As we've been hearing all season on Game of Thrones, the great war is here. And now the question is, when will we actually see the huge battle scene that could eclipse the scope of Season 6's Emmy award-winning Battle of the Bastards?
The clue could be in the title of Episode 4. Though HBO has not officially confirmed the titles for the final four episodes of Season 7, the cable network's sibling, HBO Asia, has seemingly jumped the gun and revealed the Episode 4 title. (GoT usually reveals episode titles and loglines in batches; the first three episode titles were revealed earlier in July.)
According to the HBO Asia website, Episode 4 is called "The Spoils of War."
That certainly suggests we'll be seeing much more warfare in the next two episodes. Perhaps the war for Westeros between Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) will even be won by midseason? That is assuming the title refers to this battle and not one of the other many battles we can expect this season. But this is the battle with the most substantial spoils for the victor.
Remember, this season of Game of Thrones will be much shorter than usual—seven episodes instead of 10—which means that executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have a lot of material to pack into just over seven hours of television.
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The season so far has been bubbling toward an eventual all-out war between the two queens. In Sunday's episode "Stormborn," Dany and Hand of the Queen, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), laid out their strategy to take the Iron Throne.
In the next episode, "The Queen's Justice," airing Sunday, we will see part of that plan executed when the Unsullied set sail for Casterly Rock, the Lannisters' ancestral home, to storm it and eliminate at least some of Cersei's army. Some footage of that siege is seen in the teaser trailer released by HBO Monday (see above).
There are also clues that the season's big battle will include Dany (and, therefore, likely Cersei, too) in a recent Time magazine cover feature about Season 7. The article says the "war for Westeros may be won on the back of a lime green mechanical bull," which will be turned into a dragon straddled by Dany using the magic of CGI. It also notes that GoT "has been promising this clash all along, and when the time comes, the internet will melt."
However, the Time piece says the director for the episode at hand is veteran GoT helmer Alan Taylor. He is only directing one episode this season, according to IMDB, which will be the season's sixth episode—not Episode 4 (directed by Matt Shakman).
One theory is that Dany dispenses of Cersei midseason and then unites with Jon Snow against the White Walkers later in the final episodes. The war between humans and the White Walkers fits the bill for a battle we've been promised all along. The ominous threat of the undead marching on the Seven Kingdoms has been one of the only constants in a series known for dramatic twists and cast upheaval.
Read Newsweek's deep-dive of Episode 2, "Stormborn," here.
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
For more Game of Thrones coverage on Newsweek, click here.
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