IGN – The wording there is interesting. EW says the episode will “be” the longest battle sequence, not “include” it, which implies the battle will take up the entirety of its runtime. With some episodes this season expected to run up to 90 minutes long, that could be very considerable.
Besides being the greatest TV show of all time, Game of Thrones features the most technically complex battles scene that have a bigger scale than anything we’ve ever seen in the history of entertainment. Last season ended with the White Walkers waltzing through the Wall with a brand new ice dragon marching south. Meanwhile Khaleesi is on her way up to Winterfell so I would not be surprised if we see some massive action in the first episode. Things are going to get real messy real fast and I don’t know if I’m ready for it emotionally.
In the meantime lets take a look back at some of the biggest battles we’ve seen so far.
The Battle of Blackwater Bay
S2E9 is when we were introduced to just how intelligent Tyrion really is and we also learn that Wildfire isn’t just some garbage potion that wannabe wizards used to play with.
Battle of the Bastards
S6E9 is where Jon Snow became the GOAT and we witnessed the largest live action battle scene of all time. Suffocating, tense, and heartbreaking; the Battle of the Bastards always gets my blood flowing. Plus that sonofabitch Ramsay finally gets what he’s had coming to him for 4 seasons.
Hardhome
S5E8 is a truly terrifying episode where we finally fully realize the scope of what the White Walkers can do and how screwed Jon Snow and company all really are.
The Loot Train
S7E4 is where Dany shows everyone why the Targaryen’s ruled the world with nothing but a few dragons.
The Battle of Castle Black
S4E9 is just another beautifully coreographed sequence of events. Multiple fights at once, arrows flying all around, fires burning, and Olly…that sonofabitch Olly.
We’re just a little over a month away from the Season 8 premiere, so if you’re like me and woefully behind on your Thrones rewatch it’s time to get in gear.
Don’t just talk about it, be about it. Khaleesi takes that message to heart as she revealed the most fire Thrones tattoo these eyes have ever seen.
Subtle, yet instantly recognizable. Thats a perfect tat, Emilia.
I’ll be totally honest guys, I’ve had a Game of Thrones tattoo in mind for a couple of years now and the only thing thats been holding me back is the crippling fear of George R.R. Martin having the character turn heel and have me get stuck with a Red Wedding level tat. So I’ve told myself I’ll wait it out, make sure this character doesn’t end up being the Night King or something before inking it onto my skin forever.
In what has become an annual showcase for Game of Thrones, HBO proved once again the penultimate episode of each season is the one you don’t want to miss with last night’s “Beyond the Wall.” Every year the second to last episode of each season is an absolute gem. Here’s a quick refresher on how GOT never waits around until the finale to drop some bombs. Each season’s penultimate episode:
Season 1: “Baelor” (Ned Stark loses his head and Khal Drogo falls ill)
Season 2: “Blackwater” (Still arguably the best episode in the series as Stannis attacks Kings Landing on Blackwater Bay only to be defeted by Tyrion and co.
Season 3: “Rains of Castermere” (The goddamn Red Wedding, which IMDB synopsis describes as ‘Robb and Catelyn arrive at the Twins for the wedding’ in a horribly misleading fashion.)
Season 4: “The Watchers on the Wall” (Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch defend the Wall against Mance Rayder and the wildlings.)
Season 5: “The Dance of Dragons” (Stannis roasts his daughter, Jon Snow brings the wildlings through the Wall, Khaleesi rides Drogon to safety out of the Mereen fighting pits.)
Season 6: “Battle of the Bastards” (Not much to say here other than this could also be arguably the greatest GOT episode ever.)
The show picks up right where we left off last week with Magnificent Seven venturing beyond the wall.
Jon Snow and Jorah have a heart to heart for the first time and its a refreshing moment of growth. Remember Jorah should rightfully hate Jon Snow. Jon’s father Ned labeled Jorah a traitor and essentially forced him to leave his family and his homeland forever. Jon also effectively became Jeor Mormont’s surrogate son whom he passed Longclaw down to after the shame Jorah brought to House Mormont. To top it all off, no Jon’s moving in on his girl Khaleesi. But Jorah doesn’t hate Jon. He respects him for everything he’s accomplished, including earning his father’s respect and earning Longclaw, regardless of what his name is.
In an instance of foreshadowing we see the first animal wight in the form of a zombie polar bear. “Do bears have blue eyes?” one of the Magnificent Seven asks before it all goes down. Thoros of Myr ends up getting ragdolled by a goddamn zombie bear and a few nameless wildlings got axed too. We also learn that The Hound is going to have a hard time serving the Lord of Light and fighting wights since the one thing that kills them most effectively (ya know, fire) paralyzes him with fear.
The group heads further north until The Hound sees the same thing he saw in his vision in the fire, a mountain shaped like an arrowhead. Not long after they stumble upon a lone White Walker and a group of wights like a dead ranging party. Time to initiate the ill advised plan to try and capture a wight and bring it back south.
Of course they all nearly die because this moronic plan shockingly does not go well. They do take out the group of wights with Jon destroying the White Walker with the Valyrian steel sword he nearly gave away minutes before (WTF Jon). Except their POW wight lets out a scream that acts as a bat signal for every other dead soldier in the north and now our heroes are screwed.
The gang gets marooned on an ice island as the White Walkers and their army surrounded them. The only reason they aren’t immediately killed is because the thin ice breaks and the dead aren’t exactly fond of swimming. So now we play the waiting game. Just waiting for death to come, figuratively and literally.
Jon opts to use one of his 3 lifelines and sends Gendry to phone a friend.
Tyrion tries to advise Khaleesi on a number of things in this episode such as what’s the plan of succession if she were to die? Khaleesi is not a fan of the conversation and says they’ll discuss it when she wears the crown, which could be a bit of grim foreshadowing we all look back on. But specifically he once again advises Khaleesi again risking her own life to rescue Jon Snow, Jorah and the others. In a direct response to the recent failures she’s experienced following Tyrion’s advice while simultaneously directly heeding the late Olenna’s advice (“Be a dragon”) Khaleesi says enough is enough and rides north on the back of Drogon.
Enter Khaleesi (if you can accept White Walkers but you can’t accept faster than normal travel I don’t want to be your friend) and her 3 gigantic dragons who just start flame throwing the entire place. It seems like the dragons really are the end all be all of weapons in the 7 Kingdoms, but similar to the Loot Train scene from a couple of weeks ago we once again see just how powerful yet vulnerable the dragons are at the same time.
The Night King takes his ice spear and just rifles it into the sky as Viserion gets tagged and falls from the sky while bleeding uncontrollably. I think this was the saddest I’ve been watching a TV show since Jack had a nervous breakdown about leaving the island on LOST.
The look Jon Snow gives the Night King had me thinking this is it for our boy, he’s going to go out in a blaze of glory trying to take out the head White Walker. As he tells Khaleesi to go he battles a few more wights before falling through the ice, which is the second time in three episodes the show runners have teased a major character drowning.
Shockingly, Jon does not in fact drown, but there is still an army of dead 50 feet away. This would be a pretty anti-climactic way to die so suddenly half-dead Uncle Benjen rides in out of nowhere on his horse to save Jon Snow’s ass and then sacrifices himself. Why couldn’t Benjen get on the horse and ride away with Jon too? As Michael Bay once said to Ben Affleck after Ben asked wouldn’t it be easier to just teach astronauts how to drill rather than the reverse? Shutup, Ben.
After surviving and making it back to the wall the team loads Jon up on the ship back to Dragonstone and we have a real moment between Khaleesi and Jon. Her dragons are not just pets to her, one of Khaleesi’s children just died, which is what makes it all the worse that they died helping Jon. So we see Khaleesi have the first real crack in her armor in years as she nearly breaks down sobbing mourning her dragon.
In a show of faith in her as a true leader and probably also a vague marriage proposal Jon tells her “You are my queen.” Jon bends the knee, well figuratively, since he’s on his deathbed once again.
Its the first time we have the North truly following a Targaryen since the Mad King. Jon doesn’t care what his people will say, he knows Khaleesi is the Queen they need. Now whether, Jon will be her King or not remains to be seen. But for now, they are allies at the very least.
Also, in addition to the Jon’s knife wounds on his chest courtesy of the Night’s Watch, he suddenly has blue marks on his chest. Is this just the frostbite and remnants of nearly drowning in ice cold water or is it something more? If you look at Benjen (RIP) closely, his face has the same blueish hue after he apparently fought off death and a transition to a wight. We don’t really ever learn a ton around Benjen’s story and what really happened (and we probably never will now) but has Jon been touched by something? Or is this just me looking too deeply into a show that has prided itself on deep, deep world building? I digress.
In the Den of Geek breakdown they also pointed out something interesting about this scene as well as everyone’s transportation home.
“It’s a moment so romantic that Dany even finds the scars that prove he was stabbed in the heart endearing. Jon appears to truly be hers, and hey he still tellingly didn’t ride Drogon with the rest of his comrades… he has his father’s namesake, Rhaegal, to look forward to mounting.”
So that is an interesting bit I thought. We still have yet to see Jon Snow on a dragon, even though all his crew has now been on one. And Khaleesi has only ever ridden on the back of Drogon. So is Rhaegal keeping his back for the one true king, Jon Snow?
The whole Sansa/Arya sister rivalry just took a dark twist as Sansa stumbles upon Arya’s bag of faces and realizes her little sister might be an even bigger psychopath than she thought. Arya all but threatens Sansa’s life and now we have the strangest power struggle I can remember on this show. It seems a little convenient writing as I would like to think after years of surviving older, more experienced foes and politicking all through the 7 Kingdowns (and Essos) that these two would be able to understand whats going on here. Imagine taking the transcript of an AIM chat you had when you were 14 and using that as hardcore, stone cold evidence of your character as a person years later?
Either way, Sansa is spooked about Arya either killing her or actually convincing the other northern lords that the words a 14 year old girl wrote, under durress, prove she is a traitor. Sansa fears losing her head as well as her role as ruler of the North.
So naturally she sends her sworn protector Brienne of Tarth to Kings Landing, which reeks of Littlefingers, well, finger prints. Was there actually a raven summoning her to Kings Landing or does Sansa just want to get Brienne out of Winterfell in case she needs to off Arya? Brienne is after all sworn to protect both of Catlyn Tully’s daughters, so if Sansa needs to axe Arya she doesn’t want anyone there to stop her. My question is though, as Sansa, the one without a single day of combat training, wouldn’t you be more worried about Arya killing you? Wouldn’t you want a bodyguard with you now more than ever? This story line just gets odder and odder.
At the end of the episode we see the army of the dead pulling Viserion up from his icy grave to be resurrected. Enter the ice dragon. The Night King’s wight dragon. Something else that Den of Geek speculated on is that maybe the reason the Night King and the White Walkers were simply waiting for the ice to freeze so they can attack Jon and his gang wasn’t just exposition allowing Khaleesi enough time to get there. Maybe the Night King knew Khaleesi was coming with her dragons and he was legitimately waiting for her. Waiting for her to come into his arena so he can down one and claim a dragon of his own. A much more satisfying and chilling explanation to that entire scene. Because we all know the White Walkers and the wights can’t break through the Wall. But what if the Night King had his own damn dragon to simply fly over the towering ice monstrosity of a wall? Or maybe they make good on the Season 7 opening credits and simply walk around the wall over the frozen ice. Either way the big baddie now has a dragon of his own which is downright frightening.
Next week we have the most tense meeting of the UN ever created. What traps and tricks can we expect in the 90 minute season finale? Did we really risk so much, getting Viserion (and Thoros!) killed just for one wight?
That whole sequence better actually have been worth it, but I’m not too optimistic. I don’t expect Cersei to suddenly care about some existential threat (real or not) because she is so single-mindedly focused on keeping the Iron Throne she will do whatever it takes to stay there. Even if it means her own demise. We’re running out of time though for everyone to be fighting two battles at the same time, so someone is gonna have to either shit or get off the pot. Next week could be the last we see of Cersei.
One more episode guys and then the Long Night truly does begin because god knows how long it’ll be until the 8th and final season of Game of Thrones.
We’re back for another breakdown of this week’s Game of Thrones episode, House by House. “The Queen’s Justice” is the third episode in Game of Thrones Season 7. Lots to break down so LETS GET IT.
House Targaryen
We FINALLY get Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen on screen together at the same time. After 6+ seasons of build up Fire and Ice share the screen together. And its a bit testy. You had Dany introduced with her bakers dozen titles (Mother of Dragons, the unburnt etc. etc) meanwhile Davos deadpans “This is Jon Snow….He’s the King in the North.” Now this whole scene is a fascinating power play as Khaleesi expects Jon to throw his support behind her immediately, but he’s a bit skeptical. He basically says we need each other, but you just got here why should I fight for you? What ensues is a pretty heated debate on where the Starks allegiance should lay. She mistakenly thinks Ned Stark plotted to assassinate here along with King Robert, which she’s pretty pissed about.
Khaleesi also reminds Jon of how the Starks swore an oath to the Targaryen “in perpetuity” buttt ya know Khaleesi’s dad did murder Jon’s uncle and grandfather soo that oath is probably off the table.
Like I had hinted at last week, Jon Snow did not bend the knee upon meeting Khaleesi at Dragonstone. Had a feeling he’d refuse as its something thats been foreshadowed by the stubbornness of his own family, his uncle Brandon Stark, his father Ned and even his brother Rob.
Jon doesn’t want anyone else to know he died? Why? Is he concerned people will think he’s insane? I guess one tall tale is enough for a first meeting. An army of the dead lead by White Walkers is hard enough to believe, why add to it and tell everyone he’s been brought back from the grave?
We also have Khaleesi trying to forge an alliance with Jon by giving him something; dragonglass. She agrees to let him mine Dragonstone for the glass that he wants so bad. She still doesn’t believe his story about the army of the dead, which I don’t understand. You have three goddamn dragons and you took a nap in a raging fire to bring them to life from stone eggs. How are YOU a sceptic of all people? Either way, the dragonglass is a sign of good faith as she looks to forge an alliance with the North.
The Unsullied took the Lannister home base Casterly Rock, invading through the sewer system that Tyrion so cleverly designed. EXCEPT, Euron and the Iron Fleet were there to sneak attack them and burn the entire fleet of ships the Unsullied came in on (again another parallel as the Greyjoys did this exact move to the Lannisters years ago, burning their entire fleet in the bays of Casterly Rock). So now Khaleesi’s largest army is stuck in Casterly Rock and would basically have to march across Westeros and abandon the fortress they just secured if they want to get back to the rest of Team Targaryen.
I think something that will be interesting to watch will be how this affects Tyrion, who prides himself on being the smartest man in the room. He was bested by his own brother, falling right into a trap and really hurting Khaleesi’s position. Does this make him a little less confident or hesitant in his role as Hand of the Queen? Does no longer being the smartest man in the room rattle his cage?
House Stark
Bran returns to Winterfell and sees Sansa for the first time since Season 1 and the homecoming is not quite what she expected. Gone is the happy little boy and in his place is an emotionless guy thats calling himself the Three Eyed Raven. To which Sansa hilariously replies, “I don’t know what that means.” Its a hard thing to explain as Bran does his best to make her realize he has the sight. Either way Sansa seems pretty put off by everything thats transpired with her brother since they last saw each other. But now there are two Starks in Winterfell. Is Arya next?
House Lannister
Cersei is getting revenge on everyone like an absolute gangster, killing people the same way they killed her kids. She throws on some new lipstick and gives Tyene Sand the kiss of death using the Long Farewell poison, the same poison that the Sands used on Myrcella. Only to make Ellaria sit and watch her daughter slowly die.
Then she wastes no time in taking over High Garden and making sure Olenna is killed. Although it seems like Jaime gave her a much better fate than Cersei would have preferred, which he may regret after hearing Olenna describe how she was the one that poisoned Joffrey. Olenna, what a badass old bitch to the very last minute, dropping a truth bomb right in Jaimes face as she’s about to die.
The real question is whether or not Jaime tells Cersei the truth about Joffrey? Maybe he keeps that card in his back pocket until a later confrontation with Sansa? Because remember Cersei still wants Sansa dead because she thinks her and Tyrion posioned Joff.
Ya gotta respect how nuts Cersei is at this point. No kids, no family aside from Jaime, not a ton of allies, no real legacy to leave. “A dynasty for us!” she proclaims to Jaime in Ep 2 this season. So theres nothing really left to fight for, except power and ensuring every last one of her enemies dies. Whether it kills her in the end Cersei does not care, as long as she takes everyone down with her.
Which brings me to my theory on how her arc may end. She’s definitely spiraling out of control and Jaime knows it. It would not surprise me at all if down the line everything is crashing down around her and she just says fuck it, burn them all, a la the Mad King. The parallels between Cersei and the Mad King are striking. And who would be the only one that could potentially stand in the way of Cersei? That would be Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Does he see Cersei reach a point thats too far gone and decide, shit I have to end this myself, just as he did to Aerys Targaryen?
The Iron Bank came back to collect on the Lannister debts they so love to proclaim that they always pay. They’re understandably a little unsure of the Lannisters grasp on the 7 Kingdoms as Khaleesi looks like a pretty damn good bet to take over. Cersei, channeling her inner Taiwyn, convinces the Iron Bank to double down on her rather than back the Targaryen. Lannisters ran outta gold? No problem, let us take over High Garden real quick and you can have all the golden roses you’ll ever need.
House Greyjoy
Euron is back in Kings Landing, this time parading through the streets on his badass Kraken horse dragging Yara and the sand snakes on leashes, which is a startling sight as the crowds wildly cheers for him. Thats his present to Cersei, the woman that murdered her daughter. So she agrees to marry Euron…when the war is over.
It looks like Theon is back to square one with the iron born. One of the few Greyjoy ships that survived Euron’s attack pulls Theon out of the water and the first thing they do is ask where Yara is, how Theon knows, and why he’s still alive if he truly tried to save her. These people have no love for Theon so this is gonna be a steep uphill battle for some Reek redemption.
Additional notes from around the realm:
Randyll Tarly turned on the Tyrells pretty quick despite his beautiful speech last week about the oath he swore.
The Red Woman is headed to Volantis, which is where the Temple of the Lord of Light is, but she did say she would be back because she needs to die in Westeros…just like Varys.
What does that even mean? That is going to be a line we all look back at and our heads will explode, count on it.
But seriously what is she up to? Maybe she makes a trip to Myr too because ya know THOROS OF MYR IS FROM MYR! Is Myr the place to be for red priests? Obviously she brought Jon Snow back to life, but if you remember when she first meets Thoros and hears of how he brought back Beric Dondarrion after he fell to the Hound in trial by combat, she is speechless.
Here is this old drunk red priest that has an incredible ability. “You should not have this power” she says to Thoros. So maybe this is like the Athletes Performance Institute for Lord of Light followers.
I think she may also be heading out to recruit all the other red priests and priestesses to bring back an army of them to fight the dead. Why else would the show make it a point to showcase all the different red priests in various parts of the world over the seasons?
Theres of course the Red Woman, theres Thoros of Myr, the asian red priestess that Tyrion sees in Volantis, the red priest preaching to the crowd in Meereen when Tyrion and Varys are running the show in Khaleesi’s absence, and the red priestess Kinvara who really rattled Varys in Meereen last season:
Thats a lot of world building for an entire fanatical religion and random references that aren’t really necessary unless it serves a larger purpose. Who better to compliment Khaleesi and Jon Snow than theLord of Light? How about red priests to forge the Targaryen fire and ya know bring Jon back to life if he gets axed somewhere along the line.
Now I have to sit here like a sap until Episode 4 airs this weekend. Sunday night can’t come soon enough.
Either way, Sansa is spooked about Arya either killing her or actually convincing the other northern lords that the words a 14 year old girl wrote, under durress, prove she is a traitor. Sansa fears losing her head as well as her role as ruler of the North.
The 300s 