An ice dragon, a massive wight battle and a frickin’ zombie bear: all amazing moments unveiled in the most recent Game of Thrones episode. But they didn't stop fans from asking one big question about Beyond The Wall.
No, not whether the undead Viserion would now breathe fire or ice. Or where the army of dead got hold of those massive chains. Or how Jon didn’t die of hypothermia. Or how Gendy was —okay, so there were a few things wrong with the last episode, but there’s one point in particular that had our head’s scratching: how did a raven fly from the Wall to Daenerys so quickly?
It looked as if Jon and his suicide squad band of misfit warriors were camped in the middle of a frozen lake for one night, apparently enough time for Gendry to run from that spot to Eastwatch, in order to send a message via raven to Daenerys in Stormborn, who had to fly beyond the wall. It was a lot of action to take place in such a small amount of time – and even at season seven’s breakneck speed, these events led to some very interesting theories from fans.
And you wouldn’t be alone for feeling it was a tad rushed – even Alan Taylor, who directed Beyond the Wall, said the episode warped the show's timeline. “We were aware that timing was getting a little hazy,” he told Variety in a recent interview. “We’ve got Gendry running back, ravens flying a certain distance, dragons having to fly back a certain distance…In terms of the emotional experience, [Jon and company] sort of spent one dark night on the island in terms of storytelling moments. We tried to hedge it a little bit with the eternal twilight up there north of The Wall.”
However, the director also suggested that however far'fetched, the episode still made sense. “I think there was some effort to fudge the timeline a little bit by not declaring exactly how long we were there. I think that worked for some people, for other people it didn’t.
“They seemed to be very concerned about how fast a raven can fly but there’s a thing called plausible impossibilities, which is what you try to achieve, rather than impossible plausibilities. So I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story’s momentum carries over some of that stuff.”
Will the momentum plough through into the finale episode? Could the fast-moving story finally break Westerosi clock? Or will we be too busy gawping at an ice dragon to care?
Game of Thrones Season 7 premieres on Mondays on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV at 2am, repeated at 9pm
