Thursday, October 13, 2016

Season 7 and the Potential For a Stark Family Reunion

Family reunions are, on paper at least, beautiful amazing experiences, where far flung family members who haven’t seen each other in decades get to spend time together, eating, drinking, dancing, reminiscing about the old days and marveling at how much the children have grown. So it was when Sansa met Jon for the first time in six seasons last year, when the Lady of Winterfell arrived at the Wall, just in time to convince the Bastard of the same to come home.

This season, the spoilers seem to suggest that we might be ready for the same experience, but writ far larger. Over the course of the last couple of weeks we had a plethora of Starks and their supporters including Kit Harington, Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Gwendoline Christie, Aidan Gillen, Liam Cunningham, Bella Ramsay and Kristofer Hivju all spotted on the same set, some even on the same day. Rumors suggest they were all filming together at the same time as well. Could Jon Snow and Sansa Stark be welcoming Bran and Arya home for the final battle?

As much as we are hoping for such an event, there are signs it could be derailed.

Let’s take Arya’s outfit in the above shots. These are Northern leathers, but they’re not in Stark colors. They are, on the other hand in the plainer brown we saw Isaac Hempstead Wright wear last season during his fantasies of walking around Winterfell.

Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven 2

Given what we know of Arya’s history, dressing in a very masculine outfit is totally in keeping with her character. it’s also the sort of thing she might wear as a Faceless Man disguise. The lack of any sort of House Stark color or sigil suggests she not home readying for battle for Winterfell. Chances are, she’s traveling under another face, and this outfit is for the face removal moment. Why?

Well we know Bran’s ability to see through time, space and trees. I doubt that he would be fooled by Faceless Man magic. The two of them are filming a scene at the same time does not mean they are together in space at the same time. It could be yet another “Arya and her family passing like ships in the night”, with Arya this time walking or riding by a Bran she can’t see.

Not that any of us want this. We want Jon and Arya to see each other again. We want Bran to go home and explain to Jon he’s a magical tree wizard now, and his dad is actually a Targ and it’s really kinda complicated, but he’s the product of the now-failed Revolution of 282 AC in King’s Landing.  And there’s hope. After all, as we saw Bella Ramsay doesn’t dress far off from how Arya looks.

And Jon is there too…..but one person we don’t have an image of is Sansa. We have a different red head, who many suspect is a new character. Could Arya arrive at Winterfell, only hours after Sansa has left to head off with Littlefinger into a betrayal (or at least a seeming betrayal) of her half-brother/cousin and her House? Could Bran only be there via Godswood tree?

And even IF we get the great big hugfest of Surviving Starks Once Again United, that still leaves the biggest problem of all: that Family reunions aren’t all potato salad and ice tea on the porch at sundown. There’s that family member Jeff who you know you can’t talk about with Uncle Steve, because Steven doesn’t know and won’t approve of Jeff’s husband. There’s that great uncle in the corner in the Make America Great Again hat who won’t stop talking about the election. There’s Aunt Marge Dursley who came to visit from England and won’t stop crowing about Brexit. There’s those triplets by your third cousin once removed who are actively hitting and screaming and spitting on relatives while mom coos at them to be a little nicer please.

In short, Family Reunions can be hell especially if the experiences of the far flung relations have taken them all down different paths. What do a full trained assassin who changes her face the way the Lady of Winterfell changes her dress have in common? What does a Tree Wizard do when having to make small talk with the newly converted Faith Militant with the shaved head? And how do they all react when they learn that Jon Snow is actually Jon Targaryen?

To be fair, this sort of family reunion makes for snarky fun watching, just like those weddings down in King’s Landing did. Just be glad that they’re not your relations.


Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/10/13/season-7-potential-stark-family-reunion/
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