In HBO’s first major trailer for the season, we’ ve gotten a ton of glimpses at what to expect — starting with a full-scale war with the Lannisters taking on the rest of Westeros. The opening image of the trailer: a shadowy Cersei preparing for war…
“ Game of Thrones ” Season 7 is just a few short weeks away. In HBO’s first major trailer for the season, we’ ve gotten a ton of glimpses at what to expect — starting with a full-scale war with the Lannisters taking on the rest of Westeros. We’ ve poured through the rest of the trailer to see what hints can be gleaned.
Cersei (Lena Headey) went darker than she ever has before at the end of Season 6, and she’s clearly taking her battle queen approach even further this season. The opening image of the trailer: a shadowy Cersei preparing for war.
With no end of enemies — Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to the north, Dorne to the south, the Ironborn to the west and Daenerys Targaryen’s army to the east, Cersei and Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) are preparing for all-out war.
The first place Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) heads when she crosses the Narrow Sea is seemingly Dragonstone — also the first place her ancestors landed when they conquered Westeros.
The trailer also includes this poignant shot of Dany’s first moments on Westerosi soil since she was a very small child.
Dragonstone looks to be a major location for Season 7, with it acting as Daenerys’ seat of power. Here she’s on its giant stone throne.
We see a few shots of this battle between Daenerys’ Unsullied, with Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) making a few appearances, and Lannister troops. It’s hard to say exactly where this one is taking place, but with several shots that have shown Dany landing at Dragonstone, that could be the scene of this big battle. The Lannister insignia over the arch at least gives some clues, but it’s probably fair to rule out King’s Landing. Could this be an attack on Casterly Rock, which is on the west side of Westeros from Dragonstone, later in the season?
Meanwhile, there’s some obvious lingering conflicts going on between Jon Snow, the King in the North, and Sansa Stark, the last trueborn heir (that anyone knows about) of Ned Stark (Sean Bean) . It doesn’ t look like the two are going to share power well.
And Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) is hanging around to stir things up between them, it seems.
This shot doesn’ t tell us much out of context, but it dovetails in an interesting way with several other moments in the trailer. This looks like one of the interior gates in the Wall opening. Coupled with shots we see later of a group of what looks like free folk, including Jon and Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) running from something, this could give a clue about a narrow escape — or a breach of the wall by the Night’s King (Richard Brake) .
Oh hey, it’s Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) , seemingly standing near some fire. This shot doesn’ t amount to much alone, but paired with a later shot, it looks like the Greyjoy kids might be in some trouble.
This is another moment that it’s not clear just what we’ re seeing. Melisandre (Carice van Houten) , the Red Woman, is obviously still in play. This also looks like it could be Dragonstone. Maybe Jon sends Davos (Liam Cunningham) and Melisandre to parlay with Dany? That would fit well with Davos’ speech about how it doesn’ t matter who’s skeleton sits on the Iron Throne later in the trailer.
We have no context for this shot, but with the earlier one of the gate and a couple later ones, this looks like a battle with Jon, Tormund and the Free Folk against the White Walkers going very poorly. We’ re betting this is north of the Wall.
Meanwhile, what’s going on with Arya? She’s mentioned as an “enemy to the north” by Cersei at the start of the trailer. She’s back in Westeros — is she on her way to Winterfell to meet up with Sansa and Jon? Or maybe headed even further, to try to find Bran?
Back to that moment with the fleeing Free Folk — this has the look of a last desperate stand.
Littlefinger lurking in the shadows is basically his entire character, but it seems a fair bet that he’s got plans to take advantage of this giant Westeros-spanning war we’ re expecting.
We knew Dany was bringing a bunch of Dothraki warriors with her to Westeros. We see them wrecking some poor Lannister footmen in a few of these shots. None of the warfare we’ ve seen so far seems like it’s going well for the Lannisters.
That’s a ship on fire, and paired with the fiery-seeming image of Theon earlier in the trailer, it’s fair to speculate that the Greyjoy heirs’ uncle, Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) , is going to catch up with them.
This shot contextualizes the earlier ones of the giant wooden map of Westeros — it’s the map at Dragonstone. Meanwhile, Tyrion is definitely helping wage a war against his siblings, in case there was any doubt on that front.
Check out the cool new outfit for the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) , which matches Cersei’s Dark Queen look.
These dark top-down shots of several people running by torchlight are tough to make out, but we have reason to suspect they’ re taking place under the Wall. For one thing, the sides of the path move and flicker with the torchlight — it looks almost like smoke, but seems to be reflection off icy walls instead. In the back of the group looks to be Davos, and judging by the way the light hits the clothes, the one with the torch could be Jon. At the end of their run down a hallway, they turn toward a group of armed fighters — looks like the Night’s Watch. We’ re thinking this is Jon preparing for battle at the wall against the White Walkers, possibly after the narrow escape north of the wall we saw earlier.
That’s Littlefinger that Jon is threatening, or assaulting, or killing in these shots, and they might be in the crypt at Winterfell, although it’s tough to say. But the conflict between them (and likely involving Sansa) seems like it’ ll be a major thread.
The Unsullied taking on Lannister troops here looks like a continuation of the earlier shot, from the banners and walls. We’ re still not clear on the location, though.
This context-free shot raises a lot of questions. Where is Arya, and what’s she looking for? The next image gives at least a bit of a clue, possibly.
With the image lightened up, that creepy hand coming through the door — which gives the impression of someone imprisoned — looks gray and stony. Our money is on this being Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) , who contracted the dreaded Greyscale disease Season 5. Greyscale, if you remember, turns the skin hard and stony, but also drives the afflicted insane.
