Let’s contemplate this intriguing line cut from the Hound’s scene in “Dragonstone”

CAUTION: THIS POST CONTAINS POTENTIAL SPOILERS

One of the most interesting scenes from the Game of Thrones season 7 premiere came when Sandor “the Hound” Clegane, now traveling with the Brotherhood Without Banners, hunkered down for the night in the now-deserted farmhouse he and Arya visited (and robbed) back in season 4. Thoros of Myr, a Red Priest who receives visions from the Lord of Light when he looks into a flame, started a fire. He implored the Hound to look into it. The Hound is a skeptical man, but he complied, and soon received a vision himself. What did he see?

"Ice. A wall of ice. The Wall. It’s where the Wall meets the sea. There’s a castle there. There’s a mountain. Looks like an arrowhead. The dead are marching past. Thousands of them."

The Hound is describing Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, one of the many castles along the Wall. First, for book-readers, we’ll point out that Melisandre also saw (or thought she saw) this castle when she looked into the flames in A Dance with Dragons. “That is where the heaviest blow will fall,” she tells Jon Snow. And now the Hound has seen the dead marching past it. Both the books and the show seem to be setting up something pivotal at Eastwatch.

HBO added another winkle to the Hound scene when it uploaded a recap of the episode to its official site. In their write-up, the Hound’s speech had an additional line.

"It’s where the Wall meets the Sea. The waves are frozen. There’s a castle there."

“The waves are frozen.” Could this line indicate how exactly the dead are “marching past” Eastwatch? After all, there’s a rather large Wall in their way, but if they can move over the waves, it won’t be an issue. Perhaps it was cut from the actual episode to avoid giving away too much?

As a final note, commenter klohi mentioned that the wights in the first shot looked like they were marching over a sea of ice and snow. Could it all be coming together?

There’s some food for thought. Meanwhile, over at HBO Making Game of Thrones blog, you can get an up-close look at the message that Cersei sent to Jon Snow.

That’ll make good fuel for Winterfell’s fires, I’m sure.

There are also some new interviews making the rounds, including an edit of some of the responses cast members and writers gave at the season 7 premiere event in Los Angeles, uploaded to the official Game of Thrones YouTube page.

What’s in store for season 7? “More bloodshed,” says Sophie Turner. Sounds about right. Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran) also made an interesting comment about the season as a whole. “Season 7 is really part one of the conclusion to the show that you didn’t think could ever have a conclusion.”

Next: Iain Glen discusses Jorah’s quest for the cure in Game of Thrones season 7

We’ll get one step closer to that conclusion when “Stormborn” airs this Sunday.