HBO has released the trailer for Season 8, the final season of Game of Thrones. And while the trailer doesn’t show much, it has still given fans a lot to dissect and discuss.
And — if Twitter is any indication — it’s given them plenty of stuff to freak out about.
There are already frame-by-frame analysis of the trailer available. The trailer is just under a minute, and it doesn’t show any actual footage of the upcoming season, according to Winter is Coming.
What it does show is plenty of symbolism, and GoT fans feast on symbolism.
Blackness. A white mist begins to encroach from the left. As it begins to spread, the camera pulls back to reveal a darkened map of Westeros. Ice, on the back of the mist, sweeps across the land in a terrifying, quiet wave.
There’s much more. The trailer also shows a dire wolf being engulfed by the mist to be covered with ice. The dire wolf is, of course, the symbol of House Stark. Next, a dragon is visible on the map. It, too, is taken by the ice.
The view changes. Now, a fire is blazing from the other side of the map. The flame engulf the bottom half of the map, rolling across a lion that also begins to burn. The fire spreads across King’s Landing.
As the ice and fire collide, the show’s logo sweeps across the screen and eventually leaves the fans in blackness.
Here they will wait until April to see the final outcome of the show and the battles that have been brewing since the very beginning of the series.
However, canny fans have noticed very specific things about the trailer. First, there’s where the ice is coming from: the north. And the fire, it’s coming from the south.
Then, of course, there are the telltale markers on the map: the wolf, the dragon, and the lion. As the symbols of the main houses, these are much more than just animals. To see them all engulfed by what appears to be evil forces is a bit jarring, to say the least.
Could this be a suggestion that all three of these houses (Stark, Targaryen, Lannister) will fall? Does this mean that all of Westeros will be destroyed?
And, perhaps most telling of all, where the two elements clash. The fire and ice come together at the River Trident, a place that has a long and famous history in Westeros.
Fans are already coming up with lots of theories about the meaning of the trailer, and the details that others may have missed.
According to Vanity Fair, when the two forces clash, it appears that dragonglass (also known in the show as obsidian) begins to rise up at the point of impact.
HBO has stated that Season 8 will come out in April, but there has been no specific date announced.
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