Dragonstone (episode)

"This article is about the episode. For the large island, see 'Dragonstone (island);' for the eponymous castle, see 'Dragonstone (castle);' for the Histories & Lore special feature, see 'Dragonstone (Histories & Lore).'"

"Dragonstone" is the upcoming first episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones. It will be the sixty-first episode of the series overall. It will premiere on July 16, 2017. It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by Jeremy Podeswa.

Plot
Jon organizes the defense of the North. Cersei tries to even the odds. Daenerys comes home.

Cast
Starring
 * Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister
 * Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ser Jaime Lannister
 * Lena Headey as Queen Cersei Lannister
 * Emilia Clarke as Queen Daenerys Targaryen
 * Kit Harington as King Jon Snow
 * Liam Cunningham as Ser Davos Seaworth
 * Sophie Turner as Princess Sansa Stark
 * Gwendoline Christie as Lady Brienne of Tarth
 * Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
 * Conleth Hill as Varys

Guest Starring
 * Jacob Anderson as Grey Worm
 * Daniel Portman as Podrick Payne
 * Ben Crompton as Eddison Tollett
 * Ellie Kendrick as Meera Reed
 * Bella Ramsey as Lady Lyanna Mormont

General

 * As of the end of Season 6, all plotlines have surpassed the current novels in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Though the TV series has also drastically changed several of them. Season 6 surpassed the novels on some plotlines when it began, such as Jon Snow's, but others were holdovers from prior books (the Ironborn and Riverrun subplots). Whatever the case, from this point onwards, no one can know with certainty if any characters will survive from one episode to the next.
 * A question arises regarding the Title sequence in Season 7. The production department which creates its variants every week actually follows a formal set of rules, and the primary one is that it had to show at least four specific map locations in every episode, even if no scenes are actually set there in a specific episode: King's Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, and "wherever Daenerys is at the moment". For example, the second episode of Season 1, "The Kingsroad", doesn't actually contain any scenes set in King's Landing, but King's Landing still appears in the credits. The production team explained that they made this rule so that the opening map sequence can always show just how big the fictional world is - specifically, showing "wherever Daenerys is" allows them to quickly show that the world is bigger than just the single continent of Westeros. For the first four TV seasons, Daenerys's storyline was the only major one in the eastern continent Essos, though in Season 5 both Tyrion and Arya's storylines moved to Essos as well. In Season 7, however, Daenerys is finally coming to Westeros, as are Tyrion and Arya, and for the first time there are no storylines set outside of Westeros at all. It remains to be seen if the opening sequence will still try to show the other continents somehow, or will drastically change to start showing more locations in Westeros itself. Another rule was that the opening sequence has a time limit, so the map has never actually shown more than six locations in a given episode: it would take too long for the camera to zoom from Dorne to the Wall then to Meereen and back to Volantis, so they don't all appear in the same title sequence in Seasons 5 and 6. No longer having to show Daenerys in the Dothraki Sea or in Meereen might thus free up time to show every on-screen location from Westeros.

At the Wall

 * Of the companions that Bran Stark left Winterfell with at the end of Season 2, and picked up in Season 3, only Bran and Meera Reed are still alive. He left Winterfell with Osha, Hodor, Rickon Stark, and their two direwolves - in the books, he left with Meera and Jojen Reed as well, but the TV show pushed back their introduction to the start of Season 3, immediately after he fled Winterfell, due to time constraints. Some of these characters may survive in the book version - though the showrunners have confirmed that Hodor will die in broadly similar fashion in the books, and Jojen has had visions that he will die on his quest to bring Bran to the Three-eyed raven.
 * Bran's return to the North raises issues of the rightful heir to the North: due to the male-preference primogeniture laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms, Bran Stark was always ahead of his older sister Sansa in line of succession to Winterfell - just as Sansa, as a trueborn daughter, ranks ahead of a bastard son.  No one, even Sansa, would challenge that he has a better claim than she does - they knew this since they were small children.  Robb Stark even spoke of Bran as his direct heir at the end of Season 1, not Sansa or Arya. In addition, Bran brings with him the shocking news that Jon Snow isn't even Eddard Stark's bastard son, but the son of Ned's younger sister Lyanna Stark, in which case he'd rank behind both Bran and Sansa regardless of being a bastard or not.
 * There has been some fan speculation that the sword Meera Reed brought back from the Cave of the three-eyed raven is actually Dark Sister, the Valyrian steel sword that once belonged to Visenya Targaryen and remained the secondary family sword of House Targaryen. The novels all but state that the Three-eyed raven was originally Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, a bastard son of House Targaryen and a major character in the Tales of Dunk and Egg prequels who later became Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but disappeared beyond the Wall decades ago.  He wielded the sword Dark Sister but it was lost ever since.  Neither Meera nor any of Bran's other companions brought a sword with them beyond the Wall - Meera just started using it in the cave against wights without explanation, the tacit assumption being that the Children just scavenged it from somewhere.  She never used the sword against a White Walker so if it was in fact a Valyrian steel sword, its true nature hasn't been revealed.  There is as of yet no confirmation of this, given that the pommel design doesn't match a specific description (it doesn't overtly have a Targaryen sigil on it).

At Winterfell

 * As pointed out by Michele Clapton, Sansa Stark's new costume has semi-circular embroidery on the chest to evoke fish-scales, for her mother Catelyn of House Tully. Tully costumes, as seen with Brynden and her uncle Edmure, feature armor with a more prominent fish-scale design motif.
 * Brienne of Tarth's storyline is drastically diverging from the novels by this point. In the novel series, after Brienne left King's Landing (corresponding to the start of Season 4), she continued to travel around the Riverlands on foot with Podrick Payne searching fruitlessly for Sansa and Arya, far away from their actual locations, without encountering any of them, and without getting involved in the siege of Riverrun either. Her storyline ended on a cliffhanger confrontation with the Brotherhood Without Banners which also involved Jaime Lannister at the end of the fifth novel. Anything Brienne does beyond this point is apparently an invention of the TV series.
 * Brienne traveling to Winterfell and the Wall in Seasons 5 and 6, and meeting Sansa, was purely an invention of the TV series. Then in the second half of Season 6, the TV series brought back Jaime's subplot at the Second Siege of Riverrun (which is what he did about halfway the fourth novel - the TV series instead invented the subplot of sending him to Dorne, while in the novels that mission was given to Ser Balon Swann). Brienne then encountered Jaime at Riverrun - while this did not happen as such in the novels they did meet again in the Riverlands under different circumstances. Brienne returning to Winterfell once again afterwards may not happen in the unreleased novels.
 * Given that Brienne never went to the Wall in the novels, Tormund being attracted to her in Season 6 was an invention of the TV series. It does somewhat match the point that the wildlings actually respect Warrior women (who they call Spearwives) - in contrast with how Brienne is seen as a target of mockery in the courts of southern Westeros.
 * Surprisingly given how prominently it appeared, director Daniel Sackheim said in an interview with TVGuide that he thought the amorous looks Tormund was giving Brienne in Season 6 were so subtle he feared fans didn't notice: "I wasn't even sure that when I delivered the episode it was really clear. It was like a fun little bit, but I wasn't sure it was really clear that he had these amorous feelings for Brienne. I'm always amazed what fans pick up." The first time that Tormund gives an impressed look at Brienne when they were in the mess hall at Castle Black was just a brief note in that script, but the production team liked it so much they invented more scenes of it.

At Dragonstone

 * "Dragonstone" is the name of both the large island and the eponymous castle which is its ruling seat.
 * Dragonstone is the ancestral homeland of House Targaryen, settled centuries ago as the westernmost outpost of the Valyrian Freehold. Due to its isolation, when the Doom of Valyria destroyed their vast empire in a single day, the Targaryens survived on Dragonstone with the world's only remaining dragons. One of the reasons they settled the isle is because it has an active volcano, a preferred nesting ground of dragons.
 * Dragonstone is one of the strongest fortresses in all of Westeros, because it was built by the ancient Valyrians themselves using advanced construction techniques which were lost after their empire collapsed. The Valyrians were fond of building vast mega-structures by having dragons literally melt down stone with their flames, then teasing out the black liquid stone into various fantastic shapes. he island is also decorated with numerous dragon-themed statues and gargoyles. Its architectural designs seem very strange and foreign to people from mainland Westeros.
 * The Targaryens spent a hundred years after the Doom building up their strength, then invaded Westeros in the Targaryen Conquest. Afterwards, Dragonstone remained their private domain and final redoubt. Traditionally, the heir to the Iron Throne would rule the island directly as "Prince of Dragonstone" (comparable to how the real-life heir to the British monarchy is known as the "Prince of Wales").
 * During their exile, Daenerys was the nominal heir of her brother Viserys Targaryen - who made the empty claim to be "King Viserys the Third" in exile. Thus, Daenerys nominally held the title "Princess of Dragonstone". Given that Viserys dies by the sixth episode of Season 1, this comes up more frequently in the first novel, i.e. when Illyrio Mopatis introduces Daenerys to Drogo for the first time, in the book version he lists off her formal title as "Princess of Dragonstone", but this was omitted from the TV version. The title was entirely academic of course, given that they were living in exile and upon Viserys's death she inherited his full title as the Targaryen claimant to the throne itself.
 * Daenerys Targaryen was actually born on Dragonstone, at the end of Robert's Rebellion. Right before the rebel army sacked King's Landing her father the Mad King sent his pregnant wife away to safety on Dragonstone, where she died in childbirth. Her brother Viserys fled with her into exile in the Free Cities a few weeks later, so she has no memory of it, but technically it is still her true home. Daenerys has spent her life living on the sufferance of others or as a foreign invader in Slaver's Bay, but on Viserys's death, Dragonstone became hers by right.
 * Of course, much like the Iron Throne, given that Jon Snow is actually the secret son of her eldest brother, Rhaegar, Jon might have more claim to it than her, but even then, Daenerys is his closest Targaryen relative, so Dragonstone would still be hers as next in line to the throne.
 * Earlier episodes kept this point that Daenerys was technically born in Westeros, on Dragonstone. In Season 2, when the Spice King in Qarth directly asks her if she's ever even set foot in Westeros, she responds that she fled when she was just a baby. In Season 6, Tyrion also remarks to Jorah that Daenerys has never spent "one day of her adult life" in Westeros.
 * Because Dragonstone is a volcanic island (surrounded by the salty sea), and Daenerys was born there, she matches the prophecies about Azor Ahai and The Prince That Was Promised being "born amidst salt and smoke". Melisandre thought that Stannis fit this as ruler of Dragonstone, interpreting it as a figurative "rebirth" when he claimed his position as the Lord's Chosen.  Maester Aemon also explains in the novels that in the original High Valyrian the prophecy was made in, "Prince" is actually a gender-neutral term, like "ruler", so the female Daenerys still fits it.
 * Targaryen shouder capes.jpg new costume style that Daenerys shifts to starting in this episode is actually not entirely new to the series - she has switched to the "old Targaryen style" that her brother Viserys was seen wearing back in Season 1 (as sort of a sign that she has embraced her inner Targaryen nature as a conqueror). Costume designer Michele Clapton explained at the time that because Viserys was older than Daenerys when the Targaryens were deposed (he was a child), he still remembers what the fashions at the old Targaryen royal court looked like and dresses in them - thus even though his one costume didn't appear very often, it was meant to be a window into what the old Targaryen style looked like: asymmetric cut, peaked shoulder cuffs that are separate from the undercoat, long form-fitting sleeves, high collar, and a short cape asymmetrically pinned to one shoulder (as Viserys was seen wearing at her wedding to Drogo in the first episode). Finally, of course, she has also dramatically shifted from her prior blue or white color palettes to finally dressing in Targaryen red and black, the colors of their heraldry. For more information, see "Costumes: King's Landing - Under the Targaryens"
 * As for the new Costumes of many characters in Season 7 shifting to darker colors, the reason behind this is simple: the costuming department felt that because "winter" has officially descended across Westeros, characters should now be wearing dark colors i.e. the time for wearing brighter colors would have been Renly's camp in Season 2 when they were "the knights of summer".
 * Dragonstone island was last held by Stannis Baratheon as his main seat during the war. In the books, when Stannis took his main force north to save the Night's Watch at the Battle of Castle Black, he left a small skeleton defense force behind to hold the castle. Given how strong the fortress is even this small garrison was enough to deter a direct attack by the Lannisters: as a result much of the remaining Lannister/Tyrell fleet was pinned down encircling and besieging Dragonstone, trying to wait them out through starvation over time. This prevented the Lannisters or Tyrells from dealing with the rise of Euron Greyjoy on the west coast. Loras Tyrell has come up with the idea to force a quick end to the siege by storming the castle, stating that he can conquer the castle within two weeks; Cersei agrees, in hopes he will die in the fighting. Loras takes the castle, but with heavy and unnecessary losses due to his rash nature, and after fighting through many defenders despite taking numerous wounds, he was doused with boiling oil and left barely clinging to life. Cersei then needlessly gloated to Margaery about Loras, breaking down the already fragile Lannister-Tyrell alliance. The TV series omitted all of this and just had Loras burn to death in the Destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor (in either version, he apparently burns to death - though there is some slim chance he might in fact survive in the books). As a result, as of the most current novel Dragonstone is weakly held by a remaining Lannister force after the siege.
 * Thus, it is unclear how the TV show will address this: no mention was made of the state Dragonstone was left in since it was last seen in Season 4. Whether it was taken by the Lannisters off-screen, or if a skeleton force of Stannis's men still hold it.
 * Dragonstone was Stannis's base of operations seen in Seasons 2 through 4, but several major locations on it weren't actually shown on screen at the time, probably due to budget constraints. Most interior scenes focused on the war planning room around the Painted Table - a large table painted as a large map of Westeros which Aegon I Targaryen himself used when he was planning his conquest of Westeros. Exterior shots focused on a generic beach with a large dragon statue in the background as a digital insert. Season 7 depicts all of Dragonstone's exteriors, and several new major internal locations, including a fully realized throne room, hewn from the volcanic rock. Stannis sat on this throne in several scenes from the books that were shifted to the council room. Historically, many prior Targaryens from Aegon I to Rhaenyra sat on the throne of Dragonstone.
 * Dragonstone was a major location in the Dance of the Dragons, the great Targaryen civil war fought 170 years ago. It was the initial headquarters of Rhaenyra Targaryen and her faction, while her half-brother Aegon II held King's Landing itself. Several prequel projects to follow the main series are being discussed, and it is possible that these Dragonstone sets were introduced with an eye towards being re-used for a prequel series.
 * As when Stannis held it, Dragonstone isn't worth much in and of itself to Daenerys, as a comparatively small island - but it has an excellent strategic location controlling the mouth of Blackwater Bay, and thus threatening all sea travel going to or from King's Landing. Additionally, of course, it is a strong symbolic move for Daenerys to go from being a foreign exile to directing her invasion of from the ancestral seat of the Targaryens themselves in Westeros.

In the books
[This section will be updated with comparisons after the sixth novel is released.]