After more than a year hiatus, HBO’s Game of Thrones is finally returning to television this month with its seventh season. The series is now well past the point of adapting George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels (The Winds of Winter, Martin’s sixth of seven planned books, still has no release date) and has forged ahead into completely unknown territory as we move ever closer to its conclusion. Game of Thrones has never been shy about killing off characters before, so much so that the uncertainty of who will live and who will die has remained a consistent pull for viewers over the course of the show’s run.
Now, with Season 8 confirmed to be the final season and another large-scale war for the Iron Throne set to begin, the bodies will likely be piling up even faster than before. Of course, you can’t really tell a story without characters, so it’s not like every character is going to meet their end before this shorter-than-usual season is over, but there are definitely some who have a higher chance of being killed off than others. These are the 12 characters I think are most likely to die in Season 7, ranked in order of most to least likely to survive.
12. Gendry
One of my favorite bits of news regarding Season 7 is that everyone’s favorite boat-rowing bastard Gendry will be finding his way to shore and back into the plot this season after three seasons of vacation. The circumstances of his reappearance are still unknown, but the show wouldn’t bother bringing Gendry back if he didn’t have an important role to play in upcoming events, and that role could fall into a few different categories. As we know, Gendry is a skilled blacksmith and with an increased need for Valyrian steel on the horizon thanks to the White Walker threat, perhaps it will fall on Gendry to make sure Westeros is well-stocked with Valyrian steel blades.
That being said, Gendry’s defining trait is his status as Robert Baratheon’s last remaining bastard son, which means that he still has a legitimate claim to the Iron Throne. How this will play into the ongoing war for the throne remains to be seen, but it could lead to conflict with Daenerys and even bring Gendry into contact again with Melisandre, who wanted to sacrifice him to the Lord of Light the last time they were together. I know I’m going to cheer when Gendry finally shows up on screen again, but I worry that my elation will quickly turn to dread once it becomes clear that Gendry isn’t long for this world. I really hope I’m wrong about him!
http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/cast-and-crew/gendry Source: HBO