Oh man. How is Game of Thrones over for another season already? How do we only have six episodes left? Why doesn’t HBO create content specifically with me in mind?
The season finale of Game of Thrones was a reunion for almost every character, good and bad: The Mountain and the Hound, the Hound and Brienne, Brienne and Jaime, Jaime and Tyrion, Tyrion and Cersei, Cersei and Jon (technically speaking), Theon and Euron, Bronn and Podric, and then all the way up north, Sam and Bran. It was like one giant family reunion: tense, but with a few good moments. Probably shouldn’t be repeated too often.
Anyway, here’s 14 things you may well have missed while holding your hand to your mouth.
1. There’s a very good reason Bronn and Podrick pop off for a drink before the big meeting.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. It’s rumoured that Jerome Flynn (Bronn) and Lena Headey (Cersei), who supposedly once dated, had such a bad breakup that they refuse to be in the same room as one another.
There is literally no other reason Bronn and Podric would miss the most important meeting of perhaps the entire series for a drink. And did you see any pubs nearby? No. You did not.
(FWIW in the books the Dragonpit is within the city walls, so there might have been a closer pub. Still, I refuse to believe that this served any purpose other than getting Flynn the hell away from Headey.)
2. Cersei was confronted by an old prophecy when she met Daenerys.
As a child, Cersei was told by the witch Maggy that she would be cast down by another and more beautiful queen. (Yes, it’s the same witch that told Cersei all three of her kids would die and that her younger brother would kill her by strangulation.) It partially explains why Cersei hated Queen Margaery so much, but in the season finale she’s confronted by a younger, more beautiful, and more powerful queen – and one who just casually rocked up late to a meeting on the back of a dragon, no less. You’d be pissed, too.
“We’ve been here for some time.”
“My apologies.”
3. The Hound basically confirmed Clegangebowl is happening.
When the Hound sees his older brother the Mountain, he immediately walks straight up to him. “You’re even uglier than I am, now. What did they do to you? Doesn’t matter, it’s not how it ends for you, brother. You know who’s coming for you. You’ve always known.”
There’s two possible explanations here, one which makes way more sense than the other. The first is that the Hound is merely referring to himself, seeking vengeance for the atrocities the Mountain committed on his own family (not only did he hold the Hound’s face in a fire when he was a boy, but in the books, the Hound believes he murdered their sister). Cleganebowl (basically) confirmed: Season 8.
The other explanation is that when the Hound had his face burned, he saw a vision of how the Mountain would meet his death. We’ve seen the Hound experience one vision, at the beginning of this season, so it’s not totally unfathomable for him to have seen another. That being said, his vision was ‘assisted’ by Thoros, and tbh this whole thing is a stretch.
My guess? The Hound will murder the Mountain, but will be grievously injured himself in the process. Kind of a repeat of the Mountain vs Oberyn Martell, but without a creepy Qyburn to bring the Hound back to life.
4. Euron was making a pass at Dany right in front of Cersei.
Euron‘s mission in life – apart from being a total cunt to everyone around him – is to marry the most beautiful princess in the world. He told Cersei as much earlier this season. When he told Dany that they should both escape to an island and wait the war out, he was basically offering to hook up with Dany once the entirety of Westeros was dead, Cersei included.
Of course, we know that he was really headed straight to Essos to pick up the Golden Company, but knowing Euron, if Dany had taken him up on his offer, that’s exactly what he would have done.
5. It’s basically been confirmed that Cersei is pregnant now.
When Cersei told Jaime she was pregnant earlier this season, everyone pretty much assumed she was lying in order to manipulate Jaime.
But unless she was luring Tyrion into a trap – those belly strokes were a bit flipping obvious – it looks like she’s really up the duff. Her entire face changed when Tyrion clocked the pregnancy, and whatever turn their conversation took, it convinced Cersei to change her plan of attack.
This also offers up another theory: that Cersei will die in labor giving birth to a dwarf. It would be ironic, given Cersei’s hatred of Tyrion for causing the death of their mother, and would still satisfy Maggy’s predictions that Cersei’s “little brother” would kill her (Jaime got her pregnant) and that she’d only have three children.
Not sure how it would satisfy the “the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you” bit, but prophecies are tricky.
6. Dany’s used the “a dragon is not a slave” line before.
When she tells Jon, “Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor – a dragon is not a slave,” she’s referencing a quote she used in Season 3, shortly before burning slave master Kraznyz mo Nakloz alive and ordering her brand new Unsullied army to kill the Good Masters.
Bye bitch.
7. Jon’s conversation with Theon is bound to come up next season.
Jon told Theon: “You’re a Greyjoy, and you’re a Stark.” That conversation was an ender on seven seasons of Theon battling with who he was: a prisoner or a warden, a Stark or a Greyjoy, Theon or Reek. Jon having Stark blood has come up a LOT this season, and while we know it’s true, we also now have confirmation that he has Targaryen blood, too. This chat with Theon is some hectic foreshadowing to a convo Jon will be having in the very near future.
8. Littlefinger’s “chaos is a ladder” line had a gruesome ending.
It’s interesting that since Bran told Littlefinger, “chaos is a ladder”, we’ve been gearing up for (or rather, dreading) Littlefinger to continue his ascension.
But Littlefinger’s original speech to Varys went a lot further than that one line:
Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.
He fell. And it was so fucking glorious to watch.
9. This episode was super obsessed with cocks.
The opening scene gives us a chat between Bronn and Jaime about what motivates men to fight. Jaime muses that “perhaps it’s all cocks in the end”, while gazing down at the Unsullied – and cockless – army.
Later, Theon only gains the upper hand in his fight against Harrag when the captain goes to knee him in the groin, and Theon is suddenly powered by his lack of “pillar and stones”. (Did the writers ask a single woman before writing that getting kicked in the groin, even without balls, is extremely painful?) Anyway, Theon murders Harrag, and Harrag’s men are like yep, cool, on with yer plan, then.
10. Cersei had the chance to murder both of her brothers, but didn’t.
It’s perhaps Cersei’s one redeeming feature: that she cannot murder her own family, no matter how much she hates them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I KNOW she already tried to kill Tyrion, but that was when she thought he’d murdered Joffrey (or at the very least, had the suspicion as justification). Ironically, it means that she almost definitely let her future murderer go, as the valonqar theory states she’ll be murdered by her “little brother”, and both of her brothers are younger.
11. Jaime’s leaving of King’s Landing paralleled his arrival last season.
Shout-out to Redditor ownageman247 for this one. When Jaime arrived in King’s Landing at the end of Season 6, he rode in on a horse, and everything was in flames. (Cersei had just blown up the Sept.) When he left at the end of Season 6, snow was beginning to fall.
12. Sansa and Arya both repeat Ned Stark quotes to one another.
In Season 1, when Arya is furious at Sansa for lying about Joffrey and Nymeria, Ned tells her that “in the winter, we must protect ourselves, look after one another. Sansa is your sister.”
In the books, the line extends one sentence further: “When the cold winds blow, the lone wolf dies and the pack survives.”
This line was cut from the show, so here Sansa is saying it here for the first time. But it’s a nice way to show that, despite their differences, they are both Ned Stark’s daughters. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
13. The scene also echos a Sansa and Jon one from Season 6.
Sansa and Arya’s final scene of the season is pretty damn similar to one with Sansa and Jon back in Season 6, after they took Winterfell back from Ramsay Bolton.
Nice that all the Stark siblings – those who aren’t Three Eyed Ravens, anyway – got to have a heart-to-heart in the same spot, even if not all of them are technically Starks.
14. During the final scene, the horn blew three times.
The men of the Night’s Watch have a system with the horns. It blows once for rangers returning, twice for wildlings, and three times for the others. We’ve only seen it once before, at the end of Season 2, and never at the Wall itself. In ‘A Storm of Swords‘, hearing the three blasts scares one character so much, he shits himself. A nice sense of dread to welcome the incoming army to the Seven Kingdoms.
And THAT’S ALL, FOLKS. If you need be, I’ll be fervently rewatching the series until Season 8 is upon us.
