Chief Editor: Five things we want to see in Game of Thrones Season Five

(Spoiler warning for Game of Thrones, season four)

Game of Thrones has crept up on us again, and is about to stab us in the back (or poison our wine, or set us on fire, or crush our heads to a fine mush). With the series about to kick off once more on Sky Atlantic this Monday, here are five things we really want to see happen in GOT, season five…

…Tyrion throwing in with Daenerys

The trailer is massively hinting that Tyrion’s plan, now that he’s murdered his father and run off with Varys, will be to get behind Daenerys Targaryen and her bid for the iron throne. We hope this turns out to be true, not just because Tyrion and Daenerys would be a really interesting character clash to see onscreen, but also because the involvement of Tyrion (and possibly also Varys) might breathe a little more fire into Dany’s campaign.

Although she’s been doing relatively well under her own steam, last season the dragon queen lost her chief advisor Ser Jorah, so the addition of one or two of the finest strategic brains in the whole of Westeros would make one hell of a difference.

…A Stark reunited with another Stark

Judging by the way things have been going for the Starks for the past four seasons, this one looks extremely unlikely to happen any time in the next ten episodes. We’ve got Arya in Braavos honing her sword skills, Bran north of the Wall honing his warging skills, Sansa in a battle of wits with Littlefinger somewhere near the Eyrie, Rickon off someplace with Osha, and Jon still at the Wall trying to fend off Wildlings, White Walkers and all manner of junk.

The most likely option would be for Jon and Bran to cross paths, but seeing as how they came within three feet of each other in season four and still couldn’t spare thirty seconds for a cursory how-do-ye-do, that seems improbable. All of the remaining Starks have scope to develop in extremely interesting ways this season, so while we might not get to see any of them reunited just yet, they’re definitely going to be the ones to watch.

…Some sweet, sweet vengeance for Dorne

Dorne have had a really raw deal in Westeros lately, what with Elia and her children being murdered by the Mountain, and then her brother Oberyn having his head excruciatingly crushed by the same. We’d really like to a see a little payback heading the way of the Lannisters and their cronies, and going by this season’s trailer it looks like we might actually get it, with Oberyn’s bastard daughters the Sand Snakes limbering up to avenge dear old dad.

But we have to remember that Myrcella (the innocent and – as far as we know – not at all homicidal sister of Joffrey and Tommen) was shipped off to Dorne some time ago. Much as we want to see the Dornish stick it to King’s Landing, we’d rather not see her snuffed out in revenge for Oberyn’s death.

…A wee bit less of the rape

Yes, we know that Game of Thrones is set in a very harsh world where people spend a lot of their time doing terrible things to each other – one of those things being rape – but after four whole seasons, we’re pretty much clued into that now. The showrunners don’t need to keep smacking us in the forehead with rape scene after rape scene to convince us that Westeros is a bad place to be a woman, particularly if those scenes have been shoehorned into the show for no reason whatsoever (i.e. no bearing on the plot, and they didn’t take place in the book).

A bit of classic consensual GOT sexposition we have no issue with, but I personally know of several people who, in spite of loving the show as a whole, are going to go cold turkey on the series if they don’t nix the rape in season five. No pressure then.

…At least one person coming back from the dead

Remember about ten seasons ago when Beric Dondarrion and the Brotherhood without Banners were running around causing all that trouble for the Lannister army? And remember when the Hound and Beric fought each other in trial by combat, and the Hound killed Beric – but literally ten seconds later he was up and walking about again thanks to the healing magic of the Lord of Light? Yeah. What’s happening with all of that?

We’ve got a show where (famously) anyone and everyone can and will get killed left right and centre with no warning – BUT, we’ve also got a show with a magical deus ex machina where almost anybody who’s been killed could suddenly pop up again like nothing even happened. And it hasn’t really been used at all yet. Who knows which face from the past could be darkening our collective door again in season five? We hope it’s somebody juicy (in the figurative sense).

Watch out for our regular reviews of Game of Thrones season five beginning next week – you can catch the first episode at 9pm on Sky Atlantic on Monday April 13^th.