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Game of Thrones

‘Game of Thrones’: 8 Questions for the Finale

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, left, and David Bradley in “Game of Thrones.”Credit...Helen Sloan/HBO

“Game of Thrones” wraps up its sixth season on Sunday with its longest installment yet, a 69-minute episode that would need to be four times as long to deal with all the plates spinning across the seven kingdoms.

But it should include plenty, based on previous “Thrones” finales, with all of it new to all of us. The sixth season has been the first to go largely beyond the book blueprint, and the result included story lines both scintillating (the war for the North) and not (Arya’s faceless adventures). It welcomed old friends like Sandor Clegane and bid adieu to both the kindest (Hodor) and cruelest (Ramsay Bolton) figures in the tale, as well as yet another Stark (Rickon), though we barely knew him.

[Ahead of the final season of “Game of Thrones,” relive it all with our ultimate watching guide, including episode recaps and deep plot dives.]

One thing it hasn’t yet done: killed off a core character in shocking fashion, à la Ned Stark in Season 1; Robb and Catelyn Stark in Season 3; Joffrey Baratheon and Tywin Lannister in Season 4; and Jon Snow (sort of) last year.

So could another big departure await us in the finale? We’ll find out on Sunday. But for now, here are a few other questions that could use some answers.

Once a feared power broker, Cersei hasn’t had much go her way since her rancid son King Joffrey was killed early in Season 4. The deaths of her father and daughter followed, and her remaining child, the feckless King Tommen, was co-opted first by his wife Margaery and then by a religious zealot Svengali, the High Sparrow. That’s the man who sent Cersei on her excruciating nude walk of shame through the hostile hordes of King’s Landing to end Season 5.

So how will she wrap up this season? Cersei is set to stand trial for various crimes against morality, and while her master plan to have the reanimated Mountain spring her in a trial by combat was scuttled, she seems to have another trick up her sleeve. This could very well involve the wildfire — the napalm of Westeros — that the Mad King Aerys once stashed beneath various strategic locales in King’s Landing. (Tyrion helpfully reminded us of this last week.)

Is Cersei desperate enough to enact the nuclear option? And if she does, won’t there be unplanned casualties? Her recent past has mostly been defined by an inability to consider the self-defeating outcomes her rash actions could produce. Might she be a victim of her own strategic strike?

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Aidan Gillen and Sophie Turner in “Game of Thrones.”Credit...HBO

Not long after righteously spurning her former mentor and (perhaps unwitting) betrayer, Sansa Stark reversed course and asked Petyr Baelish, a.k.a. Littlefinger, for help in the war for the North. That worked out just fine last Sunday, as the Knights of the Vale, at Littlefinger’s behest, swooped in and turned the tide against the Bolton forces in the excellently named Battle of the Bastards. But this is Littlefinger — a price must be paid, and his desires seem clear. He wants to marry Sansa both for the influence the Stark name carries and to ameliorate his icky rechanneled obsession with Sansa’s dead mother Catelyn.

But what about Sansa’s needs? This is where things get more speculative and we might as well mention it now: The show seems to be strongly suggesting that Sansa, the formerly sexually assaulted wife of the now dead Ramsay Bolton, is pregnant. There was the line a few weeks ago, when Sansa told Littlefinger she “can still feel what he did in my body.” Then on Sunday, moments before his demise, Ramsay said: “You can’t kill me. I’m part of you now.”

I frankly hope this isn’t the case — it feels pretty soapy — but if it is, wouldn’t Sansa need the cover of a quick marriage to hide the fact that she’s carrying a Bolton heir? Wouldn’t it take something that (melo)dramatic for Sansa to agree to marry Littlefinger?

I don’t really know. Nominally he was dispatched to secure Riverrun and shore up the Lannister alliance with the loathsome Freys, solidified via the infamous Red Wedding plot in Season 3. The true goal, however, seemed to be to get him out of King’s Landing to clear the way for whatever is going to befall his beloved sister Cersei on Sunday. But do he and Cersei have another plan in the offing? And what becomes of him if something happens to her? This season Jaime has seemed like a man torn between his better angels and his toxic but true devotion to Cersei. Would her demise shatter or liberate him?

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Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage in “Game of Thrones.”Credit...Helen Sloan/HBO

She’s fierce. She has three dragons. She has a saucy new partnership with the Greyjoy siblings and hundreds of ships. She has a devoted barbarian horde that just wiped out the splinter group that tried to kill her. She has a winsome translator, a force of loyal eunuch fighters and an adviser who happens to be the cagiest person in this entire story. Her boy-toy can wield an arakh and a guitar with equal aplomb. What more does Daenerys Targaryen need before she feels ready to leave the pyramid?

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Liam Cunningham in “Game of Thrones.”Credit...Helen Sloan/HBO

This shoe has been primed to drop for a while. The most horrible moment of Season 5, if not the entire show, was when the young Shireen Baratheon was burned at the stake based on the spiritual advice of the red witch Melisandre. Davos, devoted to Shireen, wasn’t around when this happened. But he finally put it all together last week, and seemed less than thrilled about it. While Melisandre apparently resurrected Jon Snow in Episode 2 — though another explanation could emerge later — the formerly smug priestess’s new vulnerability has been an undercurrent throughout this season. (You’ll recall that in the season premiere, she revealed herself to be roughly 800 years old.) How far will Davos go to settle the score?

File under fan service. The young Stark and Sandor Clegane formed one of the show’s most appealing duos for more than a season, before Brienne battered Clegane and Arya escaped to Braavos at the end of Season 4. Her stint with the Faceless Men now completed, Arya is heading west toward home, in the general direction, I believe, of where her old road buddy recently resurfaced after a long absence. Is a reunion in order?

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Isaac Hempstead Wright in “Game of Thrones.”Credit...Helen Sloan/HBO

Bran was prematurely thrust into Three-Eyed Raven duty a few weeks ago, thanks to his tempestuous vision questing-slash-sacrificing of all that was innocent and good in “Game of Thrones.” (Thanks again, Bran.) Lately he’s been in the care of Meera and his Uncle Benjen, who re-emerged, and he’s been spinning through some metaphysical View-Master reel of the history of the “Thrones” universe.

While I’m sure all that is important, we’ve heard that winter is coming and it seems closer than ever. Is Bran ready to deal with it? In an interview before the season, Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays the young Stark, said Bran’s ultimate role in the tale was to exert “this kind of Zen Mother Nature-type control over the whole kingdom, and keep everything in order and in balance.” So far he’s done nothing close to that. Will we start seeing it on Sunday?

This one’s included mostly for old times’ sake. But I still believe, Gendry!

What questions do you want to see answered on Sunday? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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