HBO dropped an excellent teaser for the final season of Game of Thrones tonight. We got to see Arya, Jon and Sansa come together in the crypts under Winterfell, which could be a sign of things to come. But there were poignant callbacks to the past in there, too.
For example, when Jon Snow passes the statue of his mother Lyanna Stark, his stride causes a feather in the statue’s palm to fall to the floor. Later, the feather freezes as an icy mist inches its way towards our heroes. Really, the feather is kind of the star of the show. Not since Forrest Gump has a feather pulled this much focus.
But where did the feather come from? If you recall, Robert Bartheon placed it in Lyanna’s hand in the very first episode:
It’s a touching moment, even if most of what Robert believes happened to his beloved Lyanna (Rhaegar kidnapping and raping her) is completely untrue.
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Fast forward to season 5, and the feather shows up again, when Sansa returns to Winterfell to marry Ramsay Bolton. Sansa finds the feather on the ground, picks it up, dusts it off, and holds it as Littlefinger tells her the story of what happened to Lyanna at the infamous tourney at Harrenhal. She’s still carrying it during their walk-and-talk down the corridor.
We don’t know if Sansa put the feather back, but it’s come to symbolize Robert’s doomed love for Lyanna. The new season 8 trailer is full of symbolism, so it’s appropriate that Jon, proof that Rhaegar and Lyanna meant more to each other than captor and abductee, is the one to knock the feather from its perch.
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