Small Council: What SPOILER has you most excited for Game of Thrones Season 7?

Since Game of Thrones Season 6 ended, we’ve been using the Small Council to talk about the best moments of the past year. We’ll keep doing that, but with filming on Season 7 off and running, we’re going to take a quick break and discuss the spoilers that have leaked from the set so far. What do we make of them? Which are the most interesting? What do we want to know more about? Read our takes, tell us yours, and vote in our poll!

Oh, and obviously: SPOILER WARNING!

DAN: The Season 7 spoilers are coming thick and fast, and we still have months of filming to go. Of the ones that have already leaked, I’m most interested in the information we got about filming at the Barrueco de Arriba, near the village of Malpartida in Spain.

Basically, there’s two bits of news here:

1. Whatever scene the production films in the area will involve a dragon.
2. Someone will fall in the water and need to get rescued.

I hear those things and my mind starts racing. Now, there are a couple of different ways you could interpret that info. But I think the most intriguing is that Daenerys is the one who falls into the water, and that she falls off Drogon.

The visual alone is worth it. imagine what a hand-to-breast gasp kind of moment it would be if Dany, flying through the sky on the back of her favorite child, is somehow knocked off her perch into the drink. I can already feel my knuckles going white as I grip the couch. Thinking about how that might happen is also fascinating. Might Cersei have some kind of surface-to-dragon spear missile? Might Euron show up with his dragonhorn? Or maybe it’s something out of left field, like an aerial squabble between Drogon and his brothers. Might they be resentful after getting locked up for two straight seasons?

Or it could be none of those things. Part of the fun of spoilers are the opportunities for speculation they provide. What has you guys excited?

SARAH: Gendya shippers everywhere rejoice, for Maisie Williams is finally of an age where that wouldn’t be creepy as hell.

Prior to Season 6, I got overexcited about a rumor that Lady Stoneheart would show up at Riverrun, and subsequently missed out on winning a free dinner in a ‘most correct predictions out of ten’ contest when I naively included it on my list. I decided not to place much faith in spoilers afterwards, but then Joe Dempsie had the nerve to show up in a Belfast airport and make me hope.

Season 6 punched accusations of dropped plots and characters in the gut by bringing back almost everyone it had left behind, so I always assumed a return by Gendry was inevitable. As the only (known) character left with Baratheon blood in his veins, he stands a slim chance of reviving a dead house. Melisandre once promised that he would ‘make kings rise and fall,’ and although her plans were scuppered, we already know that this show loves to foreshadow with dialogue.

My favorite characters are the ones whose futures are hardest to predict, and Gendry’s appeal lies in that unpredictability. He could be a complete nonentity or he could be integral. All we know for sure is that he’ll have arms like Popeye after three straight seasons of rowing. Will he run into Melisandre again? Could he possibly be legitimized by the King in the North? How much can he bench? So many questions.

My money, if I had any, is on a reunion with Arya, and not just because George R.R. Martin recently confirmed that they’d meet again in the books. Dempsie has cracking chemistry with Maisie Williams, and Arya is at her most enjoyable when she has company to banter with. She has been spiraling, alone, down a dark path for so long that the stabilizing influence of Gendry could help her to shift into a more stable frame of mind. Arya knew him at a time when finding her family meant more to her than killing her enemies, and I’ll bet anything that leads her safely back home to Sansa and Jon.

KATIE: I’m on board with Dan that the possibility of Daenerys falling from Drogon has its appeal. But honestly, I think it’s sort of hilarious. On the surface, anyone falling off a dragon and pitching into the depths below paints a funny picture, although I’m sure that’s not the intention. If it comes to pass—and I’m not convinced it will—it will surely be more serious than anything. But we can assume such a fall wouldn’t kill Daenerys. If she were to die, it certainly wouldn’t be in such an ungraceful manner. After all, even when she’s lighting everything on fire in a rage, the woman is all poise.

Otherwise, I’m most intrigued by the reunions. With the series winding down, it has to happen. There are a lot of avenues that would advance both character arc and plot as a whole. As Sarah so eloquently put, Gendry is a huge priority for the show as well as Arya. In fact—and this will come as a surprise to no one—the potential Stark family reunion is of the most interest to me. Bran is closer to Winterfell than ever, and Arya nearer than she’s been in seasons. Word will have spread that Jon and Sansa retook their home from Ramsay Bolton. As such, the younger Starks will know that it’s safe to return.

Perhaps Arya will run into Melisandre on the road, or—fingers crossed—Nymeria. Should Daenerys and her posse make for Winterfell, the possibilities therein are rich. Sansa and Tyrion would meet again and hopefully their friendly chemistry will reignite. Varys and Littlefinger would have another opportunity to rap battle, and perhaps Varys could expose Littlefinger for his betrayal of Ned Stark. The Starks have bigger fish to fry, so Littlefinger’s threat has to be quashed. There just needs to be precedence, and testimonies that he double-crossed Ned would do nicely.

Bottom line: I need more Stark hugs and less Littlefinger alive. These character reunions (tentatively) promise both.

COREY: I’m surprised no one has mentioned that last we saw Gendry, Davos was pointing him towards King’s Landing, meaning that if we do get an Arya/Gendry reunion, it’ll likely take place in King’s Landing. To me, that’s the more intriguing possibility. If Arya is headed to King’s Landing, that can mean only one thing: Cersei. I touched on this last week, and while I think Arya may try to kill Cersei, I don’t see her succeeding. What happens afterwards is the big question to me.

As for that main character falling off a dragon in the water, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m inclined to think it’s Tyrion who takes the plunge. My first instinct was Dany, but Tyrion makes more sense. Something catastrophic would have to happen to the dragon for Dany to fall, but not so with Tyrion. And before you start screaming “Tyrion is a Sekret Targaryen,” stop. Tyrion could simply be a passenger, up aloft with his queen when he falls, not controlling the dragon himself.

I’m also interested to see what type of havoc Euron wreaks during Season 7. We learned that he will team up with Cersei in Season 7 and get busy offing Sand Snakes (hooray) and capturing relatives. Euron was magnetic when on screen in Season 6, but was sadly only around for two episodes. Coupled with the news that Thrones is filming material at sea, and it appears that we’re in for a large dose of the king of the Iron Islands.

Last but not least, Dany visiting the Dragonpit suggests all kinds of questions. Is she there as a prisoner or a victor? Either way, it should be quite the moment, as the dragon queen will have finally returned to the city her ancestors built. Finally getting Dany out of Essos was one of the biggest accomplishments of Season 6, and I’m excited to see this world begin to contract a bit. Bring on Season 7!

RAZOR: All the spoilers pique my interests, but the one that stands out to me is the Euron killing a Sand Snake and kidnapping Theon or Yara. Think about it for a moment: if this spoiler is true, then the implications for Dany are dire. Sure, Dany has three dragons, a Dothraki horde, and an army of Unsullied, but if she loses Dorne and the Greyjoys, she’s in trouble.

One way I can see this playing out: Dany’s fleet gets separated while crossing the Narrow Sea. It’s not unheard of for an armada of that size to be separated by storms on the high seas, and if some of the Dornish ships carrying the Sand Snakes and the ship with Theon and Yara end up landing in Westeros somewhere other than where Daenerys lands, Euron could take advantage of that weakness, and strike.

The question remains: Which Sand Snake does Euron kill? And who does Euron kidnap? Yara or Theon? It sounds like a large battle will take place, and if it works out in Euron’s favor, Dany’s army will suffer a big loss.

ANI: So no one picked the fact that Dany’s going to be in King’s Landing? No one picked the one spoiler where we got confirmation that after a six year wait FINALLY KHALEESI HAS COME BACK…...TO THE RED KEEP.

Okay, so maybe the Mr. The Rock quote isn’t quite warranted, but seriously. What have we been waiting for all these years? For Dany to build up her army and cross the Narrow Sea and conquer her homeland and take back the Iron Throne. She had the army and she had the ships by the end of Season 4, and then we had this two-year pause while she spent some time twiddling her thumbs in Meereen, and then riding around the Essos countryside on various animals. It was interminable.

Yes, we did get to see her get on the boat and sailing towards Westeros at the end of last season. But then there are these rumors of Euron attacking and people falling off dragons and all sorts of adventuring that might put a block between Dany and her ultimate goal of deposing Cersei already and getting ON with it. So thank heavens: here is proof that no matter what wackiness crops up between the season premiere and the season finale, no matter what, Dany WILL be in King’s Landing. She will reach her goal.

And then what? I dunno. Maybe she’ll make like King Arthur and decide to wander off elsewhere. After all, King’s Landing ’tis a silly place.