Well, that was completely intense throughout wasn’t it?

Game of Throne season 7 episode 6 delivered in a way not many of the other episodes this season have, it seemed very linear and not too much going on in the ways of complexity. I think even the most casual GoT fan would have pretty much nailed what was happening throughout. None-the-less it was extremely eventful and it leads onto a few additional hints to what could happen in the future.

This review will be structured slightly different to usual, focusing on what happened beyond the wall, what happened in Winterfell and a bit of Dragonstone, plus my final thoughts.

North of the Wall
Beyond the wall our 7 piece squad of badasses comprising of Jon, Jorah, Tormund, The Hound, Beric, Thoros and Gendry are making their way deep North to find and capture a Wight. The point of this mission is to get one alive and bring it back to Cersei to convince her that these things exist and the threat is real. It’s yet another one of Tyrion’s plans and I’m sorry to say not a very good one. For example, wouldn’t it have been simpler for Dany to just fly North on Drogon and literally pick up a Wight from the sky and bring it home? A lot of films have this issue, where there’s a simpler option to take, but in using it we lose the drama surrounding the bad plan. There’s the age old joke about Lord of the Rings and how surely the eagles could have just flown the fellowship to Mordor instead of the epic journey the three films show us. Of course if that happened we’d not have had said epic journey to Mordor, so occasionally we have to let these things slide.

The conversations between the 7 man squad are particularly brilliant in this episode and the obvious one that stood out for me was between The Hound and Tormond, two amazing characters with the biggest balls in the show. They mock each other with no clear winner and almost an air of mutual respect which really worked well on screen. It’s easy to forgot that these 7 guys have all been on amazing journeys and involved in some serious game-changing character story arcs. For example Thoros and Beric found that the Lord of Light wants them to work as one, with Thoros resurrecting Betic whenever he dies, Jon going from bastard to King in the North, Tormond leaving his pride behind and working with the Night’s Watch for the first time in Wildling history, Gendry finding out he’s more than just a commoner from Flea Bottom, Jorah and he discovered love for Dany and finally The Hound going from Joffrey’s loyal dog to a defender of men. There are some amazing turn of events with these guys and each and every one is truly remarkable in what they have achieved since Season 1 and beyond.

Squad goals. The 7 march North of the Wall.

As the story progresses the squad come across some pretty scary things, not to mention a giant polar bear which we also see is clearly undead, raised by the Night King. It’s some great foreshadowing with what happens at the end of the episode as the Night King turns Viseron into an undead dragon. They manage to take down the polar bear with some clever trickery from Beric and Thoros, as they light their swords and burn the beast. In the fighting Thoros takes some horrible wounds and when it looks like we may lose our first member of the team, he’s swiftly helped to his feet. Later in the episode Thoros does die and it is an extremely sad moment. Although Thoros isn’t quite the heroic pin up we’ve been offered throughout the series, this drunken Priest has saved Beric on multiple occasions, using the Lord of Light’s powers to bring him back to life. Beric will no doubt have a big say in something at some point either this season or next and I have a feeling we’ll have Thoros to thank for keeping him alive all this time. So here’s a glass of ale to our fallen Priest.

The group come across a White Walker who is out ranging on his own by the looks of things and after attacking and killing it we get quite a big reveal. It seems as though whenever a White Walker dies, the men or animals it has resurrected as a Wight are also killed. So basically, if you kill the Walkers you destroy the army of the dead with them and even more importantly, as Beric rightly points out, if you kill the Night King they will all fall. The Children of the Forest created the Night King to use as a weapon of mass destruction for themselves and therefore he is he key to it all. It’s worth remembering too that the Walkers have no agenda, they have no emotional thought process, they are weapons manufactured to destroy men, to “wipe the board clean” as it were, so they won’t stop until they are stopped. Killing the Night King is the best way to do this and I have my own theories as to how.

After killing the White Walker and taking a Wight captive, Jon and the group are found by the Night King’s army and in a thrilling chase find themselves stranded on an island on what seems like a lake, but not before Jon orders Gendry to run back to Eastwatch and get a raven to Dany to explain what’s happening.
Trapped on the island, the Wights dare not attack after the ice starts to break and make a decision to wait for the lake to refreeze. I found this quite interesting, as it seems as though the Wights can think, right? They made a call to stop attacking, when I was always convinced they were just mindless zombies. Of course this could also be a decision by the Night King who stares a top a hill in the distance menacingly watching. Perhaps it is him making these decisions seeing as he is using a similar greensight and warging ability that Bran also has. We’ve seen Bran control ravens to scout North of the Wall, so it’s likely the Night King is using the same magic to simply control the Wights and see through their eyes. Another reason I’ve said since season 1 that Bran will be the key in winning the war…

The Night King watches on!

Winterfell
At Winterfell, Arya comes clean to Sansa that she knows about the incriminating letter written by her sister, betraying her family. If you’re still in the dark about what exactly it was that Arya found and has on Sansa, then you need to read my blog from last week for it to make more sense. So go do that!
Anyway, Sansa protests her innocents which Arya gives her a really hard time about and let’s face it, I’m kinda on Sansa’s side here. We know she’s not a traitor but even if Arya doesn’t, Sansa was just a young girl at the time, manipulated by Cersei to try get her brother to bend the knee to Joffrey, so what does Arya expect? The sisters spar over who is to blame, Sansa pointing out that Arya also stood by and watched too as Ned was beheaded and also protests her innocents further explaining what she’s been through and that it was down to her that Jon didn’t lose the Battle of the Bastards. Again, Sansa is correct, the Knights of the Vale rode in and saved the day and that was all down to her, so it seems strange Arya is too stubborn to this. I do feel there’s more to this than meets the eye here, but I’ll get back to that.

Later in the episode Sansa tries to find the evidence in Arya’s chambers, understandably concerned about what could happen if news got out they she betrayed her house. She’d lose the Northern Lords at once with Jon missing, so it’s imperative this information doesn’t get out. She comes across Arya’s bag of faces, men and women she has killed and taken. Quite how this magic works is unclear but it seems as though when Arya kills somebody, she’s got an ability to use the face and take the form of that person, just like she did with Walder Frey at the beginning of the season. The fact that we’re seeing more of these faces tells me that there’s more to come from this and Arya will once again take the form of somebody else very soon to manipulate things her way. The show is suggesting that she may kill Sansa, but I’m not so sure. For me Arya is probably playing a double bluff and that’s my prediction. We know Littlefinger bluffed her into finding the scroll incriminating Sansa, putting the sisters at war, but what if Arya is double bluffing Littlefinger, trying to get him where she wants him and prove to Sansa how much of a clever snake he is? I think this is more likely than the simple fact that Arya is gullible enough to believe Sansa would sell out her own House, but time will tell on this.

Littlefinger uses the rift between the sisters to once again try manipulate Sansa into doing what he wants her to do. He puts doubt in Sansa by asking questions which may alter answers in her own head and make her paranoid around certain people, i.e Brienne. Sansa later receives a raven from and inviting her to King’s Landing, which she orders Brienne to attend as her representative. This letter seems very convenient if Sansa was to want Brienne out of the way? Could it be a ploy by her and or Littlefinger? But why would she want that? As Littlefinger rightly points out, if Arya was to try something, Brienne being sworn to protect both girls and would surely take the side of the victim. So Sansa must have another plan. Perhaps she plans to strike Arya before Arya strikes her? If she truly feels physically threatened by Arya this may be the case. Why this may not seem like a very “Sansa” thing to do, as mentioned earlier in the review we’ve seen some amazing changes in character arcs and for all Sansa has been through it could well be leading to this. Either way it’s unclear as to Sansa’s motivations for sending Brienne away and it’s also unclear on whether Arya truly believes her sister as a traitor or if she’s playing Littlefinger at his own game to “out” him. I guess we’ll find out in the finale!

North of the Wall
After at least a day’s worth of freezing on the lake, The Hound in his boredom starts to throw rocks at the Wights and after a miss-timed throw, reveals to the Night King that the lake has frozen back up. A few ballsy Wights start to cross before hundreds descend on the group. Fighting them off, we don’t lose any more main characters, which in some ways was a little disappointing. This was a good opportunity for some characters to go out as heros, as we embark on the final season of Game of Thrones next year, but clearly there’s more in store for the group as Dany storms in atop Drogon once again to save the day. This time she has all her dragons with her, Drogon, named after Drogo, Rhaegal, named after her brother Rhaegar and Viseron, named after her brother Viserys. The trio of beasts start engulfing Wights with dragon flames left right and centre and it’s beautiful to watch. Drogon lands as the best bus service you’ve ever seen, and the group start to jump on with the captured Wight in tact. Jon, however is caught astray fighting off Wights and demanding that Dany take off and go and whilst this is going on we’re given one of the saddest and cruellest deaths in all of Game of Thrones. The Night King takes aims with his ice spear and launches it into the flying Viseron who comes tumbling down into the lake, in flames. It’s a truly horrible moment as the group watch on and Drogon roars in mourning for his brother. One spear, one shot and we lose one of the most magical beasts to exists in Westeros for hundreds of years. Dany swiftly departs leaving Jon behind as he’s pulled under the lake by Wights.

Dany watches on after Viseron is killed by the Night King.

Moments later Jon rises from the lake, Longclaw in hand and starts to retreat. The Wights bear down on him but he’s saved by a familiar character, his uncle Benjen. Benjen is a little bit of a mystery, he’s half Wight and half man and why is unclear; and we’ll probably not find out, but he arrives in time to give Jon his horse and save his nephew before being killed by Wights. His sacrifice to save Jon was less memorable than it should have been and that’s a shame but let’s drink a flagon of wine to the fallen uncle Benjen. To Benjen!

Dany awaits Jon’s return at Eastwatch and she’s right to do so as the bastard arrives half dead on horse back. Jon awakes aboard one of Dany’s ships with her at his side. The two share a tender moment where they mourn the loss of Viseron and the show continues to build the romance between them. Dany talks a lot about the dragons being her babies and how she’ll never bear another child. Fans suggest this could be paving the way for a baby born between Dany and Jon, which would be a little weird as they’re both Targaryen’s but not uncommon for Game of Thrones and Targaryen’s in general. We’ve seen in the previous episode that Cersei is pregnant with her brother Jaime’s baby and there was potentially some foreshadowing from Tyrion when he questioned who would be Dany’s successor back at Dragonstone, but all this remains to be seen.
Dany sees the scars Jon bears from being killed by his own men, another indication to her of their connection, both reborn and putting their lives on the line for their people. The writers have had to be very careful with how they’ve handled the relationship between these two characters, it could have easily looked cheesy and forced, but I do thing they’ve done a good job as Jon finally bends the knee and swears Dany as his Queen.

The final scene is probably the most shocking, which is a shock in itself considering the epic we were treated to in episode 6, as the Night King commands his army of Wights to pull Viseron out of the lake with chains. He approaches Viseron and it becomes clear quite quickly what he intends to do. With one touch of his cold grasp he turns Viseron into an undead dragon as we see the beast’s eyes open blue and cold as the night. The Night King finally has what he wants, his own weapon of mass destruction, a wight dragon. This is a complete game changer and a scary one. Atop a dragon, just image what the Night King could do. I don’t suspect we’ll see any more of the Walkers this season, but one thing for sure is we’re in for an amazing final season.

The blue eye, confirming the worst news we could have received.

Final thoughts
There were a few extra scenes involving Tyrion and Dany which i didn’t feel to important to worry about, but it was clear Tyrion didn’t want her to leave and was he right? What exactly did they achieve? They lost an entire dragon due to a plan to capture a wight to show Cersei. What’s the say Cersei will even care? One purpose it did serve was to enhance the relationship between Jon and Dany, but it seems to me the main negative outweighs it all. The Night King now has his own dragon!

I do also think Arya and Sansa will out Littlefinger and put their differences aside and in fact Littlefinger is my big death prediction for the finale, so watch this space.

As the seasons ends, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more King’s Landing content in the finale and it’ll be interesting to see Cersei’s reaction to the Wight, a potential meeting of the two Queens, The Hound perhaps coming head to head with his undead brother The Mountain and finally more fall out in Winterfell.

As always, bring on Monday!

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