Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 2 – let’s begin.
We start with a storm on Dragonstone, which is significant to Daenerys cause she was born
during a storm on Dragonstone . After her father King Aerys was overthrown by Robert,
she and her brother Viserys fled Dragonstone and went east.
Now, some sixteen years later, she returns to reclaim her throne.
Dany questions Varys, and points out that he served both King Aerys and King Robert
– and he plotted against both of them . Varys also backed Viserys, until he turned out to
be useless.
And under orders from Robert, Varys once sent an assassin to kill Dany – though he also
warned Jorah so he could protect her . Point is – Varys betrayed all of these people.
So how can Daenerys trust him?
Varys says he grew up as an orphan and a slave, and he’ll support whoever protects the people.
So long as Dany is a good ruler, he’ll be loyal, cause he “serve[s] the realm” . When
he says this in the books, it’s probably a lie – Varys has more complex motivations
relating to Illyrio, and family – go watch this video.
But in the show, this seems to be the simple truth.
Varys really believes that Daenerys could be a great ruler.
But there’s still some tension here – cause Dany threatens to burn Varys if he turns on
her – which is exactly the sort of thing the Mad King did.
Will Dany protect the people, or will she be more like her father?
Dany then gets a visit from Melisandre.
Like Varys, Mel was once a slave, and, like Varys, she’s served other leaders before
– she was with Stannis, then with Jon.
Mel warns Dany of the Long Night, of the darkness brought by the white walkers.
And she speaks of the prince that was promised, or Azor Ahai, a hero prophesied to save the
world from this darkness . Missandei points out that this prophecy could refer to a man
or a woman.
And Mel suggests it might mean both – that Dany and Jon Snow could each have a role – fire
and ice combined, to save the world from the night.
There are a lot of different ideas in the books about how this might go down – according
to one story, the original Azor Ahai sacrificed his wife to forge a sword to beat the walkers.
Will Jon have to kill Dany to save the world?
Tyrion vouches for Jon – they got along back in Season 1 . So Dany decides to try
to ally with Jon.
At Winterfell, Jon and Sansa and Davos talk over Dany’s invitation.
Jon does like Tyrion, and so does Sansa – she was once married to him, remember.
Davos points out that they need Dany’s dragonfire to kill the army of the dead.
And Jon learns from Sam of the dragonglass at Dragonstone, which they need to kill the
white walkers.
And so Jon tells the north that he’ll meet the dragon queen.
A lot of his lords don’t like the idea – they don’t trust Dany, they remember how her
father the Mad King killed Jon’s grandfather and uncle.
But Jon says that they need Dany’s support and that he’s the best man to go meet her.
While he’s gone, Sansa will rule the north.
Jon heads down to the crypt, to visit the tomb of the man who he thinks is his father
– Ned Stark.
Littlefinger slithers in and does his creepy thing, prodding at Jon’s insecurities, talkin
bout how Catelyn never loved him.
He mentions Cat, Ned, Tyrion, Sansa – all people who Petyr has screwed over one way
or another.
By the time Littlefinger talks about how much he loves Sansa, Jon has had enough, and chokes
Petyr gainst a wall – just like Ned did in Season 1.
Why does Petyr keep on provoking Starks into choking him?
Is this, like, his thing or what?
Jon warns Pete not fuck with him, and storms off, leaving us wondering – what’s Petyr’s
plan here?
Some speculate that he might try to turn Sansa against Jon by revealing the truth of Jon’s
parentage – that’s he’s not the son of Ned Stark, but is actually the son of Lyanna
Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
Should a Targaryen bastard be allowed to rule the north?
There’s no evidence that Petyr knows this though, so he might need another strategy.
For Sansa, this’ll be her first big political test – she’s never ruled a kingdom before.
Will she rise to the challenge, or be swayed by Littlefinger?
At the capital, Cersei meets with some lords and speaks some classic political spin to
make her look like a good leader and Daenerys look like the enemy.
She says Dany brings foreign Unsullied soldiers, and rapist Dothraki, bad hombres – who will
burn and pillage Westeros.
Which may well be true – we’ve seen Dothraki at war before, and it’s not pretty.
Cersei reminds the lords that Dany is the Mad King’s daughter, and that she killed
and tortured people in Meereen, which again is true.
Just like a modern politician, Cersei uses fear to win her subjects’ support.
But the most important lord here is Randyll Tarly, father of Sam and Dickon.
Randyll is a powerful military leader in the reach . He’s sworn to Olenna Tyrell, who
supports Daenerys, but Jaime suggests that if Randyll helps Cersei instead, they’ll
give Randyll rule of the reach.
And this has some basis in the books – the Tyrells were originally stewards, and the
only reason they now rule the reach is cause they just sorta happened to be at the right
place right time to hand Highgarden to Aegon the Conqueror.
The other houses of the reach always thought that was kinda bullshit, and there are hints
that some hope to overthrow the Tyrells.
So it makes sense that Randyll might change sides for Cersei.
But as Randyll points out, Cersei faces the same problem the reach faced with Aegon centuries
ago – how do you beat three giant fire-breathing dragons?
Qyburn says he has a solution.
They go to the basement where the old Targaryen dragon skulls are kept, including the skull
of Balerion, a famous massive dragon ridden by Aegon during his conquest.
Qyburn unveils a sort of ballista, which punches a hole in the priceless historical artefact.
Dragons have been killed by this kind of weapon in Thrones before – so it definitely poses
a danger to Dany’s dragons.
Also it’s kinda funny seeing Cersei with a big crossbow – since her son Joffrey also
liked those kinds of weapons.
This week on Embarrassing Bodies, Archmaester Ebrose tells Jorah Mormont that he’s gonna
die.
The greyscale infection has spread too far, and he’ll soon lose his mind and become
a stone man – to join the others in Valyria – unless he chooses instead to commit suicide.
Sam wants to save Jorah, and points out that Shireen Baratheon was cured of greyscale – but
Ebrose says only children can survive it like that.
Some fans theorise that since dragonglass is mentioned as a cure for greyscale in this
book last episode, and Shireen lived on Dragonstone which is built on a “mountain of dragonglass”,
maybe, somehow, that’s what saved Shireen – like in South Park when Magic Johnson
survives AIDS by sleeping on cash.
One way or another, Sam is determined to help Jorah, partly because he’s the son of Jeor
Mormont, who was Lord Commander to Sam in the Night’s Watch.
So that night, Sam sneaks to Jorah’s chamber to heal him.
It’s crazy how, in Book 1, Sam was so nervous and shy and afraid that he could barely even
look at a dead man . Now, he’s secretly performing forbidden experimental surgery
on a highly contagious greyscale patient – Sam’s so much braver now.
So he starts the procedure on Jorah, using some kind of paste, which might be made of
dragonglass, as suggested in this book?
We don’t know the details – we only know this process is painful, and so dangerous
that it’s forbidden.
In the books, a character called Victarion has his injured arm treated in a mysterious
process that gives him a magic super-powered smoking-burnt fire-arm – and some readers
hope this might happen to Jorah, though that’s not looking super likely here.
We’ll just have to wait and see the results of this treatment.
But one other cool thing in Oldtown is that Ebrose is writing a history book, and Sam
suggests it should have a poetic title.
Some fans speculate that Sam is the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones
books – like, maybe the series will end with him putting down his pen, like Frodo
in Lord of the Rings.
That’s assuming, though, that Sam will survive this story.
At Dragonstone, Dany plans her invasion of Westeros.
She could just fly into King’s Landing with her dragons, roast Cersei and take the Throne
– but that would be a bit too easy, wouldn’t it?
Tyrion says attacking the capital would cost too many lives, so instead, they’ll put
the city under siege with forces from Dorne and the reach, while Grey Worm and the Unsullied
take Casterly Rock.
It’s questionable whether this plan makes any sense – cause you probably could take
King’s Landing without much loss of life if you just flew to the Red Keep and didn’t
start any fires.
Besieging the city will starve people and hurt the common folk, which is exactly what
Tyrion hopes to avoid.
The geography’s also weird – cause Dany must have passed Dorne on her way up to Dragonstone.
Now she’s sending her back down to Dorne, then north again, to pick up soldiers?
Geography has kinda gone out the window since the show passed the books.
But they’re just trying to keep things dramatic – it would be boring if Dany just won this
war instantly.
You’ve got to show her fighting, and give her a chance to lose.
There’s also drama amongst Dany’s war council cause Ellaria killed Tyrion’s niece
Myrcella.
And, though Tyrion doesn’t know it, Olenna helped frame Tyrion for Joffrey’s murder
– maybe that’ll be an issue later.
There’s an intimate scene with Grey Worm and Missandei, which some people felt was
pointless, but there is some meaning here.
Grey Worm and Missandei were both slaves.
Their bodies were property, tools for violence and obedience.
But here they defy their former masters by instead using their bodies for love.
Which is kinda beautiful.
We see Arya bump into Hot Pie, who was her companion for a while til he came to this
inn.
While everyone else has been out fighting and dying, Hot Pie has been baking and surviving.
He asks Arya what happened to her, and she doesn’t answer – how could she?
Since they last met, Arya rode with the Hound, murdered some people, joined a death cult,
murdered more people, went blind, got stabbed, lost her friend, slayed some Freys, and met
Ed Sheeran.
How could she begin to explain all of this trauma?
All of the things that she’s done?
As well as providing pie, Hot Pie gives Arya some information.
He mentions that everyone knows that Cersei blew up the Sept at King’s Landing – so
it’s kinda hard to see how people are so cool with her after she killed all these people.
Hot Pie also says that the Starks have retaken Winterfell, and that Jon is King – so Arya
decides not to go kill Cersei, but instead to reunite with her family.
That human connection is more important to her than killing.
Arya was especially close to Jon growing up, and they miss each other a lot throughout
the series . There have been hints in the books they’d reunite – but it might not
happen this time, cause just as Arya’s heading for Winterfell, Jon’s leaving for Dragonstone.
But as Arya rides north, she has a different reunion – with her direwolf, Nymeria.
Arya and Nymeria were close in Season 1, but they had to split up after Nymeria saved Arya
from Joffrey.
In the books, Arya stays magically connected to Nymeria over distance, having wolf dreams
where she controls Nym’s body in her sleep.
Nymeria grows into a “monstrous she-wolf”, leading a “great pack” of man-eating wolves
in riverlands.
Series author George Martin has hinted this pack might be a part of the story later on.
In the show, though, this scene has the tone of a farewell.
Arya asks Nym to come with her to Winterfell, but she doesn’t, and Arya says “That’s
not you”.
This refers to a bit in Season 1 when Ned tells Arya about the life she should live
as a lady in a castle wearing a pretty dress – when Arya responds “That’s not me”.
Arya’s fierce and independent, she won’t live the domestic life.
And now Nymeria’s the same.
She’s a wild wolf, strong and free, and she won’t go home to be a pet again.
Nymeria’s experiences have changed her – just like Arya’s experiences have changed her.
And maybe, like Nymeria, Arya will struggle to come home, to reconnect to the people she’d
known.
In Dany’s fleet, the Sand Snakes argue like psychopaths over who ‘gets to kill’ the
Lannisters and the Mountain.
The Snakes want revenge for their father Oberyn, and for their aunt Elia, who were both killed
by the Mountain under Lannister orders.
Meanwhile Ellaria hits on Yara, making Theon feel uncomfortable, when suddenly, Uncle Euron
pays a visit.
His ironborn are in their element here – attacking at sea, by night.
And Euron himself goes into beast mode, fighting ferociously.
We’ve never seen Euron fight in the books – he tends to use words and magic to harm
people.
Show-Euron seems a bit like his brother Victarion, the guy with the smoking arm, who’s known
to be handy with an axe.
So yeah Euron wins this battle, and kills Obara and Nymeria – Obara’s impaled on
her own spear, and Nymeria hanged from her own whip, which symbolically is pretty appropriate.
The Sand Snakes caused their own downfall.
Their obsession with killing to avenge their family led them to kill their own family – Obara
kills cousin Trystane, Ellaria kills Doran.
And now Obara and Nym are dead too – consumed in their quest for vengeance.
But the great drama of this battle is with the Greyjoy family – Euron captures his
niece Yara and taunts Theon to come save her.
Yara has risked her life to save Theon before – shouldn’t Theon do the same for her?
The Theon of Season 1 might have done the heroic thing – like when he saved Bran in
Season 1.
But the Theon of Season 1 is dead.
After the trauma he suffered at Ramsay’s hands, Theon’s changed into someone too
afraid to save his sister – and so Theon flees, leaving Yara behind.
Euron, for his part, seems to feed off this pain – he loves psychologically tormenting
people.
In the books, he sexually abused two of his brothers and murdered three.
He tortures, dismembers and brutalises many.
He gets a girl pregnant only to rip out her tongue out and chain her to his ship as part
of a blood magic sacrifice to make himself into some kind of god.
Book-Euron is capital-E evil – and we’re starting to see hints of this in the show.
So things are kicking up a notch.
Loose plot threads like the Sand Snakes and Varys’ uncertain loyalty are getting quickly
cut to make way for the central conflicts.
Arya’s identity, Cersei’s power, Theon’s pain, Dany’s conquest.
And the song of ice and fire fighting white walkers for the dawn.
Thanks for watching.
A lot of the ideas in this video come from the Song of Ice and Fire fan community, so
go check out the subreddits and Westeros.org.
Thanks to the translators for translating captions, and thanks to the Patrons for making
this possible, including Maryam Essa, Daniel Burkard, Zach Gordon, Klayton Anstine, Avziz
Or, Nathan Garza, and Gina Penney.
Cheers.