The Tiny Details You Probably Missed in the Latest Game of Thrones Teaser

Helen Sloan/HBO
Helen Sloan/HBO / Helen Sloan/HBO
facebooktwitterreddit

Warning: This post contains spoilers about "The Queen’s Justice," the third episode in Game of Thrones's seventh season, plus predictions about the plot of the fourth episode.

Making predictions from Game of Thrones teaser trailers is a dangerous game. Sharp-eyed Redditors and YouTube vloggers attempting to glean major plot points from these 30-second previews have a track record that's about as spotty as Melisandre's prophecies. Still, the teaser for "The Spoils of War"—the seventh season's upcoming fourth episode, which debuted last night—appears to be particularly revealing. Here are three big clues you might have missed about next week's episode.

1. DANY AND HER DRAGONS

The final frames of the trailer reveal a dragon in flight with what appears to be a rider on its back. That rider would almost certainly be its mother, Daenerys Targaryen. Early in episode three, Tycho Nestoris reminds Cersei that Euron Greyjoy’s fleet of wooden ships are no match for a dragon's flame. Later in the episode, Daenerys even floats the idea of flying her dragons across the sea to find and destroy Euron's fleet to her council, before her advisors roundly reject the plan. But as Daenerys points out in the trailer, her advisors' schemes haven’t exactly worked out this season. "I'm losing," she says. "Enough with the clever plans." Episode four may see Dany buck the advice of her councilors and finally bring her dragons—and this season's big budget—to bear.

2. ARYA’S HOMECOMING

We've waited for years to see Arya Stark return to Winterfell. This week's teaser strongly suggests that moment may finally arrive next week. In another dramatic, choir-accompanied closing shot, the trailer shows Arya, alone on her white horse, stopping on a snowy bluff overlooking Winterfell. In episode two, she abandoned her journey to King's Landing to kill Cersei when she heard that Jon Snow had been crowned King in the North. Unfortunately, Jon skipped town to meet Daenerys that same episode, but Sansa and Bran are still home for the long-awaited Stark family reunion if and when Arya ever arrives.

3. THE DOTHRAKI ARE COMING (MAYBE)

The episode four preview dropped a much subtler hint that a showdown between the Dothraki cavalry and the Lannister army could jump off as soon as next week. HBO teased this battle in the season seven trailer, when we see the Dothraki horde galloping across a plain to meet Lannister infantry. The trailer for next week's episode reveals brief glimpses of Lannister soldiers marching across the plains of the Reach, with Jaime and Ser Bronn looking on. The scenery in the two trailers matches, and the main body of the Lannister army is in place for a Dothraki attack. Then again, maybe Ed Sheeran and the rest of the Lannister troops will have an uneventful march back from Highgarden and we'll just get a snippet of clever banter between Jaime and his fast-talking sellsword.