Here Is A Harrowingly In-Depth Analysis Of The New Game Of Thrones Poster

Game Of Thrones, HBO’s hit show about cartography and snowstorms, will be back soonish ( probably in July). The release date hasn’t been announced yet, but the first bit of show-related ephemera dropped today, via EW. It’s a poster. There’s a lot of ice.

There are a ton of extremely significant details to hash out here, but before we get into it, well:

[SPOILER WARNING, I’M GONNA SPOIL THE SHOW , SO, I DUNNO, GO READ ANOTHER BLOG. NOT THE BOOKS THOUGH SO YOU’RE GOOD THERE]

[OKAY, YOU’RE PAST THAT NIGHT’S KING IMAGE! YOU CAN’T SAY YOU WEREN’T WARNED!!]

The hashtag is slanted to the right: For those not in the geographic know, Essos is the east of Westeros, which is on the west. Not a lot of context clues in those names, but now you know. Anyway, in most map projections, east is to the right, so what the rightward slant indicates is a return to Essos. The finale of Season 6 saw major characters journey westward, seemingly consolidating the action. However, as anyone looking at this poster should be able to tell, a major character is going east.

The closest letter that a strand of fire gets to is H: The most visually and symbolically significant symbols on this poster are three clouds of sparks. Their significance will become apparent shortly; as for the strand of sparks closest to the H, fire symbolizes rebirth, phoenix style. What beloved character died in agonizing fashion last season whose name starts with an H? Hodor. However, all will not be well. Astute spark observers will note a prominent solo spark to the right of the center of this particular fire cluster. It kind of looks like an eye on an ice creature. Friends, sad to say, but Hodor is coming back as an ice zombie.

The fire cloud on the right looks like a box: Minecraft plays a role in S7.

Ghostly letter “B” to the right of the main fracture above the letters: B, which connoisseurs of the series know means “Bran,” will have a prominent role this season. Note how the B is above any other letters on the poster. Will Bran fly? No, it’s bigger than that. The fracture that forms the backbone of the B connects to come other fractures, forming a tree of sorts. Game Of Thrones features a religion based loosely on the worship of psychic trees. Bran will become a god.

Fractures shaping an upside-down 7 next to the real 7: Remember The Seven? They are the gods who form the core of Westeros’s commonly practiced polytheistic religion. At the end of last season, their fanatic in chief got nuked by a vengeful Cersei and the holy Sept of Baelor was razed in the explosion. The upside down 7 means one very obvious thing: The Seven will walk Westeros as physical beings trying to get revenge but they’ll fuck up their reincarnation and have to walk around all upside-down. Clowns.

Goatse: As Special Projects Desk deputy editor Tom Scocca points out, the poster also more or less explicity spells goatse. Someone’s doing goatse.