Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5: 5 details you missed from “The Bells”

With that wild of an episode of Game of Thrones, it’s very likely you missed something small, but important while watching “The Bells.”

Warning: “The Bells,” the fifth episode of Game of Thrones‘ final season, aired last night. As you can imagine, we’re about to spoil it heavily.

In a show like Game of Thrones, context means quite a lot, and even though the pre-episode “previously on” segments try and pack in seven seasons’ worth of material, they don’t always succeed. Never fear. That’s what we’re here for after each episode airs — to take the little moments, the seemingly throwaway lines, and provide some additional meaning.

With an episode that spends quite a lot of time in silence, a lot of these come from dialogue, surprisingly enough. Let’s dig into it.

Maegor’s Holdfast

At one point before his brutal death, Qyburn tells Cersei that they should think about retreating to Maegor’s Holdfast, part of the Red Keep that’s more defensible. Of course, Cersei doesn’t go, although she’d know that it’d be safer.

The last time she spent any significant amount of time there was during the Battle of the Blackwater, and that did not end particularly well for her, as she nearly poisoned herself and a young Tommen to try and avoid being captured.

Daenerys’ title choices

When Daenerys executes Varys, she only uses a few of her titles. Notably, she calls herself “First of Her Name,” traditionally meant for kings and queens of the Seven Kingdoms, but then skips all of the other ruling titles, going straight for “Mother of Dragons” and “Breaker of Chains.” Those are two very pointed choices. She is trying to free the people of Westeros in her mind, and she’ll use her last living dragon to do it.

But “Mother of Dragon” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Granted, this could also be a time constraint; just reciting all of Daenerys’ full titles would probably take up a few minutes all on its own. Varys knows who she is. Everyone else there knows who she is too. Why waste time when she’s ready to burn him?

Wildfire beneath the city

There may not be many left who can make wildfire now that Daenerys and Drogon have torched a good portion of it, but apparently Cersei didn’t use up all the stores in blowing up the Sept of Baelor. As Daenerys burns the city, you might have noticed a few green explosions going up as well.

Hopefully there aren’t any more surprise explosions of wildfire on next week’s episode, but we’re not going to be surprised if there are.

“The gods flip a coin”

Let’s go back to Daenerys’ mind for a moment. The idea of flipping a coin gets a lot of play in this episode — almost as many mentions as the bells, in fact. (We weren’t counting, but it sure seemed that way.) It’s Barristan Selmy who brings this up in the books, although Cersei says the line in the show, but the quote actually originally comes from a Targaryen: Jaehaerys, Daenerys’ grandfather and Jon’s great-grandfather.

Why are the Targaryens so prone to this? Well, we’d have to guess that the incest has something to do with it, much like many others in-universe, Robert Baratheon included.

“Nothing else matters”

Why does Jaime choose these words to soothe his sister as things fall around them? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cersei has actually spoken more eloquently on this than Jaime: “Came into this world together, we belong together.”

Jaime might regret coming back to King’s Landing somewhere in the back of his mind, but that doesn’t matter. He gets to see Cersei again. They came into the world together, and they die together. “Nothing else matters” but the two of them.

Game of Thrones’ final episode airs next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

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