"The Last of the Starks" is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Game of Thrones. It is the seventy-first episode of the series overall. It premiered on May 5, 2019.[1] It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by David Nutter.
The episode title refers to Arya's statement "We're family. The four of us. The last of the Starks".
Similar things have been said about other houses. In "Winterfell," Euron says that he and Yara are the only remaining members of House Greyjoy, while Cersei had previously said that she and Jaime were the last Lannisters in "The Red Woman."
This provides an interesting insight into the differences in family dynamics among these three great houses: the Starks make sure to include Jon as one of their number even though he is an alleged bastard who doesn't share their name, while Euron discounted Theon as a Greyjoy and Cersei excludes Tyrion as a Lannister.
The fates of a few missing characters from the Battle of Ice and Fire is revealed. Ghost and Rhaegal did in fact survive though injured (Ghost bloodied and missing an ear and Rhaegal with holes in his wing). Yohn Royce also survived. Less clear is the fate of Alys Karstark, who is neither seen amongst the dead nor the living. Her actress has hinted on Instagram that the character did in fact die.
Despite the Night King's defeat in the previous episode, the title sequence still starts at the hole in the Wall where Eastwatch used to be and still shows his army's approach to Winterfell. Dragonstone does not appear in the title sequence despite being a major setting for the episode. Conversely, Last Hearth still appears in the sequence despite not appearing in the episode.
Cersei returns in this episode, after being absent for two episodes, as she was last seen in "Winterfell". This is the first and only time her character has been absent for two consecutive episodes.
Callbacks
Tyrion convinces Jaime and Brienne to play the drinking game he originated in Season 1's "Baelor", in which you have to take a drink if someone can accurately guess something about you. Brienne refers to Tyrion's first marriage, which he mentioned in the aforementioned.
During his encounter with Bronn, Tyrion begins to say "Power resides where men believe it resides." This echos what Varys told him in Season 2's "What Is Dead May Never Die": "Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick, a shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
Daenerys asks Gendry whether he is aware that his father tried to have her murdered, presumably referring to the first attempt to poison her ("You Win or You Die").
Davos says that the last time he saw Melisandre, he warned her he'd kill her if he ever saw her again ("The Winds of Winter").
Sansa says "he [Ramsay] got what he deserved. I gave it to him", referring to Ramsay's death ("Battle of the Bastards").
The Hound tells Sansa "Used to be you couldn't look at me", referring to their first meeting, when she was frightened by his burnt face ("The Kingsroad").
The Hound reminds Sansa that he offered her to escape from King's Landing with him ("Blackwater").
Tyrion says "I watched the people of King's Landing rebel against their king when they were hungry", referring to the Riot of King's Landing ("The Old Gods and the New").
Gendry tells Arya "Be my wife. Be the Lady of Storm's End", a reference to his words "You'd be my lady" in "Kissed by Fire"; Arya declines Gendry's proposal, saying "I'm not a Lady" - a reference to the words she told her father in "Lord Snow" - "I don't want to be a lady"; she also says "That's not me" - a reference to the words she told her direwolf in "Stormborn" - "That's not you".
The Hound reminds Arya that she left him to die ("The Children").
Bronn reminds Tyrion for the second time (following "Mockingbird") what he said in "The Pointy End" - that if anyone offered Bronn money to kill Tyrion, he'd pay Bronn double (actually, Tyrion promised "whatever their price, I'll beat it" - not "double it").
Tyrion says that Daenerys is "a girl who walked into a fire with three stones and walked out with three dragons" ("Fire and Blood").
Jaime says he would have murdered every man, woman and child in Riverrun for Cersei, referring to what he told Edmure Tully in "No One": "The people in the castle don't matter to me. Only Cersei. And if I have to slaughter every Tully who ever lived to get back to her, that's what I'll do".
Jaime tells Brienne "She's [Cersei] hateful". In "Breaker of Chains" he told Cersei "You're a hateful woman".
Tyrion tells Varys "Please, don't" - the same words and in the same tone he told Shae in "The Laws of Gods and Men".
Errors
A Starbucks coffee paper cup clearly visible on the table in front of Daenerys (click to expand).
During the feast scene at Winterfell, a modern Starbucks paper coffee cup is clearly and prominently visible in front of Daenerys. It happens when Tormund is boasting about Jon and how "who most people get bloody murdered, they stay that way". On the HBO Now streaming service, it is visible in the episode from 17:38 to 17:41. Though originally thought to be from Starbucks, art director Hauke Richter confirmed the coffee cup was from a local shop in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, where the scene was filmed. The cup has since been digitally removed.[2]
Following his legitimization, Gendry says that he is no longer "Gendry Rivers" - which is wrong on two points. First, he was never an acknowledged bastard, and only acknowledged bastards can even use the special surnames used for bastards of the nobility. Within the TV show, no one ever referred to him as anything other than "Gendry" before. He even points out in dialogue that he didn't even know Robert Baratheon was his father until after Robert died, so Robert could never have legally acknowledged him. Second, "Gendry Rivers" is simply the wrong bastard surname. Bastards from the Riverlands use the surname "Rivers", just as bastards from the North use "Snow". Gendry is from King's Landing, however, and bastards from the Crownlands use the surname "Waters". A simple google search could have revealed this, and the line is apparently in error.
The line was so clearly in error that several major foreign language dubs simply refused to accept it. The official German language dub, for example, outright changed the line to "Gendry Waters".
The error was particularly obvious on Game of Thrones Wiki itself, where for the past eight TV seasons the administrative staff have habitually had to stop editors from retitling the "Gendry" article to "Gendry Waters" - not "Gendry Rivers". It's a moot point now given that Gendry has officially been renamed "Gendry Baratheon".
A possible in-universe explanation is that as a commoner, Gendry himself isn't very familiar with the rules of bastard surnames, and Gendry himself mistakenly told Arya the wrong surname.
Jaime states that he strangled Alton Lannister to death with his own hands. This is false; he beat Alton to death, and strangled Torrhen Karstark. Neither kills were strictly speaking "with his own hands", but with his chains.
Gendry proposes to Arya on one knee, the same way one would in real-life modern times. In actuality, there is no such thing as "marriage proposals" in Westerosi society. For Gendry to marry Arya, he would need Sansa, as the head of House Stark, to betroth them.
Bronn claims that Cersei offered him Riverrun if he killed Tyrion and Jaime. In "Winterfell", Qyburn never mentioned Riverrun as a part of Cersei's offer to Bronn; he said that several chests of gold were waiting for Bronn.
A possible explanation is that Qyburn referred to Riverrun off-screen, or Bronn made that up in order to increase his demands.
Using the crossbow, Bronn shoots an arrow, then quickly reloads, as Tyrion did in "The Children". It is impossible to reload a medieval crossbow so quickly and easily; the books make a point of that, when Tyrion arms himself with a crossbow before confronting his father.
Bronn tells Jaime and Tyrion "I knew your sister was dead the second I saw those dragons", referring to the Battle of the Goldroad ("The Spoils of War"). Yet, he continued serving the Lannisters, and has even gone out of his way to save Jaime from death. If he really thought Cersei was doomed, why didn't he switch sides back then?
It is fitting that Davos Seaworth and Brienne of Tarth are the first to toast him as "Gendry Baratheon" and Lord of Storm's End, as both of them are nobles from the Stormlands and started out directly serving Gendry's own uncles in earlier TV seasons (Davos under Stannis, Brienne under Renly).
Gendry cannot use the current heraldy of House Baratheon as it is (a stag with a crown around its neck), since the crown was added to it once Robert became a king.
It goes unsaid in the episode that as Robert's son, Gendry actually has some Targaryen blood in him. In the books, Robert's grandmother was a younger Targaryen princess, making him the second cousin of Rhaegar and Daenerys - thus Gendry is Daenerys's second cousin once removed, and Jon Snow's third cousin. The TV continuity might have moved this around a little to make it Robert's mother instead of his grandmother (statements on this have been vague).
Gendry does not have a "stronger" claim to the Iron Throne as Robert's son, at least not by inheritance law: Robert was a usurper, and while he used his partial Targaryen descent as a token claim to the throne, he was simply from a younger branch of the family. Of course, a weaker claim to the Iron Throne didn't stop Robert from taking it in the first place.
Daenerys raises the question of the current lordship of Storm's End, an issue that has remained largely unresolved in the show until this point. In the novels, the lordship of Storm's End is a lot more clear: After Stannis seizes the castle, he leaves two hundred men to hold it under the command of Ser Gilbert Farring. After Stannis's defeat at the Battle of Blackwater, the garrison continues to hold Storm's End in Stannis's name. In the fourth novel, Storm's End is besieged by a Tyrell force led by Mace and Lord Mathis Rowan. However, Mace soon abandons the siege to return to King's Landing after the arrest of Margaery by the Faith, leaving a token force with Lord Rowan to continue the siege, but the castle continues to support Stannis's claim to the throne. In "Arianne II" sample chapter from the sixth novel, it is reported (but not confirmed) that the Golden Company, hired by a new contender (who has been omitted from the show) has taken Storm's End, and Mace Tyrell's army is currently descending on the castle from King's Landing.
In the TV show, Storm's End was never depicted on-screen for budgetary reasons in Season 2. It was tacitly assumed that Stannis's forces were holding it "off-screen" since Season 3, and after Stannis died in Season 5, that Tommen was at least the nominal lord of Storm's End through his death at the end of Season 6. After Tommen died, however, it wasn't clear what happened to the title - i.e. if Cersei just claimed it with no right to do so (as she did the Iron Throne) or gave the title to some subordinate.
The question of who physically controls Storm's End at this point is of course still unanswered. The TV writers haven't made much attempt to keep track of such things: consider that in Season 7, it was stated that Dragonstone was simply left abandoned after Stannis withdrew to the Wall in Season 5 - when it would be ridiculous for Stannis to not at least leave a skeleton defense force in such a strong fortification (as he did in the novels). Thus, like Dragonstone, the TV writers might just have not thought out who has been holding Storm's End since Season 5 (or even Season 3).
While planning the siege of King's Landing, the Riverlands, the Reach, and the Stormlands aren't mentioned at all. It is especially strange that the Stormlands aren't mentioned, especially since Daenerys had just legitimized Gendry and restored House Baratheon.
Dialogue states that the Prince of Dorne has declared for Daenerys, indicating either that there are still branches of House Martell alive or that another Dornish house has taken rule of Dorne. At the same time, Daenerys' legitimization and elevation of Gendry indicates that all legitimate branches of House Baratheon are gone.
It is mentioned that Yara Greyjoy succeeded in retaking the Iron Islands. She explained in the Season 8 premiere that while she didn't have many forces left, the bulk of Euron's fleet was off in the east at King's Landing, so she could probably retake the isles from the skeleton defense force he left behind.
In the books, under different circumstances, Asha (Yara's name in the books) also maintains some hope of retaking the Iron Islands by allying with the Drowned Men, as the priests of the ironborn have come to loathe Euron as an "ungodly" and honorless man (even by ironborn standards), and thus they might be able to rally a general insurrection against him. However, her hopes are shattered after being defeated by Stannis. Asha knows well that the ironborn are not a forgiving people, and she has been defeated twice: once at the kingsmoot, and again at by Stannis - more than enough to stamp her as unfit to rule in the eyes of the ironborn. Moreover, Stannis intends to wed her to one of his subordinates, Ser Justin Massey; being married to a "green land lord" will make her a laughingstock among the ironborn, and totally destroy her political ambitions. Whatever happened in the TV continuity happened off-screen however, without specific details.
As Tyrion Lannister points out, according to succession law Bran Stark should by rights be the lord of Winterfell and the North, due to being Eddard Stark's last surviving trueborn son - and as it turns, out, actually his only surviving son, as Jon Snow is really the son of Ned's younger sister Lyanna. Bran is younger than either Sansa or Arya, but they follow male-preference primogeniture. Complicating matters is that as the new three-eyed raven, Bran doesn't feel he can be lord, and has essentially abdicated (as he said when he returned last season, but repeated here). With Bran abdicating, rule of House Stark would lawfully fall to Sansa, as the elder sister.
Bran Stark says that his wheelchair is the same design as one used by "Prince Daeron's nephew, 120 years ago". This was apparently referring to King Daeron II Targaryen, Daeron the Good, who would have been a prince around that time. It is an invention of the TV series, however, that Daeron ever had a nephew who needed a wheelchair. All Targaryen family members are accounted for and none needed a wheelchair - but Daeron II married outside of the family, to Myriah Martell, so it isn't impossible that he could have had a nephew-by-marriage we don't know about.
Brienne of Tarth says during the drinking game that she is an only child. This is technically incorrect, as she had two older brothers who died in childhood. She has acknowledged this in the TV continuity before, by phrasing that she is Lord Tarth's only "surviving" child. Due to the high infant mortality rate in Westeros, however, it is not uncommon even in the books for characters to only count surviving children.
Jaime and Brienne have sex in this episode: when the scene begins, just before Jaime arrives at the door, note that it starts with the camera pointed at Brienne's sheathed sword - a frequent visual metaphor for sex.
Gilly is revealed to be pregnant with Sam's child, confirming rumors that she was pregnant after fans noted that Gilly appeared to be visibly chubbier in the season premiere compared to the previous season. There are actually unconfirmed rumors that actress Hannah Murray is pregnant in real life, but she hasn't wanted to talk about her private life in recent interviews.
Jon states that the deceased "were the shields that guarded the realms of men"; clearly this is a reference to a line from the oath of the Night's Watch "I am the shield that guards the realms of men". Although that most of the deceased were never members of the Watch, they were killed for the purpose that the Watch was founded from the beginning - to guard the Seven Kingdoms from the army of the dead.
Daenerys asks Gendry accusingly "You are aware he took my family's throne and tried to have me murdered?". She has the right to resent Robert regarding the attempt on her life; regarding the first part of her qusestion/accusation, however, she unjustly make it sound as if Robert overthrew her family for a selfish reason (like being power hungry), while she knows well the real reasons - the alleged kidnapping of Lyanna Stark by her brother, and the atrocities committed by her father in general and against the Starks in particular (she admits that in "The Queen's Justice").
The revelation about Jon consists of two aspects: first, he has a stronger claim than Daenerys to the Iron Throne; second, they are kin. So far, anyone who talked about it - regarded only the first aspect; Varys finally mentions the second.
To Daenerys, her kinship to Jon apparently does not matter; after all, the Targaryens have been marrying among themselves for generations. Tyrion correctly comments "That never stopped a Targaryen before". In the fifth novel, Daenerys muses that had things turned to be differently - she would have married either Viserys or her nephew.
For Jon, who has been raised by a staid family, the kinship aspect probably matters a lot. Although he does not say that explicitly, in this episode he grows distant from Daenerys. He was never a womanizer, and has always been conservative about interaction with women (never slept with a whore, rejected Ygritte's advances until was forced to sleep with her, etc.).
Sansa says "The men in my family don't do well in the capital" - referring to the unjust executions of her father, uncle and grandfather, which took place in King's Landing.
Jon might have made a mistake by leaving Ghost behind. In the fifth book, Melisandre warned him about "daggers in the dark" and advised him to keep Ghost close to him; he ignored both her warning and her advice (because one of her visions proved to be wrong), and paid dearly for that .
Tyrion says that eight people know the secret about Jon: Bran, Sam, Jon, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion and Varys.
Bronn hits Tyrion, the latter complains "You broke my nose!"; Bronn responds he didn't. This is perhaps a reference to the difference between the books and the show about Tyrion's nose: in the books, it cut off by Ser Mandon Moore during the battle of the Blackwater; in the show, it was decided to have Tyrion keep his nose, because it would have been difficult and expensive to achieve the effect.
The Hound and Arya head for King's Landing. They do not reveal their plans to each other; the Hound only says "I have some unfinished business", and Arya curtly responds "Me too". It can be assumed the Hound wishes to settle the score with his brother, what he has always wanted, while Arya intends to assassinate Cersei, as she declared (maybe not seriously) in "Dragonstone".
Dragonstone and King's Landing
Given that the TV show has surpassed the current novels, we don't know if the deaths of Rhaegal and Missandei will happen in future books, or are purely an invention of the TV series. Another scenario is that they will die, but in different circumstances. The answer will, of course, await the next book.
There is no Grey Worm and Missandei romance in the books, because she is only ten years old in the novels. The TV show cast an older actress due to the larger dramatic weight needed for a screen role, then decided to turn her relationship with Grey Worm into a romance.
Missandei's death means that there is no longer a single non-white female member of the TV show's recurring cast. After Ellaria Sand was sentenced to death in Season 7, Missandei was also the only non-white member of the Starring cast. Grey Worm, however, was promoted to Starring cast for Season 8 - meaning he is now the only non-white recurring cast member out of the entire large cast of the TV series. The entire Dorne subplot from the novels has been abandoned, and only a single vague line was given about the current status of Dorne (see above).
In the Inside the Episode featurette, David Benioff says that Daenerys simply "forgot" about Euron and his fleet, due to dealing with the threat of the White Walkers. He doesn't attempt to explain it by arguing that they knew Euron was on the prowl but didn't know exactly where, or by arguing that she simply didn't know that Euron's ships now had improved anti-dragon ballistae mounted on them.
This would mean she simply forgot that Euron at a single stroke knocked out her allies from Dorne and the Iron Islands last season.
Moreover, it wouldn't be just Daenerys, as a personal failure, forgetting about Euron, but all of her advisors, including Tyrion and Varys. For that matter, the Starks were present in the war council as well, but none of them brought it up either.
Most relevant is that this isn't even consistent within the episode itself: in the preceding scene at Winterfell, Daenerys and all her advisors go over a map of Westeros, and Varys points out in dialogue that the Golden Company have just arrived at King's Landing "courtesy of the Greyjoy fleet". This not only means she was reminded of Euron's existence, but that they were all specifically aware that Euron's fleet was within Blackwater Bay itself, which separates King's Landing from Dragonstone.
Varys also points out in the same scene that they have received news that Yara Greyjoy has retaken the Iron Islands - clearly bringing up the issue of who she had to retake them from.
This is indeed the second surprise attack on Daenerys's forces in the vicinity of Dragonstone island. Early in Season 7, he wiped out Yara's original fleet as they were leaving Dragonstone, and how he attacked her fleet as it was arriving.
Euron's fleet manages to accurate hit Rhaegal three times, despite being a moving target. Then when Daenerys tries to fly Drogon in a bombing run headed directly at them, which should make her easier to hit, the entire fleet nonetheless somehow misses her.
Dragon-scales are as tough as iron, and it shouldn't be possible to penetrate them with scorpions and ballistae. Historically, this has only worked when shooting a dragon through the eye, piercing its brain. On the other hand, in the Inside the Episode video, Benioff stresses that Qyburn has drastically improved his anti-dragon weapons in size and strength since last season.
With the death of Rhaegal, it is unclear if this means that the race of dragons is doomed for extinction once again, as Drogon no longer has any potential mates with which to breed with. The process of reproduction for dragons is shrouded with mystery in the novels: Although it is established that dragons are born from eggs, the process itself by which dragons breed is unknown. Some, like Maester Aemon, believe that dragons have no fixed gender, but simply fluctuate between male and female. It is unknown if this means that dragons require pairs to breed, or are asexual and can breed individually.
Tyrion saying the last 20 years of warfare, murder and misery were all because Robert loved a woman that didn't love him back is a vast oversimplification. While Rhaegar's "abduction" of Lyanna might have been a major factor in the outbreak of Robert's Rebellion it was really Aerys' brutal and unjust executions of Rickard and Brandon Stark, along with calling for the heads of Eddard and Robert that started the war.
It is impossible that Cersei isn't visibly pregnant by this point, thus insinuating either that Cersei lied to Jamie about being pregnant with his child in order to manipulate him, or lost the child to a miscarriage. The timeline of events the show runners have presented is that Jaime impregnated Cersei before he left King's Landing to attack Highgarden. A generous estimate of travel times from book-Westeros would mean that Cersei has to be at least three or four months pregnant during the Season 8 premiere episode. Furthermore, when factoring in the additional time that Daenerys spent traveling down from Winterfell to Dragonstone, several weeks to a month, Cersei would have to be at least five to six months pregnant by this point, making it physically impossible for her not to be showing by this point. An example of this can be seen with Gilly, who, according to Sam, was impregnated while they were in Oldtown. This occurs relatively around the same time during which Cersei was supposedly impregnated as well. However, while Cersei has not visibly changed physically at all, Gilly was noted by fans to be visibly pregnant in the premiere episode.
When the Targaryen ships are destroyed, the survivors swim their way to the nearby shore of Dragonstone, including Grey Worm, Tyrion, and Varys. Back in Season 2's "The Night Lands", Varys gave his famous remark from the books that in the ruthless intrigues of the royal court, "Storms come and go, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling". In this episode, therefore, Varys literally kept "paddling" and survived.
Cersei mockingly refers to one of Daenerys's titles "Breaker of Chains", which she assumed after the sack of Astapor; Cersei thinks that if Daenerys conquers the city by force, thousands of innocent people will die, and this will cost her that title.
In the books
[This section will be updated with comparisons when the sixth and seventh novels are released.]
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