Game of Thrones season 8 premiere reactions and surprises
Photo Credit: HBO
If you weren’t one of the millions watching the season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones last night, consider this your warning — spoilers ahead!
After 20 long, excruciating months, Game of Thrones premiered on our screens; well, most of our screens. Some poor souls had some trouble with their streaming services.
Regardless of viewing woes, Game of Thrones’ season 8 premiere was watched by an estimated 17.4 million viewers Sunday night, surpassing season 7’s 16.9 million viewers.
The episode was mostly about reunification — almost every reunion we wanted to see happen, happened. And while I think the episode was a bit underwhelming – because how could it ever live up to the hype from a 20-month hiatus – it still needed to be done to set up the rest of the five episodes.
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Surprises
1. A new intro!
One thing that always set Game of Thrones apart is their creative opening credits, in which iconic houses from each region are rising from nothing during the show’s theme song. We’ve seen the Wall before, but this time, there was a giant hole in it. And we were also taken inside buildings, like the Winterfell crypts. One last interesting thing to note is that the close-up shots of the panels on the astroglobe showed the fall of the Wall, the Red Wedding, and the birth of the dragons.
2. No one important died.
Everyone was expecting it, but no main character bit the dust this week. The only one who unfortunately died was Ned Umber, the young Lord of Last Hearth.
3. Sam mourned his father and brother.
Well, Sam crying over his brother, Dickon (tee-hee), wasn’t that surprising, but his father was awfully cruel to him, so I didn’t expect him to be so sad to hear of his death. I can’t help but wonder what this might do to the possibility of Sam becoming Daenerys’ supporters.
Photo Credit: HBO
4. Sam tells Jon about his true parentage, not Bran.
First of all, how was Jon at Winterfell for that long without seeing Sam? I understand that the creators wanted to keep the big reveal until later in the show, but it still seemed weird that their reunion waited that long. And, I didn’t expect Sam to have to tell Jon this life-changing news by himself.
5. Tormund and Beric survived the Wall.
This may only be surprising to those who didn’t see or pay attention to the trailer. The man behind Tormund even gave an interview confirming he’d be back for season 8. But seriously, who the heck did they survive the Wall crumbling down? I would have liked to see that.