#I just opened game twice and faked co-op with myself

[moontheoretist]

I finished the game. Spoilers incoming!

Karlach went with Wyll to Avernus to avoid dying. Funnily people said that Wyll needs to sacrifice his freedom to become Blade of Avernus, but my Wyll got freed from Mizora and still decided to become the Blade of Avernus, just without his Warlock powers. So I guess people were wrong. My Drow and Astarion are staying together and going on the adventure to find a way to make Astarion be able to walk in the sun again. Lae'zel went to lead her people in battle against Vlaakith as I couldn't bring myself to tell her to stay in Faerun. Gale decides to reforge the crown and gives it back to Mystra in order to be cured of his Orb and becomes the Chosen again (I hate the fact he becomes the Chosen, but I felt like leaving the Crown in the river would ensure that something bad in the future would happen with it again, so this is probably best balanced outcome for both Gale and the world). Huh I dunno what's with Shadowheart. She didn't say what's her goal now.

[nightqueendany]

Leak Connections:

So I was just reading @adecila’s recent POST on her re-watch of the Friki leaks regarding Tyrion’s trial. I had just finished reading that post when I was made aware of the UPDATE to the FreeFolk 8x05 leaks page about Cleganebowl photos being “confirmation” of Mad!Dany.

And there are some things with both that I want to talk about that I noticed. These are in no particular order, under the cut.

1) Bran’s flashback. According to the old Friki leaks, Bran has a flashback (or maybe he just says the line) of Tyrion telling Catelyn back in his first ever trial from Season 1 (AGOT), “I never bet against my family.” Implying that Tyrion has been playing the long game and has been Team Cersei this entire time. Perhaps that’s not entirely what’s happened, but Friki claims this line will be used against Tyrion. Apparently GRRM’s book editor and the person who writes the comics also somehow support this information and that this line specifically was added to the comics of Book1 because it foreshadowed Tyrion’s end. So regardless of the “how”, Tyrion does betray everyone for his family.

2) Friki also claims that for sure we will get a scene (likely during the battle of King’s Landing) of people in front of a gate saying, “Open the gates.” Now, the “open the gates” lines and Tyrion’s betryal are not directly connected, as far as I can tell. It’s just speculation on Friki’s part. However, Friki says there is a scene with Jon, Davos, and Tyrion walking through the wreckage of King’s Landing at some point where Tyrion says the line, “What have I done?” So it could be possible Tyrion keeps gates closed in King’s Landing, or not. Still not sure what the connection here is but Tyrion apparently feels responsible for some of the destruction of the capital.

3) It appears two endings for Tyrion are possible however. Some leaks saying ‘Jon will kill Dany’ say Tyrion is still on trial and that Sansa has promised Tyrion they will rule together, only to betray him in the end to seize power for herself. Others just mention Tyrion’s trial with no details. Some have Tyrion freeing Jaime from Dany, Dany arresting him, and Tyrion somehow still being on trial with the Starks/Davos at the end. One has Tyrion listening for the surrender bells (that apparently set Dany off) but it’s not mentioned where Tyrion is, if he is with Jon and co or Dany or elsewhere. Also not said why bells signal surrender of Cersei’s armies). And others claim it’s not a trial at all, but a “Great Council” and Tyrion becomes one of Bran’s advisors because Bran becomes King.

All of these above “leakers” have some amount of credibility to the FreeFolk community but clearly, they can’t all be right. Someone has to be wrong or have partially incorrect information because much of that is contradictory.

So the Tyrion-Trial plot point in and of itself proves that there is false information floating around somewhere.

4) Arya during 8x05: Friki said that Arya is in King’s Landing when it goes up in flames and it’s possible the audience will think she’s dead by the end of 8x05 with all the destruction and what not. But, Friki also says that Arya is at Tyrion’s trial so in 8x06 we would see Arya escape. In the “Cleganebowl photo” “leaks”, something similar is mentioned. Arya is caught up in the destruction of the city and it looks like she’s dead. But then she gets up and leaves the city on a horse and this is possibly the end of 8x05, not somewhere in 8x06. So this seems likely. I’m guessing the leaks that say Arya is “useless” are referring to this because she doesn’t get to kill Cersei.

5) Highgarden. As we saw in last episode, Tyrion promises Bronn Highgarden. Friki says we see aerial shots of Highgarden. So this is perhaps why, because it now belongs to Bronn.

6) The 4Plebs leaks. I’ve noticed these circulating around the Jonerys fandom and investigated them myself. You can find the threads HERE. So the OP in this link gave us these spoilers:

“Tyrion fucking dies, because he betrays Jon and Dany. That is the "bitter" part of the ending. The Sweet part is Dany and Jon survive and rule together, riding off into the sunset on a dragon. No joke. That fucking Spanish bitch got it all right. I Hate myself for reading the spoilers even though I thought they were fanfics. Also, White Walkers are killed by episode 4 and main focus is Cersei.”

This was posted on 4/14, the day of the season premiere. Now, anon here says these leaks come from Friki but I don’t believe Friki has ever said Jon and Dany fly off on a dragon together. I feel like I have seen this leak elsewhere about Jon and Dany flying off on a dragon but I can’t remember where. Further down in this thread we see these posts:

They essentially make the same points about the latter half of the season: White Walkers are finished by 8x04 which is more or less correct, rest of the season is dedicated to defeating Cersei, Tyrion betrays Jon/Dany, with a few additional details in each - Jaime kills Cersei, Jon/Dany ride off into the sunset.

As far as I know, the first pic is the only one that outlines the ENTIRE season. All other leaks I have seen have only given details on one or two episodes at a time, aside from these two 1, 2, which both say Jon kills Dany. But even then, they include no details about the early episodes, just from 3/4 on. The pic above has every single episode, aside from Ep 1 which had just aired so that’s why it’s not included, and even then, the second link gets Dany and Cersei mixed up at first, initially saying Jon kills Cersei, not Dany.

7) Unsullied vs Lannisters. According to the Friki leaks mentioned on the Reddit master post, Friki said 7 months ago that there was, “Fake action scene between Unsullied and Lannister soldiers in the dragon pit as misdirection. Meant to deceive us and the action scene was never filmed.”

Many of the “Jon kills Dany” leaks mention the Unsullied fighting Lannister forces - the Lannisters start to surrender at the sound of “bells” but Grey Worm, either of his own volition or because he sees Dany continuing to burn the city, spears a Lannister who had surrendered and the fighting continues.

Now, I’ve pointed out before that this scenario already seemed odd for the simple reason that all these leaks keep saying “Lannister” and not “Golden Company” when the majority of Cersei’s forces should be the Golden Company. They’re the most featured in all the previews (and a Golden Company vs Unsullied fight has been pretty hyped).

There are shots in the 8x05 preview of men not in Golden Company uniform...but they’re not in Lannister uniform either:

These are the typical Lannister uniforms:

Everything about these guys outfits from 8x05 are different to the point where I don’t know who or what they are. They’re not Euron’s men. They’re not Golden Company men. And they’re not Lannisters, based on their outfits. But as they’re operating the scorpions in different locations of King’s Landing that have the Lannister lion on them (Euron’s scorpions look like a kraken), I guess they’re Lannisters? But regardless, they’re not ground troops. The Golden Company are the ground troops. The “Lannisters” seem to be either a) operating the scorpions or b) are archers on the castle walls as we saw in 8x04.

However, if Friki says the Unsullied vs Lannister stuff from the Dragonpit is fake, then perhaps this gives explanation to why many leaks mention it? If Friki is claiming HBO put out information to “misdirect” the audience - scenes that were never filmed - the Unsullied-attack-surrendering-Lannisters leaks could definitely be part of that.

8) One more thing I would like to point out is, aside from Friki’s leaks about 8x01, NO ONE has leaked details in their entirety. We keep getting small details: “Arya kills Night King”, “Jon kills Dany in throne room” “Tyrion betrays everyone”, etc. None of the information from the leaks seems to be connected in any way. We just have snippets of things.

And again, as I’ve pointed out twice above, it definitely appears that there are differing versions of things and HBO has put out false information at least potentially once. But if they’ve done it once, then what’s to say they haven’t done it more than that?

One source might have “Cleganebowl” pics, but if they haven’t seen the actual scene of Dany “going mad” or “Jon killing Dany” then it’s still in question as to whether those things actually happen. *Edit: FreeFolk also claims these leaks do not fit their particular standards for reliable leaks so take the Cleganebowl leaks with a grain of salt!:

Also, why would extras be present in a scene where Jon kills Dany? Why would anyone superfluous be present for shooting such a scene? Only key people would likely be there for this because it would be SUCH a huge spoiler.

Anyway, you guys can take all this with a grain of salt. I unfortunately don’t work for HBO so I have no sources and have yet to see the episodes. But these are just dots I’ve connected. Let me know what you think.