“If you think this is has a happy ending you haven’t been paying attention.”
–Ramsay Bolton

Every time I think about the fate of Game of Thrones‘ characters I worry about this chilling Ramsay quote. Call me negative, but after Ned Stark, the Red Wedding, Oberyn, Hodor, and a million other soul-crushing moments and deaths from the show, I find it hard not to fear how things will turn out for the people of Westeros.

Well after “Eastwatch” I’m really worried about one of my favorite characters, Jorah Mormont, because it looks like he could be the show’s next victim. And if my worst fears come true it is going to be because his death won’t be the end of his story.

From the moment Jorah got greyscale it felt like his character’s clock was winding down, but then he went to the Citadel where amateur dermatologist Samwell Tarly (seemingly) saved him. There’s no way the show gave Jorah greyscale and devoted so much time to his battle with the disease this late in the story if there won’t be a payoff to it. As we’ve previously discussed in our history of greyscale, there’s a chance Jorah isn’t truly cured, and that the dormant disease could lead to an outbreak wherever he goes. That would make sense from a storytelling standpoint, and could still happen even if my greater fear proves true.

Because now that Jorah went with Jon Snow to capture a wight in hopes they can convince Cersei to stop fighting the living (and maybe to finally get Daenerys to focus on the real enemy), there’s potentially a fate that could befall Jorah worse than death or disease: he will be the dead wight they bring back to Dragonstone.

This is what Jorah does, he leaves Daenerys’s side and then returns–he was banished for spying, then she banished him again after he brought her Tyrion, then he returned and saved her in the fighting pit, and last night he came back from greyscale. He leaves her side but always returns, no matter how dire things seem for him.

It has been one of the few uplifting, lasting relationships on the show, where love and friendship have conquered the terrible nature of this world. Which is why it feels like Game of Thrones is really setting us up by offering the possibility of it happening again. Oh sure, they’ll continue the pattern and give us another Jorah/Daenerys reunion, but this time with the type of horrible twist we should always expect but somehow never do.

Jon and the others need a wight from the Night King’s army as physical proof of the real enemy marching on the Wall, but their small group is clearly in monumental danger based on the size of the dead we saw last night. It would be more shocking if all of them survived than if all of them died.

We doubt either will be true, so if we figure some of them aren’t going to make it we can start thinking about their individual stories and how they fit in. Would the show give Jorah a horrible disease he got because Daenerys banished him, have him go off and find a miraculous cure and return to his queen, only to immediately send him off again on a suicide mission that leads to his death and transformation into a wight by the Night King, all so he could be presented to his Khaleesi?

If that possibility doesn’t give you chills you haven’t been paying attention.

It might be possible that Jorah’s greyscale was really about Daenerys, about how her actions led to his illness and death. It could even have been about Sam’s story, a way to get Jorah to the Citadel where Sam saves him, which leads to a grateful Daenerys eventually showing Sam the mercy she refused his brother and father.

But the writing on the show is better than that, and that’s why an important character like Jorah, who has been around since the very first episode, will get his own ending to his own story. Unfortunately, one way or another, it is starting to look like it will be an ending worse than death, the kind that ruins us.

Maybe Jorah’s greyscale proves to be some kind of immunity to the Night King. Maybe he makes another triumphant return to the woman he loves. Maybe his story will have a happy ending after all.

Or maybe Ramsay already told us how this ends.

What do you think? What fate awaits Jorah? March on our comments section below and share your thoughts.

And for more Game of Thrones goodness, check out our history of greyscale, our look at “Eastwatch”‘s Rhaegar revelation, and why Davos was the episode’s MVP.

Images: HBO