What To Expect From Game Of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4: ‘The Spoils of War’

HBO has been having some bad luck this week. First there was a major cyber attack on the company and hackers stole 1.5 terabytes of data. For scale, that’s about seven times as much data as hackers released after the Sony Hack of 2014. Though that hack revealed scores of embarrassing emails, HBO claims that their email systems are uncompromised. Regardless, tonight’s episode has leaked. But since watching leaked episodes on your computer is lame, I’m still going to give my spoiler-free guesses on what will be going down in tonight’s episode. I have not watched the leaked version, so everything below speculation based on the title, preview, and official description of the episode.

HBO’s official synopsis reads:

“Daenerys fights back. Jaime faces an unexpected situation. Arya comes home.”

On Dragonstone

After Seasons of setting up Dany’s Westerosi Alliances, it takes all of a few minutes screen time over two episodes for everything to collapse. Her Dornish alliance is presumably over with the imprisonment of Ellaria Sand, though to be fair it never made sense how Ellaria was ruling Dorne after the coup, nor who is taking over now, nor why the Dornish Army didn’t join Dany. While questions remain, it seems clear that narratively Dorne is out of the picture. Her Greyjoys are also gone after an attack from a Euron’s teleporting fleet that seemed to also be instantaneously built…

Maybe you can tell that I’m a little disappointed that Alliances set up over such a long time, unravelled nearly instantaneously. Either way, Dany will be upset and eager for a chance to strike back against Cersei. Given her lack of a navy, there’s a good chance her revenge will come in the form of a dragon. Fire and Blood indeed.

Judging from HBO’s preview of the episode, we know we can expect to see Jon’s reunion with Theon. The pair haven’t seen each other since Jon left for the wall in Season 1. Theon will have a lot to answer for, but Dany may prevent Jon from taking justice into his own hands.

In The North

Things in the North seem to be more in a state of stewing than overt crisis. Given the speed of sailing in Season 7 of Game of Thrones, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jon return to the North in this episode or at the very least be on his way.

We then have to wonder, whether the Bran-Eyed-Raven will share the news of Jon’s Targaryen roots. I’d normally bet on characters being killed or separated before they can have any important talk, but in this case I think there is a good chance it will happen.

The show seems to have no inclination to introduce Howland Reed, the only person alive who was at the Tower of Joy, as a character so the only other person left who knows the truth is Bran. Furthermore, I think the most important part of Jon still not knowing is that he can meet Dany as a Stark/Snow, before he learns that he is also a Targaryen. This allows their meeting to be built off the identities they’ve lived with. Now that they’ve met I see no reason for Jon Snow to continue to know nothing.

I think it’s safe to say that he and Bran will talk, whether or not it’s in tonight’s episode depends on just how quickly the ships are teleporting this week. The synopsis also tells us that “Arya come home” and while I’ve learned to never get excited about Arya being close to her family since she never seems to get to them, this seems pretty cut and dry. It’s hard to imagine all the Starks leaving Winterfell before she gets there, and the ‘comes home’ implies that she isn’t prevented from reaching Winterfell. But I’m also surprised they just put it out there in description, unless it doesn’t go according to plan in some way.

In King’s Landing

Cersei will be very pleased with her victories. I imagine her promise to the Iron Bank will be kept using treasure looted from Highgarden. Since she promised to pay within a fortnight, we can pin down that the Lannister army marched to Highgarden, besieged it, looted it, and returned to King’s Landing in about two weeks. To think it used to bother me when only Littlefinger was travelling instantaneously. With the Iron Bank paid off there’s not much for her to do until Dany strikes back. I think her scenes will be a reaction to that.

Wherever Jaime Has Teleported To Now

I stick by my theory that Jaime’s final arc will be turning against Cersei. In this episode it seems more likely that his army is going to be dealing with a hungry dragon. This will be the “unexpected situation” he faces.

The Title:

‘The Spoils of War,’ will most likely refer to the loot that Cersei takes from Highgarden to pay the Iron Bank. We will see if it also is referencing something Dany will take after she strikes back with her dragons.

No spoilers in the comments for people who watched the leaked episode, but for everyone else: What do you think is going to happen in tonight’s episode?