Last week’s Game of Thrones had all the makings of a bloodbath. With Jon Snow, Jorah Mormont, Tormund Giantsbane, The Hound, Gendry, Beric Dondarrion, and Thoros of Myr venturing beyond the Wall on a life-or-death mission to capture a wight—and facing an army of thousands in the process—the odds of seven dudes surviving seemed perilously low. And yet, when the smoke cleared, nearly everyone made it back, more or less unscathed.
The showdown the show sure looks like it’s heading toward plays against all its strengths.
And how did Game of Thrones pull that trick off? By cheating, basically. We lost Thoros of Myr, who was probably the least-liked member of the Magnificent Seven, and a bunch of redshirts so interchangeable that the show didn’t even bother to introduce them. Daenerys arrived just in time to save everybody else except Jon, who somehow pulled himself out of a frozen lake (and was then saved by Benjen).
Game of Thrones’ willingness to "kill anyone" has been overstated—it really only happened a couple of times—but this season has still been strikingly bloodless. With the exception of Olenna Tyrell, every major character who has been put in mortal danger in season seven has wriggled out of it. If there’s going to be a big death, it needs to be in next week’s finale—and probably during the great meeting in King’s Landing, which promises to bring some combination of Daenerys, Jon, Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion into the same room for the first time. The stakes will be very high, and tempers will run very hot—and there must be some kind of consequence for that, right?
And that’s why I think it’s time for Game of Thrones to kill Tyrion Lannister.
I know! I’m sad about it, too. But let’s look at it from a logical level. One of the most consistent and justified complaints about season seven is that Tyrion’s elaborate "capture a wight, show it to Cersei" plan is complete nonsense. The risks of this mission far, far outweighed the reward—as we saw when one of the only three dragons in the world died and was resurrected as part of the Night King’s army. And even if things had gone more smoothly: Why would anyone—especially Tyrion, who has spent a lifetime studying Cersei's psychology—think she would give a shit about the White Walkers? When has she ever shown the least bit of concern for what happens outside of the Red Keep?
So what does Cersei care about? Herself. Jaime, if he doesn’t push her too far. Her children, who are all dead now. And, of course, plotting horrific, drawn-out revenges against anyone who dares to oppose her. And who has been at the top of that list for years? Tyrion Lannister. Cersei (wrongly) blames Tyrion for playing a role in Joffrey’s death. She (rightly) blames Tyrion for murdering their dad. And fairly or unfairly, she blames Tyrion for the death of Myrcella, who died in Dorne after Tyrion had her sent there.
Would Cersei really risk the entire fate of the Seven Kingdoms just to get revenge on the little brother she hates so much? Uh, yeah. That’s exactly what she would do. And in a season where the plot has bent so many characters out of shape to fit the show’s greater narrative needs, it would be dramatically satisfying to see Game of Thrones actually pay off the simmering hatred Cersei has been brooding over for years.
And if Game of Thrones wants to give us one last genuine shocker by killing off a major character à la Ned, Robb, or Catelyn, this is the episode to do it—and Tyrion is the character who makes the most sense. It can’t be Cersei, the show’s last truly great villain, or Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Jaime, who have too much left to do before their arcs are complete. But in retrospect, Tyrion’s story peaked at the end of season four, when he killed Shae and Tywin and fled King’s Landing. It’s been fascinating and rewarding to watch Tyrion stake his fate to Daenerys and serve as her Queen’s Hand, but his personal arc has been completely subsumed into her quest for the Iron Throne, which will go on whether or not he’s there to help. And Tyrion hasn’t even been a particularly competent adviser during season seven—a problem that Game of Thrones has beaten into our heads over and over again.
The key to predicting those "surprising" Game of Thrones deaths is recognizing when the story is actually more interesting without a character. Ned Stark’s death was the most cleverly disguised, because you can totally imagine a version of this story in which Ned agrees to join the Night’s Watch, eventually joining Jon Snow in the battle against the White Walkers. (Game of Thrones even primed us to expect this might happen all the way back in episode two, when Ned promised Jon that he’d tell him the truth about his mother when they met again—a promise he never got to fulfill, because they never met again.)
But fascinating as it would have been to see Ned at the Wall, look at what his sudden beheading did for the narrative. It led to Robb being declared King in the North and the great campaign that followed. It set Arya on her quest to become a self-made killing machine. It put the Lannisters—particularly Tyrion—in the tremendously difficult position of managing the sadistic appetites of Joffrey, an unmanageable king. And it forced the rest of Westeros to choose sides, leading to fascinating also-rans for the Iron Throne like Stannis and Renly Baratheon.
So let’s apply the same storytelling principle to the death of Tyrion now and see how it plays out. Affected on such a personal level, Jaime would finally be forced to reckon with Cersei’s cruelty and contemplate the personal and ethical stakes of violently dethroning his sister, as he once did with the Mad King. Daenerys—never one to keep her temper—would channel her grief into a Mad King–like rage, risking the already precarious morality of her Westerosi campaign. Without Tyrion, Daenerys’s remaining advisers, including Jon Snow, would face the difficult challenge of keeping her on track—particularly with the White Walker threat still looming. Even Cersei would become more interesting. Having finally killed Tyrion after a lifetime of hating him, how would she feel? Triumphant? Remorseful? I’d be curious to find out.
Most of all, we would feel the loss. It would be a shock that even the book readers wouldn’t see coming, because George R.R. Martin hasn’t reached this point in the story yet. And Tyrion may be less central to the narrative of Game of Thrones than he used to be, but he remains a beloved fan favorite. Part of the payoff for working so hard to make the audience love a character is that you can also make us feel his absence. And the sense of shock and grief would be enough to set the table for one hell of a high-stakes final season of Game of Thrones.