After Monday (or really, after last week when HBO Spain and Nordic accidentally aired episode six) we’re now down to our last Game of Thrones episode of the season. The pressure and the action have rightfully been taken up notches with two huge battles in three weeks, and we’re expecting the biggest clash next week when the living finally meet the dead in war.
Before we get there, though, S07E06—“Beyond the Wall” to some of you—raises more questions than answers. (Of course, the answering should be left to the finale, anyway.)
Just how fast can dragons travel?
In this episode, Daenerys becomes Daenerys ex machina after they come to save the Snow Squad right in time, before they get completely overwhelmed by the White Walkers in the middle of a frozen lake. You all should know that Dany and the Dragons came all the way from Dragonstone, which is nowhere near next door from Winterfell or the Wall, which in itself is already quite far from where the Snow Squad were.
For reference, here’s a map of Westeros:
Dragonstone is far southeast from the Wall. Gendry made it back to the Wall at sundown to send a raven to Daenerys on Dragonstone. I can buy that the raven would fly all night to travel the whole distance, as Daenerys and Tyrion are seen arguing in the morning right before she leaves and saves the day. That means it’s only a matter of hours for the dragons to travel by air.
Granted, the dragons flying fast is still pretty plausible; it’s just that Game of Thrones does a poor job in this episode of showing or at least making it look like a lot of time had passed between Daeny’s departure and the moment the battle begins. It requires a lot of unnecessary internal dot-connecting when all they had to do was show, not tell.
What good would one undead dragon do against two live ones?
Critics decrying the loss of proper consequences in the story are probably overlooking the fact that by choosing to come and save the Snow Squad, Daenerys lost a dragon to the Night King. Sure, there are many other shortcomings, but this is a pretty big development.
However, while the thought of facing an undead dragon is pretty scary, Team Alive has to remember that it’s still got two dragons with the ability to instantly kill the undead—as well as a mountain of dragonglass in Dragonstone. Maybe Maester Qyburn’s Scorpion ballista was actually a medieval Chekhov’s gun for this. What they need to do now is prepare a lot for the big battle, which includes planning on evading all the Night King’s icicle spears.
Now that they have a wight, would Cersei listen to them?
The entire point of the Snow Squad’s mission was to get back a living zombie to show the fine villains at King’s Landing. Once they managed to get away with one, all that’s left now is to convince the Lannisters that these things are real.
The problem is it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cersei is stubborn and hell-bent on going her own way. What’ll likely happen is 1) that she would let the dead overrun Winterfell and her enemies first before doing anything about it, or 2) she doesn’t believe at all and acts like the only problems she has are the Starks and the Targaryens. Either way, the White Walkers’ invasion will be what gets Jaime to turn on her, like how we wish some loyalists would do to certain presidents in the world.
Anyway, on to the finale—and I hope no one accidentally shows it before Monday this time.
Art by Lara Intong
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