Since Season 7 is being filmed, there’s been various speculations/rumors that have popped up along with actual photos and short clips of people capturing a few key scenes. Over on Reddit, there is someone who claims to have dropped the major plot points (which I deconstructed earlier). A few other sites have picked up on these spoilers and claim that them as potentially being the real deal. Whether or not they come true to me is irrelevant because I want to propose what I feel should be a better plot than what these spoilers entail: the Jon Snow – Cersei Lannister alliance.
The main rumor is that Daenerys will summon all the rulers of Westeros and ask them to bend the knee to her as the rightful heir to the throne. One shot from a fuzzy camera shows Jon Snow possibly witnessing a dragon flying overhead while he’s approaching Daenerys (perhaps at Storms End). Daenerys with her army might feel ready to conquer Westeros and uses intimidation tactics by summoning all the rulers to a Dragonpit (which is supposedly filming) in discussing a dialog. In one part, Jon Snow refuses her but says that he will bow only on the condition that she uses her power to help the Northern army fight the White Walkers.
In turn, Daenerys agrees which supposedly leads Jon to get a party of men (the Brotherhood without Banners, including Sandor Clegane) to take a dragon in order to gain evidence for Daenerys to get her approval. Jon Snow also requests from Queen Cersei to get aid but Cersei later denies him so that his forces and Daenerys’ end up battling each other.
Now, on paper, this whole portion has a few major plot holes and just weak writing. I suppose the weakest aspect of this portion of the story is the lead up to Jon Snow and Danny hooking up. The spoiler was that they “have sex on a boat going north.” The other horrible spoiler was that while having sex The Wall comes down with the Night King taking one of Daenerys’ dead dragons and bursting it down. Unless the dialogue in between all of this makes up for things, I’ve pretty much would give up on the rest of Game of Thrones just because the core story stops making sense.
Part of the problem to me is that Cersei seems like too much of a background character whose only purpose is to gain revenge against the Dornish and Tyrells for killing off Myrcella. While that portion is realistic at the heart, I ultimately fail to see how anything outside of “whelp, there’s less actors/actresses/characters to deal with” gets moved forward.
Next, why does Jon deny Daenerys? Is it just to not seem so obvious? And why would he accept Daenerys so quickly? At either rate, the slight amount of doubt proposed here is just wasting time. For me it’s just far too contrived. It’s kinda like how Daenerys and Tyrion had doubts about each other when they first met. Within only two shows, all the doubts, especially from Tyrion, gets dispelled. It’s even worse for Daenerys, who returns to a nearly ruined Mereen that was partly caused by Tyrion’s antics.
Now, why should Cersei and Jon Snow team up at all? Don’t they hate each other? Well, Cersei hates everyone but I do think she’s smart enough at times to know when to use someone. And Jon Snow is more than willing to forgive parties because he understands a greater cause at stake. The only person really in conflict between the Lannisters and Starks is Sansa. If/when Olenna admits to her crimes, Cersei may even forgive Sansa at the end of the day and then look at her own major problem: Daenerys.
To say that Cersei just sits in the background of all this and not try to convince Jon Snow that Daenerys is the real threat (because they all witness the dragons) seems dubious for Cersei’s character. It also shows how little the writers have spent trying to unfold her character into something more than just an angry mother. Yes, she schemes but perhaps she might recall her ex-husbands words when he talks about the greater number of 5 vs 1.
Wouldn’t the less contrived and far more intriguing way of character development be for Cersei to be the one to forgive the Starks and say that she wants to make amends for what her son had caused their families. After all, Cersei did attempt to stop Joffrey from beheading Ned and she would see Tyrion’s murder of her father along with aligning with Daenerys as treasonous against the Westeros kingdom. Then she could provide Jon Snow an army to help defeat the White Walkers and Daenerys. She could say that she would respect the North’s desire to remain separate just as Robb had wished in their succession while the south kept to their business. To me all this makes far more sense at this stage of the story.
I suppose part of my issue is that it makes no sense at this time for Jon Snow and Daenerys to fall in love for any reason. Daenerys is a conqueror while Jon Snow is a natural born leader. Daenerys might get respect from Jon Snow based on her power, but the way both obtain power differs greatly. One does so by brute force while the other slowly makes his way up the ladder. Daenerys is the type of person who ends up looking down on others who aren’t part of the world she wants to create. Not to mention that Ned helped in Robert’s Rebellion, giving her even more motives to not trust the Starks on the outset.
Cersei needs to be a key factor in creating conflict between both factions. She’s good at manipulation, especially stupid Northerner types (and let’s be honest; Jon isn’t the most scintillating light in the room). It would make far more sense from a story structure point of view of seeing Daenerys and the North fight against each other only to have the White Walkers show up once both their numbers are down. Cersei needs to be given more credit for her scheming rather than just assuming that she’s a “dumb blond ruler” type; hell, she outsmarted the Tyrells and the Sparrows in nuking them all at the end of season 6 while finally getting what she wanted in the Iron Throne.
No, I do not see Cersei using “her best weapons between her legs” to get Jon to side with her. That’s just plain silly. But she can outsmart him at least on the political playing field, much like how she outsmarted Ned. The only person capable of playing Cersei on Jon Snow’s team is Sansa. Littlefinger is capable too but his only side is his own. However, Sansa would see a move like this coming from Cersei and may even try to warn him. Because Jon is hard headed and doesn’t listen to his half-sister, this would induce more of the conflict between the half-siblings as hinted at the end of season 6.
At any rate, if everything is just a simple coaster leading to Jon Snow and Daenerys getting into bed together just to have the super battle being readied for Season 8 then the writing is totally shit. All the character development is lost just for the sake of running to the finish line. I hope that won’t be the case and that the character nuances (which to me has been one of the best parts of this show) along with plot aren’t sacrificed just because the showrunners are tired.