Enjoy this happy family moment while it lasts, Game of Thrones fans, because if we’ve learned anything about how George R.R. Martin’s world operates, it’s that contentment and happy endings are NOT WHAT IT IS ABOUT. So seeing the Stark clan reunited in these season 7 promotional images may feel nice in the moment, but if they’re giving us this now, it probably means it’s never going to happen on the show. Worse: it probably spells doom for our poor li’l Starks.
In new images released by Entertainment Weekly, the remaining Stark kids still alive—Arya (Maisie Williams), Sansa (Sophie Turner), Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), and Jon “Secret Targaryen” Snow (Kit Harington)—are shown palling about on the set of the HBO series with beautifully pure, hopeful abandon. It makes us sick.
Because there’s just NO WAY this doesn’t spell disaster for all of them. I mean, come on:
@EW Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
Kit Harington as Jon Snow
Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark
Isaac Hempstead Wright as Bran Stark #GOTs7 pic.twitter.com/dti6uAdOvp— Daenerys Targaryen (@Queen_Daenerys_) May 25, 2017
Look at how FULL OF JOY AND LIFE AND VERVE these little direwolves are. Have you ever met a character on Game of Thrones, other than Podrick, who’s had a happy moment and lived to tell the tale? Obviously, the answer is no, because for every good thing that happens to a character in the Realm, approximately 574 bad things fall upon them as a result. THIS IS NOT A SHOW FOR HAPPY ENDINGS.
So, to recap:
Bran Stark: gonna die after tearing down The Wall like the ill-prepared Three-Eyed Raven that he is UGH BRAN!
Jon Snow: gonna die (again) defending the Wildlings North of The Wall (again) because honor, integrity, and perma-sad-face. (You know NOTHIN’, BRUH.)
Sansa Stark: gonna die after greedily trying to overthrow Jon Snow (THANKS A LOT, LITTLEFINGER jeez louise) like an easily manipulated dummy.
Arya Stark: gonna die murderin’ cuz that’s what serial murderpeople do. (It’s fine. We always knew it would end this way.)
OK OK OK so maybe it won’t happen exactly like all that (after all, we still believe Jon Snow will become the new Night King and no you cannot convince us otherwise), but still: doom is in the deck of cards with which House Stark is playing, right? After all chaos is a wheel, etc etc.
But what do you think of EW‘s new photos? Have any theories as to what fate awaits the Starks? Let us know in the comments below.
Images: HBO
Alicia Lutes is the Managing Editor of Nerdist, Maester-in-residence for all things GoT, creator/host of Fangirling!, and frequent Twitter user.
