Game of Thrones: The Winterfell crypts and the war against the king of the night

At the beginning of Harry Potter at the wizard schoolWhile the boy who lived is getting ready to enter the magical world for the first time since he's baby, his Hagrid chaperone conveys a little wisdom from the wizarding world: "Gringotts," says the half-giant to Harry, "is the safest place in the entire world wants everything you want, protect yourself – except perhaps Hogwarts.

It is a feeling that is often repeated in the saga of Harry, while the masses seek comfort in the face of imminent death. Yet, spoiler: From the moment Hagrid praises the protective value of these beautiful institutions, the calamity ensues. Gringotts witnesses burglars, mental control and the escape of a dragon who spits fire and breaks the ceiling. Meanwhile, Hogwarts is home to deadly beasts, abusive teachers, a myriad of stolen identity cases, a tournament leading to mutilation and death, more air accidents than any other Hermione can count, the Great witch war and the real murder. And these are just the atrocities that stand on the back of a chocolate frog card!

The mantra "No safer place!" Is a myth posing as a truism, repeatedly exposed as a naive and naive dissociation of the bloody reality that is played every year in the corridors of Hogwarts. He is also threatened to pass the Misnomer champions belt this weekend to the Winterfell crypts.

Crypts figured prominently in Game of thrones since the pilot, a signifier of Stark identity and a frame for some of the most crucial conversations in the series. We saw Robert place a feather in Lyanna's stone hand, a pledge of his eternal and mortal love. We have seen Bran, Rickon and their protectors seek refuge from those who would hurt them. We saw Sansa and Littlefinger speak in front of Lyanna's grave to evoke the weight of the past. We saw Jon defy Littlefinger as an intruder, saying, "You do not belong to here." We saw Arya and Sansa meet at Ned's grave, talking about the horrors that tore their family apart. When Sansa notes that all those who knew Ned's face are dead, Arya says, "We are not," a sign of the perseverance that feeds them. We saw Sam reveal the truth about Jon's relationship to the bones of Lyanna and Ned and Jon shares this truth with Dany in the shadow of the mother he never knew.

We have always known that Winterfell crypts would be essential to this story, a representation of identity and heritage, especially for Jon, who dreams of it all through the books. In A game of thrones, the first payment of the A song of ice and fire Jon tells Sam: "The old kings of winter are there, sitting on their throne with stone wolves at their feet and swords of iron on their knees, but I do not fear for them. of. I scream that I'm not a stark, that it's not my place, but it's not good, I have to go anyway. "

These nocturnal taunts stem from Jon's indignity as a bastard, but also indicate his eventual revelation of parentage. But the crypts are Jon's place. As Jon tells Theon in Season 7, "You do not have to choose." Theon can be a Greyjoy and a Stark, and Jon can be a Targaryen and a Stark. The trailer "Crypts of Winterfell" season 8 seems to reinforce this idea, placing Jon in the lobby of Starkdom, alongside the family that no real name can steal him.

It also indicated early on that crypts would be at the center of Season 8, a theme that the rest of the preseason marketing campaign has reinforced. The crypts also occupy an important place in the main caravan and the trailer "Aftermath" seems to show Robert's pen and a statue of the werewolf guarding the entrance to the crypt, among other associations covered snow and wrecks:

But in the second episode of Season 8, the magnificent "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" transforms the underground cemetery: from an annunciator signal and a goal through which viewers and Jon can reflect on the question of how the ghosts of the past shape the sense of self in the present into a deafening siren signaling that perhaps the ghosts of the past will actually come out of their stone envelopes to brutalize the living.

Chekov's crypts in the net eight (eight!) Mention in Episode 2, Gendry saying to Arya: "It's safer in the crypts, you know"; Gilly said to a frightened city dweller: "When the time comes, you will be in the crypts; they are the safest place "; Then, Gilly told Shireen's power of attorney, marked by scars: "I'm going to be in the crypt with my son and I would feel much better with you to protect us"; this sweet young child replied, "Very good. I will defend the crypt then "; Jon says to Bran: "We will put you in the crypt, where it is the safest"; Dany tells Tyrion: "You will be in the crypt" because she needs him to survive the battle; Sam tells Jon, of Gilly and Little Sam, "They will be safe, in the crypt"; and Jorah saying to Lyanna, "You will be safer in the crypt."

Did they all go to a Hagrid TED Talk or something? Even one of the lines above would have amplified the already feverish cryptocentric speculation before the Battle of Winterfell, certainly costly, of episode 3, but the volume of obvious references to the safety of the crypt, to the phrasing Crossing the lines and the concentration that ensues key characters but unprotected by conspiracy armor in the dark depths gives rise to the likelihood that something catastrophic, or at least very important, will appear at the bottom.

With the warning that it would act of a vintage The Thrones Make collective viewers theorize in one way only to cut the mind out of this particular obsession, let's explore what crypts could offer other than the safe harbor on Sunday night.

Dead Starks rising from the grave

At the time when he was still using his first accent, Littlefinger murmured angrily, after Ned released his strangulation against the wall of the brothel, "Ah, the Starks. It's hard not to think about this assessment, however cruel it may be, that our favorite family sends legions into an enclosed space filled with corpses, while a villain deemed to have raised the dead, c & # 39; is a bit his thing! -Marches at home.

In ThuNed enters the crypts with Robert to visit Lyanna's grave. As he walks past the dead, Ned reflects: "According to an ancient custom, a long iron sword had been placed on the lap of each of the lords of Winterfell, in order to keep vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long rusted, covered with nothing, leaving only a few red spots where the metal rested on the stone. Ned wondered if that meant these ghosts were free to roam the castle now. He hoped not.

This has always been perceived as an omen, as another saying has it, about one of Jon's recurring dreams about the Winterfell crypts: "When he turned around, he saw that the vaults were opening. one after the other. As the dead kings tripped over their cold black graves, Jon woke up in absolute darkness, his heart pounding.

Legend says that Bran the Builder raised the wall and Winterfell, among other structures; The magic embedded in the wall to prevent White Walkers from also existing in the crypts, perhaps in the swords supposed to serve as a barrier between the world of the living and the dead? And if they are rusted or gone, does that mean that their power is too? In A shock of kings, Bran, Meera (who is already with Bran at this point in the books), Osha and others even take a few swords after escaping, including the graves of Ned, Rickard and Brandon.

It is reasonable to wonder what could even come out of the grave at this point. The ancient kings of the winter are surely dust, and Ned, who lost his head, was knocked to nothing and put in a box that apparently took years to reach Winterfell. But what about Lyanna? Or Rickon, who was buried only after the battle of the bastards? Some fans think that a woman needs tissues or muscle fibers to move, but we've already seen skeletal wights in action. Here is an overview of the skirmish of season 4 in front of the cave of the three eyes: the raven:

If the dead, even decomposed, emerge from their graves, they can immediately attack the most vulnerable and least armed inhabitants of Winterfell. Unless one of the High Septon Maynard senior officers taught Gilly how to instantly turn a multitude of untrained townspeople into warriors capable of fighting the dead, that is bad news. The resurrected ones would also give rise to a kind of fear that our heroes rarely faced. Arya's brave, seemingly terrified caravan, could not she run away from the face of death that she boasted to Gendry that she was eager to meet, but rather the face of her face. a parent animated again by demonic magic? Presumably, heroes on the battlefield know that the survivors of the night king's army will also be resurrected, like Karsi, the Hardhome's mother who promised her children to join them in the boat in a moment (cough, Gray Worm) to become a blue-eyed darkness servant a few moments later. As appalling as this perspective is, it is also almost inevitable in a battle that will not allow routine breaks to burn the dead. Our friends in the crypts, however, are not ready to see if Rickon can run in anything but a straight line now that he is a corpse.

It would also be useful to ask if resurrecting Winterfell could be a serious miscalculation on the part of the king of the nights – if the king of the nights is actually at Winterfell and does not divide his forces, in the manner of Whispering Wood, to launch a sneak attack on King's Landing. If the crypts are steeped in magic to prevent such resurrections and are actually built in part to combat the forces that ushered in the Long Night (more about this soon), then maybe raising Starks lost could give our heroes an allied surprise to swing a battle otherwise thought lost. In the world of ice and fire, swords, like Chekhov's rifle and John Wick's pencil, tend to come into play once introduced. Why bury the dead with blades unless they need to carry them?

Harp of Rhaegar

All the great warriors do not want to be it. In season 7, before Dany agrees to let Jon run the dragon, she says, "We all love what we do well." Jon replies, with heartfelt sadness, "I do not do it." Jon is a gifted warrior, and He spent much of his adult life fighting, but his gifts are a burden to him.He does not like violence.His father, Rhaegar Targaryen, was also not famous for his silver hair and the silver strings of his iconic harp.

As a boy, Rhaegar always had a nose in a book until the day he saw something in a book that changed the course of his life. Fans had long suspected that what he had read was related to the legend of the prince who had been promised, knowing that Rhaegar was convinced that he and his son would be the prophetized savior. Afterwards, he said, "I'm going to need a sword and armor. It seems like I have to be a warrior. "

And he won the famous tournament in Harrenhal, where he named Lyanna Stark, Queen of Love and Beauty. But he never liked to kill. He loved music. The characters mention his harp and his melancholy many times in the books. We also heard in the show his affinity for serenades. Ser Barristan talks to Dany about Rhaegar's passion for music and we hear Dany echo those words to Jon in Season 8 as he stands in front of Lyanna's grave.

There is no more suitable location for observation because for years, The Thrones The obsessed have felt with something close to the certainty that Rhaegar's harp is in Lyanna's grave. Ned Stark broke the tradition by having crypt statues made by his sister Lyanna and his brother Brandon: previously, only the kings and lords of Winterfell were consecrated in this way. We know that Ned loved Lyanna so much that he honored his final promise by elevating Jon as his to protect him from Robert's wrath, despite the high cost for his honor and the happiness of his wife Catelyn, and it is possible that the statue is simply another sign of this love. As Ned told Robert, "She was a Stark of Winterfell. This is his place.

It is also possible that the statue serves another purpose: to protect the evidence of Jon's filiation. Most of the kingdom to date believes Rhaegar has kidnapped and raped Lyanna. Placing her harp, a symbol of her love and grace, with Lyanna would help to affirm that they were in love, married after Rhaegar's secret annulment; Ned would not have placed a piece of the man who abused his sister in his grave. We saw how Dany reacted by hearing the truth: The word of Bran, a teenager who seems to have ingested too much CBD oil, will not be enough for many in the Seven Kingdoms. Sam's copy of High Septon Maynard's paper should be, but for some, like Dany, the fact that Sam is so firm that Team Jon will dilute the power of his evidence. It does not seem likely that Howland Reed will come forward to share his own account of what happened at the Tower of Joy, making every piece of evidence a must-have support.

Jon has already flown Rhaegal, the dragon named after his father. The showrunners said that in their world, only Targaryen can drive dragons. Nobody should need more evidence, but they are stubborn people who, in some cases, like to burn their enemies alive. Rhaegar's harp would be convincing proof for many, an embodiment of love and lineage. In ShockWhen Dany travels to the Immortal's House, she sees her brother in a vision, with a woman and a baby he calls Aegon – a name, he says, worthy of a king. The name that his first son bore, but also the name that Lyanna gave to his second. "Do you want to make him a song?" Asks the woman in the vision. "He has a song," he replies. "He is the prince who has been promised, and his song is a song of ice and fire." He then takes a harp.

It is possible that the series does not have the time, especially in the midst of the carnage of the battle, to play the Rhaegar channel search chain. Perhaps the harp appearance of the O in the Game of thrones logo will have to be enough of a nod for book readers. But if the king of the night army breaks the graves, perhaps an object other than a skeleton might come out.

In A storm of swordsLittlefinger told Sansa: "A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in good hands." From the point of view of some characters, nothing is more dangerous than the truth of Jon's sonship.

An exit (or, Gulp, an entry)

Winterfell is as big as Jon's burden now, but the crypts are even more substantial, deeper, and wider than our current design of the castle allows us to grasp. Due to its size and ancient origins, the castle, crypts and grounds contain many secrets, including passages known to very few people.

In season 2, Maester Luwin tries to convince Theon to take the black, where his sins will be forgiven. Theon notes, while the horn of the attacking soldiers blows relentlessly, that he will try to leave the castle, while the men of the North (which we learn that belong to Ramsay) wait. "There are ways," Luzon told Theon. "Hidden Passages, Built for the Winterfell Lords to Escape."

Could these ways be in the crypts? We know that Theon will be in Godswood to protect Bran from the King of the Night, but the fact that he has this knowledge and that he's back in Winterfell at the moment this might be the most crucial seems to be wearing his fruits. Maybe if our heroes lose the fight, the survivors will be able to escape by a hidden exit, board Drogon and Rhaegal – can the wolves ride on dragons? Do you like it? – and flee.

But an issue, of course, is by definition also an entry. And Theon is not the only one to know the secrets of the castle. When Bran was a boy, he loved to climb, exploring every inch of the castle until he knew his secrets, which is unusual for any man. He was, at least in this respect, the three-eyed crow a long time ago. An example, of Thu: "He knew that you could get inside the inner wall through the south gate, climb three floors and bypass Winterfell through a narrow tunnel dug into the stone, then exit on the ground floor at the north gate with a hundred feet of wall that leans over you. Even Maester Luwin did not know it, Bran was convinced. "

Like Zach Kram, one of the The ringThe link between Bran and the king of the night, as observed in the beginning of the Battle of Winterfell, could mean that if Bran knew the secrets of the castle, these secrets included a way out of the crypts, where Bran, Rickon, Osha, Summer, and Shaggy are hidden from Theon in Season 2: The King of the Night could potentially acquire this knowledge through his connection with the Three-Eyed Raven.

The showrunners cited Helm's Deep, the legendary battle of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towersas an influence for the Battle of Winterfell; in this movie – a 17-year spoiler warning? – an orc mammoth penetrates the previously impregnable wall with, for the most part, a bomb that it hits in a drain. The heroes are finally able to maintain a semblance of security in the fortress until Gandalf arrives with reinforcements. This does not necessarily mean a parallel infiltration into the crypts and disruption of holiness by creating a new entrance, but the Night King or his forces might perhaps use an existing hidden means to sneak in and continue their primary mission, or use their enemy by melting this feeling of perceived well-being, making the fortress and its defenders vulnerable to infiltration.

The big other

It is possible that the king of the night has a target at Winterfell other than Bran, who reveals in "A knight of the seven kingdoms" that the king of the night comes looking for him, as he did "with many three-eyed crows ". Many theories have explored the possibility that the Great Other, the god of darkness and the counterweight of the Lord of Light, is imprisoned in the crypts – and that the crypts and all Winterfell actually exist to contain it.

Consider that, unlike all the other important castles in history, we do not know why Winterfell is named as such. We can logically infer that it is literally where Winter fell, namely death, cold and darkness incarnated by the Great Other. Winterfell is the seat of power in the North and yet, as Kram explained in his introduction to combat, he is not near a coastline, river or lake, as most strongholds. Maybe Bran the Builder chose this place because the dawn battle, which concluded the long night 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, happened here.

The crypts are located under the first dungeon which, despite time-stamping conflicts related to architecture, was probably the first structure of the castle and has spread over the centuries. They are as old as the place itself. Perhaps the Starks have been given the nickname "Kings of Winter" because they literally came to rule during the winter, and they say maybe "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell", because it's part of maintaining the magic that surrounds this force. Detractors will note enough that for a good part of our history, there is do not was a Stark at Winterfell – Bran and Rickon's escape in Season 2 when Sansa returned in Season 5. But it's not like things were going well for Starks, Winterfell or civilization ever since!

It is also reasonable to note that we have never seen anything that looks like the Great Other in the crypts, but during all the time we spent in these below we saw only a fraction. In ThuBran thinks: "The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had already told him that there were other levels below, even deeper and darker arches where the old ones kings were buried. "Some of these levels are partially collapsed, making pedestrian traffic highly unlikely or impossible.

Yet this theory is far beyond visual evidence: while the rest of Winterfell is well prepared by the natural hot springs that pump bubbling water through the castle and land, the crypts are icy. In ThuNed said to himself, "It was always cold here," as he was driving Robert to Lyanna's, and in the same vein, he thought of the scathing draft in almost personified terms: "He could feel the cold coming up the stairs , a cold breath from the deepest part of the earth. "

In the trailer for "Winterfell Crypts", we see this cold breath crossing the crypts towards Jon, Sansa and Arya.

This fog could certainly represent the arrival of the king of the night or his army, but it could also represent the detachment of a force that he came to release to Winterfell. Maybe the king of the night is here to free the Great Other and finally bring a darkness that never fades. Or maybe the king of the night is the big other. In A dance with dragonsMelisandre, champion of R & # 39; hllor, thinks: "Beyond the wall, the enemy is getting stronger and, if it wins, dawn will never come back." A subset of The Great Other theory asserts that the King of the Night seeks to release the Night Queen, a figure to which Bran the Builder, the Night's Eve, and the King's Night (King of the Night) version of the book are associated. Maybe the real motivation of the king of the night is actually his own version of "What I do for love".

There is another potential application for some kind of Great Other theory: if Sam or Bran, in their search for ways to win this battle, discovered the evidence of this burial by browsing through their scrolls and memories, they could possibly to prevent King Night from reaching his goal. And they could also learn to use similar tactics to accomplish the same feat as Bran the Builder and his contemporaries, trapping King Night. If it's actually a Stark, it would be a convenient way to ensure there is always a Stark in Winterfell.

A dragon (or dragon eggs)

While cold crypts could indicate the winter burial, the pulsed heat in the rest of the Winterfell could indicate the presence of a very different type of magic buried below. In Thuwe discover the hot springs that warm the inhabitants of the castle: "The warm waters burned through its walls and rooms like blood in the body of a man, cooling the stone halls, refreshing the glass gardens of a Moist heat the earth to freeze. Open pools smoked day and night in a dozen small courtyards. It was a small thing, in the summer; in winter, it was the difference between life and death.

Hot springs are not only an alternative source of heat in the cold: they are proof of a possible link with the dragons and their magic. In The world of ice and fireMaester Yandel notes that hot springs are heated by the "world ovens – the same fires that made the Fourteen Flames or the steaming Dragonstone Mountain", two places associated with dragons. (The Fourteen Flames are the volcanic chain of the Valyrian Peninsula, which broke out and provoked Fate, annihilating all the families of Dragon Lords other than the Targaryen, who had already sailed to Dragonstone several years earlier through a prophetic dream .)

The inhabitants of Winterfell and the winter city think that a dragon fire warms the hot springs and, although Yandel considers this statement as "stupid", legends often rely on the world of George R.R. Martin. Could Bran the Builder have drawn from the power of a dragon to forge the castle, perhaps as part of the magic needed to keep the winter at bay? Fire and ice, ice and fire. And if that's the case, and the night king's attack breaks the castle's foundations like the ground under Weirwood's cave of the three-eyed crow, could this dragon finally move freely?

Yandel also rejects the testimony of Mushroom, a fool in the service of the Targaryen, who claims that Jacaerys' dragon Vermax laid in Winterfell when the prince went to work with Cregan Stark during the Dragon Dance. The good Queen Alysanne also sent her Dragon Silverwing to Winterfell, which is worth noting because Silverwing did not take the North, refusing to fly over the wall three times. Dany tells Jon in the premiere of season 8 that Drogon and Rhaegal do not like the North; if they are not equipped for battle, the arrival of a dragon nestled in the cold could save the North.

Eggs, of course, would need time to hatch. But if they already have? In Shock, Bran sees the following vision through his close ties to Summer, his grandfather: "The smoke and ashes darkened his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged serpent whose roar was a river of flames. He showed his teeth, but the snake disappeared. A "great winged serpent whose roar is a river of flames" certainly looks like a dragon.

A long-standing theory notes that Winterfell, Dragonstone, and Valyria are the only known places in the books with gargoyles, which could reveal a power binding the dragons in stone. And if Ramsay's bag and Winterfell's fire released the dragon from his underground sleep? When Bran and Co. leave their sanctuary in the crypts of ShockBran observes the following: "Stone and broken gargoyles littered the courtyard. They fell where I fell, thought Bran when he saw them. Some gargoyles were broken into a multitude of pieces, which made him wonder how he was alive. Once the gargoyles collapsed, the theory is based on the fact that the dragon could have stolen. Davos adds, in the same book, on Dragonstone: "Behind, the gargoyles and stone dragons on the castle walls seemed fuzzy, as if Davos saw them through a veil of tears. Or as if the animals were shaking, stirring … "

Of course, the characters who make these observations do not know at this point that Daenerys has become the Mother of the Dragons. Emblematically: Melisandre speaks throughout the books and his passage with Stannis of the prophecy that Azor Ahai "will awaken the dragons of the stone". Dany, the main claimant of the story, other than Jon, to emerge as a prophet savior, literally woke up stone dragons. when she brought her fossilized eggs to Drogo's funeral pyre. It is likely that the dragons who realize this prophecy are already part of our story.

In addition, the series did not install dragon or dragon eggs under Winterfell, unlike books. Deus ex dragon could be a difficult sell for viewers, especially when they are trying to trace the latest mythology revealed about Bran and the king of the night and the grieving characters. Il est possible que la version de l’émission de cette théorie soit symbolique, car quoi qu’il en soit, at été un dragon secret à Winterfell: Jon Snow.

La fin que Jaime avait prévue dans les livres

Le clou de «Un chevalier des sept royaumes», profondément émouvant, est venu lorsque Jaime Lannister a fait chevalier Brienne of Tarth, couronnant magnifiquement un arc commun qui a été l'un des cœurs battants de cette histoire pendant des saisons. La joie nue de Brienne après son apparition en tant que Ser, et l'affection et l'admiration évidentes dans les yeux de Jaime lorsqu'il la regardait ainsi, étaient un rappel crucial que les gens peuvent changer, que les choix nous définissent davantage que les étiquettes et les normes, et que l'amour peut revêtir de nombreuses formes. .

Cela ressemblait aussi à une condamnation à mort pour l'un des deux. Sans la conviction de masse que Jaime réalisera la prophétie de Valonqar en tuant Cersei – que la mort de Brienne dans une bataille que Cersei a compromise en refusant de promettre que ses troupes l’alimenteraient certainement – sa mort semblerait plus vraisemblable ici que celle de Brienne. Rappelez-vous que l’émission n'incluait pas la ligne Valonqar dans la prophétie de Maggy la grenouille. Il y avait cependant une scène dans laquelle Jaime dit à Bronn qu'il voulait mourir dans les bras de la femme qu'il aime.

Cette déclaration définissant finalement Brienne au lieu de Cersei serait la conclusion parfaite pour Jaime. Et dans les livres, il y a des preuves, comme Les Trônes La savante Joanna Robinson explique avec brio ici que cela pourrait se produire – et s’avérer sous le sol.

In Orage, après que Jaime a perdu sa main droite, il tombe dans un long rêve monstrueux. Alors que Jaime pense initialement qu’il est à Casterly Rock, il réalise que ce n’est pas chez lui; en fait, ce n’est pas un endroit qu’il connaît du tout. «Au-dessous de la terre, son destin était attendu», dit le passage. «Il savait avec la certitude du rêve; quelque chose de sombre et de terrible s'y cachait, quelque chose qui le voulait. "

Serait-ce les cryptes? Bien que les caractéristiques décrites par Jaime – sable, eau – ne correspondent pas à ce que nous savons des niveaux de cryptes observés, d’autres facteurs s’alignent. Tout d'abord, Jaime craint ce qui peut rester en dormance et invisible: "Il peut y avoir des créatures qui y vivent, des profondeurs cachées …" Le dragon? Le grand autre? De nouveaux poids?

Plus important encore, dans son rêve, Cersei abandonne Jaime tandis que Brienne se tient à ses côtés, déterminée à le protéger. (Et pour tous les expéditeurs, nus.) Quand Brienne demande à Jaime ce qu’il a là-bas, il dit: «Maudite, rien que le malheur."

Bientôt, le fantôme de Rhaegar Targaryen arrive, accusant Jaime de ne pas avoir protégé sa femme et ses enfants. Jaime, bien sûr, pense qu'il veut dire Elia, Aegon et Rhaenys, mais maintenant que nous savons que Rhaegar a épousé une autre femme, il est possible de déchiffrer cela comme une référence à Lyanna, qui est dans les cryptes, et Jon, qui pourrait à un moment donné retirez-vous là aussi pour aider à sauver ceux qui sont en péril pendant la bataille imminente.

Alors que les ombres du vieux garde royal se rapprochent de lui, le rêve de Jaime se termine avec sa mort – une mort dans laquelle Brienne est la dernière chose qu’il voit: «La terreur lui ferma la main. Puis son épée est tombée dans le noir, et seule Brienne a été brûlée, alors que les fantômes se précipitaient. "

La préfiguration de Valonqar semble réelle et voir Cersei mourir aux mains de la toute dernière personne au monde qui l'aimait vraiment à cause de sa cupidité, de son orgueil et de sa cruauté serait une délicieuse justice poétique. Mais Jaime donnerait sa vie sur le site de l’un de ses plus grands péchés (pousser Bran par la fenêtre) et de l’un de ses plus grands triomphes (abandonner Cersei pour se battre pour les vivants et, ce faisant, se consacrer pleinement à Brienne et bonté). Nous savons que Jaime se battra sur le flanc gauche sous le commandement de Brienne, mais certains tirs de la caravane préparatoire le placent à l’intérieur du château, peut-être sur les murs.

Si l'ennemi enfreint les cryptes et que Jaime s'y rend pour tenter de sauver ceux qui sont regroupés à l'intérieur, il défendra l'innocent, comme le disent les mots qu'il vient de prononcer à Brienne: un chevalier doit le faire, et comme Jaime l'avait fait il y a longtemps quand il a tué le roi fou. Killing Cersei feels fitting for the man Jaime was for so long, but dying by proving his knightly valor, with Brienne by his side, the last light in his life as the darkness takes him, might be the better end for the man Jaime has become.

For Jaime and so many other characters, the question of choice and belonging has been paramount throughout this tale. No matter what plot function the Winterfell crypts serve during the battle, they’ll remain a key emblem of Stark identity in this story. In Game, Jon tells Sam, “Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me.” Now, we’re all afraid too. But in Shock, Bran says, “That was our place. A Stark place!” We have to hope that after Sunday, it still is.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.