HBO aired the first episode of Game of Thrones season 8 Sunday evening, April 14th.

Winter is Here, the Night King has come through the Wall. In the North, Jon Snow has publicly declared his allegiance Daenerys Targaryen. In the South, Cersei gets everything she wanted, except her elephants. Gotta love the elephants. Was she hoping to feed Daenerys’ dragons with them, a potential peace offering?

The King in the North has yielded his crown…out of love of the North or love of his new queen? Even in a mythical land, set in a time long past, political motivation is questioned. On the one hand, Jon gets to indulge in life and love, on the other, the fate of the Seven Kingdoms now rests in Daenerys’ hands. And Cersei’s. And the Night King’s.

Sam and the Targaryens.

Ironic how the one who needs pardon is the queen. Sam and Daenerys’ first meeting went like this: The good news is, you’re technically the heir to the Tarly lands, the bad news is, you’ve been Ned Starked (Ned’s father and brother were burned by King Aerys the Mad before the series started).

From King in the North to “King of the bloody Seven Kingdoms.” Even despite Sam’s teary-eyed meeting with Daenerys, he does the one thing we’ve been waiting for: tell Jon that he, not Daenerys, is the heir to the Iron Throne. Of course, this revelation has Jon reeling, probably from the fact that: a.) There was an entire war fought over a girl who was taken by her husband, b.) He isn’t a bastard and c.) He’s in love with his aunt and not in the normal way. How will this affect the two moving forward?

The Fall of Last Hearth.

At the end of the ep,isode we see everyone’s favorite wildling Tormund leading a troop with Beric Dondarrian thrthe ough Last Hearth. After hilariously regrouping with Eddison Tollet’s group, the meat of the story comes into play. They had been chasing the Night King since his assault on the Wall through the resurrected Viserion, and tracked him down to House Umber’s ancestral home, to find young Ned Umber strung up in a spiral of dismembered hands. A symbol we have associated with the Night King since the first episode of Season 1.

The scene ends with Dondarrian setting Ned Umber’s reanimated corpse aflame, and the hands around him. Many speculate that the burning symbol has something to do with the Targaryens, especially since only those of Targaryen blood are able to ride dragons. Does the Night King’s reanimation negate the norm for dragons?

Stay tuned for more Game of Thrones info and as always, Winter is Coming.