HBO’s Game of Thrones is a phenomenon- that’s old news. Now, this phenomenon happens without any schedule.

August 2017 has truly been one glorious month of our lives. When we could be sitting in traffic, missing our classes or just getting break-up texts- and Game of Thrones would happen to us and every problem would cease to exist. Just like that.

The sight of consecutive posts with “S070*, leak, eta ki dekhlam, RIP” can make anyone’s day instantly better and busier!

The Game of Hacks

Well, anyone except the folks at HBO of course. Social media has been abuzz with headlines like “HBO is falling” and “Hackers Leak GoT Scripts, Ask for Ransom”. Our writer believe that the multidimensional leak was Westerosi justice inflicted upon HBO folks for the unnecessary death of one of her idols this season: the Queen of Thorns, Olenna Tyrell.

What’s Happening in Westeros?

So, let’s get our update on what’s happening in all the Houses and start with our ice and fire couple.

Ahem, our second most-favorite ice and fire couple then.

Dragons in the South

Daenerys Targaryen is still the same petulant girl with a maddening desire of ruling Westeros- older and crueler, with an updated winter wardrobe.

One could debate which look of hers held more fire, here where she delivered her most passionate “Dracarys” till date, or the looks she gives when eyeing her naïve little nephew.

The Starkgaryens

Yes, Jon Snow, risen the frozen gutters, is marching towards “The Most Righteous Claim on the Iron Throne Ever”, inch by inch every episode. He has taken somewhat of a permanent residence at Daeny’s side. Latest addition of the house Targarayen, Jon travelled to Dragonstone earlier in the season to seal a deal for dragonglass. So far, he has mined the dragonglass, and driven innocent dragons into having twisted incestual fantasies:

Launching the Suicide Squad north of the Wall:

Also, if our sources in the Perfumed Spider Espionage Services are correct (and they are rarely wrong), then Brandon Stark is actually Night King. So Jon Snow has also been busy helping his ungrateful teen brother get a tryout from the Men’s Javelin team for the next Olympics.

While grinding too hard for brownie points with Daeny:

And letting Ser Jorah know that he should have stuck with Aman Mathur’s script from Kal Ho Na Ho:

There is little doubt about Jon Snow’s promising future as Prince Charming, eh?

The She-Wolves Reunite

Shifting our focus to the Stark reunion at Winterfell, we saw that Sansa is in no hurry to make her fan theories come true. She didn’t turn up pregnant with Ramsey’s child, after all. Instead, she is playing the games bored, little girls play with her one and only little sister, Arya .

 After her serial-killer escapades in the last two seasons (and general wandering about in the four seasons before that), the younger Stark girl is finally back to Winterfell.

The glorious shot where Arya sees Winterfell in the horizon, and the delightful sparring session with our favorite Knight Brienne of Tarth are the only good things we have seen from her so far. Her onscreen passive-aggressive date with Ed Sheeran was so cringeworthy and overhyped that we are still reeling in pain from the memory. We pray that she gets back to murderous ways soon.

Stoned, Stalking Ravens

How Benjen Stark ever conveniently reached every dying Stark kid north of the wall, will probably remain a mystery till the end. Unfortunately, the only person who knows everything doesn’t really care about anything.

Yes, Brandon Stark is simply, utterly unimpressed. He doesn’t give a flying duck about anything his family is doing.

Seems like he has picked up a thing or two on friendzoning with his new three-eyed Raven vision, and after the disappointing ending to the possible romance with Meera Reed, this is pretty much the current state of the youngest Stark:

Desperate Housewives of King’s Landing

Shifting our eyes from our wolves to our lions, Cersei has done next to nothing this season- apart from drinking, getting a new fiancée, drinking, getting pregnant by her twin and failing to deliver to the Iron Bank.

Basically, the only significant change in her short appearances throughout the season would be her her unnecessarily military-looking luxurious, black attires.

Her brother Jaime Lannister, on the other hand, has turned from a despicable entitled brat to a formidable superhero within the span of a season. Our critics are skeptical about this latest attempt at fan service. After all, lots of us fell for the looks of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (man, that guy has one dreamy name!) yet couldn’t confess because he was the Kingslayer, the incest dude, the child-killer and so on.

We can easily detect the shift in his character, and what it has meant for Jaime in the course of the seven seasons:

Bad Boys, Bad Boys

The camaraderie between Jaime Lannister and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater has been one of the most enjoyable non-action portion of the show this season.

Apparently Bronn is Jaime’s (Nikolas Waldau) favorite character from the show. Nikolas Waldau stated in an interview that the character Bronn has the best lines in this season, and we couldn’t agree more.

Bronn is that witty, honest friend who will save our crippled ass from drowning in the river and then tell us to jump right back in at the prospect of confronting our partner.

We have been terribly missing his wit-battles with Tyrion Lannister.

Coming to the youngest Lannister, Tyrion is still the whiny dwarf philosopher who will unnecessarily rant about how his daddy never loved him at absolutely inappropriate, you-can-get-caught-any-second-now moments.

It breaks our hearts to see that our beloved Tyrion is not being as effective on his second run as the Hand and we would like to point out that most of his thunder got stolen by (a) his older brother who stole Bronn; and (b) Ser Davos, who is on his way to become the most successful entrepreneur in the history of Westerosi business.

We sincerely hope to see Bronn and Tyrion reunited with Ser Davos thrown in the mix, as it is crucial for the show to balance out all that adrenaline with bottom-of-the-belly laughs- now more than ever.

Shenanigans Beyond the Wall

Talking about our favorite characters crossing paths- Beyond the Wall was a delightful treat for entire GoT lover tribe. Jon rubbed his superiority over Ser Jorah by bringing up the Longclaw, Stark and Baratheon dudes are once again fighting side by side and we got confirmation on our favorite couple from the series.

Tormund is absolutely in love with Brienne! The Hound is still a devout believer in Rick-ism, lubing up everyone’s opinion with sarcasm and shoving it back up their buttholes.  Sadly the most chilled out Priest ever doesn’t make it back to south of the wall. We feared that the end was near for Berric when this scene was on the screen:

Who needs to live anymore after starring in such an epic scene, anyways? And, truth be told, the Red Priest didn’t really have much left to do after he handed us our newest superhero:

Plotholes, Plotholes Everywhere

Yes, the plotholes are truly upon us. And my my, there is a feast of the wrong holes happening in this season.

Jaime was not able to defeat Bronn one-on-one on the ground. Now he is leading the Lannister army on horseback (which he obviously cannot mount himself), killing everyone around him in the battlefield. He even attempted to kill Daenerys, on dragonmount, all by himself!

Speaking of which, dragons used to be invincible. Now second-grade Maesters are inventing dragon-slaying weapons, and sellswords with poor aim are shooting dragons out of the sky?

As delighted as we were when Gendry returned (with promises of romance with the only Stark who hasn’t gotten the chance to get laid yet), his speedy journey from the frozen lake to the wall has given more ammunition for trolls.

Furthermore, multiple trucks and cars kept showing up in several episodes. They were everywhere: at King’s Landing, at Winterfell, even Beyond the Wall!

The showrunners can give whichever convenient explanation they want to back up their timelines- there really is no explanation for automobiles showing up in Westeros.

Well, maybe the one which explains how Gendry got a lift from a time-travelling Bran on his way to the wall, of course. (Then again, Bran couldn’t care less).

Now comes the calculations. House Frey is gone, House Tyrell has been wiped out from Highgardens, the Ironborns are still divided into two factions, with the functioning one likely to leave the battle of Ice and Fire soon enough. Jon Snow acquired almost all the bannermen supporting Robb, Catelyn and Sansa- and Daeny is most likely to get all of these bannermen by her side.

With almost all the Houses gone, it will be interesting to see how the showrunners keep up the politics of the game up, now that there are only two sides- Queen Cersei and Queen Daenrys. Which side does Sansa choose? What becomes of Lord Varys now that his death is nearer than ever? The theory of Azor Ahai is yet to come true as well, with speculations of Jaime being the true Azor Ahai instead of Jon.

Some are going as far as claiming the true Azor Ahai is trapped in Jon’s Longclaw sword! Drogon will kill Viserion as Drogo killed Viserys, Bran is the root cause of everyone’s problems, Bran will warg Viserion, Sansa will kill Arya to save Cersei- there are many crazy theories flying around, each screaming the demand of dumb poetic justice in one way or another.

Which brings us to our next grievance against HBO: the blatant fan-service. This season, the showrunners have scaled the Wall and decided to rain down wish-fulfilment for every member of the fandom living North (and also South) of the Wall.

Most significant among the deeds of St. David and D.B for Magical Wish Fulfillments is obviously shipping Jon and Danereys.  The sole purpose of the Red Woman in this season was making these two meet. And since then they have been playing the Westerosi version of a prolonged, dismaying lover’s tango.

Once again, Ed Sheeran looked more awkward in the setting than the way Arya laughs every time someone doesn’t believe that she can have a serious agenda.

And what about the resurrected, blue fire breathing dragon? It’s pathetic how the showrunners have stooped as low as to turn fanfiction into actual scripts!

The Whitewalker dragon has been floating around in fanart for quite a while now- ever since the previous Three Eyed Raven told Bran that he would fly.

This is probably why we didn’t get to see as much weeping as we expect from the penultimate episode of any GoT season- the fans already knew this was going to happen. At this rate, House Slytherin will make it to Winterfell as the fans have claimed that the Occlumency maestro himself will bring the end to dirty ol’ Littlefinger.

And Lastly, Who Can Forget the Memes?

At this point, we would like to emphasize the delight GoT memes bring us, and we would like to applaud Epic Bangla Game of Thrones Quotes. The Tywin-worthy relevance with which the Facebook Page creates GoT memes, it makes us believe that these memes are in fact a curation of the golden era of our lives.

Celebration of creativity, may it be in the form of spreading verbal cancers (such as the shocking truism “they aren’t men, they are dragons) or in the form of making death jokes- the Game of Thrones memes have been a way of bonding for many fans. The writer personally knows couples who grew closer by exchanging GoT memes.

This is why that these few weeks in the middle of the year are, perhaps, the most social ones in our lives. For a little while, none of us feel secluded or lonely. We get a boost in the communal spirit as we discover that we have something more in common than the food places we cannot afford to go, and we get to manipulate HBO by posting leaked episodes and spoilers online.

We sincerely hope that Game of Thrones cuts on the poetic justice and focuses more on the mind-churning twists ( and cyber security too) it is infamous for. May all of our leaked episodes get downloaded faster than Gendry’s Raven reached Dragonstone. And may the Lord of Light let all of us rejoice together for the rest of seven episodes. For now, our watch is truly coming to an end.