GoT Plot Line Power Rankings: Week Ten

By Ryan O'Connell on 06/16/2015 • ( 2 )

When a television show wraps up a season it’s usually done with either a period or ellipses. Stories either end definitively or they are left open-ended and set things up for the following season. Game of Thrones has usually ended their seasons with ellipses, but when it came time turn the lights off on the show’s fifth season, they went with probably their most pronounced ellipses yet.

So many questions. So many!

Is Arya blind? Is Daenerys a prisoner or reunited with her old crew? Will Cersei kill all the Faith Militant or just the High Sparrow? Where the hell is Tommen? Are both of Sansa’s legs broken from her leap of faith with Theon or just one of them?

And that’s just a start. The big question is whether or not our boy Jon Snow is really dead.

So let’s start there.

Giddy Up America’s Game of Thrones’ Power Rankings: Week Ten

First, I’d like to suggest a theme song to listen to while reading this week’s power rankings:

1. The Homies of the Wall

Let me paint a picture for you: a nice Sunday evening, a soft breeze blows through the trees and our dog Lucy stands on guard, waiting for another asshat squirrel to poke their head out. I turn to my darling wife and sighed.

“I have a bad feeling,” I say to her.

“About what?” She asks.

“I’m worried that Jon Snow is going to die tonight. I think that kid Olly is going to kill him.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s going to happen. But…I don’t know. It just feels like it might. A Kenard and Omar thing.”

And why did it feel that way? Well because it had been all but shouted from the roof tops the past couple of weeks. In case you missed it, pretty much every dude of the Night’s Watch was vehemently against Jon’s Wildling rescue mission. If you miss subtext then you must have known because people kept telling Jon it was a bad idea and they weren’t cool with it. Or if body language is your thing, Olly’s stony silence and endless series of stink eyes upon Jon’s return spoke volumes. They killed my parents. Get over it Olly! It’s Game of Thrones, pretty much everyone’s parents are dead. Come on man.

Plus Jon is a good dude and if we’ve learned anything so far, good people get got on GoT. See: Stark, Ned.

But come on, did he have to go out like that? That shit was heart-breaking and Jon deserved better. I would add that perhaps a staff meeting where Jon recapped his trip north might have been beneficial, but also probably pointless. The “That’s How We’ve Always Done Things” Crowd is always a tough one to win over. Speaking of tough sells- good luck finding a new Lord Commander Night’s Watch. The interview process is going to get a little awkward if the applicant asks what happened to the last Lord Commander…and the one before that. Killing their bosses is becoming more of a thing they do than anything else up at ol’ Castle Black.

Going forward…is Jon dead? I say yes, but only for the time being. Melisandre could have gone anywhere after skipping out on Stannis but she chose to return to Castle Black. It’s probably not for the food. I have to think her being there and the fact that we witnessed one of her Lord of Light homies resurrecting someone earlier in the series means something. Right? Also, and this was brought up in Andy Greenwald’s killer recap on Grantland, Game of Thrones is running out of people to root for and even though their calling card is that they are show that spits in the face of convention, you still need someone the audience can side with. Those characters on Game of Thrones are becoming few and far between. The show needs Jon. So my final answer, Jon will be back. At some point.

As for the Night’s Watch, well you have to imagine that next up on their to-do list is going after the Wildlings Jon ferried to safety. What if Jon comes back and becomes a leader of the Wildlings? Just a theory. Not even a theory. Really just a shot in the dark there. But count me as someone who will be rooting for the Wildlings if and when those dick holes from the Night’s Watch go after them.

2. Over in Essos: When Dany Met Tyrion

It was fun while it lasted, the dynamic duo of Tyrion and Daenerys. Cause that’s on hold now, right? Danys is in frickin’ Ireland or something, presumably chilling (?) with some of her old Dothraki buddies and Tyrion is now the defacto party boss of Mereen. So yeah, it was fun while it lasted.

Questions? Yeah, I have at least one. The Dothraki- cool with Danys or not cool? Is it a reunion of old friends or is Danys looking at a stint in the Dothraki slammer? If memory serves me correctly and 40% of the time it does, Danys and the Dothraki didn’t exactly leave each other’s company on the best of terms. But dude, if she does get taken prisoner…well, I think it’s a safe bet that it doesn’t get her any closer to King’s Landing, which I feel confident in saying is something we are all rooting for her to. So that’s kind of a bummer. Although a rescue mission by Darrio and Jorah is kind of fun to think about. And speaking of Darrio, if that weirdo becomes the voice of reason for your group than you’ve obviously entered some sort of bizarro world and things are going to most likely get crazier before they get better.

Well at least Varys is back.

So…it’s not all negatives.

And teenagers, am I right? Even dragon teenagers…lying around all day, eating food, giving their parents attitude.

3. Keeping Up With King’s Landing

I would like to move past the fact that Cersei’s walk of shame actually made me feel bad for her and focus on the future because let be honest, Cersei Wrath is going to be awesome. If we thought she was a vengeful time bomb before, just imagine what she’s going to be like now. You could see it on her face around the final mile marker of her Walk of Shame. Her face went from humiliation and embarrassment to a wild mixture of rage, disgust, a little more rage and a whole lot of eff all you mother effers. And now she even has her own killing machine, the Mountain 2.0, to help her out. It’s going to be wonderful. I can’t wait.

And Tommen, just hanging out and playing some Candy Crush, waiting for Margaery to respond to his text messages.

4. The One About How Sansa’s Life Pretty Much Sucks

That looked like a pretty serious fall, am I right?

What, like at least thirty feet? How much snow is needed to break that kind of fall? I’m only asking because of this:

Sansa & Theon on the run = fairly interesting
Hobbled by Broken Legs Sansa & Theon on the run = definitely not interesting

And where do they go? The Iron Islands? God, how many depressing shit holes does Sansa need to visit? That place was terrible and full of terrible people. But I also don’t really know what direction the two of them might head if only because how many options do they really have? I can’t see Sansa being all that stoked to link back up with Littlefinger because the last time they were together she ended up getting married to Ramsey. So cross off the Eyrie or wherever the heck Littlefinger is now. The Riverlands, home of the Tullys, Cat Stark’s family, is now run by Walder Frey and that dude is the slimy douche burger who was part of the Red Wedding so they’re not going there. They’re obviously not going to King’s Landing either and maybe they think about heading north to find Jon Snow, but I imagine word will spread pretty fast that Jon was killed. So?

Well, your guess is a good as mine. Probably better because I don’t even have a guess.

I do have one qualm with this though.

Ramsey couldn’t have been killed? No? Too much to ask?

5. Over in Essos: It’s Arya Time!

I’m sure there’s more to the House of Black & White and maybe someday next season we get a little more intel on the place, but right now it seems like a bad riddle factory and a place where you can rent faces like I used to rent videos at Blockbuster. All you need is an ID and a membership. No membership and apparently you go blind. Just like I wouldn’t be on board with Sansa and Theon hobbling and dragging their broken limbs to safety, I would not be super cool with a Blind Arya. I already have a Blind Arya in my life and it’s called Daredevil.

6. Ain’t No Party Like a Stannis Party Cause a Stannis Party is Hot, Hot Hot!

We’ve all had days that start of kind of rough- we forget to get coffee ready, no milk for cereal, traffic, endless talk about Deflategate on sports talk radio. But whatever, no one has had the kind of shitty news morning poor Stannis had, who in a matter of what seemed like five minutes found out that half of his army had peaced out, his wife had hung herself and then his little shorty on the side/good luck charm had cut and run. That’s a rough stretch. Not that he didn’t deserve it, though. Stannis pushed all his chips into the middle of the table because he thought he knew something the House didn’t. But Stannis has obviously never watched Casino. The House always wins Stannis and in this case, that’s House Bolton, who ran rough shot through Stannis’ depleted army in the same amount of time it took Melisandre to decide that skinning out of Stannis Town was a good move – about a minute and a half. And then to top it all off, Stannis was presumably killed by Brienne. Although we A) didn’t see it and B) Brienne could still be talking about her oaths and vows and whatever the hell else she was rambling on about so Stannis might not actually be dead. I think he’s dead, though. Weird they didn’t show it, though. Always fishy when you don’t see someone get actually killed. Shit man, I’m still waiting for the Hound to reappear.

Quick note on Brienne: prime example of why you never take multiple vows.

7. Jaime & Bronn’s Excellent Incredibly Poorly-Planned Adventure

The only positive to this plot line? It’s over.

And that’s a wrap for Plot Line Power Rankings for season five. Now it’s awards time.

Most Valuable Player: Jon Snow

Kept the show together, kept it interesting, kept it real.

Least Valuable Player: Dorne

Lot of hype about Dorne going into this season, lot of hullabaloo about the Sand Snakes, lot of really that’s it from the home office of Giddy Up America.