Game Of Thrones Season 8 Breakdown: What 'Winterfell' REALLY Means

8. The Three-Headed Hand (And Varys' Portent)

While it may seem like a throw-away scene apart from Ser Davos' suggestion that the only way to appease the North is to have Jon and Dany marry, but the sequence featuring Davos, Tyrion and Varys on the Winterfell battlements is a pretty loaded one.

In it, we get to hear Varys' sad portent that "nothing lasts" - which could well replace "Winter is coming" as the clanging chimes of doom for this season - but the musing about the unwelcome reminder of old people serves another purpose. Davos, Varys and Tyrion are now destined to be edge characters, removed from the action because of their various "short-comings" and insuitability to battle (one is disfigured, one is a Eunuch, the final is a dwarf). They are the ultimate outsiders (along with Samwell Tarly) and their reactions to that picture are an intriguing thing to be invited to muse on.

Varys is happy with his position, because he's self-aware (and he's able to exert power through other people anyway), Davos aspires for no more than what's best, but Tyrion is a different creature. He aspires to more thanks to his upbringing. He dreamt of being a dragon rider and of proving himself to his father (and more broadly as a Lannister) and wallowed in "t*ts and wine" because that's what he was forced to accept as what he did best.

He's also shown flashes of jealousy at Jon and Dany's relationship and this confirmation from Varys that he's being pushed aside and wilfully forgotten because of what he represents could well be the trigger for him to do something catastrophic. Assuming those whispers of his betrayal might be true...