The First Footage for Season 8 of ‘Game of Thrones’ Is Here
Just when it seemed like HBO might withhold any glimpses of the upcoming season of ‘Thrones,’ a meeting at Winterfell was unveiled during the Golden Globes
Exactly one month ago, HBO teased us with a cryptic Game of Thrones trailer that featured no new footage. At the time, there was a legitimate question as to whether we’d ever see new Thrones footage before the season begins. But seemingly out of nowhere, HBO gave us a solid five seconds of new footage during the Golden Globes. Blink and you’ll miss it:
This 60-second HBO spot includes a brief shot of the Night King riding his ice dragon four seconds in, but we’ve seen that scene before—it’s from the Season 7 finale, when the Night King burns down the Wall. It also includes Drogon in flight at the 39-second mark, but this, too, is a clip we’ve already seen, a reversed shot of Drogon and the Dothraki arriving for the Loot Train Attack in the fourth episode of Season 7. After that, though, we finally get it:
New.
Freaking.
Footage.
Daenerys is in Winterfell! And she and Sansa meet face-to-face for the first time!
All right, this isn’t exactly earth-shattering. The White Walkers breached the Wall last season and are headed south from there, so any Thrones fan should know that Winterfell will play a pivotal role in the upcoming season. It’s likely that the first real battle with the Walkers will happen right outside the very walls Dany and Sansa are standing behind in this clip, which could very well be from the first five minutes of the premiere episode. Hell, Daenerys, Jon, and Sansa are even wearing the same outfits they wore for much of Season 7. (This clip is difficult to blog off of!)
We also get glimpses of Brienne and Jorah; Sansa is pretty icy in her delivery of “Winterfell is yours, your grace,” and Jon is initially standing beside her when Dany walks up. It’s possible this is giving us a glimpse at some future tension—Sansa wasn’t on board with Jon heading south to meet Daenerys, and now he’s bringing the dragon-wielding monarch to the North. But that’s about as far down the rabbit hole as we can go with this small amount of footage. There’s still no word on an official trailer—and we still don’t even have a premiere date. For now, Season 8 is simply set for “April 2019.” Next month’s Super Bowl seems like the best bet for a real trailer—but at this point, I’d settle for just knowing when to mark the premiere on my calendar.