We’re going to use our patience skills, children, to wait for the final season of “Game of Thrones,’’ whose six episodes may not arrive until 2019.
In the meantime, we’ll have plenty to ponder, once we can shake that image of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen out of our heads. I know, I know, some viewers found it terribly romantic after all the dragon-petting and hand-holding, finally getting to see the couple’s exfoliated and well-moisturized skin warm and glowing in the cabin candlelight. I couldn’t get over the artificial sheen of their bodies, nor could I stop wondering why Dany kept that damn macramé flower-pot holder on her head. Let your hair down, darling; it’s OK during sex.
Oh right, and I couldn’t get over the whole incest thing. Maybe I’ve spent too long being totally and completely grossed out by the evil sibling lovemaking between Cersei and Jaime, but the fact that Dany is Jon’s aunt, as we learned in Sunday’s season seven finale, gets directly in the way of my enjoyment. It’s hard to cheer on the long-awaited consummation of the union of two excellent characters (officially making them “Jonerys’’), when images of Andy with Aunt Bee are fluttering through my head. Yes, there is a history of incest in noble families hoping to keep their blood from being compromised, in real life and on TV, and yes, Jon and Dany don’t yet know they are related. But still: Gross.
Watching Jon and Daenerys stare into each other’s soul, possibly even making a baby (since Dany may still be able to have children, despite what she thinks), you could almost surmise that they are the show’s endgame, the pairing that will become the king and queen, incest and all, assuming the Night King is defeated. But then two difficult revelations are heading their way next season, which may interrupt their romance. News is on its way of Jon’s true history, now that Bran and Sam Tarly have pieced it together. It’s hard to imagine Aunt Dany and Jon not recoiling a bit when they learn that he is in fact Aegon Targaryen, the legitimate child of Lyanna Stark and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, Dany’s bro.
Plus, Dany has been unstoppable throughout the series, driven by her awareness that she’s the heir to the Iron Throne. How will she feel when she learns her nephew is the true heir? Since creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have brought the couple together with six more episodes to go, I’m assuming there will be trouble in the Jon-Dany camp.
By the way, there are a number of theories online (I’ve never said that before) about why Tyrion was lurking outside the incest room. Is he in love with Dany, and jealous of Jon, because so many of the men in Dany’s life fall in love with her? Or is he seething with guilt, since, in scenes we did not see, he may have betrayed them to Cersei, to get his sister to join the alliance? Or is he merely a voyeur?
Between now and the final season, we’ll also have time to ponder the alliance between Sansa and Arya Stark, especially now that Littlefinger is gone. Indeed, watching Littlefinger die at the hands of Arya was one of my favorite moments in the season finale. Using nothing less than Littlefinger’s own dagger, acting on an order given by Sansa, Arya sprung at the nefarious, manipulative, sniveling Petyr Baelish with the speed and acumen of a switchblade spring, and he was dead on the floor. The sisters prevailed over the man whose claims of Stark love were greatly exaggerated, and once he was gone, Arya and Sansa had clearly moved a few steps forward in their relationship, missing their father together instead of fighting over his death.
We weren’t privy to how the Starks pieced together Littlefinger’s modus operandi, but that made their surprise turn on the slimy lord a more satisfying takedown. Finally, each sister, having learned hard lessons, understands what the other went through and respects her for it. While Cersei and Jaime fell out in a big way, with Cersei threatening to sic the Mountain on the father of her unborn child, the Stark girls were getting closer than ever.
Maybe we will in fact see Littlefinger’s face once again next season — peeking out of Arya’s sack.
Also nice: Bran-bot, so mechanical and detached now that he is the Three-Eyed Raven, which he clearly likes to tell everyone, was re-engaged with his reunited siblings, rather than staring off into the past, the present, and, I assume, the series finale.
I’m also eager to find out what happens to Cersei, now that we know she lied to Dany & Co. Honestly, I was disappointed when I thought that Cersei was going along with the plan to fight the threat from the north. It just seemed out of character. So I was delighted when she revealed her evil plot to betray the “united states’’ of the kingdoms and keep her army with her, as well as her secret plan of having Euron Greyjoy go and buy more soldiers. Cersei, who, despite fan rumors, seems to be genuinely pregnant, will let the White Walkers take care of her enemies.
Or maybe the undead will take care of her? I’ve loved the way the season has revolved around the fact that the politics of the game of thrones are relatively petty, compared with the great threat from the Night King and his creatures. At times I’ve seen it as a parallel to the United States, as the partisan battles of the Seven Kingdoms run the risk of distracting from the perils that really matter, including, as others have noted, the environment. Jon has been fighting for unity against the biggest imminent danger, but Cersei, even after being shown one of the walking dead, cannot see beyond her own agenda. Perhaps the Night King will make her pay for that small-mindedness.
Extra points to actress Lena Headey, by the way, for her A+ sneering at Tyrion as well as her tart description of Dany as “a foreign whore who doesn’t know her own place.’’
The biggest question mark raised by the season finale is, of course, when will the Mountain and the Hound fight to the death? Just kidding. It’s what will happen now that the Army of the Dead is marching forth, their newly zombified dragon slicing a wide swath into the Wall with his blue fire breath? I can’t say I’ve ever been truly disturbed by the walking-dead visual effects on “Game of Thrones,’’ but that final sequence made it clear that next season is likely going to begin with that clash. We’ve been waiting for this moment since the very first scenes of the series: the invasion of the body-snatched.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.
