Game of Thrones season 8: 5 last-minute Arya Stark predictions
By Lacy Baugher
Cersei Lannister, Jaime Lannister. Photo: Helen Sloan/Courtesy of HBO
Arya will try to kill Cersei wearing someone else’s face
It seems like a given that at some point before Game of Thrones’ end, we’ll see Arya using her magical Faceless Man abilities and swapping faces with someone we know. And one of the most popular fan theories going into season 8 involves the younger Stark daughter using someone else’s face to get close to Cersei Lannister and knock one of the last big names off her kill list of vengeance.
This theory makes a lot of sense for multiple reasons – one, Arya herself is a younger sibling, which means that the show’s famous valonqar prophecy would still come true. (We’ve all been assuming that it had to mean Jaime or Tyrion, but it doesn’t say anything about whose younger sibling has to be involved.) And given that the Lannister queen is responsible for so much of the horror that has befallen the Stark family personally, there’s a certain satisfying symmetry to the idea that she would ultimately meet her end at the hand of one of Ned’s daughters.
The most popular idea is that Arya uses Littlefinger’s face to get close to Cersei, an idea that certainly feels possible since for whatever reason the queen still seems to have some level of trust in him. But there’s another intriguing idea floating around that Arya may impersonate Jaime, and try to kill Cersei wearing her brother’s face. Which would be another surprising way of fulfilling Maggie the Frog’s prophecy at the same time.
Whether Arya will be successful in her mission is anyone’s guess. It’s possible she will simply cross the biggest name off her list and that will be that. Yet it seems just as likely that she discovers some sliver of mercy in her heart for the vicious queen or her unborn child. Or perhaps she realizes that, in the new world they’re all building, Cersei must face public justice for her crimes. It could go either way.