After three footage-less promos, the first real trailer for Game of Thrones‘ third season debuted in the Worldwide on Friday evening.
For the benefit of those who’ve read ahead in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga, we’ve attempted to unpack what the new trailer tells us. Plenty of spoilers lay ahead…
Our last glimpse of Westeros in the chilling final moments of season two left us with Samwell hiding terrified from a passing army of wights Beyond the Wall, so it’s only fitting that that’s where the first season three trailer begins. The White Walkers are nowhere to be seen in the opening time-lapsed shot of the hostile land in which Jon Snow, now feigning desertion from the Night’s Watch and on his way to meet Mance Rayder, is stranded.
The sun and clouds dash across the bleak Northern landscape accompanied by the voice of Lord Varys (Conleth Hill), who ushers fans into the trailer with the words “It’s been a long time, my old friend”. He’s not wrong. By the time the season three US premiere comes around on the 31st of March, we’ll have spent precisely three-hundred-and-one days apart from HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Tyrion’s (Peter Dinklage) is the first face we see, and his toned-down post-battle scar will come as no surprise to those who’ve kept up with the season three promo images. Despite the scar being described in A Clash of Kings as “long and crooked, starting a hair under his left eye and ending on the right side of his jaw. Three quarters of his nose was gone, and a chunk of his lip”, The Halfman is looking mostly intact here.
A rowing boat bearing two unidentifiable figures can be seen in the foreground, moving away from shore. One is dark, and one fair, but it’s anyone’s best guess as to who they are. Davos Seaworth and Edric Storm perhaps? The pair could, of course, be extras in an establishing shot (though where’s the fun in that?).
After Tywin Lannister strides into the Red Keep’s Great Hall, to see Joffrey in characteristic Lannister garb upon the Iron Throne, we’re whisked away to what looks very much like Harrenhal. If the cursed castle is where Robb and Catelyn Stark survey this stack of corpses as the ominous words “death is coming for everyone and everything” echo behind them, it indicates another detour from George R.R. Martin’s novels. The mother and son could, of course, have happened upon the carnage en route to Riverrun, at their stopover at Oldstones, or on their journey back to The Twins, but creating distinctive and instantly recognisable environments for each of the saga’s many locations is a particular skill of the Game of Thrones team, and those stone arch exteriors say Harrenhal to us.
Then comes a brief look at Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) being followed by – we think – disgraced former maester Qyburn (Anton Lesser), which would presumably place him and Brienne in the custody of The Brave Companions
Bran, looking as if he’s stood upright thus possibly in a dream, then looses an arrow at an unseen target, while Arya, now a prisoner of the Brotherhood Without Banners, watches Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) light his sword afire. Look closely and you can see it’s definitely Dondarrion lighting the flame, not Paul Kaye as Thyros of Myr.
We’d hazard that the Northern twang to the portentous words heard as a solitary White Walker is seen advancing through a wood puts them in the mouth of Ygritte (Rose Leslie). Further darkness comes with a shot of a hooded topless figure bound and strung up by his arms. Eagle-eyed viewers will remember that the last time we saw a certain former ward of Ned Stark, he was mutinied against by his Ironborn companions and in the process of having a hood placed over his head…
After a brief look at a pack of wildlings running South of The Wall, we’re finally taken across the Narrow Sea to Astapor, where Dany, having retrieved her dragons from the House of the Undying in the season two finale, now commands an army of Unsullied.
Despite dominating the Red Keep in season two, Lena Headey’s Cersei isn’t given much screen time in this trailer, save a short glimpse by candlelight here, a silent moment between her and Sansa, and a shot amongst the ‘revenge’ montage at the end.
Paid more attention, and for very good reason, is Catelyn Stark, seen here urging son Robb, King in the North, to show his enemies how it feels to lose what they love.
Back behind the Wall, the trailer returns to Jon Snow’s progress amongst Mance Rayder’s freemen. A shot of Mackenzie Crook as Orell the skinchanger gaining a birds-eye-view of the surroundings by warging into his eagle is followed by Jon looking at him askance, while Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds) threatens to the light the biggest fire the North has ever seen.
Back at the Red Keep comes a moment that can only have been taken from the wedding of Tyrion and Sansa. In A Storm of Swords, Tyrion refuses to subject Sansa to the bedding ritual, and – in his cups – threatens to castrate Joffrey for attempting to force the issue, “The Imp slammed his dagger down in the table, where it stood quivering. ‘Then you’ll service your own bride with a wooden prick. I’ll geld you, I swear it’”. Is it as satisfying an uncle/nephew moment as that slap inThe Old Gods and the New? Better, we’d say.
Next comes an out-of-sequence Ygritte shooting an arrow in the rain. The only significant arrow Jon’s wildling lover releases in the saga is the one that finds its way into Jon’s leg after his defection at Queenscrown, which is what we can suppose we’re seeing here.
Following on from Beric Donarrion’s sword-lighting earlier comes a tantalising excerpt of his trial-by-combat fight with Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann).
The trailer’s final words belong to (we think) the man who uttered its first, Lord Varys. The theme of revenge is raised as shots in turn of Robb and Arya Stark, followed by Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion Lannister appear momentarily on screen. Attempting to list the various revenges sought by that little lot is likely to become so tangled, you may well be better off listing characters between whom there isn’t any bad blood.
A treat though the trailer was, it leaves us considering what and who, wasn’t featured. Despite their growing importance in the narrative, the Tyrells and the Freys were conspicuous by their absence. Understandably, a certain bloody event didn’t get a look-in aside from oblique allusion. Though we met new faces Mance Rayder, Tormund Giantsbane and Orell, there was little sign of fellow season three newcomers the Reed siblings, Thyros of Myr, Selyse Baratheon, Ser Brynden Tully, or the clouded-in-secrecy role of Ramsay Bolton. Familiar characters Brienne, Osha, Hodor, Littlefinger, Melisandre and more were also kept out of the way. With any luck, that could mean another, longer trailer is on its way in the next thirty-five days…
Game of Thrones returns to HBO on Sunday the 31st of March, and to Sky Atlantic on Monday the 1st of April.
HBO Game Of Thrones Official Trailer
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