Never Tell Me the Odds (of Game of Thrones)…

Never Tell Me the Odds…

Apparently, Vegas actually has odds up on who is going to survive the final season of Game of Thrones, and even odds on various fan theories.

Variety: Vegas Odds on Game of Thrones Final Season

In light of this week’s episode (Season 8, Episode 2), I was thinking about the odds I’d give the characters surviving next week’s episode, which will be the “final” battle for Winterfell.

(WARNING: There are spoilers below for this season!!! If you’re not caught up to the latest episode, please don’t keep reading!!!)

Here are the odds I’d give for who’s going to die next week. To clarify: 100% means they’re fodder, 0% means they’ll live on for at least another episode.

Winterfell: 100%

Should be a no-brainer that Winterfell is probably going to fall, fell?, taken, destroyed, whatever. There are a lot of theories about how it will happen, like the Night King is now some sort of brilliant strategist or something. So far, he’s just been using his superior numbers to overwhelm anyone in their path, and it’s worked out pretty well.

They could throw in a twist, though, especially with all the innocents taking refuge in the crypts.

Theon Greyjoy: 100%

Theon’s arc at this point is all about him seeking redemption, and his final act will be redeeming himself in the eyes of the Starks, who’s he’s repeatedly betrayed. What better way for him to redeem himself than to sacrifice his own life to protect one of the Starks?

Grey Worm/Missandei: 100% that one will die: 80% both will die

Planning their post-conquest life just before a major life or death battle? Yeah, that’s almost a guarantee that one or both of them will die.

Samwell / Bran: 100% that one of them will die

Bran is using himself as bait to lure the Night King out, so there’s a very good chance that plan will not end well. Both Sam and Bran’s usefulness at this point really revolves around discovering a way to stop the White Walkers and their knowledge of Jon’s true parentage. Sam is long thought to be George R. R. Martin’s proxy in the books, so I’d give him the edge on sticking around a bit longer.

(Side bet: Night King dies and Bran becomes the new Night King: 10%)

Varys: 100%

Varys is basically fodder at this point.

Gendry: 100%

He’s created all of the dragon glass weapons, so he’s done. His status as Robert’s bastard probably won’t save him. At least he got to have sex with Arya, so that’s something?

Anyone I haven’t named: 100%

Podrick, Ed, Baeric, etc. Time to make some new White Walkers!

Sir Brienne of Tarth: 70%

Like Theon, she’s pretty much played out her arc at this point, and being knighted is just icing on the cake. What nobler death could she have than to die protecting the innocents at Winterfell? I’m reducing her odds just a bit for the potential fun of watching Tormund continue to try to find a way to impress/seduce her.

Dragons: 70% that one will die

My prediction here is that one will die trying to kill the Night King’s new flying mount. The remaining dragon may be in a situation where he has to roast both the NK mount and his brother in order to kill them.

Jamie/Tyrion: 50%

I’d say one or the other is worm food. I don’t see both brothers walking away from this one. One of them may be needed in the final confrontation with Cersei. Between the two of them, I’d put Tyrion as the one to die. If Jamie proves himself on the battlefield, he might be useful helping command the remainder of the forces from Winterfell.

Tormund: 30%

Things are going to be real ugly the rest of the season, and Tormund will be a breath of fresh (and funny) air. And, should Brienne survive, he can keep hitting on her.

Arya: 30%

Outside of the rumor that she’s GRRM’s favorite character, I’m not sure if she’ll make it till the end. I’ll give her a chance simply so she could have a shot at actually killing Cersei.

The Hound: 25%

Only because I think there are a huge number fo fans who want to see a final Cleganebowl between the Hound and his undead? brother, the Mountain.

Jorah Mormont: 25%

I could see him being fodder at this point, but I could also see him take over as Hand should Tyrion die. If Tyrion lives, then Jorah is likely fodder.

Jon “Snow”: 0%

He’ll try like hell to get slaughtered, but he’ll escape just in the nick of time (again).

Now that Danaerys knows about his parentage, he’ll be around until the Game is almost done. If he hadn’t told Dany, I’d put his odds at 70%

(Side bet: Odds that Dany feeds him to a dragon later: 50%)

Danaerys: 0%

Again, she and Sansa are still playing the Game, so she’ll be around until the end. She’s not super thrilled to learn about Jon’s little secret (and she’s not pissed that she’s sleeping with her nephew).

Sansa: 0%

She’s still in the game. My money is also betting she will learn about Jon’s true heritage, and there will be a tug of war between her and Dany over who has a stronger claim to the throne. If they were deciding now, Dany has two armies, so “bigger army diplomacy” would win.

But, how much of anyone’s armies will survive the battle for Winterfell is anyone’s guess.

It’s pretty clear, at least in my opinion, that the Game will end up being a battle of wills between Cersei, Dany and Sansa, or whoever’s still alive. Bigger-army-diplomacy will also play a role. (So, maybe, the Night King wins the Iron Throne?)

My personal favorite: Jon kills the Night King, only to die and become the new Night King, and he (the currently “most-legitimate” claim to the throne) beats everyone, wins the Game and takes the Iron Throne.

So, anyway, those are my odds for next week’s episode. I’ll have to post again next week to review how right (and wrong) I was.

Captain Marvel: Good, but Not Great

For the last ten years, Marvel Studios has done an amazing job creating a cinematic universe using “second-tier” heroes from their comic books. They’ve also done a pretty uncanny job of casting the right people as the heroes. Today, who could imagine someone besides Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man or Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America (and so on).

Although Captain Marvel is a good, decently paced, and entertaining latest entry in the MCU catalogue, it’s just misses the mark of being one of the great films. It’s like the Tony Romo of the MCU films: Good movie, great numbers ($900 million at the box office so far), but is just missing that extra something special to push it over the top.

The first part of the movie is a bit boring. Starforce member Vers (Danvers/Capt Marvel) suffers from amnesia and is haunted by nightmares. She has been a part of Starforce for the last six years and has no memories before that. She has issues maintaining control of her emotions, and is urged by her mentor and commander as well as the Kree leader she must learn to control them.

On a mission to recover a spy, Vers is captured by the Skrulls, an alien race of shapeshifters who the Kree have been at war with, and is subjected to a memory probe. Strangely, although Vers has amnesia, there’s nothing that prevents the Skrulls from scrolling through her memories with a high-tech TiVo. The Skrulls are looking for a specific Kree agent, and as luck would have it, Vers memories lead them to her. Vers escapes, but destroys the Skrulls ship, so both she and the Skrulls crash land on Earth in 1995.

Once on Earth, Vers runs into a young Nick Fury and SHIELD, and hilarity ensues as they try to track down the Kree agent on Earth before the Skrulls do.

The amnesia angle is a bit of a problem, because it seems like the writers have given little for Brie Larson to run with outside of being a stoic warrior. Once she has a chance to interact with her co-stars, she’s much better, and in some cases, her co-stars really outshine her. Larson does fine with what she’s given, though. She may be the right choice for Carol Danvers/Capt Marvel, but we’ll have to wait to see her in Avengers: Endgame to see if Larson has more to work with.

At just over two hours, the movie feels pretty well paced. As with any Marvel movie, you probably don’t want to overthink the plot too much (like a nit picky thing for me is: where is her Kree uniform? Danvers wears normal clothes during a large part of her time on Earth, but there’s no sign of her Kree outfit or some type of Kree fanny-pack that she’s wearing. Sure it’s something they could have explained in a few seconds, but they didn’t) . The 90’s references are fun, and ensures the film has a pretty great soundtrack. The movie does a decent job of introducing the Kree/Skrull conflict and throws in a few MCU connections.

The creators try to give Capt. Marvel a big “hero” moment late in the film. A lot of the elements are there, like flashbacks of Danvers struggling in moments in her past. But, there’s no real context around the flashbacks, and the stakes aren’t really established, so when she overcomes the challenge, it lacks the emotional connection they were shooting for. You can see what they were trying to do, and I think, with a few changes, they could have gotten pretty close.

Spider-Man: Homecoming borrows a scene like this directly from the comics, and they do a much better job of making the “hero” moment work.

The weakest part of the movie comes near the end. Once Capt. Marvel “unlocks” her powers, she masters complete control of her nearly apparently near-unlimited power within about 10 minutes of screen time. Up until that point, we’ve only ever seen Marvel shoot fusion blasts from her hands. The audience has no idea that she can do the other things or was even trained to do anything else with her powers.

I have no problem with Captain Marvel being ultra-powerful, but for me it’s a case of lazy writing. At least show the audience some glimpse of her doing something else with her powers beforehand.

Hopefully, by Endgame, Carol Danvers/Capt. Marvel will have her memories back and can bring more of a human element to her powers, so she doesn’t end up feeling like the Superman of the MCU. I really don’t want to see Capt. Marvel become this emotionless god-like character like DC has done with Superman in the DCCU/Snyder-verse.

The most touching moment of the film? For me, it was the opening credits. Normally, Marvel movies open with an animated logo sequence. As the 3D logo falls into place, we see animations of comic panels inside the logo related to the hero in the movie. For their 10th anniversary logo, the logo changed to splice in video clips of the heroes from the entire MCU. This year, in honor of Stan Lee (who passed away last November), the logo shows clips of all of Lee’s cameos from the MCU movies (I’m assuming only MCU, but I guess they could have clips from the older movies). At the end of the animation, the logo fades to black before displaying a single, simple message: “Thank you, Stan”.

I’ll be honest. I sorta had high hopes for this film. With this being the first major Marvel movie starring a female super hero, and Marvel knocking it out of the park in their most of their most recent films, I really hoped they would do something special with Captain Marvel.

Instead, it feels more like a standard MCU-paint-by-numbers origin story, and while the movie is good, it just misses that something extra to make it memorable.

It’ll be interesting to see if Captain Marvel becomes a part of one of the other teams (Avengers, Guardians), or if they’ll keep her solo and have a Captain Marvel sequel. Based on the box office numbers, a sequel seems like a pretty sure bet. But with the Disney/Marvel acquisition of 20th Century Fox (and the rights to Marvel’s top-tier heroes), it’s too early to guess if Marvel will re-think “phase four” of their plans for the MCU.