Game of Thrones' Gilly has been surprising us from her first episode, and as the series
finale and all the battle and bloodshed it brings with it crests the horizon, she's not
likely to stop anytime soon.
How might the young woman from Craster's Keep turn the tide of battle?
If you're all caught up on your Game of Thrones binges, then you've probably grown accustomed
to seeing Gilly embarking on ocean voyages or in the relative safety of the Citadel.
It might be easy to forget that Gilly spent most of her life in the dangerous lands beyond
the Wall.
She knows the North like only a wildling could, and she holds no illusions about how desperate
life there can be.
While season 7 ended with the Walkers shattering the Wall in a spectacular burst of blue dragonfire,
it seems likely that at least part of the final season could take place in the far North
and Gilly could prove a unique guide to those frozen and forbidding lands.
Not to mention that while most of Game of Thrones' central characters have until now
seen the White Walkers as nothing more than some laughable child's tale, Gilly grew up
with the Walkers as an absolute certainty.
They were a part of her daily life.
As one of Craster's wives, the Walkers' appetites defined her life and she understands them
as few can.
In the season 7 finale, one of the most popular fan theories was confirmed by Bran Stark and
his psychic, time-spanning visions.
It turns out that Jon Snow isn't a bastard at all, but the child of Rhaegar Targaryen
and Lyanna Stark.
Which means that Daenerys isn't the last Targaryen and that Jon is the true heir to the Iron
Throne.
But before Bran peeled back the layers of time and space, there was Gilly, discovering
it in a forgotten journal, buried in the bowels of the Citadel.
In the season 7 episode "Eastwatch," as she and Sam pored over the spoils of the Citadel's
library, Gilly found a description of an annulment granted to Jon Snow's true father.
"Maynard says here that he issued an annulment for a Prince Ragnard, and remarried him to
someone else at the same time."
Not only was she the first person to stumble onto this explosive fact, she is now one of
the few people who knows it at all.
In a sense, the moment Gilly discovered it, she became one of the most dangerous people
in Westeros.
"Gilly…"
"I worry about you."
Regardless of his noble birth, Sam was never going to be the heir to Horn Hill.
He's a sensitive and scholarly man who doesn't live up to his father's narrow standards.
Sam is no longer part of House Tarly, having forsworn his claim for the Night's Watch and
disowned by his tyrant of a father.
Since Sam's father and brother Dickon were executed by Daenerys for refusing to bend
the knee, technically Sam's sister Talla is now the heir and the Lady of Horn Hill.
But let's be honest: the letter of the law doesn't count for much in Westeros.
What matters is who shows up, who fights the hardest, and who has something to show for
it.
He may be quiet and bookish; but Sam has killed a White Walker, smuggled royals across Kingdom
lines, sworn to protect Gilly and her child, and helped uncover a decades-old secret.
“He drove a dagger into the walkers heart.
He’s risked his own life to save mine more than once.”
"He's a greater warrior than either of you will ever be."
Sam absolutely could end up as the Lord of Horn Hill.
And if he did?
That would make Gilly his Lady, and baby Sam the heir.
Horn Hill is fabulous even by the standards of noble houses, and has been cozy with other
families of the Reach for decades.
This wouldn't just be an incredible place of power for an abused Wildling girl, but
an incredible place of power, period.
Few Game of Thrones characters have traveled as far as Gilly.
She began in the fearsome world north of the Wall, where she shared her home with massive
giants and the growing army of the dead.
She spent time at Castle Black, where she made a home among her enemies.
Gilly has feasted in the opulent halls of Horn Hill, learned to read in the legendary
Citadel, and is now in residence at Winterfell alongside the reunited remnants of the Stark
family.
Few characters in Game of Thrones especially commoners have been as far or has met so many
powerful people.
Gilly has connections to the common folk of Westeros as well as the greatest noble houses.
She may have begun as a simple Wildling girl, but now she's the maypole around which multiple
ribbons of plot and character are wound.
The show's final season will reveal which ribbon tugs the strongest.
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