#AND its the person i Fear Disappointing Most. this is a massive W for emojis everywhere

[mojimallow]

i failed at something and did not freak out please clap

[sailorshadzter]

here’s me compiling all of my thoughts on episode 1 of season 8!! or at least the thoughts i deemed important enough lmao. big focus on jonsa, political jon, and the starks in general. 

under the cut for SPOILERS + length. 

shout out to all of the amazing content creators out there who have already gif’d this episode. ya’ll are amazing!

anyways, here we go! ps. things could be out of chronological order, sorry lol

lets jump right in with dany and jon arriving at winterfell. i really enjoyed the call back to season 1 bran scrambling up as high as he could to watch robert baratheon & company arrive. 

we have them riding in among dany’s army, looking quite like the royal “couple” they want us to believe they are. dany doesnt look particularly interested to even be there and i think it’s because she’s upset at how everyone is looking at her. jon reminds her that the north isnt easy to impress, that they dont look kindly at foreigners. this isnt pleasing to her. dany has to be loved, by everyone. she cant stand thinking not everyone is on her side. in her mind they have to support her because she’s the queen. 

but she’s not queen, not yet at least. 

next comes the dragons. 

the northerners run, some screaming in fear, others just stumbling in an attempt to find shelter from the dragons that fly overhead. and just look at dany’s face. look at her! what a smug little smile, i hope she enjoys it because she’s got a lot coming to her this season.

i hate this, i just want everyone to know. i still like dany but this arrogant, mocking girl is driving me insane and it’s only episode 1. what little bit of likeness i had for her will fade real fast at this rate. she’s glad the people fear her dragons and thus fear her. she knows the northerners probably will never come around to her and bend so she’s going to get them on her side the only way she knows how: her dragons. 

lets be real- dany has nothing on her own. she’s nothing but a pretty face with a cold heart capable of dark, brutal things. but what if there werent any dragons? what would she be without them? who would fear her then? sure, she’s got a big ass army... but armies can be beaten. armies can be led astray by their own leaders doing. so yeah, she’s got an army but in the end, thats not foolproof. but dragons? those are pretty damn foolproof (unless you send your ~romantic interest~ off on a suicide mission that ends up costing you one of said dragons). she’s going to try and coerce everyone in the north through fear and it might work on the common folk, but wait til she meets the Starks.

yeah, do these girls look afraid?

not at all.

youre a man. almost. 

 i low key teared up at their reunion. it was sweet. plus it was nice to see bran in a more human moment. he’s always so robotic, i thought it was nice to hear him joke a little. 

as jon is looking at bran, you can see the moment he realizes sansa is looking at him. he pulls back from bran and turns to her (wow she looks beautiful, i cant even get over that). 

(gif by @stark)

sansa opens her arms to jon and i have to admit... the hug felt almost lackluster... at first. once i watched it a second and third time, i started seeing the things i didnt see the first time. 

for one thing- it was so amazing in the trailer because we could see jon’s face. kit is so incredible at his facial expressions and you knew exactly what jon was feeling the moment he saw sansa. with sansa, she’s very subdued- but its definitely done on purpose. obviously, she’s happy to see jon but she’s angry with him too. and dozens of people are there watching them, including this queen he’s brought with him. she has to be careful. 

(gif by @stark)

this instant, ever since i saw the trailer, ive thought jon whispered something to her. that’s why her eyes immediately flick up and pin their focus on dany who is standing just across the courtyard. we dont hear jon say anything but that doesnt mean he doesnt. what i find interesting about this is how in the episode, we’re shown sansa’s face and her emotional reactions to whats happening, but we dont see jon’s. in the trailer, it cuts to sansa’s eyes as soon as jon reaches her embrace, so we never see jon’s face in this scene. meaning, we dont see his lips ever move. i still want to believe he whispers something to her, but i almost feel like sansa would have referenced it later in the episode when they speak privately. but, you never know! 

next we have jon introducing sansa to dany, which as we all suspected, did not go well. 

as dany walks up, she’s smiling, her tone charming. her eyes are wide and she looks soft- she’s good at this. notice how no one in the courtyard moves, no one kneels or even bows in dany’s presence as they had once done for robert baratheon. this is not their queen. 

i literally laughed as dany said this. 

she’s trying desperately to come across as likable. she knows most of the north won’t bow to her without the backing of this girl and while she has her dragons to instill fear, she probably does want sansa to like her. she’s in love with her “brother” after all. they’d be sisters, so they should get along, right? 

wrong. 

sansa sees right through her. she’s good at finding a liar- she’s spent her whole life around them. learning from them, the best of them. you cant lie or manipulate sansa stark. not anymore. 

(gif by @cptainsrogers)

whew boy, that’s the face of someone who’s pissed. how quickly she changes!! as soon as sansa speaks, she loses her smile and blinks and she breathes in. she’s trying to restrain herself and keep a calm, cool composure. but its written all over dany’s face here- she’s not happy. 

again, im reminded that this is a woman who cant be told no and who doesnt like when someone isnt falling over themselves to please her. sansa is clearly not impressed with dany and she’s not afraid to let her know that. she’s calm, polite, but her tone & face says everything her words cant. 

bran interrupting was great. 

he sees what’s going on here and he’s right, now isnt the time for a little cat fight. he tells them that the night king has a dragon & dany’s reaction is clear she didn’t know that yet (right? i could be forgetting lol) & basically there’s like 100 other things they need to think about right then. which to be fair is totally true. but i had hoped to see a little more between sansa & dany.  what i loved though was jon didn’t look at dany when bran mentioned the night king having her dragon, he looked at sansa. 

now i wanna talk about arya and jon’s reunion because

well... i have feelings.

while the initial reunion was really sweet & had me crying, it ended real quick

this scene is where i really noticed jon was “off” 

jon stoops down and puts a hand on her shoulder (which arya looks down at) as he talks to her. where were you before? i could have used your help with sansa. she doesnt like your queen, does she?

then we get this next line from jon.  

first things first, it’s almost like jon doesnt realize she’s grown up. he’s got his hand on her shoulder, down at her level like you would with a kid. i mean, he probably cant help it, can he? she’s always going to be his kid sister, after all. thats how he knows her and remembers her. not to mention he’s been pretending to be someone else around dany for a long time now, he’s trying to shake himself back into the person his family knows him as 

arya looks at his hand before she says she’s the smartest person i know. you’re defending her now? you?

like he cant really believe that these two sisters that only used to bicker and fight are getting along to the point that arya is defending her to him. this is where i get upset with jon because he’s been gone for how long now? has he even bothered to talk to sansa about all that happened at winterfell? has he even asked her anything about what’s been going on while he was gone? clearly not, or he would know how close arya and sansa have become in his absence. that they’d taken out littlefinger together, even! 

i’m defending my family. so is she. i’m her family too. 

that alone points me into the direction of political jon. he’s avoiding sansa because he’s less likely to control himself in front of her. he might spill the beans about what he’s up to and its not time yet. he cant let that happen, not until the right time. while we all know he’d be better off telling her and the other starklings, so they could fight as a united pack... jon hasn’t come to that conclusion yet. lets hope he gets there next episode, though. 

he sounds so sad, so dejected when he delivers his line. like, sansa should be defending him, smiling, just in general happy to see him back. he’s brought a massive army and dragons! he did what he thought was best for the north and he cant quite grasp why sansa would be upset with him. one of jon’s weaknesses is sansa and how he thinks she feels about him. he craves her approval and he knows she’s angry with him at this point. and man does that bother him. he thinks she should have ultimate faith in him, even though he doesnt really deserve that, does he? anyways, thats a conversation for later in the post.

ps i love that he looks around before saying im her family too. almost as if he’s afraid of being overheard. 

dont you ever forget that.

yeah i had to pause the show at this point just to compose myself. this second hug was just as sweet as the first and im glad it was there. it finished the scene out nicely. 

i love how we got this moment of them being addressed at the same time, in frame like this. i live for moments like this, with them side by side. 

we get a lot of talk back and forth about why jon bent the knee and of course we get lyanna mormont calling his dumb ass out. 

i was waiting for this scene too & it didnt disappoint me. 

also i find his choice of words interesting 

sansa looks back at him and she’s literally the embodiment of the shrug emoji. like bitch i told u so. she has zero sympathy for him and the mess he’s in with the northern lords because she fucking told him it would happen. 

tyrion gets up and tries to do some mega damage control because lets be real, this situation is getting nasty. he talks about dany’s amazing army and the dragons as if this will lighten the mood. he also mentions about the lannister army coming (lol) like this is what will get everyone on their side. 

sansa interrupts and god do i love her more than i ever did

finally someone asking the REAL questions. 

sansa has worried about feeding the entire north the whole time jon has been gone. she’s built up as much as she could to ensure her people didn’t starve to death come winter. now jon shows up with this queen and her massive army with not even a wagon load of grain. when it cuts to dany a moment later, you can see she’s visibly shaken by sansa’s comment. hmm, wonder why? it couldn’t be because she’d just burned TONS of food that could have been used to feed her army and the rest of the north out of spite, right? nah, couldn’t be. 

sansa spits out these words and just look at her face- she’s doing her best to control herself here but her mouth is a snarl and her eyes are narrowed. she’s got every right to be angry over this- her people will probably starve because this so called queen hasn’t provided anything for her own army and now sansa will have to figure it out herself. if she’s this angry already, imagine how she’s going to feel when she learns dany burned all that food when she burned the lannister army. 

what makes me angry here is dany’s response. whatever they want. she’s so fucking childish i cant stand it. like she’s so bent out of shape that sansa’s calling her out basically, she’s going to resort to these sort of comments. like, you keep calling yourself a queen, fucking act like it dany. not a jealous, spoiled little girl. id respect her a whole lot more if she’d stood up for herself and her dragons here but that was never going to happen. its out of her character, especially at this point in her story. her dragons really could never do any wrong, in her eyes. and at this point i wouldnt be surprised to hear her defend them burning houses, crops, or innocent people. 

this episode is not making me like dany anymore. i cant stand characters like her, good or bad ones. and we all know dany is trending bad these days. but sansa doesnt even respond which is fantastic- instead of listening to her, everyone is focused on what dany had just said. we stan the real queen. 

im pretty sure next we see the bit between tyrion and sansa.

i didnt dislike the scene, it was actually pretty good. i especially liked the last time we saw each other was at joffrey’s wedding. dismal affair. it had it’s moments.

we also got this

not only is this true, we also later hear dany threaten sansa. 

interesting. 

but other than that, i didnt take much away from it. sansa was cool to him, as i expected her to be to anyone on dany’s side. tyrion may have been kind to her once, but as far as she’s concerned... he’s basically her enemy now. plus the whole scene before couldn’t have helped. 

somehwere in this we get all that junk with jon and dany. 

i... hated it. all of it. 

but after seeing it im 100% certain political jon is coming. his stiff demeanor with dany hasn’t changed, thats for sure. but what sold me was when dany threatened sansa. 

i’m queen, she must respect me or...

we all know  how jon “dont touch my sister or else” snow acts when someone mentions sansa around him in a way he doesnt like. the fact that jon barely even REACTS is clear in its message: he cant behave like he normally would. not with dany. he cant even go against her because he know how easy it is for her to become swayed. he cant lose control of the situation, not yet. i think he knows things are spiraling out of control more quickly than he anticipated. 

political jon must be a thing because there’s no reason for him to then roam across the north on a fucking dragon. the whole jonerys scene was as lackluster as they all have been and the kiss with drogon watching was very... weird. it felt ominous almost. there was no romance behind it, even if dany wanted there to be. 

but i think its very clear that dany feels threatened by sansa. she needs to be loved by everyone and sansa makes it clear she cares little if at all for her. queen or not, sansa doesnt respect her, nor like her, and she isnt afraid to make it known. i worry how dany is going to behave the deeper into this love triangle we get (because they sure arent being subtle about it). 

also, something i find interesting is the fact that dany would allow jon to ride her dragons at all. now that he has rode rhaegal he’s created a bond with the dragon, essentially taking him from dany’s control. she’s more or less lost 2 dragons now. and if you dont think jon would use this dragon against her to protect his family... then we must be watching two different shows.  

next comes jon’s scene with sansa (i think, at least its what im gonna talk about next lol). finally we get a glimpse of them alone! and god it doesnt disappoint me at all. i mean, id have loved to have more of it of course- yelling and even some tears, but we got something simple and hyper charged with both of their emotions. as always, the jonsa scenes get it done with as little as possible. 

we get a lot of angry stares and heavy sighs. its the same damn energy as the tent scene before the battle of the bastards. i love it. i fucking live for it. there’s so many things left unsaid between them and it makes me want their next scene that much more. literally, this scene was less than 2min long and i got so much from it. 

the scene opens and sansa is in her chamber, reading. the knock on the door sounds and she calls them in and she sighs when she sees it’s jon. the first thing i noticed was jon back in his old direwolf armor- he changed clothes before coming to her rooms- and then sansa paraphrases what the letter she’s holding says. jon parrots back lord glover’s words to them back when they met and thats when sansa gets up, very clearly angry, and says i will stand behind jon snow, the king in the north. she whips around to look at him and walks across the room like she wants to do something else entirely. i told you we needed allies. you didnt tell me you were going to abandon your crown.

this is where jon explodes, much how he explodes back in the tent scene with her. i never wanted a crown! i wanted to protect the north! he tells her, then goes on to say he brought with him an army and 2 dragons. this is where i wish we would have had more- sansa yelling at him about did he even think of how they would feed them all, specifically. but we get a lot of ~emotion~ and im living for every second. 

(gifs by @desired-paradise)

as soon as jon finishes ranting, he heaves a huge sigh (first gif). then he closes his eyes, thinking for a moment, before breaking down an asking her if she has faith in him. look at her face- she’s so hurt. they’re both hurting, honestly. what i love about jonsa scenes is how soft and vulnerable they both are during them. they let down their walls and open their hearts to the other. 

i think that’s why jon is so hurt by how sansa has been treating him since his return. he thinks he deserves her ultimate trust not realizing how he really doesnt deserve it. not,yet. you know i do. despite it all, she does have faith in him. but that doesnt mean she isnt angry or upset with him. and it doesnt change how she feels about dany. trust is not something that comes easy to sansa, not anymore. how can she be expected to trust a complete stranger when even those who were supposed to care about her turned on her? when for so long everyone around her was nothing beyond abusive and harmful. this girl trusts no one but her family and jon should get that better than anyone. 

but he thinks because its him, he gets a pass from her. that because of all they’ve been through together sansa should automatically know where his heart is and the truth of him. but how can she? he’s been gone all this time, promising to find them allies, not a queen that they didn’t ask for or even want. he promised them allies that would help them, not doom them to starvation.

when sansa speaks, he takes a step forward, almost like he thought of reaching for her. but he thinks better of it and says something about how she’ll be a good queen, yada yada. 

 and then... sansa drops this bomb

we never get jon’s answer because thats it, the scene just fucking ends there. like alright guys, thats fine i didnt want the answer anyways. i know jonerys fans are insisting he doesn’t answer because we already know the answer to that. but its not that easy. 

the set up between jon and sansa can’t be for nothing. the back story from season 6 cant just  be a random addition. so many lines that will come back this season (ill protect you, i promise. you are to me. ect) and i cant wait for that. 

next i want to talk about when dany and jorah meet with sam. 

first off, i have to say its weird that jorah has never told dany his name? is that just me? anyways. the scene opens and it reminds me a lot of the feel from her first meeting with sansa. dany is smiling, jovial. this is the man that saved jorah from death and she wants to thank him personally. their conversation goes well- in fact, its kind of sweet how sam behaves. he’s honored to be standing before her, being addressed by her, because he doesnt know who daenerys targaryen is yet. but he’s about to find out.

similarly to how dany reacted when sansa didn’t return her compliment, she goes from soft and smiling to hard and somewhat aggressive.

we go from this: 

to this:

(image from @snowsjohn)

in record time. as soon as sam mentions his name, it registers with dany and she asks him if he meant randyll tarly. that’s when she immediately, without sympathy, tells him she executed his father. you can see sam get visibly upset but he’s doing his best to keep it together, saying at least i can go home now, which by the way... is fucking heartbreaking. now that his brother is in charge he could go back home and be with his family when this whole thing was over. oh nope, dany tells him she executed his brother too. 

how anyone can stand behind this queen, ill never understand. this scene was so sad for sam & so unfeeling for dany. she doesnt even have the sense to pretend to be remorseful for what she’s done to this man’s family. and when sam does leave, she looks upset- but not because of what she’d done to his family. because now she’s in trouble and she knows it. again, they’re making it incredibly easy to dislike dany and they’re doing it for a reason. 

dark dany is coming for us. it’s going to all be revealed in the next two episodes, without a doubt. 

last but not least, i want to talk about sam telling jon the truth of who his parents were. 

(gifs by @kitsn0w)

i loved this whole scene.

while i was really surprised they told jon so early (and that it was sam alone) i enjoyed the shock. i didn’t honestly anticipate the reveal until at least episode 2, if not the third at the latest. but, it added something to the first episode- a similar shock value the first episode of the first season left us with. 

what i take from this scene is a few things, mostly how upset jon seems just to realize that this means ned lied to him his whole life. who gives a fuck about the truth, why didn’t ned just tell him all along? but when sam says the line about robert killing him, he seems to calm down a little. 

what else is interesting is jon’s lack of defending dany here. if he loved her as we’re supposed to believe, wouldnt he have said something beyond this is treason. id expect a “what will i say to her?” or “i cant take this from her, its all shes ever wanted’ or even “its hers, not mine.” anything else! but we got nothing in terms of jon defending dany’s right to the crown. 

and when sam asks him if dany would give up her crown for his people as jon had done, we don’t get jon’s answer. similarly to his scene being cut off with sansa, its done here as well, and we’re only left wondering what he would say. why wouldn’t they let him say? if he loves dany so much, wouldn’t he jump at this chance to defend her? especially to sam, who’s going to have a hell of time going forward now that he learned what dany did to his family. more so, it’s not yet been revealed that she burned them alive. what will they say then? when they realize that? 

i guess we’ll find out next episode, especially now that jaime is in winterfell. im really excited to see what episode 2 brings & im hoping for more dark dany & more private moments among the starks. 

overall, i really did enjoy the episode. i think there were things that could have been done better or differently,  but i think the episode set us up for a lot of good things to come!

in conclusion:

- jonsa is endgame & jonerys is doomed. sorry guys. 

- political jon theory is confirmed (in my mind at least)

- sansa is still the queen of sass.

- arya & gendry flirting is adorable (im sorry i know i didnt talk about them)

- WHERE. IS. GHOST?

thanks for reading!