“You left Winterfell a king and came back a…
I'm not sure what you are now.”
The Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones
is all about homecoming.
The episode is entitled “Winterfell,”
and features all of the show’s key characters
returning to each other
at the Starks’ ancestral and childhood home.
“How did you survive a knife through the heart?”
“I didn’t.”
These reunions we see highlight how, in their time apart,
each character has come into their own.
And beyond all of the meetings, homecoming here is even more
about the truth finally being revealed,
as Jon Snow arrives at last at self-knowledge.
“You're Aegon Targaryen, true heir to the Iron Throne.”
This episode also lets the audience
go back to the main place in the show
that’s inspired warm, sentimental “home” feelings in us.
And once again we get the joys of experiencing Winterfell
through beloved characters’ eyes,
without any Boltons or Littlefingers or pre-reformed Theon Greyjoys
spoiling the view.
“This isn't a strange place.
This is my home.
It's the people who are strange.”
“You’re right.
Very strange.”
So the new Game of Thrones season
brings together all of this emotion at the home of this story,
just as this home is about to be under attack.
“How long do we have?”
“Before the sun comes up tomorrow.”
And that gives the fighting we’re about to see
unprecedented emotional stakes.
The episode also echoes the pilot,
which featured a King riding to Winterfell.
Now it’s a foreigner Queen distrusted by the northerners
and bringing with her
“... the greatest army the world has ever seen.”
This premiere feels like a lot of set-up,
because it has to communicate the feelings of so many reunions,
often through meaningful glances, and succinct, loaded exchanges.
“You're a cold little bitch, aren't you?
Guess that's why you're still alive.”
We get that longed-for hug between Jon and Arya
who’ve been separated since the pilot.
There’s Arya’s little smile after she sees her girlhood crush Gendry,
“You've gotten better.”
“Yeah, thanks.
So have you.”
“I mean, you look good.”
and their callbacks to past flirtations,
“Is that a command, Lady Stark?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“As you wish, milady.”
“I should be calling you ‘my lady.’”
“Do not call me ‘my lady.’”
“As my lady commands.”
And Tyrion’s awkward reminder
that he and Sansa are still kind of married
“It was a bit hard to explain
why my wife fled moments after the king's murder.”
(although in keeping with the customs of the Seven Kingdoms,
as the union was never consummated, people seem to consider it dissolved.)
“Tyrion never consummated the marriage.
By the law of the land, she is no man's wife.
What’s underlined in each of these reunions
is that all of these people have been away on long journeys,
and now they have become themselves.
“Many underestimated you.
Most of them are dead now.”
“Sansa thinks she’s smarter than everyone.”
“She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
They know who they are now.
“Have you ever used it?”
“Once or twice.”
Homecoming also includes the new meetings of characters
who’ve been destined to come together for a long time,
resulting in some comic “meet the family” encounters,
“What do dragons eat, anyway?”
“Whatever they want.”
and Arya’s inspirational first sight of a dragon
as she gets confirmation that magic (and super mass killing machines)
do exist in this world.
Most fundamentally, though, homecoming here is about
the inevitable return of the truth.
It stands for self-enlightenment and coming home to oneself.
“It's time to tell Jon the truth.”
This is the episode in which the Jon Snow who knew nothing
becomes Aegon Targaryen,
who knows something he really didn’t want to.
“You've never been a bastard…
You’re the true king.”
Significantly, the last time Jon saw his presumed father,
Ned Stark told him
“The next time we see each other, we'll talk about your mother.”
These words prove true
as now the next time Jon sees Ned in the crypt,
he at last does learn about his mother.
“Your mother was Lyanna Stark.
And your father, your real father,
was Rhaegar Targaryen.”
We witness Jon’s turmoil and even anger
at learning the truth.
“My father was the most honorable man I ever met.
You're saying he lied to me all my life.”
“He’s being told something
that he both knows is true and can’t handle.”
Throughout the show,
Game of Thrones emphasizes
that knowledge is not just a powerful thing
“Knowledge is power.”
but also a dangerous one, a weapon
“Brothers and sisters, where I come from,
that stain would be very difficult to wash out.
This secret of Jon’s parentage
has been one of the most potent and perilous truths of all
“Robert would have murdered you if he knew.”
“The truth that Samwell tells Jon
is probably the most incendiary fact in the entire world of the show.”
and now it has the power to drive a wedge between
Jon and the woman he loves.
“Daenerys is our queen.”
“She shouldn't be.”
“That's treason”
“It’s the truth.”
So this pivotal scene underlines
how truth can be ruinous and destructive –
it threatens to shatter the fragile happiness
these characters are clinging to.
“It's cold up here for a Southern girl.”
“So keep your queen warm.”
Varys utters one of the most important lines in this episode:
“Nothing lasts.”
He’s referring to the beauty of youth, and new love.
“They do make a handsome couple.”
But the other deep meaning of these words in this episode
is that illusions and false stories
can only protect us for so long
from the cold hard truth.
What’s striking in this episode is
how stupidly these Lords and Ladies
bicker and worry about titles and allegiances,
when they’re all going to be lucky to survive the next few days.
“We don't have time for all this.”
Jon keeps trying to make them understand this.
“I’m telling you it doesn’t matter.”
And that gets him accused of being naïve.
“It’s not important.”
“Not important?”
“Did you bend your knee to save the North
or because you love her?”
But as Sam points out,
this willingness to give up a crown or a throne
is what makes him so particularly well-suited to lead.
“You gave up your crown to save your people.
Would she do the same?”
So this scene of Jon’s unwanted self-knowledge
raises a crucial doubt about Daenerys,
not just her blood claim to the throne,
but also more importantly, her worthiness as a leader.
“She's not her father.”
“No, she's much prettier.”
The series has been filled with characters hailing her
as the savior of the people,
coming to restore something lost
to this corrupt, deteriorating Westeros.
But this scene chips away at that myth.
“Daenerys…
she executed my father and brother.
They were her prisoners.”
We’ve seen various signs of Daenerys changing
as she gets closer to the Iron Throne,
like her earlier insistence that Jon bend the knee
before she would help him,
“I will fight for the North.
When you bend the knee.”
and ruthless treatment of dissenters
like Sam’s defeated father and brother,
which naturally leads Sam to question her judgment.
“Would you have done it?”
Even her appearance is morphing,
she looks more regal than ever,
echoing how entitled and demanding her behavior is becoming.
“She doesn't need to be my friend…
but I am her queen.”
And she also has that classic Targaryen silver-haired look,
making us think of her father, the Mad King.
In fact, she’s even starting to look like a White Walker,
reminding us of her coloring in House of the Undying prophecy
and making us wonder even more about her ultimate morality.
Homecoming also entails the past catching up to us,
and Jon is not the only character here
who has to face an unpleasant truth.
Near the end, we get the mostly unnoticed arrival
of Jaime Lannister,
the only piece of the Lannister army
who’s actually coming.
“Cersei told you her army was coming north to fight for you?”
“She did.”
“And you believed her?”
and the episode ends with Jaime’s look of recognition
as he spots Bran.
We see in his face the guilt and horror he feels
over what he did in the pilot.
“The things I do for love.”
[Gasp]
This look captures how much Jaime has changed since then,
and it reveals the noble, deeply feeling person
who has always been buried underneath
the haughty Kingslayer persona
and the all-consuming devotion to the manipulative Cersei.
Jaime’s slaying of the Mad King
was in fact an act that saved lives.
“And how many lives have you saved?”
“Half a million.
The population of King's Landing.”
And his attack on Bran
unintentionally jumpstarted the boy’s journey
toward becoming the Three-Eyed Raven.
“I don't have my legs anymore.
This is what I have now.”
So again Jaime’s role as the presumed villain
masks his greater destiny as the unappreciated instigator
of world-changing events that must come to pass.
Back in King’s Landing,
Euron Greyjoy returns, too, as promised,
and Cersei lives up to her part of the deal,
evidently so that she can pass off
Jaime’s baby as Euron’s,
“I'm going to put a prince in your belly.”
although her sad look at the end
suggests that on some level
she regrets driving away her true love.
Meanwhile, Theon Greyjoy finally returns to himself
as he rescues his sister Yara,
who wants to go home to the Iron Islands,
while he desires to go back to his true home
and redeem himself to the family he betrayed.
“You want to go to Winterfell
to fight for the Starks.”
There’s also some foreshadowing in the episode.
Arya asks Gendry to make her a special weapon of dragonglass,
which could hint that she has a plan
to kill either the Night King or his Ice Dragon.
And this might make us think of Melisandre’s prophecy
about all the people this young Stark girl
would eventually kill.
“Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes.
Eyes you’ll shut forever.”
These could be the blue eyes she’s destined to shut,
reminding us that this stone-cold killer
will be central in the upcoming battle.
Meanwhile, the most horrific moment of the episode
“It’s a message from the Night King.”
calls back to both the opening of the show
and the symbols of the Children of the Forest
(which we also have a whole video on.)
This symbol looks strikingly like the Targaryen sigil,
which speaks to the importance of the Targaryen heirs in what’s to come.
On that note, in this episode we get to see Jon ride a dragon,
even though it’s a scene that’s played for humor,
and neither of the lovers seems to grasp
that the dragon’s willingness to let him ride
is a hint of his bloodline.
“Only Targaryens can ride dragons,
and that should be a sign for Jon.
Jon’s not always the quickest on the uptake,
but eventually gets there.”
Lastly, the theme of homecoming can’t help but make us think
of The Odyssey, Homer’s ancient Greek epic,
which is the most classic piece of literature about returning.
Just as The Odyssey deals with the aftermath of the Trojan War,
Game of Thrones is defined by its offscreen story
of Robert’s Rebellion.
“How many tens of thousands had to die
because Rhaegar chose your aunt?”
The Odyssey is about
a long, roundabout, hard journey home after the war,
and that’s exactly what we see in Game of Thrones –
the long, hard journey to home and to one’s true self,
in which any apparent shortcuts are merely illusions, sirens,
or fast ways to a quick death.
"All my life I wanted to be Jon Stark."
"Say the word and you will be."
"But I have to refuse you.”
“How can I rule Seven Kingdoms
if I can’t control Slaver’s Bay?”
The intriguing parallel between Game of Thrones and The Odyssey,
brought to light in this episode of homecoming,
might give us a key clue
about who will be the final hero to come.
But we’ll explore that in detail soon, in another video.
“What should we do while we wait, to pass the time?
What should we do?”
Hi guys!
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