I was feeling pretty good about Game of Thrones going into finale week until Lainey put a bug in my ear about Littlefinger becoming the new big bad—now that Ramsay Bolton is gone—and I’ve spent all week trying to break down the odds of that happening. After saving Jon Snow’s ass during the Battle of the Bastards, the Starks are now indebted to Littlefinger, so he’s got some leverage against them. I believe his first offer of help was sincere, to make up for what he unintentionally thrust Sansa into when he arranged her marriage to Ramsay. But she turned him down, and I don’t think a guy like Littlefinger will see coming back to help after she asks for his aid as the same thing as that original offer he made. Now he’s going to want something in return.
But will Littlefinger become the main villain? Or will he just be his usual creepy self and try to get Sansa to marry him—let’s be honest, this is 100% what he’s going to want now that the Starks owe him. If Thrones was going to run longer than one more season—rumored to be split in half a la Mad Men—I could see Littlefinger taking a real black hat turn. But we’re at the end game, which means it’s time for the White Walkers to become the main focus of the story. So I don’t see Littlefinger going full-bad guy, because the White Walkers will be the season seven big bad. He’s just going to be the shifty, creepy f*cker he’s been all along.
Although speaking of Sansa and marriage…if she does remarry—third time’s a charm—what do you think the odds are she marries Robin Arryn? Sure, they’re cousins, but when has that stopped anyone in Westeros? Besides, Robin comes with serious resources, including the Knights of the Vale. And Sansa, at this stage of the game, will have no problem controlling that little twerp. Of course it’s just as likely she does marry Littlefinger and then they kill Robin and consolidate power between the Vale and the North. I wouldn’t put anything past Sansa at this point.
Going into the season finale, some things are obvious, like Cersei’s pending bonfire in King’s Landing—they haven’t been talking about King Aerys’s wildfire stores all season for nothing—but others remain opaque, like whatever the hell Margaery is angling to do. King’s Landing has not been a fascinating plotline this year, but I am interested to see what happens between Cersei and Margaery. And of course we have to see if Daenerys actually gets on a damn boat and starts making her way toward Westeros.
On the whole, this has been an excellent season of Game of Thrones. The show has its usual pacing problems, especially as certain plots have felt rushed (see also: the Blackfish and Riverrun, Arya vs. the Waif) in order to clear the board for the final season, but we’ve seen years of storytelling pay off in mostly satisfactory ways. And after watching the women of Westeros be abused and exploited for so long, it’s been tremendously fun to watch them seize power as all the idiot men kill each other off. All that’s left now is to see how the suffragette movement turns out before the White Walkers show up and ruin everything for everyone.
Attached – Kit Harington out in London today.
