Season 8 of Game of Thrones premieres in less than two weeks. The Night King has finally arrived from Beyond the Wall, and the remaining Great Houses of Westeros have -- for the most part -- banded together to face the imminent threat of the White Walkers and their undead army.The most recent trailers have featured a lot of ice and snow, which is to be expected. However, what wasn't expected was a new poster featuring the iconic Iron Throne, but with its highly recognizable shape comprised not of swords, but of each one of the show's remaining cast and characters, frozen in ice with their armor and weapons.
While nowhere near as bloody, the image is evocative of the macabre artwork White Walkers are known to create from corpses on the show. We first saw that odd habit of theirs in the very first episode, when a member of the Night's Watch stumbled upon the corpses of a massacred Wildling village, arranged in a pattern. A couple of seasons later, Jon Snow and Mance Rayder discovered another pattern, this time created from a combination of human and horse corpses arranged in a large spiral.
The show has never explained why the White Walkers put time and effort into arranging these patterns, although the episode"The Door" (directed by Jack Bender) seemed to allude to their significance.
Of course, none of this is necessarily indicative of what fans should expect to see in the upcoming season, as marketing for Game of Thrones has always generally included depictions of characters as though they were deceased, if for no other reason than to ensure fans worry for the safety of their favorites.
Season 8 of Game of Thrones premieres April 14. The HBO drama stars Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister, Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister, Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen, Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark, Maisie Williams as Arya Stark and Kit Harington as Jon Snow.