A Song of Ice and Hot Takes

Scene by Scene Analysis of GoT Season 7.06 “Beyond the Wall”

Lincoln Boehm
Aug 22, 2017 · 23 min read

Walking, Fighting, and Fucking

The three ways to stay warm… Which begs the question: what did that merry band of brothers do on that ice island to keep from freezing to death? We know they weren’t walking or fighting…

But we’ll get to that “fan theory” later. The episode opens north of the wall as our group of Seven Samurai (plus like seven extras that somehow showed up) are walking towards the terrifying unknown.

The first significant conversation we witness is between Jon and Tormund. They’re discussing Daenerys and Jon explains that she will only fight beside them if he “bends the knee.” Tormund says Jon’s spent too much time with the freefolk, which is why he refuses to kneel. But then for the first time ever we hear Tormund criticize his former king Mance Rayder. He says, “[Mance Rayder] never bent the knee. How many of his people died for his pride.” This is almost verbatim what Daenerys Targaryen says to Jon in the cave two episodes back, and for that reason it clearly sticks with Jon. Mance refused to bend the knee to Stannis and in the end saw thousands of the freefolk killed. With the looming threat of the White Walkers, symbolic gestures like bending the knee don’t matter. Symbolism doesn’t matter. As Jon often says the only thing that matters is the threat to the North.

Let’s Talk About Our Daddy’s

Jon and Jorah start talking for the first time since Jorah was healed by Jon’s bestie Sam. Unfortunately Sam doesn’t come up in this convo. It’s worth noting that these two men were both given a second chance at life, by virtue of powers nobody thought existed in the world. Both men had noble dad’s who were of the North and both clearly have feelings for Daenerys. These two guys have a lot in common, so seeing them converse for the first time is kind of a big deal.

“Your father was the most honorable man I ever met,” Jon says to Jorah, to which Jorah basically responds by saying the same thing about Ned, despite the fact that Ned wanted to have Jorah beheaded and banished him from Westeros. Jon goes on to broach the awkward subject of Longclaw, the ancestral sword of Jorah’s family.

Jorah takes it and looks at it for a bit, before telling Jon that he deserves it because Jeor (Jorah’s dad) gave it to him. Jon replies with “I’m not his son” which is yet another clear-cut reference to Jon’s parentage. They’ve started hitting us over the head with this “identity crisis” Jon is going through right now. He has no real family, but has arguably more respect for family values than anyone we’ve met. Last season he offered Sansa the Lord and Lady’s chambers at Winterfell because he’s not a Stark. And now he’s offering his beloved, and insanely valuable valyrian steel sword back to Jorah because it has “been in [Jorah’s] family for centuries” and it “isn’t right for [him] to have it.”

Time and time again Jon does the honorable thing in making it clear that he has no claim on any of the things he possesses due to his bastard-born social standing, and time and time again nobody cares. He gets rebuked and given these things of value because of his character, not his name. Jorah tells him that the sword is his, just like the Lords of the North tell him that he’s their King. No matter how hard Jon tries, he can’t fight the fact that he is a man that others believe in, be it Jeor Mormont, the Lords of the North, the Wildlings, or now Jorah.

Before he walks off, Jorah says one final thing to Jon: “May [Longclaw] serve you well, and your children after you.”

The only other reference in the entirety of the series that we’ve ever heard to Jon having children came in the pilot when Jon and his Uncle Benjen were talking about Jon joining the Night’s Watch. Benjen reminds him that in taking the Night’s Watch vows he is promising to never get married or have children to which Jon says he doesn’t care about those things. Benjen very cryptically replies: “You might if you knew what it meant.”

When watching it the first time we all laughed because we thought he was basically saying “SEX IS GOOD YOU VIRGIN LOSER,” but thinking about it now, it seems far more likely that this was a subtle reference to Jon being the trueborn heir to the Iron Throne. As a King, having children to pass down the crown to would matter to Jon. Just as now having a sword that is officially his to pass down to someone will also matter to him.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Arya reveals to Sansa that she knows Sansa helped in the plot to kill their father, Ned. She shows her the note and reads it.

Sansa’s only real reaction is “where’d you find that and who are you going to tell?” To which Arya quickly deduces that the only thing Sansa really cares about is protecting her rep in the eyes of the northerners. Arya is under the impression that ALL Sansa cares about is her own political trajectory. She sees evidence in this scroll of Sansa having betrayed her house in the past and can’t help but think that means she’s capable, and likely, to do it again in the future.

This is obviously what Littlefinger was hoping would happen. The question that keeps coming up in my mind however is, who else could be at the wheel here? Last week I proposed that it would be poetic for Sansa to be playing a long game trying to set up Littlefinger. I still think this could be true, but even so this would clearly be a twist in the plan that Sansa had (if she had one). She never expected Arya to turn on her so abruptly and whether or not this is part of her plan, she’s going to have to try and think of a new way to protect herself from her scary ass sister who seems hell-bent on vengeance against her.

“The Enemy Always Wins”

“You don’t look much like him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Your father.”

This scene of the two undead fire zombies talking starts with some more heavy-handed allusion to Jon’s parentage. He doesn’t look like Ned, the man Beric and Jon both think to be Jon’s father.

You’ll remember that Ned and Beric met back in season one. Ned sent Beric and Thoros out to find Gregor Clegane aka “The Mountain.” In a fit of poetic justice, it is a mountain that they have found.

This is the Mountain that they were sent to find all those years ago. Now, six seasons later (and six deaths and resurrections later), Beric and Thoros have made good on their vow to Ned.

As they’re bonding over their ignorance as to why either of them were brought back by the Lord of Light, Jon realizes that Beric’s reason for fighting is essentially exactly the same as the oath Jon took when he joined the Night’s Watch: “I am the shield that guards the realms of man.” It isn’t about anything more than protecting those who can’t protect themselves. That Jon understands, and that to both of these men seems enough reason to continue in their quest. “Aye. Maybe that’s enough.”

You Can’t Have Kids, Remember?

Back in Dragonstone, Tyrion and Daenerys have a little “girl talk” in which Tyrion explains that heroes typically have a “thing” for Dany. He tells her that he’s seen Jon Snow staring at her and she half-blushes… Conveniently, conversation then shifts to the fact that Daenerys is barren. She can’t have any kids, at least according to her. As she said to Jon in last weeks episode, her dragons are the only children she’ll ever have. Is it a coincidence that almost immediately after the idea of Jon having children is brought up, the fact that Dany claims she can’t have children is also brought up? I think not.

As Daenerys says, dragons are the only children she’ll ever have. I think one could interpret that as meaning that she won’t be able to get pregnant from any man, unless that man happens to have the “blood of the dragon” running through his veins (a.k.a. unless that man is a Targaryen). Enter Jon Snow.

Tyrion talks about her being barren in the context of trying to figure out who will be next in line once she takes the Iron Throne. How will succession work? Tyrion is essentially asking Dany what type of government she wants to install. Will Westeros become a democracy? How will we choose a leader if Dany has no children or relatives to pass the throne to?… That answer could find itself answered when Dany and everyone realize she does have ONE ancestor… Jon.

It seems likely that once Daenerys finds out about Jon’s Targaryen roots, she’ll name him as her successor just like Robb Stark did when he was King in the North.

Someone Get This Polar Bear a Coke

Oh fuck, a wight polar bear. THIS WAS A BAD IDEA… There isn’t a ton to this scene outside of the surface level. A polar bear that has been raised from the dead by the Night King attacks our band of bros and deliver Thoros a devastating wound after he jumps in to save The Hound who looked pretty shell shocked.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The Undead Polar Bear seems pretty unstoppable, that is until Jorah comes running in with a Dragonglass dagger.

The man from , whose house sigil is a bear is fittingly the one to kill the bear. Jorah plunges that dragonglass dagger into the belly of the beast and just like that, the Polar Bear is out for the count. So it seems that dragonglass is not only a weapon against the White Walkers, but also one that works on undead wights.

After the bear is dead they cauterize Thoros’ wound with Beric’s flaming sword, which reminds The Hound of his own burning flesh incident as a child and is the reason he turns away from the group of men and walks off. He can’t bear to watch it.

“Perhaps Lady Brienne Could Help”

With no real friends in Winterfell, Sansa turns to Littlefinger — and this had to be his plan all along. He had to know that when faced with push back from her siblings, Sansa would come running back to him and suddenly he’d have a slight semblance of power once again in the form of influence over the Lady of Winterfell.

After explaining that Arya might try to kill her, Littlefinger chimes in saying, “Perhaps Lady Brienne could help… She is sworn to protect both of Catelyn Stark’s girls… And if one of you were planning to harm the other in any way, wouldn’t she be honor bound to intercede?”

At first it read to me like Littlefinger’s plan was to have Brienne protect Sansa, but if that were the case why not say “if Arya was planning to harm you wouldn’t she be honor bound to intercede?”

He instead chooses to say “if one of you were planning to harm the other” which is critical. It leaves open the possibility, and likelihood, that his plan involved he and Sansa killing or “harming” Arya. This plan makes far more sense when you take into account that later in the episode Sansa receives an invitation to King’s Landing and chooses to command thatLady Brienne go in her place. In that scene Sansa seems almost eager to see Lady Brienne leave Winterfell. Why send the one person sworn to protect you if you are truly fearing for your life?

Sansa doesn’t fear for her life. She fears that Brienne will stand in the way of Littlefinger taking Arya’s life. However, my guess is that in the end Sansa will use this as an opportunity to prove to Arya that she will never betray her house again.

Sansa is sending Brienne away like Littlefinger suggests so he thinks the plan is in place, but in the end Arya won’t be the one who dies, as Sansa will come to the rescue and thwart Littlefinger’s plan by putting family before anything else.

Throw the Poké Ball, Now!

North of the Wall, the gang finds a crew of wights and one White Walker. They ambush them and after Jon kills the White Walker, all the wights deactivate, except one. The only logical explanation, which our characters come to, is that when you kill a White Walker all the wights they’ve raised from the dead die with him, and this one wight was probably the only one in this crew that wasn’t created by that White Walker.

Logically it makes sense I guess, but why would this White Walker go out with a crew of like 15 wights he created and one wight he didn’t? It seems a bit strange and convenient for the story. Also when have we ever seen a small group of wights or White Walkers off by themselves? Based on everything we’d seen in the past, it seemed like they were kind of an all or nothing clan.

But regardless, our guys start tying up the wight to prove to everyone south of the Wall that they’re real, when suddenly they hear the rest of the army barreling towards them.

Realizing they’re in deep shit, Jon commands Gendry to run back to the Wall and send a raven to Daenerys, at which point Gendry gets to stepping. It’s a bit ironic that essentially the last time we’d seen Gendry Davos had told him to row and never stop rowing, and now we’ve got Jon telling him to run and never stop running. Can’t this kid get a little cardio break?

With the army of the dead chasing after them, Jon, Tormund, Thoros, The Hound, Jorah, Beric and a few extras run across a frozen over lake to Pride Rock.

Once all of our main players have made it onto Pride Rock, the lake conveniently cracks, creating a sort of moat to protect them for the time being.

Good news: the dead can’t get to them.

Bad news: they have no food, shelter or warmth.

Good news: Gendry can apparently run a sub 4-minute mile.

He makes it to Eastwatch before nightfall, passes along the message and Davos makes sure that a raven gets out to Daenerys immediately. But all things considered, according to all reports I could find online, based on previous evidence a raven would need three days to fly from Eastwatch to Dragonstone, so who knows how much help Dany can realistically be.

Goodnight Sweet Prince

The next morning (at least that’s how long it seems has gone by) we see that Thoros of Myr has died from the wounds he sustained in the bear fight. This is significant because as The Hound says, Beric Dondarrion is now on his last life. He can’t be resurrected for a seventh time by Thoros which seems fitting. Cat’s have nine lives, but in Westeros seven is the magic number: Seven Kingdoms, Seven Gods, Seven (theoretical) books in the series, Seven badasses north of the wall, Seventh season.

Seven deaths will be it for Beric.

As Jon and Jorah discuss the “plan” which as Jon explains is to just sit and wait for Daenerys to come with her dragons, Beric chimes in and says there’s another way.

He points his sword at the Night King and explains that as we’ve learned, if killing a White Walker also kills all the dead that Walker created, then really you just need to go after patient zero… The Night King. “Kill him. He turned them all.”

“I Have Work To Do Here”

Sansa receives a raven from King’s Landing requesting she ride south, presumably for the unveiling of the wight that Jon is bringing back from beyond the wall. It’s odd that Cersei would send the invites out before she knows whether or not this mission north of the wall was a success. Let’s outline the possible reasons for this:

  1. Cersei didn’t send the invitation, Littlefinger did and it’s all a part of his ploy to get Brienne out of Winterfell so he and Sansa can try to kill Arya.
  2. Cersei has some sort of scheme in place that she plans to enact regardless of whether the mission beyond the wall is a success.
  3. It’s just sloppy writing.

I don’t think it’s number one, because there’s no indication that Sansa or Littlefinger know that there’s a big parlay planned in King’s Landing between Cersei and Daenerys. I don’t know how or why of all things for them to make up to get rid of Brienne, that would be it.

Cersei clearly has some big thing in store as the powers of Westeros converge on King’s Landing, so my guess is that it’s probably number two with a dash of number three splashed in for good measure.

As Sansa commands Brienne to leave and head to King’s Landing in her stead, she tells Brienne, “I do not need to be watched over. I’m not a child. I’m the Lady of Winterfell.”

This feels like clear cut foreshadowing to the fact that Sansa is the one plotting one way or another. She’s the puppet master who’s once again being underestimated by all those around her. Arya thinks she’s a traitor. Littlefinger thinks she needs him to help her plot. Brienne thinks she needs to be protected. Everyone thinks she’s weak, but really she sees this as an opportunity to display her strength.

It’s clear that sending Brienne away was a part of hers and Littlefinger’s plan, but I suspect that their plans will take diverging paths in the next episode. Littlefinger thinks he and Sansa are on the same page but I think we’ll see that Sansa is actually one step ahead of him.

Three Dragons > One Dragon

In this quick scene Tyrion tries convincing Dany not to ride north of the wall with her dragons. He doesn’t want her to die and leave them all “lost.” But she tells him “You told me to do nothing before and I listened. I’m not doing nothing again.”

Dany is taking to heart the advice she received from Lady Olenna in the first episode of this season, she isn’t listening to the “sheep” anymore, she’s choosing to be a dragon because in the end being a dragon is what’s going to gain her the faith and support of everyone around her. She’s going off to battle yet again on Drogon, but this time she’s bringing Rhaegal and Viserion.

Frozen Lake Fight

Back at the frozen lake, The Hound accidentally reveals to everyone (including the dead) that enough time has passed for the lake to freeze over again. This leads to the fight we’ve been waiting for.

The dead start marching and our boys get ready to rumble.

Well, they certainly have the numbers.

After a tumultuous fight in which Jorah saves Jon and The Hound saves Tormund, our five remaining heroes are forced to retreat as their prospects look grim.

And there’s something strange about the whole thing to be honest. The dead are marching on them, and yet the White Walkers just stand back and watch. You’d think that given the insane numbers they have, the White Walkers would ride in for the final kill. It wouldn’t be all that hard for them to do.

But in looking back at Bran’s warging expedition last episode, when he tapped into the flock of ravens, I noticed something. This is a screen grab from that sequence in last weeks episode.

The army of the dead is just sitting there waiting at the exact rock that our heroes now find themselves perched atop. THEY KNEW!

This is definitive proof that the White Walkers have some sort of greenseeing ability to see the future. THIS WHOLE FIGHT HAS BEEN A TRAP. The White Walkers knew this group of seven soldiers would come to this exact location, and because they knew that we can assume they also knew what would happen next…

The White Walkers set a Dragon Trap so to speak. And Dany and her three dragons flew right into it.

Dany flies in to the rescue and for a moment it seems that all is saved. The dragons are laying waste to the army of the dead, and suddenly our heroes can get the hell out of Dodge.

But Jon doesn’t hop on Drogon’s back. Why? Because he wants to create a distraction to buy Daenerys and the rest of the crew time to escape. While watching this scene for the first time I couldn’t help but think Jon got a false sense of bravado and was trying to show off for Daenerys, but when watching it back it feels much darker than that. It feels like Jon wants to die.

We know that Jon is super uncomfortable with the fact that he was resurrected from the dead (as most would be), but I really think that between this and his explicitly telling Melisandre last season not to bring him back if he dies in the Battle of the Bastards, that Jon is kinda over it. He feels like he doesn’t deserve to be alive and is in a way trying to sabotage himself.

I like this screen grab cause Jon kinda looks like Drogon.

As Jon is providing cover for Dany and the dragons, the Night King takes the donuts off his bat and steps into the batters box.

But this makes no sense…

If you’re gonna throw the spear at a dragon, why aim for the moving target flying through the air when you’ve got Drogon sitting on the ground right in front of you?

As soon as Viserion goes down, while everyone else is shocked, Jon gets a look of determination on his face and stares down the Night King. Enough is enough.

Similar to Jaime grabbing the lance and making a run at Daenerys, it seems that Jon is determined to end this war on his own, right here, right now. But after staring the Night King down for a solid five seconds, fear suddenly creeps into Jon’s face.

It seems like Jon sees into his soul and sees his purpose or something, but in reality, he probably just saw the bat boy in the background grabbing another spear and realized that they’re gonna try to take down another dragon.

Jon turns and yells for Dany and crew to fly off, before he’s tackled into the frozen lake.

Look at the Eyes

While Jon is nearing death beneath the freezing waters of the lake, we see Longclaw resting on the ice. If you look closely at the image on the left, the wolf’s eyes on the pommel are closed, but as soon as Jon reaches out of the water and it’s clear he’s alive the eyes on the pommel open. I don’t know what it means, but it’s a cool little nuance. We can look to the pommel of Jon’s sword from now on to determine whether he’s alive or not.

After the dead army notice Jon is still alive, they turn to attack him, but Jon’s conveniently saved by his undead Uncle Benjen.

Benjen essentially serves the exact same purpose to Jon here, that Jon did to Daenerys earlier. He’s an undead Stark coming to create a distraction and sacrifice himself to ensure that Jon can escape.

Benjen forces Jon onto his horse and tells him to ride for Eastwatch, as Benjen saunters off into the army of the dead to die.

A Parallel Story

With Viserion dying, I began thinking back to his namesake, Daenerys’ evil older brother Viserys.

Viserys was killed in season one, but if you think about it there really is a significant parallel between the stories of Dany, Khal Drogo and Viserys and Jon Snow, Dany and Viserion.

In season one, the Targaryens want Khal Drogo to sail with the Dothraki to Westeros to take back the Iron Throne. Khal Drogo pays Viserys and Dany no attention, that is until Viserys dies. At that point Khal Drogo commits to taking the Seven Kingdoms for Dany.

Similarly here, Jon tries to get Daenerys to join him and fight the Night King in the North. She pays him no attention, until right now when Viserion dies. Jon is the new Dany and Dany is the new Khal Drogo.

Jon Snow Knows Nothing. Dany Knows Something.

Back at Eastwatch, Jon arrives on Benjen’s horse and is seen to by a Maester aboard the Targaryen ship they sailed on.

It is here that Dany sees the wounds Jon sustained when his men turned on him and killed him. He has a stab wound right where his heart is and thus Daenerys knows that the story of him being resurrected is true.

“I Don’t Want To Play”

In Winterfell, Sansa goes snooping around Arya’s room and comes across her bag of faces. When Arya arrives, she cryptically asks Sansa if she wants to play a game, kinda like the dude from “Saw.”

Arya is channeling the Waif from last season who was super creepy and kind of tormented Arya. In this scene in particular I began to realize that Arya really is no one. She has completely lost her own personality and individuality and instead is almost playing the part of someone from her past in each scene and interaction she has.

Here she’s playing the role of the Waif. She goes on to explain to Sansa that they both always wanted to be someone else, Sansa wanted to be a Queen and Arya wanted to be a Knight. Neither of those dreams came true, but what makes Arya stronger than Sansa is that she has the ability to be whoever she wants. Literally. She could even become Sansa if she really wanted to.

Wakey Wakey Eggs And Bacey

Jon Snow wakes up on the ship and the first thing he sees is Daenerys staring down at him on the verge of tears.

Jon tells her he’s “so so sorry” and we immediately see that he “gets” her. He knows and trusts what she told him about her dragons. “The dragons are my children. They’re the only children I’ll ever have. Do you understand?” Daenerys asks Jon.

That “do you understand” is interesting in that it almost sounds like she’s telling him that “if we get married I can’t have kids.”

Daenerys then pledges to fight with Jon and kill the Night King to which Jon replies: “Thank you Dany.” As Daenerys says, Jon is the first person to call her than since her brother Viserys died (the namesake of her dragon that just died).

She’s almost taken aback by the familiarity of the name. But Jon then calls her something else, “My Queen.” Daenerys’ character in flying to the rescue of Jon and his men north of the wall was enough to convince him that she does deserve to be Queen. He even says of his Northern Lords that “they’ll come to see you for what you are.”

And what is she? A dragon. By heeding Olenna Tyrell’s advice and choosing her own path instead of the path a typical Westerosi King would take, Dany has proven her worth to those around her. Not disimilar from Jon. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Jon was raised to Lord Commander and then King in the North because of his actions. He is now committed to raising Daenerys to Queen because of her actions. He doesn’t care that her last name is Targaryen, he cares that she has the heart, courage and convictions of a Queen.

It’s also worth noting that Jon seems to continue to find himself saved by powerful women. Melisandre raised him from the dead, Sansa won the Battle of the Bastards by sending for help from the Vale, and Daenerys now saved his ass at the Frozen Lake. If anyone has reason to trust and believe in the powerful women of Westeros, it’s Jon Snow.

The Chain Gang

North of the Wall we see the army of the dead dragging Viserion out of the lake. People everywhere are wondering where the hell the Night King got those chains from. I think we can write it off to the fact that he, like Bran, has the ability to see the future and knew he’d need them (but that’s just my way of justifying it, the criticism about the writing of this episode is real and very justified).

I suspected that one of Daenerys’s dragons would be killed and turned into a White Walker Dragon at some point, but I didn’t expect it to happen this soon. The Night King now has a dragon to ride, and it seems likely that Jon will in time learn to ride Rhaegal, giving us a two on one dragon fight which will be fun to watch.

But undead Viserion now gives the army of the dead a clear and easy path into Westeros. If he breathes fire, the Night King can simply melt down the wall, but if he doesn’t still breath fire, the Night King can simply fly over the Wall into Westeros, breaking whatever spells were keeping the wall standing.

One way or another, that Wall is coming down next week.

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Lincoln Boehm

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writer. resident of brooklyn. my appearance fee is what it is. non-negotiable.

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