The very best part of last night’s Game Of Thrones happened in the opening credits
It’s been a rough couple of decades for the family of House Winterfell in A Song Of Ice And Fire. First, Lyanna was abducted by the Mad King’s son. Then, when her father Rickard and her brother Brandon, the eldest son and heir to Winterfell, went to reason with the Mad King, they were roasted alive and asphyxiated, respectively. This of course led to three-year civil war that saw thousands of their countrymen die, followed by 14 years of rule by a humorless prig who valued abstract concepts like honor above the wellbeing of his family and subjects.
But at least through all of that, they got to keep their ancestral seat of power. That run of moderate good luck ended in the second season of HBO’s Game Of Thrones when Winterfell’s former ward Theon Greyjoy returned to sack Winterfell. It was also denoted in the show’s opening credit sequence, which depicted the stronghold as a smoldering wreck, as it stayed for the next few seasons.