Game of Thrones, Season 7 Premier: Snap Reaction

Winter is here, and it’s about damn time. Daenerys sailed west, and it’s about damn time. Game of Thrones has always been thrilling and intriguing, but after six seasons it was time for the over-arching story to pick up speed. The time for pissing matches was over, the time for war had come.

The season six finale brought that speed and put the three characters in place who will fight to keep, hold and entrench power during seasons seven and eight. Jon Snow is King of the North, Cersei sits on the iron throne and Daenerys is about to make land in Dragonstone.

Good. It’s time for what we’ve been waiting to arrive and for the wait to pay off.

And now, thoughts.

Arya Stark is a serious bad ass. “When people ask you what happened to you, tell them the north remembers. Tell them winter came for House Frey.” Well alright! Arya’s mask is going to make her ultimately powerful, and I like the addition of more magic. But I hope the writers use it sparingly. A character with the ability to be any character is easily abused. I don’t want to sit her wondering if I’m looking at Arya or the real character.

Jon Snow as mining industrial dictator is going to cause problems, as is Jon Snow the king of equality. If his decision to not exact homestead revenge on the Karstarks and Umbers doesn’t cause unrest that undermines his kingery, these two acts will.

I look forward to watching Littlefinger (my favourite character on the entire show) try to fan the flames of a divide between Sansa and Jon. He enjoyed seeing her combat Jon over the traitorous Karstarks, and the look on her face after Jon declared that yesterday’s wars don’t matter betrayed more disagreement than their one-on-one conversations let on.

That’s Petyr’s influence, but don’t count on Sansa to knuckle under to his manipulation. She’s strong as ice, as evidenced by the way she told him off in front of Brienne.

Speaking of Sansa, I’m curious to learn more about the things she learned from watching Cersei. Sansa’s tough and Cersei’s cunning would be a formidable combination. I look forward to seeing that play out. Perhaps this “murdering whore” will get to confront Cersei and take vengeance on the evil queen.

The death of Jamie’s children falls almost entirely at Cersei’s feet. I’d love to see her relationship with Jamie broken and Jamie turn against her. The Lannisters are fiercely loyal to each other…well all except for one and Jamie hasn’t turned his back on Tyrion the way his sister has. Their conversation about dynasty shows he feels their deaths more than she does. It’s almost the reverse of the stereotypical war-mongering father and emotional mother.

Poor Tarly. All he wants to do is read but here he is cleaning shit pans. What’s his role here? How does book boy fit into the bigger battle? Does he figure out some historic secret to defeating the white walkers? He will bring the one who begins the memories to the war. Or find a mountain of dragon glass. That’ll do.

God I hate celebrity cameos. We all know that was Ed Sheeran. And it ruined everything.

What’s the legal drinking age in Westeros anyway?

Arya says she is going to Kings Landing and kill the queen. The boy soldiers laugh, but the audience believes her.

Oh yeah, the Mother of Dragons.