Five Burning Questions about the Season 5 trailer–for readers

We’ve had our first good look at the Season 5 trailer of Game of Thrones, and we’re getting more and more hyped for the season. But this season is going to be much more of a loose adaptation, thanks to the size and difficulty of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.

So for readers, here are five of our biggest questions about the new season….

1. What’s that Wildling battle?

Kit Harington said that this season of Thrones had a scene that took a month to film, and I think the trailer clearly showed what that was: a major battle involving Jon Snow and a whole bunch of Wildlings. This isn’t something that happened to Jon in the novels, so what is it?

Several of the fighters are shown getting off of boats, so that’s our first clue–the fight is taking place near water. The Wall is nowhere near any major bodies of water, but an oft-mentioned location in Dance, Hardhome, is. Hardhome is a Wildling settlement that turns into one of the main Wildling destinations after Mance’s defeat. Bad things happen there–it’s unclear exactly what, and Jon sends Tormund there. The show sending Jon instead, perhaps before the events of the end of the book, makes sense. The show has an action scene for one of its biggest heroes, and viewers, who don’t get rumors the way readers do, get a much clearer picture of what happened to the settlement. This seems an eminently plausible assumption.

We’ve also got a shot of the guy above, who could be Rattleshirt–a Wildling with a fairly important role to seem to play in the novels but who hasn’t appeared on the show in significant fashion. If that’s the case, and he’s captured in this battle, then the pieces required for the execution scene from Dance start falling into place. On the other hand, if they’re expanding Jon’s story, will Game of Thrones reach the end of his story in Dance?

2. Who is Olenna Tyrell talking to?

“They’ll never even find what’s left of you” says Diana Rigg ominously halfway through the trailer. First, this is good news! Last we saw Olenna Tyrell, she was telling Margaery that her work in King’s Landing was done, and it was time to go home. But Rigg has been so good in the role–and the Lords of The Reach have been reduced just to the few Tyrell family members–that bringing Olenna back for the major escalation in political intrigue in Feast/Dance is a good idea. (Although for some odd reason I’d also be keen on seeing Lord Mathis Rowan.)

Question is: who is she pissed off at? The most obvious answer is Cersei Lannister, whose intrigues against Margaery  and Tyrell influence comprise perhaps the most important aspect of A Feast for Crows. But there’s also Cersei’s erstwhile ally, the High Sparrow, or a wildcard like Littlefinger, who was spotted during King’s Landing filming. I’m getting very excited about this scene.

Bonus question: who’s the clearly adult man Margaery is embracing intimately in the trailer?

3. How far is Varys going?

Just in the trailer alone, we see that Varys’ role as a guide for Tyrion to Dany’s camp has been expanded. Interestingly, the trailer is making it clear where Varys’ loyaties lie: House Targaryen. But he’s describing Dany’s strengths instead of Illyrio, and at least once is seen guiding Tyrion through some kind of event at Essos. This makes sense: Conleth Hill is fantastic, and is a much more familiar face than Roger Allam’s Illyrio Mopatis. But we know that we haven’t seen Hill in the photos from the bullring, so he’s going to deviate from Tyrion’s path at some point.

What makes this especially interesting is the bald head that the Sand Snake unearths from the barrel. Could that be Varys? Is he really going to Dorne as well? This makes sense, if he considers himself an ambassador for the Targaryens. But it’s a long journey, and a big deviation from the novels, if so. (Also interesting: Ellaria Sand, here and at other points in the trailer, certainly looks to have assumed a leadership role in Dorne.)

4. What are Sansa and Littlefinger doing?

There’s a lot of Sansa in the trailer, which is something of a surprise, given that the eldest Stark daughter has, as of Season 4, completed or even moved past her Feast storyline. So what we’re getting is either entirely new story for the show, or it’s moving ahead of the novels. Either way, we have no real idea what’s going on. We do see a lot of Dark Sansa (yes!) and part of what might be the “traumatic scene” Sophie Turner promised.

Littlefinger is consoling her, telling her to “avenge them.” But who is them? Sansa is crying as though the pain is new, so it’s probably not her long-dead family members. Several of the quick shots seem to show knights riding through terrain that looks like The Vale–could Sansa be leading the armies of House Arryn into battle? Could she be losing? For the first time in Game of Thrones, we have no idea what’s going to happen. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited.

5. Where are our new characters? And where are some of the old ones?

Arguably the two most famous new cast members, Alexander Siddig and Jonathan Pryce, don’t appear at all in the trailer, although Pryce’s voice does, for the “strip away the gold” line. We get brief glimpses of the Sand Snakes, but the trailer’s focus is almost entirely on Cersei, Sansa, Tyrion, and Dany (the trailer is very woman-focused generally, come to think of it.) This makes sense–give the fans who they know–but I might have thought there’d be a bit more showing off of their new casting. On the other hand, that Sand Snake whip scene is probably the most striking image of the entire trailer.

Meanwhile, although most of our major characters are at least shown a little bit, a few are almost totally missing. Brienne of Tarth, who, like Sansa, largely completed her Feast for Crows storyline, is nowhere to be seen. I’d have loved some more clues about what she’s up to. And there’s nothing from the North–no Theon, no Roose (except perhaps a glimpse), and no Ramsay. Now, we know that someone associated with the Boltons, Myranda, is having her role expanded. So they’ll be around. But how? Between this, the lack of casting for Wyman Manderly and Jeyne Poole, and Jon’s role being expanded and perhaps slowed down, I wonder if the North might continue to lag behind the rest of the show in where it is along the books.

Honorable Mention

What the fuck is up with Cersei’s snake?

• Published on 01/30/2015 at 7:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:06 PM CDT