Game Of Thrones Season 8 Breakdown: What 'Winterfell' REALLY Means
1. The Symbol
By now, you might have thought that those weird symbols the White Walkers are leaving are purely incidental, but the Last Hearth incident confirms that they're actually a message. And never before has one been left so provocatively, suggesting not only that the Night King wants his enemy to know SOMETHING but also that he knew there were people left in the North to pass that message on.
Clearly, he is also a fan of Tormund being alive and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Anyway, the symbol has to mean something and more importantly, it has to mean something to a character who hasn't yet encountered one of the symbols. Otherwise it's just empty noise that means nothing. So, sooner or later we're going to see someone discovering what the symbol means and why it's key to the history of the White Walkers or to their downfall. It's nothing to do with Free Folk mythology or the Lord Of Light or Tormund and Beric would have recognised it.
As far as OUR interpretation goes, there is one thing that the symbol ominously resembles - particularly when it's on fire in Last Hearth - a Targaryen sigil. Could they be trying to reveal their true origins?
Maybe that's why the whole joke about sigils ("better than an onion, anyway") was dropped in there - to prime us to be thinking about them when the final moments of the episode aired?
Anyway, Tormund's small away party recognised that the Night King was sending a message, but it'll be interesting to see exactly how they interpret that themselves to pass on.
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