The Important Details In This "Game Of Thrones" Scene You Might Have Missed

    It was so intense. Warning: contains spoilers.

    Jenna Guillaume
    by Jenna Guillaume

    Editor-at-Large, BuzzFeed Australia

    The Game of Thrones Season 7 premiere was full of some pretty great scenes, but one in particular stood out – not for being the most action-packed, but for the way it explored the growth of one of our fave characters: the Hound.

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    Let's break it down.

    The Hound and the Brotherhood Without Banners approach an abandoned cottage. Beric suggests seeking shelter there, but the Hound is very reluctant to go in.

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    You might not remember, but we've seen this cottage before. Back in Season 4, Episode 3, the Hound and Arya were offered refuge in it by a man and his daughter.

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    The man offered the Hound a job, but the Hound knocked him out and stole all his silver instead. It's what prompted Arya to call him "the worst shit in the Seven Kingdoms", but the Hound DGAF, because the man and his daughter would be "dead come winter" anyway.

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    It's quite a contrast to how the Hound acts when he encounters the cottage again in the Season 7 premiere. The father and daughter are clearly preying on his mind as he approaches...

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    And when he sees that they are dead, he's clearly upset (even if he claims it doesn't matter").

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    He not only buries the father and daughter, he also attempts to say the prayer he heard them recite back in Season 4 – which he'd been very impatient with at the time.

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    He may not have remembered the whole prayer, but it's a huge gesture from the Hound, and really displays his character growth, making for a very emotional scene.

    The moment where the Hound digs the graves is also a nice hat tip to the gravedigger theory popular with book fans. Before the Hound returned on the show, many predicted he was still alive, and was an unnamed gravedigger whom Brienne encounters at a monastery.

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    Although the Hound didn't turn out to be a gravedigger in Season 6, many believe his return confirmed that fan theory, and this scene definitely reinforces it.

    But grave-digging isn't the only big moment for the Hound in this episode. On top of absolutely dragging Thoros...

    ...he also has quite a spiritual moment with fire.

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    This is, again, huge for the Hound, who has been terrified of fire ever since his brother, the Mountain, pushed his face into it when they were kids. You might remember that it was his fear of fire that caused the Hound to desert Joffrey and the Lannisters at the Battle of the Blackwater in Season 2. As the Hound says, "It’s my fucking luck I end up with a band of fire-worshippers.”

    But not only does the Hound get close to the fire, he also has a vision: “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 ‘em.”

    The fact that the Hound mentions a mountain is enough to trigger some HYPE about Cleganebowl, but the more important part here (sorry) is that he's clearly talking about Eastwatch-by-the-Sea – the castle on the Wall where Jon Snow sent Tormund earlier in the episode.

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    Which sets the scene nicely for the shots we saw in the trailer of the Hound and Beric with Tormund and Jon, fighting wights north of the Wall.

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    There's a good chance they're going to meet up at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Although I do hope the Hound and co. stopped off at Winterfell first – there are so many reunions that need to happen.

    Either way, with all the talk of the purpose Beric and his Brotherhood serve, the show is clearly building up to an epic confrontation with the Night King's army.

    I. Can't. Wait.

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