds. The warring Lannisters will destroy each other. Dany, shorn of nearly all her military power, will die on the battlefield. Jon, failing upwards his whole life, will stay on the Iron Throne just long enough to renounce his name and title, and break the wheel of monarchy itself. 

Power will devolve to his Hand, Sansa Stark, the only leader in Westeros who knows how to keep people fed in Winter. 

Brienne, forever loyal to the Stark name, will rule the Night’s Watch. Bran will rule Winterfell. Arya will just rule, perhaps as international spymaster to a new, looser federation of Seven Kingdoms.  

This, at least, with three episodes remaining, is my current Grand Unified Theory for how Game of Thrones ends. The rise and rise of the underdog family has been signaled for some time, but  narrative choices made during the Battle of Winterfell — including the death of the Night King — make it all but inevitable. 

“Starks win!” is not necessarily the best end to the whole saga. Your mileage may vary. But if you think like a showrunner, you’re hungry for a conclusion that seems narratively satisfying to millions of casual fans. You want to avoid an unclear ending in the style of the Lost finale. Ultimate revenge for the Starks, giving them control of Westeros, fits the bill. 

After all, Stark revenge is exactly what we’ve had since Arya sliced open Walder Frey and Ramsay went to the dogs a few seasons back. It’s what killed off Littlefinger. It’s a crowd-pleasing vibe. Why stop now?

The showrunners spent so much of their early seasons killing off Starks that it is what we’re conditioned to expect. Defying conventional wisdom qualifies as a twist ending. Surprise! The good guys actually finish first! 

The Night King is the latest victim of the Stark Revenge storyline

Stark Supremacy was not inevitable until three things happened. Firstly, showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff killed off most of Dany’s forces. Secondly, they signaled that they were unwilling, even in the middle of the show’s most monstrously lopsided battle, to unexpectedly kill off any Starks. 

We shed a tear for the Stark-adjacent losses, such as Lady Mormont, and two or three tears for the Stark-ish “good man,” Theon Greyjoy. But these were characters that had reached the end of their dramatic usefulness. 

Thirdly and most importantly, the Night King — that big bad, the White Walker menace teased and feared for eight full seasons — collapsed in a shower of ice cubes. The mighty Night King is the latest victim of the Stark Revenge storyline. Only Cersei remains in their way. 

Some fans declared themselves disappointed by the decision to kill the King. Because as much as it made beautiful visual sense (That shot of Arya! That choreography with the falling blade!), and as much as it made emotional sense within the context of the episode, it also wiped out the darker timeline that many seasons seemed to set up — an ending in which the Night King threatens the heart of Westeros, not just its northernmost city.  

The ice cube ending seems too neat even for these showrunners, which all but guarantees we’ll get some sort of Night King cameo as a sting in the tale. But before we consider what that could mean, let’s tick off the alternatives to Stark victory in the so-called Last War for the Seven Kingdoms.

1. Cersei wins

Our heroes in the North are in a poor strategic position. They have lost the Dothraki and, best we can tell, most of the Unsullied. Dany has two dragons, but they are beset by injuries and were off their food even before they gave their all over Winterfell. (Dragon extinction has been talked about a lot in this show; just want you to be ready for that). 

Cersei has the Golden Company and Euron Greyjoy’s fleet, even if she didn’t get her elephants. She has the advantage on land, at sea, and may well use her Scorpions to neutralize Dany’s air superiority in the showdown to come. (And how do we know for sure there’s a big battle ahead? Because episode 5 is directed by Miguel Sapochnik, the visionary who helmed both the Battle of The Bastards and the Battle of Winterfell episodes.) 

Let’s say Cersei wins the battle of episode 5. So then the last hour of Game of Thrones is … what, her swilling wine and torturing the survivors? Then her victims don’t escape and pull off some last-minute turnaround? That doesn’t sound dramatically satisfying. Nor does Euron betraying her at the last minute and ending up on the Iron Throne himself, because really, who cares about that guy? 

A Cersei victory would not only be boring, it would break the narrative convention of Game of Thrones. As much as they like to shock us, the showrunners have never given us a hard-fought episode-long battle that wasn’t ultimately won by the plucky underdogs. Tyrion won Blackwater against the odds, even if he didn’t get the credit for it. Jon and company won the battles of Castle Black, the Battle of the Bastards, and now Winterfell.

2. Dany wins

What about the mother of dragons, then? Sure, Dany ending up on the Iron Throne would be slightly more satisfying an ending than Cersei keeping it. But putting a little-known foreign leader on the throne wouldn’t break the cycle of violence; it practically guarantees endless rebellions. 

It would also ignore the clear narrative flags: Dany is mistrusted by the people of Westeros (her allies in the North especially), arrogant enough to believe that dragons solve anything, and even more willing to break with a well-laid battle plan than Jon Snow. 

Speaking of Jon, Dany now knows her boyfriend’s true name is Aegon Targaryen. Passed carefully from character to character, this information will no doubt become even more important in the final three episodes! Not only does it make Jon officially Dany’s nephew — the jury’s still out on what she thinks about that part — it gives him a greater claim on the throne. Based on everything we know about Dany so far, do you think it likely that she will simply stand aside and relinquish her claim? Me neither. 

So they’re tragic enemies, then. And if it comes to war between them, Dany has no real support left in Westeros. Taking out Jon would put the North in a state of permanent rebellion, and it’s unlikely that her loyal Hand Tyrion would sign on to such a plan. (Everyone seems to love Jon, even if his track record of leadership leaves much to be desired!) 

We’re almost certainly looking at a classic tale of doomed lovers. Narrative convention dictates that one, at least, must die, and that we must be wrong-footed about which one. You can picture an upcoming scene in which Dany asks one of her dragons to dracarys him, and the dragon simply … refuses to obey.

However it’s resolved, Jon Snow’s lineage as the One True King has been flagged all season for a reason. Plus there’s that open question whether he can even die again, being, y’know, technically undead. 

Much of Jon’s narrative function involves surviving his dumb mistakes and looking sad while all his friends and family die. The showrunners may wish to echo the Ygritte situation, except this time with Dany in his arms. It will break Jon in the most dramatically interesting way. 

3. Another Lannister wins 

This is the most likely of the three non-Stark Supremacy options. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater is on his way from King’s Landing with a crossbow to take out one of the Lannister brothers, Tyrion and Jaime; a successful assassination would be dramatically satisfying since Bronn has a deep friendship with both of them, but so would a last-minute double-cross where he joins their team. 

Either way, at least one brother will survive to wreak his revenge on Cersei. Jaime is forever tied to the sister he shared a womb with, and it would make for some classically tragic irony if they depart the world together, too. 

Could Tyrion survive and rule the Seven Kingdoms himself? Being a male heir, albeit the youngest, he does have a better claim on the Iron Throne than Cersei. There’s a modicum of foreshadowing in the George R.R. Martin books — including a mention of Tyrion’s shadow looking like a king. And there’s a pretty wild theory that Tyrion is another secret Targaryen. But as far as the TV show is concerned, this ending would arrive unearned, out of left field.

It seems more likely that Tyrion and Sansa, who shared meaningful looks in the crypt of Winterfell, might end up ruling together. “Stark and Lannister come together to rule Westeros” is as satisfying a happy ending as “Starks win outright.” However, we’re also sure Peter Dinklage would love to get his teeth into a dramatic, heartbreaking death scene. 

The Stark Supremacy

Here’s what seems to make the most narrative sense post-Winterfell. Jon Snow, rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, is the last claimant to the Iron Throne left standing. But he doesn’t want it, just as he never really wanted the Night’s Watch Lord Commander and King in the North roles. The death of Dany has broken him. 

He knows that Sansa, who has already demonstrated her ability to keep people fed during a long Winter, would make a much wiser choice of leader. She will not be sidelined again as she was at the end of Season 6. 

So Jon’s first and last action as Aegon Targaryen III is to order the Iron Throne melted down and the monarchy dismantled. He renounces his title and names Sansa the interim head of a new Westerosi republic, a federal system in which each of the Seven Kingdoms, including the North, has autonomy. 

Night’s Watch-style elections, as suggested by Tyrion a whole season ago, would take place in the Spring, with Sansa a shoo-in if she gets her long-suffering people through a hard Winter. 

What would Jon do for an encore? Perhaps honor Dany’s legacy by heading to Essos and helping to prop up popular rule amid the slave-free societies she established. Arya makes a perfect companion for this kickass road trip; we can easily see them sailing off into the sunset. 

The Next Night King

All’s well that ends well? Nope. If you think the story ends without at least a wrinkle, you haven’t been paying attention. That wrinkle will likely involve Bran Stark, the increasingly creepy Three-Eyed Raven, and the person most likely to be left in Winterfell while our heroes take King’s Landing. We know he has no interest in ruling, but he may still have some sinister purpose.

We still don’t really know anything about the long line of Three-Eyed Ravens or why they exist. We do think their powers derive from the Children of the Forest. Whom, if you remember, created the Night King in the first place.  

Ever since he entered the Weir tree internet unaided and got the Night King’s mark at the end of Season 6, Bran has become increasingly detached, acting as if according to a script. What could this portend?

Anything is possible at this stage. One theory holds that Bran/The Three-eyed Raven is actually the Lord of Light, pulling strings behind the scenes all along. The popular theory that Bran is the Night King no longer holds water (or ice cubes), but that doesn’t mean that Bran won’t transform into the next Night King. Or maybe, like the Children of the Forest, he will find himself creating the next Night King at the tip of a dragonglass blade, unable to stop himself restarting the cycle of history anew. 

Whichever way the Weird Bran storyline resolves itself, it’s nice to know that the show still has the capacity to surprise us — unlike this seemingly endless string of Stark revenge stories.