TYRION LANNISTER
After murdering his father, Tywin, Tyrion Lannister is smuggled out of King's Landing by Varys. He arrives in Pentos at the start of ADWD, meeting with Magister Illyrio, who sets him on a course through Essos to meet with Daenerys Targaryen. Illyrio parts company with Tyrion when he drops them off with a crew who is secretly comprised of Jon Connington, Aegon Targaryen and several other individuals under false identities. The crew pilots a ship up the Rhoyne until Tyrion uncovers their true identities and they are attacked by Stone Men. Tyrion survives the attack and convinces Aegon to abandon the journey to Meereen to meet with Dany and instead invade Westeros to earn her respect and marry her as an equal. Tyrion travels to a whorehouse in Volantis where he is captured by Jorah Mormont. Jorah and Tyrion board a ship that they are told will take them to Meereen, though the ship isn't going to Meereen itself, with a dwarf named Penny (who tries to kill him) and a Red Priest of R'hllor named Moqorro. The ship sinks and Moqorro is found by Victarion while Tyrion and Jorah are captured by pirates and sold as slaves in Meereen. Tyrion and Penny participate in the same dog/pig dwarf-jousting act that Penny and her brother performed at Joffrey's wedding at the re-opening of the fighting pits of Meereen. After Drogon attacks the fighting pits, Tyrion, Penny and Jorah escape from slavery and join the Second Sons with the intention of convincing them to turn their cloaks back to Dany's side in the war. He succeeds in this effort in a preview chapter for TWOW.
That's a full-season storyline if I've ever heard one and I expect that many of the elements of this storyline will be present in S5, with some obvious omissions and some major shortcuts taken to get to the final destination. I also expect this storyline to go behind ADWD, as leaked photographs indicate that Tyrion and Dany will have direct interactions at the fighting pits, which indicate that they've allied themselves with each other before Drogon intervenes. There's a lot of ground to cover before we get there, so let's start at the beginning.
PENTOS
Leaked photographs from filming indicate that locations used to represent Pentos in Season 1 are being used this season and that characters wearing Pentoshi costumes will be appearing this season as well. Couple that with the fact that no casting announcement would be necessary to bring the actor playing Magister Illyrio (Roger Allam) back for an episode or two and my conclusion is that Tyrion will be traveling to Pentos at the start of S5. One change that I expect for the show is that the Season 4 finale indicates that Varys will be traveling with Tyrion to Pentos. Varys is a better and more popular character in the show than he is in the books, so I expect he'll stick around for the first part of Tyrion's storyline at least, though I think he may depart on Littlefinger's Season 2 jetpack to jump into other storylines this season. Perhaps Varys will accompany Illyrio and Tyrion until he departs on the Rhoyne. Perhaps he stays with Tyrion until Volantis. Then again, maybe he drops Tyrion off in Pentos and disappears until later in the season. Who knows? None of the leaked information includes Varys, so it's all guessing at this point. I'd like to think that more Varys is better than less, so let's give him two or three episodes before he parts ways with Tyrion.
THE RHYONE
We know from filming leaks and press releases that Tyrion will be stopping in Volantis on the way to Meereen (where we know he will arrive). Unless his on-screen time takes him directly from Pentos to Volantis, he'll need to travel on the Rhoyne.
Most of the key moments of Tyrion's trip down the Rhoyne will be skipped because they are connected directly to the presence of Aegon and Jon Connington, who appear to have been written out of the show. Tyrion won't get to reveal the identity of these characters and the giant turtle (the Old Man of the River) probably won't make an appearance because his presence is tied to Aegon (also, with a limited special effects budget it's unlikely that a chunk of it would be used on a large turtle that is otherwise insignificant to the story), but one of the most amazing scenes in ADWD will still take place: the attack of the stone men.
The "Bridge of Dreams" sequence where Tyrion and co. are attacked by the stone men is one of the best sequences in ADWD and it lends itself perfectly to film and television.
Picture this scene:
Tyrion looks out onto the deck of the ship and sees nothing but fog. In the distance, vague shapes of menacing figures appear on structures above the ship, on all sides. After a few moments of eerie silence, there's a loud thud on the ship's deck, followed by another and another as the menacing figures attack the ship. The crew fends off the attackers, but as Tyrion pushes the last of the attackers off of the deck, the attacker grabs Tyrion and pulls him into river with him.
Cut to black as eerie music plays and the credits roll and the episode ends on one hell of a cliffhanger.
Sounds pretty awesome, no? And leaked information from filming indicates that this scene in some form or another will be a part of S5, as there will be a scene featuring a large bridge and a lot of special effects that seems to be a perfect fit for this scene.
It is my prediction that this scene will take place after Tyrion arrives in Volantis and is captured by Jorah Mormont, however. I think that the show will cut out the boat trip or limit it to a few character development / check-in scenes as most of the important characters from Tyrion's trip down the Rhoyne have been cut from the show. It would be much more interesting if Jorah was present during the Stone Men's attack and a nice shortcut for the show to use the Stone Men's attack as the reason why the boat from Volantis sinks and Tyrion and Jorah are captured and sold into slavery.
VOLANTIS
It has been confirmed that Game of Thrones will be going to Volantis in S5 and casting indicates that the show's adaptation will stick very closely to the book, at least the part covered in ADWD Tyrion VI, if not so much ADWD - Tyrion VII.
While in Volantis, Tyrion visits a whorehouse where he rapes (though it's not possible to have consensual sex with a slave forced into prostitution, Tyrion's actions were particularly brutal) and he's captured by Jorah Mormont. Jorah Mormont is back this season and filming scenes with Tyrion and while a character very similiar to the prostitute in this scene has been cast (indicating that she'll play the same role as in the books), I doubt that GoT will portray Tyrion's interactions the same was as they are portrayed in ADWD, as I expect the show to portray Tyrion in a lighter, less monstrous way than the books. The circumstances regarding his relationship with and murder of Shae are very different in the show and I expect Tyrion to be more "sad-drunk" this season than "sadistic-drunk". Also, the show will likely feel the need to maintain the likeability of Tyrion Lannister in a way that the books don't. Plus, you have to figure that the fall-out from the poorly-directed Jaime-Cersei rape scene last season (as well as the sometimes well-deserved charges of sexism that come up whenever a scene featuring prostitutes occurs) will affect the show-runners and cause them to tone down this encounter somewhat.
After being captured, Jorah secures passage on a ship that will (sort of...) take him and Tyrion to Meereen. While doing this, Tyrion is attacked by a young dwarf named Penny. Penny was an entertainer who, along with her brother, participated in the dwarf-jousting show at Joffrey's wedding. After Joffrey's death, they fled to Essos, where Penny's brother was eventually beheaded when he was mistaken for Tyrion by individuals who hoped to win the Lordship that Cersei promised in return for the capturing or killing of Tyrion. Upon seeing Tyrion, Penny attempts to murder him out of revenge, failing to do so. She eventually joins Tyrion and Jorah and is still with them during the preview chapters for TWOW.
It's possible that the passage-booking scene will be included this season (if for no other reason than to show how desperate Jorah is at this point in the story), but it could also be skipped. What will definitely be skipped is the role of Penny, who I think will be written out of the show. The "entertainment" at Joffrey's wedding featured dwarves, but there was no indication that any of them were Penny. Also, there has been casting calls for dwarf actors, but not dwarf actresses. Penny is a significant enough role that her casting would have been announced if she were appearing in Season 5 and she wasn't. She might show up in a later season, but I doubt it.
MEEREEN
I was prepared to write about my theory that Game of Thrones would skip over the whole "Tyrion the Slave" subplot and instead have Jorah smuggle him into Meereen. This was based on a leaked image from the set that appeared to indicate that Jorah would be sneaking Tyrion into Meereen on a small boat. It seemed to me that the show might skip over the boat sinking, Tyrion and Jorah being captured by pirates, sold into slavery and escaping during the battle. This was further backed up by the leaked image of Tyrion sitting in the fighting pits with Daenerys, Hizdahr and Missandei. Clearly, the show is going further into Tyrion's storyline than ADWD did, as Tyrion never has direct interaction with Daenerys in ADWD, as he's still a slave performing in the re-opening of the pits. I was prepared to say that the "Tyrion the Slave" sub-plot would be skipped entirely in order to save time, but the latest piece of information to be released proves that incorrect.
When Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Oz, Lost) (AAA) was cast in a new role that was added specifically for Season 5, there was a lot of speculation about what role he'd be playing. It was recently revealed that his role would involve selling Tyrion and Jorah to Yezzan (whose role remains confusing as the casting information indicates that he was a wealthy man in Meereen and slavery remains outlawed in Meereen while Daenerys is present, so he must have fled the city for this to work). Since Tyrion and Jorah are sold into slavery, it's safe to assume that the storyline that brings them to that point stays intact, so it's safe to assume that their boat from Volantis sinks and they're captured and sold into slavery.
There haven't been any details released that detail the army of Slavers Bay that lays siege to Meereen (assuming that the show follows the same storyline as the books) and Brown Ben Plumm hasn't been cast for this season, so the details of how Tyrion and Jorah escape are currently impossible to know, but at some point this season they will either escape or be brought before Daenerys where Jorah is forced to fight in the pits to earn his way back into her good graces while Tyrion is accepted as an advisor. However this is managed, leaked photographs show that Jorah is fighting in the pit while Tyrion watches with the newly-married Dany and Hizdahr. Since Tyrion doesn't appear to be a prisoner or under any kind of duress in the photos, it seems as though his interaction with Dany have been productive and led to him being freed and working with her at the moment. It should be one of the most interesting story changes / advancements that the show has ever done.
It's hard to guess when exactly Tyrion will interact with Daenerys and how long they'll share the screen together. Both characters have a significant amount of story that will need to be covered before they'll be in the same place and time (Tyrion has to cross half of Essos), so it's likely that they won't meet until Episode 7 or 8, when they'll share a few highly anticipated scenes before Drogon returns and flies away with Daenerys and everything in Meereen goes to hell after the re-opening of the fighting pits. I expect this to be the climax of Episode 9. Where Tyrion's story goes from there is unknown as it will be a combination of new storylines and storylines from TWOW. I don't expect him to assume the role of Quentyn Martell and set the other two dragons loose (I'll put together some wild speculation on that in my post about Dany), so his future on the show is likely to be tied in with Jorah and Selmy, though much of that will likely be pushed until Season 6. I'll have more to say about Tyrion's interactions with Daenerys when I discuss Dany's storyline for the season.
MY SEASON 5 PREDICTIONS FOR TYRION LANNISTER'S STORY:
Tyrion will travel with Varys to Pentos, where they'll meet with Magister Illyrio. The trio (Varys may not leave Pentos) will travel together until Tyrion leaves for Volantis, where he'll visit a whorehouse and be captured by Jorah Mormont. Tyrion and Jorah will be attacked by the Stone Men, who sink their boat. They will then be captured and sold into slavery. They'll escape into Meereen where Tyrion will ally himself with Daenerys. The two will plot together until the re-opening of the fighting pits, where Drogon returns and Daenerys flies out of the city on his back. Tyrion will remain in Meereen during the fallout and the upcoming battle in Season 6.
Next Week - Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly
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