#kidnapping plot

‘Hatred, bigotry, and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan’ — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spoke out hours after a bombshell report revealed that the FBI thwarted a right-wing terrorist plot to kidnap her

What we know about ‘The Feather’?

Pilot Episode: Robert Baratheon laid ‘The Feather’ in the hand of Lyanna’s statue.

Season 5: What Token Did Sansa Find? The Series Creators Explain

As she paid homage to her ancestors in Sunday's episode, Sansa Stark made a surprising discovery in the crypts of Winterfell: a feather on the grave of her Aunt Lyanna. Where'd it come from? Think back.

"The last time we saw the statue of Lyanna was in the pilot episode," explains series co-creator David Benioff. "King Robert Baratheon laid this exotic, tropical bird feather in her hand. As we were preparing the scene [with Sansa], we thought: That feather’s probably still there. People haven't been going down there and cleaning up much. Certainly after Ramsay destroyed Winterfell, there hasn’t been a janitorial crew going down and vacuuming." "We thought it would be kind of a great thing to have Sansa wondering about it," co-creator D.B. Weiss notes. "Hopefully viewers wonder: Where did I see that before? – and then remember that in the first episode of the show, this is something that Robert left to remember the woman he loved."

“Exotic, tropical bird” huh? Like a bird of the Summer Isles perhaps?

Sandor Clegane stopped suddenly in the middle of a dark and empty field. She had no choice but to stop beside him. "Some septa trained you well. You're like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren't you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

Season 8: ‘The Feather’ is featured in Game of Thrones | Season 8 | Official Tease: Crypts of Winterfell (HBO) 

Sansa Stark is there too.  She appears just after ‘The Feather’.

Season 8: ‘The Feather’ is featured in Game of Thrones | Season 8 | Official Tease: Aftermath (HBO)

People are speculating that ‘The Feather’ represents Sansa.  You can believe in it or not, but you can’t deny that the Show made sure that ‘The Feather’ is linked to Sansa.  They could have made Jon the one finding ‘The Feather’ for example, after all, he is Lyanna’s son; but they opted for Sansa. 

And finally, thanks to the Huffington Post we also know this:

The Cersei scene that might ruffle some feathers

Let’s begin with a defining scene between King Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark in the Winterfell crypts.

The scene that aired on HBO is slightly different from the scene in the Cushing script, but the gist is the same. Robert asks Ned to be his new Hand of the King, a position left open after Jon Arryn’s death. That’s when Robert places something small but highly symbolic on a statue of his onetime betrothed, Lyanna Stark: a feather.

And that pretty much sums up the sequence you saw in Season 1

But in the script found in the Cushing library, Queen Cersei plays a pivotal role in this exchange’s aftermath ― so much so that her involvement would have changed a Season 5 episode, the recent Season 8 teaser and possibly more. 

The following scene is written into the pilot script found at Cushing and involves Cersei visiting the crypts right before the feast at Winterfell:

Cersei exits the crypts, crosses the courtyard and walks into the antechamber between the kitchen and the Winterfell great hall. The celebration for the king’s arrival is underway, and servants are rushing past her with food. The queen’s handmaidens make adjustments to her outfit and remove her heavy fur.

Then Cersei reveals something she has inside her sleeve:

Why does it matter?

The episode that aired on HBO gave no indication that Cersei was aware of the feather Robert placed on Lyanna’s statue, let alone that she removed it to be burned.

Without this intervention, the feather goes on to play an important role in HBO’s recent Season 8 “Game of Thrones” teaser, falling to the ground as Jon Snow walks by and freezing when a wave of cold air rolls over it.

Even before that, the feather was featured in Season 5, Episode 4, “Sons of the Harpy,” when Sansa Stark visits the Winterfell crypts and comes across the token Robert placed on the statue years ago.

The series’ creators, Benioff and Weiss, acknowledged the feather’s station in the crypts to Making of Game of Thrones, explaining that, after all this time, the feather would surely still be there because there “hasn’t been a janitorial crew going down and vacuuming.”

“We thought it would be kind of a great thing,” they added, “to have Sansa wondering about it.”

Why Sansa? And why a feather?

If you’ve been living under a Casterly Rock your entire life, you might’ve missed the curious role that birds play in “Game of Thrones.” There’s Varys’ spy network of “little birds,” there’s the High Sparrow, there’s the Three-Eyed Raven, and then there’s Sansa, who is often referred to as a “little bird” or “little dove.” These characters have a few things in common: They’re misunderstood, underestimated and often hold powerful information.

The feather could hint at how Lyanna, too, was a misunderstood character, another little bird. It could also serve as a symbol for her secret, her child, Jon Snow.

Now remember, in the Season 5 episode in which the feather reappears, viewers still think Lyanna had been kidnapped and raped by Prince Rhaegar. It hadn’t been revealed that she and Rhaegar were actually in love, married and had a baby — a secret that, with her dying breath, she made her brother Ned promise to keep.

The connection to Jon is reiterated in that Season 8 teaser when he looks back at the feather. Could Cersei’s burning the feather in the scrapped pilot script have been a hint at something else on the way? Will she do the same to Jon?

With Dany’s dragons flying around and Cersei having blown up part of King’s Landing with wildfire, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine a fiery run-in between Cersei and Jon in the future.

The cut feather scene is perhaps the first small hint of Cersei’s penchant for burning her enemies’ “cities to the ground,” as she likes to say. Considering HBO’s “Dragonstone” teaser from late in 2018, which shows a fire engulfing the signature Lannister lion, more flames are likely in the Lannisters’ future. And, just possibly, Jon Snow’s.

So, Cersei took ‘The Feather’ that Robert laid at Lyanna’s statue hand, then asked for “A word with the Stark girl”, and after that, she intended for ‘The Feather’ to be burned..... Very, very interesting.

We can bet that the “Stark girl” Cersei wants a word with, is Sansa Stark, her future daughter in law.

Cersei hates Lyanna Stark. Lyanna had not only Robert’s affections, but also Rhaegar’s; and we must remember that Cersei wished to marry Rhaegar and be her beloved Queen.  Lyanna took that dream from her, twice. Robert and Rhaegar loved the “Stark girl”, not her.    

And now another “Stark girl” will marry the Prince and be Queen.  Cersei must do something about it. 

Since Lyanna is dead and Cersei can’t do anything about it, but burn ‘The Feather’, she would take her revenge with this new “Stark girl”.  

Here we have to remember Cersei’s paranoia with Maggy the Frog prophecy and the Younger more Beautiful Queen that will cast her down and take all that she holds dear.  Yes, that’s Sansa.

So, this never aired scene could also means that the now very popular “Kidnapping plot” is gonna happen in Season 8. The theory claims that Cersei will kidnap Sansa..... and I hate it.  But GOT never gives us nice things :( 

As I said before, you can believe that ‘The Feather’ represents Sansa in the new Game of Thrones | Season 8 | Official Tease: Aftermath (HBO) or not; but you can’t deny that the Show made sure that ‘The Feather’ is heavily linked to Sansa Stark. 

Tyrion Lannister in 4x03 - Breaker of Chains

Without thinking too long, he mentioned Sansa as the very first person to testify for him. After they were married, he really liked to call her “my wife”, and that was sort of sweet and sad, as if he has this hope that his marriage with Sansa was genuine and that they are really a unit and that’s why he confidently say that Sansa will testify for him. But of course Sansa had been gone, whisked away by Littlefinger.

Tyrion Lannister in 4x03 - Breaker of Chains

So, I think it would be normal for Tyrion to have bitter feelings about it, hence his sarcastic comment when he met Jon Snow.

Tyrion Lannister in 7x03 - The Queen’s Justice

Then of course in the Dragonpit meeting, we know he was negotiating something with Cersei, but we don’t know what, so I thought well what if he promised to give Sansa Stark to Cersei in exchange for the truce. In the post thread, some other people such as @shewholovestoread and @jonsalways has said the same, that Tyrion would probably be involved in Sansa’s kidnapping. So anyway, to give myself some peace of mind, I decided to write this post, and while I’m at it, I found more things to back it up.

Considering this still we just got: 

I think it’s safe to assume that this is Sansa’s armor dress. Which means that this dress: 

remains unexplained. 

When the scaly dress was revealed I commented on the similarities between this dress and one of Cersei’s season 7 dresses, namely this one: 

So what if the scaly dress is Sansa’s King’s Landing costume? This is, of course, taking into account the kidnapping plot. Which would mean that this dress: 

is a dress Cersei forces her into. 

This could be foreshadowed by Cersei’s handmaiden’s looking like this in season 7: 

Cersei is essentially turning everyone around her into mini-versions of herself so it would make sense for her to try and do the same to Sansa. 

Which would make Sansa ultimately triumphing over her all the more meaningful.