Game of Thrones has been a lot of things in its almost seven-season run. With everything that's happened, it's easy to forget that Ned Stark's super ill-fated trip south began as a murder mystery that morphed into a political thriller, then became a war epic and high-fantasy romp, complete with dragons, soothsayers, and a secret heir to the kingdom hiding in plain sight. It's led to some complicated plots, but as season 7 barrels towards its finale, it's become clear that all of these genres have come together to make Thrones the show it's been trying to become for years: A zombie showdown.
To point, in last week's episode, the castle of Eastwatch played host to a meet-up of two very important zombies: Jon Snow and Beric Dondarrion. Even if they don't crave brains and hate the living, they're as undead as anything north of the Wall by virtue of being killed and subsequently resurrected with magic. George R.R. Martin has even referred to Beric as a "fire wight," directly comparing him to the ice wights that are marching on the Wall. If Beric's a wight, Jon's a wight. The fact that they're called something different in Westeros isn't all that important: Zombie bros confirmed.
Jon, Beric, and the rest of their assembled team (a motley crew of living folk including The Hound, zombie-raiser Thoros of Myr, Jorah Mormont, Tormund Giantsbane, and Gendry) have one goal for their trip north of the wall: capture a wight and bring it back to show Cersei and Daenerys that the army of the dead is real. The irony of two zombies heading north to capture another zombie is lost on almost everyone—but it's compounded when you realize that Cersei is no stranger to zombies herself.
Ser Robert Strong, the giant, purple-faced Queensguard, is more than heavily presumed to be…a zombie: The zombified remains of Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane, to be exact, who was poisoned by Oberyn Martell in season 4, appeared as a corpse twitching under a sheet in Qyburn's lab in season 5, and now shambles creepily around the Red Keep like a mummy with an agenda.
Maester Qyburn, now Hand of the Queen, doesn't appear to have any powers like Melisandre does, so Strong probably isn't a magic zombie like Jon, Beric, and the Night King's army are. Qyburn's more of a mad scientist, a Dr. Frankenstein in a world of necromancers. Still, his zombie of science seems to be just as powerful as the zombies of fire and ice.
This is all to say that if Jon and Beric succeed in their mission, we're looking at:
- Two zombies crossing a zombie-repelling wall to kidnap another zombie.
- This third zombie being taken to King's Landing, where they will be greeted at the door by a fourth zombie, who doesn't like them.
- Recall that the third zombie is only there to prove to the queen, who already has a zombie, that zombies are real.
That's so many zombies. We're in zombieland now.
Game of Thrones has, from the first moment of its airing, been about zombie fights. The very first episode began with a cold open about zombies slaughtering a flock of Night's Watchmen (and it was the fear of the undead that caused Will, the man Ned Stark decapitates for desertion in that same episode, to desert the Night's Watch in the first place). From the very first, Thrones let us know that Westeros is the zombies' world—everyone else is just living in it.
It's also worth mentioning that one of Game of Thrones' most popular fan theories, dubbed "Cleganebowl," imagines that Sandor "The Hound" Clegane will one day fight and re-kill his zombie brother, Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane, a.k.a Ser Robert Strong. Considering that The Hound experienced his own spiritual death and rebirth after being left for dead by Arya Stark and then resurrected by the kindness of Septon Ray, Cleganebowl would be one of many zombie fights to come as Westeros approaches its final undead reckoning.
The lingering threat of the undead has been a throughline of Game of Thrones' story that, thanks to Jon Snow's journey, has come to peak prominence. As Jon has been almost heedlessly repeating in season 7, the petty wars and inter-house squabbling that categorized the show's early seasons are completely pointless in the face of a freezing zombie horde. And with Jon Snow becoming a strong (zombie) contender for the Iron Throne, Thoros of Myr and Melisandre's ability to raise more fire zombies like Beric and Jon, and Cersei being guarded by the biggest, baddest zombie in the capital, it's entirely possible that the last few episodes of Thrones will document a series of zombies duking it out for control of the world. So much for dragons being the coolest part of the show.
