WARNING
The below post will contain spoilers of Season 7 Episode 7 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 7
It’s the season finale and boy did HBO not let us down! So much happened- The good, bad, ugly and the WTF? Where to begin….
The meeting at King’s Landing set the high tension for the rest of the episode, even though there was a fun scene between Jamie and Bronn. We see the Unsullied, at the front Grey Worm, standing outside the walls of King’s Landing. Bronn brings up the fact why are these guys fighting if their cockless. Making the point that men fight for coin to use at brothels. Jamie then states that his brother, Tyrion, is siding with someone who is cockless. Which made me laugh but then I realized so is Jamie. Both of the people going for the Iron Throne are women. Cersei who is sitting as Queen of the seven kingdoms and Khaleesi who has stated claim to the iron throne.
Having people seeing each other for the first time in a while was welcoming to all the fans. The Hound and Brienne seeing each other since Brienne left him for dead. Letting him know that Arya is still alive and at Winterfell and able to take care of herself. Then Tyrion trying to get Bronn to turn his back on Cersei and join Khaleesi, which he refuses. The Hound standing face to face with The Mountain, which made me remember how tall The Hound is. This seems to foreshadow the face off we’ve been waiting for, Clegane vs Clegane. Speaking of unruly siblings, Tyrion comes face to face with Cersei for the first time after killing their father. Euron calling out Theon in front of everyone and Cersei telling him to sit down.
The Hound dropping the box that contains the captured wight, having it run straight at Cersei. She’s lucky the chain was there. For once, everyone sees that the dead are real and they are almost unstoppable. As we see The Hound chop it in half, take off its arm and the dead still comes crawling to attack the living. Jon shows Cersei that the only way to kill them is with fire and dragonglass. Euron leaves and says he’s going back home when he finds out the White Walkers can’t swim. Cersei states she will join Khaleesi and The King of the North if Jon doesn’t take sides. Jon being raised by Ned Stark, she knows that he doesn’t lie and tells everyone he already bent to knee for Khaleesi causing Cersei to storm off and tell them that there will be no truce.
Tyrion has a crazy idea to go to talk to his murderous sister, Cersei, alone. As he walks down the hallway Tyrion is met by Jamie. Jamie tells his younger brother that he tried to talk to Cersei but she kicked him out of her presence. Knowing this, Tyrion is faced with a bigger uphill battle than we thought.
Once face to face with Cersei, Tyrion apologizes for the death of all of Cersei’s children. This hit me wrong because Cersei knows now that Lady Olenna was the one who had Joffery killed and Tommen committed suicide because of Cersei killing Margaery Tyrell. The only person who’s death Tyrion had an unintentional hand in was Myrcella. We see Cersei not using The Mountain to kill Tyrion who told her to do it for him ruining the Lannister family. She threatens to do it but isn’t able to go through with giving the orders for his death. Tyrion then finds out that Cersei is pregnant from giving her wine and her not drinking it and the giveaway of her touching her stomach as they spoke. Cersei then agrees to aid Khaleesi and The North in the fight against the dead.
Jamie is preparing the Lannister Army to march to The North and battle the dead and we see Cersei come to him and tell him he’s not going. She tells Jamie to let them fight and die because she has access to the Iron Bank and that Euron did not betray her but instead is traveling to get the army of mercenaries in Essos, The Golden Company. For those not in the know, The Golden Company is a mercenary group and one of the largest and most skilled sellsword companies in the Free Cities, consisting of 20,000 Infantry, Cavalry, and War Elephants. They have the reputation of never breaking a contract, which is quite uncommon among mercenary organizations.
This news hits Jamie harder because Cersei made a plan without involving him, with a man she verbally acknowledged she would marry for his fleet. Jamie stands his ground and tells her that he is going to keep his word and fight with the others at Winterfell. Cersei then uses The Mountain to stop Jamie and tells him if he leaves she will have him killed. Jamie FINALLY calls her bluff, he tells her to give the order and again she can’t. He walks out a freeman, jumps on a horse and we see him cover his golden hand and head towards Winterfell. This was the moment I have been wanting for seasons but it’s bittersweet because Cersei is still alive at this point. As Jamie heads out, snow begins to fall on King’s Landing. Winter has come South.
We finally get mention of the lost Yara Greyjoy and have a little scene where Theon finally stands up for his sister and himself. He convinces the remainder of his men to go after Euron and to save his sister. It wasn’t easy, but it was nice to finally see Theon fight back some. He is still most certainly sailing off to meet his death, but at least he’ll do it trying to save his sister.
Now on to Winterfell and the moments that happened in The North. We find that Sansa is doubting Arya’s loyalties to her over Jon Snow, of course with prodding by Littlefinger. Sansa decides to send guards to bring Arya to the great hall to face counts of treason. As Arya is standing in front of Sansa, Bran, and the Lords of the North, Sansa begins to read off the counts of treason. At this moment, I am getting very frustrated because I can’t believe after all this time Sansa can’t see that Littlefinger is using her to benefit himself. I was about to toss away everything nice I’ve said about Sansa’s growth as a character, that is until she turned from Arya and called on Littlefinger to ask how he pleads to these charges.
I cheered as Arya stepped aside and Littlefinger was now in her place. Her tried to get the Knights of the Veil to save him and they denied. He pleaded to talk to Sansa alone and she declined. Bran then called him out on the conversation Littlefinger had with Ned Stark as he had a knife to his throat. Littlefinger then drops to his knees and pleads for Sansa’s mercy because he loves her and he loved her mother. Sansa then points out how Littlefinger betrayed them both, which leads to Arya slitting his throat and him bleeding out on the floor. All of this was a breath of fresh air, because we were expecting Sansa to be foolish and fall into Littlfinger’s web of lies again. It was nice to see her learn and adapt. Thus ending Littlefinger’s story in all of this.
We then get to see Samwell coming into Bran’s room, which means he made it to Winterfell. Bran tells Sam that he can only see into the past, which caught me off guard because I thought him being the Three-Eyed-Raven meant he was all-seeing. This isn’t the only thing he told him, Bran finally tells someone that Jon Snow is actually a Targaryen and has the legitimate claim to the Iron Throne. This is because Rhaegar Targaryen (Note: Rhaegar wasn’t the mad king – Rhaegar is Dany’s brother, the Mad King was their father) had his other marriage annulled before he married Jon’s true mother, Lyanna Stark.
Bran then says that Jon needs to be told who he really is. Which I agree with completely but what threw me off is Bran said that Jon is a Sand. Sand is the last name given to Bastards from Dorne, since Jon was born in Dorne his new last name would be Sand. Sam brings up the part that Gilly read to him before that he seemingly ignored, but apparently he took note of it. He tells Bran that about how Rhaegar had his original marriage annulled; it was recorded by the High Septon in his private journal. Bran goes back in time to watch their wedding and to revisit Jon’s birth, where we hear Lyanna tell Ned that her baby’s name is Aegon Targaryen. Also, I hope Samwell has that book stating the annulment happened because I feel like people will have a hard time believing Bran without other back up when all this comes to light.
It is significant that Jon’s real name is Aegon, because the original Aegon Targaryen was the first king of the Targaryen dynasty of Westeros; he was known as Aegon the Conqueror, the Unifier of the Seven Kingdoms – and thus many of his descendants were named after him.
Next, we see that Jon Snow still knows nothing as he goes to Khaleesi’s room and they end up having sex. This made me go, “Oh great, more incest” but it’s different between these two. They do not know they are related and that Khaleesi is actually Jon’s Aunt. I believe that Khaleesi will get pregnant here as well and the idea of the naming a heir won’t be needed. I’m betting the death of her dragon, Viserion, will lead to her being able to give life to a new child.
The final scenes of the 90-minute episode take place at the Wall. We see Tormund standing on top of the wall looking over into the cold night. He is talking with Beric when he sees the first of the dead making their way to the wall. The moment has come we have all been waiting for and dreading when the wall is faced with the White Walkers and the 100,000 plus of the dead. Ice Viserion then comes into play here as he breathes his blue fire breath on the wall, destroying it and creating a path allowing the army of the dead to come through easily. I’m calling it blue fire because I do not see Viserion being able to melt the ice wall with ice breath. We also see the Night King riding Ice Viserion as the dead march into the land of the living. I’m wondering why no one had any fire or dragonglass arrows ready at this point. They knew the dead were coming to the wall yet no one seemed prepared to even attempt to fend them off. To be fair, the only ones who could see them were at the very top of the wall and I doubt many arrows would hit from up there. Regardless, the North have some troubles ahead of them and they are coming NOW.
This episode overall was well done but left a lot of questions in its wake. I can say that even though there were only 7 episodes none of them were wasted on stupid storylines or unimportant characters. As the months go by I’m sure more theories will come out about what people think is going to happen in the final season of Game of Thrones.
Would you like for me to do some blog posts about these theories as we wait for the 8th and final season? Let me know in the comments below as well as your take on the season finale of season 7.
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