A brand-new Game of Thrones trailer recently dropped, and fans think they’ve noticed something really dark hidden in the seemingly straight-forward footage.
See if you can spot it…
As you can see, fire and ice make their way across a computer-animated version of Daenerys’s Dragonstone battle-board. At one point, the ice engulfs a statue of a wolf (the Starks) while the fire spreads across a lion statue (the Lannisters).
However, you’d expect ice and fire to have one of two outcomes when they meet – either the fire gets put out, or the ice melts. But this doesn’t happen. In fact, a black, coal-like substance appears and seems to form a barrier between the two.
Most of us took this at face value, and assumed it meant the huge battle that is due to take place. However, some fans reckon it’s actually a lot more meaningful than that. They reckon that this coal-like substance is actually dragonglass which, as you probably know, is also called obsidian – the only substance other than Valyrian steel capable of killing White Walkers.
So is this another wall? And do the Starks and the Lanniesters get completely wiped out?
We don’t know much about the new season. However, Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, told IGN: “Who knows if it will be satisfying for the fans. I think a lot of fans will be disappointed and a lot of fans will be over the moon, I think.”
In terms of the trailer, we sadly didn’t see any new footage from the season.
The ice and fire epic is notoriously tight with spoilers and promises to chop out the tongues (à la Meryn Trant) of anyone who reveals the slightest hint of what’s to come. That being said, the latest news suggests that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are planning a TV spectacle that the Old Gods and the New will be talking about for an eternity.
The person in the know is Vladimír Furdík, aka the Night King, so it comes from a pretty reliable source. Speaking to Mashable, Furdík revealed that we should all tune in to Season 8, Episode 3 — as if you were going to skip an episode anyway. “In the third episode of the last season, there is a battle that the creators intended to be a historic moment in television,” he told the site. “Almost the full episode will be about the battle, it will take about one hour.”
Peter Dinklage previously told EW that Season 8 will contain a giant fight that’ll make Season 6’s Battle of the Bastards look like a “walk in the park”. While we still don’t know what leads to this bloodthirsty brawl, the involvement of the Night King suggests that the White Walkers will finally be moving a little quicker in the final season.
Leaked pictures from the set have previously shown the Stark homestead of Winterfell up in flames, so this could be a likely setting for the ultimate Thrones throwdown. Considering major players like Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister were last seen heading to Winterfell — and Jaime Lannister is also riding in that direction — Episode 3 could be the perfect time to see Winterfell burn and lose some of those fan-favourite characters.
It’s also interesting that the show’s supersized action sequence takes place in Episode 3, but remembering that Season 8 only has six episodes, we’ll be at the midseason point by then. We’ve been waiting for a snowy showdown between the living and the dead since Samwell Tarly beasted that White Walker in Season 3, so let’s hope Episode 3 can do it justice. *Spoilers* we’re pretty sure it will. Sadly, the night is long and full of terrors because you’ll have to wait until late 2019 to see who lives and dies in Game of Thrones’ final season.