Seven Questions About The New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 7 Trailer

HBO has released a second trailer for season seven of Game of Thrones. That’s it just above these words. You should watch it, especially if you’re like me and so ready for the new season to start that you might explode a little before we get to the July 16 premiere date. I mean, it’s something, at least, and it’s filled with tons of vague declarations and brief action shots and periodic glimpses of swooping and/or snarling dragons. The trailer also probably features lots of teasers and hints and callbacks, which you might have picked up on and are welcome to share in the comments. I have other things I want to cover in this breakdown. Seven of them, to be precise, at least one of which relates to flaming swords. Flaming swords are important.

Let’s discuss.

What is everyone looking at?

The trailer opens with a pair of voiceovers, one from Littlefinger about fighting “every battle” and one from Jon Snow about putting differences aside to fight a common enemy. The point of this is clear: The show’s long-brewing wars — plural, what with the Night King rolling in and Dany and her dragons coming for the Iron Throne — are finally upon us. But you knew that. It’s kind of the point of the whole thing. “Winter is coming” and so on and so forth. The more interesting thing to me is that the first minute or so of the trailer is just shot after shot of characters walking or riding into the frame while looking with concern at something off in the distance. There are seriously so many of these shots. Here, look:

It’s fun to look at each of these and imagine, like, one of Dany’s dragons riding a tiny bicycle just offscreen.

How amped are you for whatever Daenerys and her crew of beasts and rascals have in store?

Because I’ll be honest. I saw this shot of a bunch of ships within about a 5-iron of shore and I was at about an 8 on my How Amped Am I? scale…

… and then a little bit later in the trailer they dropped this shot on us, with flying dragons and charging warriors carrying curved blades…

… and I shot straight up to a 10. There are lots of other quick-cut battle scenes in the trailer, too, and not all from this battle. Some feature things like Jaime Lannister riding a horse through fire or Tormund slashing someone with what appears to be an ax while screaming like a maniac, because Tormund is the best and if he dies I will be inconsolable. It’s going down. That’s the implication.

I also think I should note that my How Amped Am I? scale only goes up to five.

What would you do if you showed up to a fight and a dude with an eyepatch pulled out a huge sword and then that sword magically burst into flames?

I would probably just freeze there in terrified awe until the man decapitated me with said flaming sword. I would not last very long on this show. Like, seconds. I’d probably be an apple merchant who counts someone’s change wrong and gets beheaded immediately. Not even by a main character or a giant or dragon. Just by some nameless soldier in a helmet who gets killed himself later in the episode, also not even by a main character. I think about this a lot.

What does Sansa mean by “the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives”?

Right, so this is the line at the end of the trailer, and it comes just as we see Jon Snow slash someone with his sword while standing alone. My assumption here is that they mean Jon will have to team up with other groups to survive because going it alone will result in disaster (which, again, is kind of the theme here), but a tiny part of me hopes they mean Jon is the lone wolf who dies. It’s not that I hate Jon or anything, and I admit it would be weird for the show given the R+L=J theory that seems to be looking more and more like a real thing. I just enjoy chaos and kind of want to see the next day reaction if they kill off Jon again after bringing him back to life just last year. It’s the same part of me that hopes George R.R. Martin never finishes the books and just blogs about the Jets from a cabana for the rest of his life. I know none of this is helpful. I just like watching things burn sometimes.

Where’s Daenerys going?

I’m sure there’s a good reason why Dany is strolling alone on a beach in this shot, possibly involving war or power struggles or a solo mission that she must undertake even though many of her advisors warned her that “it’s suicide,” but it’s also fun to imagine this is scene in the actual show is like a three-minute montage of her thinking about Khal Drogo, skipping stones and sighing into the ocean, set to “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” by Whitney Houston.

It’s nice that they finally got Bran a wheelchair, right?

As a wheelchair user myself, I must say, I was happy to see Bran finally get the hookup on this. My guy has been getting dragged around in a wheelbarrow and carried by sweet, simple giants for seasons now. I choose to believe this all happened because he was waiting for his insurance to cover this wheelchair. Now we just need him to get this sucker all magic’d up so he can drive himself around. I am happy to consult for the show on this matter, for a dollar amount no higher than $400,000. Although, now that I think about it, having a Hodor seemed pretty okay, too. Maybe I’ll consider foregoing my fee in exchange for the real Kristain Nairn carrying me around. I can go to his raves with him. We’ll have fun.

(I would still like that $400,000, though.)

Yesssssss.

Okay, this one isn’t a question, I guess. But come on. Look at that guy. Start the show already, HBO. Geez.

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