The Pack Survives: Stark Symbolism in the new season 8 teaser trailer
By Katie Majka
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The teaser is largely about protecting Jon as a member of the Stark pack. But towards the end of the trailer it also becomes about protecting Sansa, as Jon and Arya step forward with swords drawn when the eerie white mist rolls in. That means we get to have some more fun with season 6 dialogue, this time from “Battle of the Bastards”:
"JON: “I’ll protect you. I promise.” SANSA: “No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone.”"
Well, Arya was “No One,” for a time, wasn’t she? Perhaps that’s just a coincidence, but it’s a rather famous linguistic trick; in The Odyssey, Odysseus tricks the cyclops by telling him his name is “Nobody,” so when the cyclops cries out that “nobody” is trying to kill him, nobody comes to his rescue.
The theme of protecting Jon is communicated through symbolism, but Arya and Jon stepping forward to protect Sansa is literal. When the three meet in the crypts, Jon is walking straight down the center of a tunnel, but then moves to Sansa’s left as the siblings approach their statues. Then, when Jon’s torch goes out, Jon and Arya’s immediate reaction is to draw their swords and step in front of Sansa, acting as guards.
When the Stark sisters reunited in season 7, Arya told Sansa, “You need better guards.” It was a stray comment, but Sansa may have now found those “better guards.” This underlines not only the bond between these characters, but Sansa’s importance in the story.
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Sansa has a Queensguard of sorts, just as Cersei has the Mountain and, until recently, Jaime to protect her. Daenerys has Jorah Mormont and Grey Worm looking out for her, and at one time had Ser Barristan and Daario Naharis protecting her person. These women may not wield physical weapons, but they have skills, goals, and purpose beyond what can be accomplished in the thick of battle. (Daenerys is a possible exception to this rule as she’s ridden Drogon into battle, although dragon-riding is pretty far removed from swordsmanship. On the ground, Dany is still protected by her guards, as when the Sons of the Harpy attack her in Daznak’s Pit in Meereen.)
The characters’ movements in the teaser also suggest a chess match. We’re talking symbolism, so stick with me for a moment.
The previous teaser for season 8 showed the remaining houses represented as pieces on the Painted Table at Dragonstone. Jon, Sansa and Arya are also pieces of a sort in this new teaser, pulling off a move called triangulation.
When I was first learning to play chess in college, this move was taught to me by one of the professors’ young sons, who used it to soundly destroy me in a game. The official definition of the move is “an endgame strategy used in chess to put one’s opponent ‘in zugzwang’ (a situation where one player is disadvantaged because they have to make a move when they would rather stay still. Triangulation occurs most commonly in endgames with only kings and pawns, thus why it is also commonly referred to as the ‘king and pawn vs. king endgame.’”
Along with your traditional checkmate, triangulation is a basic strategy that ensures a win for the person who implements it correctly. In the most common form of triangulation, the king and a rook are positioned at opposite legs of the triangle, with a pawn at the tip. This is how — to borrow a common phrase — pawns become players.
If we view Jon as the king, Arya as the rook, and Sansa as the pawn, we see how essential the Stark sisters are in protecting Jon. Two often underestimated pieces are what make the victory possible — ergo, it’s Sansa and Arya’s presence in Jon’s life that forces the family’s enemies into zugzwang, as it were.
