‘Game of Thrones’: Why Jon and Tyrion’s Plan Might Not Work

WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for the latest episode of Game of Thrones! Continue reading at your own risk…

On Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones, Kit Harington’s Jon Snow and Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister devised a plan that, if accomplished, could convince Queen Cersei to agree to an armistice. However, successfully completing this mission is going to be no walk in the park, and could be destined to fail.

During an “Inside the Episode” segment, GOT showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss addressed Jon and Tyrion’s plan, which is to bring one of the soldiers of the undead army (Wights) down to King’s Landing in order to prove their existence to Cersei. According to the Weiss, a version of this plan has been attempted in previous seasons and was unsuccessful.

“When the first Wights got through in Season 1, they sent Allisar Thorne (Owen Teale) down with a hand that was, at the time, probably still doing this [wiggles hand] to prove to everybody that this was going on. By the time this hand got down there it had rotted away to nothing,” Weiss said.

“There was the idea that bringing one of these things down south had been put out there before in a way that didn’t work. But in theory, you could bring one of these things down and have it still functional by the time it gets to King’s Landing. That seemed like that would, on a story level, do the trick,” Weiss continued.

The scheme was devised by Tyrion, who knows that his sister, Cersei, will not believe the White Walkers and undead army exists unless she physically sees one with her own eyes. Jon, the King in the North, is determined to make this plan work in order to save his people and all the population of Westeros.

“Like many of these situations on the show, the one who figures it out is Tyrion. The only way you’re going to prove it to people is to show it to people. Obviously, we can’t bring it up there. So that means bringing one of them down here,” Benioff said.

At the end of episode 5, “Eastwatch,” Jon and his super team — including Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, Tormund Giantsbane, Jorah Mormont, Gendry Baratheon and others — were seen going beyond the wall to try and catch one of the Wytes. Judging by the episode 6 preview, the plans get thrown into disarray in a hurry.

Tune into Game of Thrones on Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.