WARNING

The below post will contain spoilers of Season 7 Episode 3 of Game of Thrones. If you have not seen the episode yet and do not want spoilers please DO NOT read on. For everyone else, let’s begin.

            Let me start out by saying when I see the four words flash across my screen on Sunday nights I get giddy and don’t pay attention to any social media. Those four lovely words are, “Quiet In The Realm.”

Now just a quick overview of what I will be doing on posts like this. I will not be recapping a full episodes of Game of Thrones (GOT). I will be breaking down plotlines from time to time, going over character dynamics and just pointing out things I was thinking as I watched the show.

Season 7 Episode 6

 

I’m going to jump right in and start with Arya and Sansa, who are still at Winterfell and haven’t heard from their brother, Jon Snow. Arya did a lot of mental poking of at Sansa in this episode even though we only saw them briefly. The first thing she did was read out the scroll she found in Littlefinger’s room. Blaming Sansa for their father’s death because she wanted to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She also let Sansa know, that she was present at the beheading of their beloved father, Ned Stark. Sansa gets defensive and Arya asks her if it’s because she’s scared that she will show the Lords of the North her note and Sansa’s excuses of being young, scared and alone won’t go over well with Lady Mormont, who is younger than she was then and is currently leading her house. Sansa then gets an invitation to King’s Landing to speak with Queen Cersei. For some reason, she stupidly decides to send off her one loyal protector, Brienne of Tarth to this meeting in her place. While I look forward to seeing a reunion with Brienne and Jamie, this is not a good use Brienne for Sansa. Once again, she has fallen into Littlefinger’s plan.

Of course, Littlefinger decides to appear and root around in Sansa’s mind. Causing her to doubt her sister even more. Which sends Sansa to go through Arya’s room and find the faces in Arya’s bag. Sansa is shocked and confused by this and is then confronted by Arya right then. Arya explains her journey of  training to become a Faceless Man, which is something that Sansa has no context of. She then asks her sister to play the truth game which she had to do during her training with Jaqen H’ghar. Sansa refuses to answer and Arya pulls the Valerian steel knife on her that Bran gave her in a previous episode. Arya then makes Sansa aware that she could take her face, become her and no one would be the wiser before handing Sansa the knife and leaving the room.

This is a big transitioning point for these two characters. Arya calls Sansa out on all of her weaknesses: wanting power, being pretty and weak. She also points out that neither of the girls are where they thought they would be when the show started. Arya wanted to be a Knight and Sansa to be a Queen. Even though Sansa has grown as a character throughout the seasons, she still holds on to these tendencies which makes her an easy puppet for people like Littlefinger. I believe that Arya sees what is happening and is playing the game with Littlefinger by not letting him know she has caught on. I always hoped that Arya would be the one to kill Littlefinger, but now I believe Arya giving Sansa that dagger is a sign. Sansa has never directly killed someone with her own hands, the closest was Ramasy, whom she had fed to his dogs. I believe that Arya has set the stage for Sansa to end Littlefinger, which would be glorious for us all. Hopefully Sansa will stop Littlefinger from taking advantage of her! I also hope Brienne makes it to King’s Landing okay and as she is most likely walking directly into a trap.

Now it’s time to jump beyond the wall and join the merry group of men on a suicide mission to catch and bring back one of the dead. I really hate the fact that Jon, Jorah, Gendry, The Hound, Thoros of Myr, Beric Dondarrion, Tormund, and a few wildings are even outside of the wall. They hope to catch one of the wights still ‘alive’ and bring it back to Kings Landing to show Cersei that the White Walkers are real and are the bigger threat to all for now. Hopefully catching one of the dead will be worth this trip in the end.

The best part at the beginning is getting some bonding moments between Tormund and the Hound. I liked that Tormund tells The Hound he’s not as mean as he thinks he is and that there is sadness in his eyes. Also, as Tormund talks about his love for Brienne, he lets the Hound know that she’s still alive, which is foreshadowing for them to meet again. Then when Gendry is complaining about how the Brothers Without Banners gave him over to the Red Witch and left him for dead, The Hound jumps in and tells him to quit bitching because he’s alive and Beric has died six times, been brought back to life, and still doesn’t complain about it. This quickly shuts Gendry up as he stares on awe at the news he has received.

The group of men are quickly reminded where they are as an undead polar bear comes at them. We get to see some dual flaming sword action as both Beric and Thoros light up their swords and hack at the bear.  They come out victorious, at the cost of some of their wildling red shirts and with Thoros getting mortally wounded. It makes me wonder how they are going to face the rest of the thousands of White Walkers. Especially because they don’t seem to have much in the way of dragonglass weapons on hand.

They continue their journey and come across a small group  of wights being led by an actual White Walker. The group quickly attacks the dead and once Jon kills the leader, all but one of the wights fall dead as well. This is new to us and the group, Jon guesses that  if you kill the White Walker who created kill the minions, that they all just die with it. The men then proceed to knock down, and tie up the remaining wight but not before it lets out a loud, screeching call to the other dead.

Jon sends Gendry back to The Wall so he can send word to Khlaseei that they are being surrounded by the Army of the Dead. Since he is the fastest out of all of them, he is the only one safe for now. The rest are then met with the other 1000+ thousands of White Walkers, which sends them on a run for their lives. They come to a frozen lake that begins to crack under their feet. This causes them to pause for a moment but they quickly realize they have no choice but to run as they are being surround by a mass of the dead. Taking refuge on a small rocky island in the center of the frozen lake, the Army of the Dead just stand and stare at their trapped foes.

The White Walkers stop running after the men as the King realizes they will only fall to the depth below. Now, we are at a standoff, our guys slowly freezing to death as the Army of the Dead waits for the ice to freeze back over. Hours go by and sadly,  Thoros of Myr succumbs to his wounds and dies. Beric uses  his sword and light him on fire so he won’t turn into one of the wights. The poor Hound is seeing their flaming sword again and is definitely uncomfortable of being so close to the flames.

More time goes by and the Hound foolishly starts throwing rocks at the dead surrounding them. He scores a hit and knocks the lower jaw bone off of one wight. This didn’t even seem to faze the wight as it stands still, waiting for its opportunity to attack the now freezing men. He decides to toss another rock which falls short and now alerts everyone that the water as refroze. This sends the horde of wights bearing down on them and causing a fight for their life to ensue.

Jon sees that from the rear of the men thatmore wights are coming for them. Piling up one another, climbing and reaching to get to them. It’s in this moment you see defeat on his face but just in time Khaleesi brings all of her dragons to the fight. Even though Tyrion begged her not to go with the Dragons, she did not listen. The dragons begin to destroy the armies of the dead with flaming breath which gives the men a break from fighting. Until Khaleesi lands Drogon and the dead go after her, but Jon quickly jumps in fight them off as the surviving members of the group load their captured wight on to Drogon’s back and hold on for the dragon to take flight.

Then comes the moment that broke my heart. The Night King taking one of his ice javelins,throws it at full speed at one of the dragons. Viserion is hit and falls hard onto the ice, his blood spewing everywhere. You see the life drain from his closing eyes before his body slips into the depths of the ice water.

Jon then sees the Night King grabbing another spear and quickly yells to Khaleesi to go. She reluctantly takes Jon’s advice and takes Drogon and the surviving men with her as Jon fights off the non-relenting attackers. Khaleesi looks to him as her dragon takes flight, the spear is thrown and he barely avoids getting hit, almost throwing Jorah overboard as well.  We see both dragons falling away as Jon is also overpowered and pulled into the cold, watery depths.

This is a signal to the White Walkers that everyone is dead or gone so they quickly resume their march towards the wall. But Jon isn’t going down so easy as he burst through the water and pulls himself out and onto the ice. Just as Daenerys is immune to fire, it appears Jon is immune to freezing  solid. This might be a product of his blood being of both Targaryen and Stark. But it also re-confirms the theory about Jon and Daenerys. The book series is not called ‘Game of Thrones’, that is the title of the first book. The series is called “A Song of Ice & Fire”. Clearly, the ice is Jon and the fire is Daenerys.

Still alive, the frigid water over powering his muscles as he can hardly move as all the dead take notice and start coming after him again. Just when we think this will be the end of Jon Snow we see a light coming through the wights  and killing them as it passes. This turns out to be Uncle Benjen Stark (AKA ‘Cold Hands’), riding his horse to Jon. The last time we saw him was when he haled Bran escape the lair of the Three Eyed Raven when it was overtaken by White Walkers. He quickly dismounts and puts Jon on his horse as Jon pleads with him to come with him. Benjen says there’s no time and smacks the horse to ride away. The last look we get of Benjin is being overtaken by wights and his light going out forever.

Next, we find Khaleesi waiting at the wall, seemingly looking for any sign of Jon. Sure enough, he is brought to the Wall by Benjen’s horse. Jon wakes up to a concerned Khaleesi sitting by his bedside and the first thing he does is apologize for the loss of her dragon, Viserion. She quickly explains to Jon that the dragons are her children since she can’t have any of her own. She then notices the scars on his body, especially the one by his heart. Khaleesi then swears that she will destroy the Night King and the Army of the Dead alongside Jon. Saying that now that she has seen the threat with her own eyes, it must be done.  Jon then tells her that he will bend the knee to her and accept her as his Queen, since now, he sees her for who she truly is. She takes his hand and says she now sees him too. There’s a connection moment that rings of an early conversation that Khaleesi hand with Tyrion and he pointed out the way Jon Snow looked at her. In a loving, longing way. She pulls her hand away noticing this and tells him to get some rest.

We are then transitioned back to the dead pulling Viserion’s dead body from out of the frozen lake. It’s a cool scene, thousands of wights dragging these massive chains attached to the Dragon’s body. Where they got such huge chains, one can only guess. The Night King then goes over and touches the dragon’s dead body, which then opens his eyes and now they’re that glowing White Walker shade of blue. So, not only does the Knight King have thousands of dead soldiers of all races, he now has an undead ice dragon (the GOT equivalent of a Weapon of Mass Destruction).

This left me awestruck and with so many ideas and questions. I think it’s funny how fast the dead are now when they were so slow on the earlier seasons, but everyone seems to be moving at double time now. Does this mean that the Night King can will ride Ice Viserion over The Wall now? I know there are wards and protections on the wall but how does that pertain to a dragon and going over instead of through? I believe Ice Viserion will replace his fire breath with ice breath and all of this will end up with some massive battle between the Night King riding Viserion and fighting off the other two dragons, with Daenerys riding Drogon and Jon riding the third Dragon, Rhaegal. This all makes more sense when you think about how Viserion was named after Daenerys’ awful brother Viserys and Rhaegal is named after her brother Rhaegar, who was considered one of the better Targaryens. But more importantly, Rhaegar is apparently Jon Snow’s real father, so it all fits.

Only one more episode for this season! This episode was slightly longer than the others (71 minutes as opposed to the usual 59) and the next one is longer too (81 minutes). But after that we have to wait a year or so for the final season of this amazing show. While I know that we get an epic battle between the Army of the Dead and the living, now with at least one Dragon on each side, it will be heart breaking to watch Daenerys have to face one of her children reanimated as a wight for the Night King. I also fear that we might someday see a wight version of Hodor and Bran’s DIrewolf, Summer. The possibilities are frightening.