Update: HBO just released the second trailer for Game of Thrones Season 7. You can watch the new trailer below and read on for a summary of the first season 7 trailer, titled Collide.
Warning! Contains mild spoilers below
While Game of Thrones fans wait with bated breath for George R.R Martin to finally release the next literary instalment, Sky Atlantic has dropped the latest trailer for the show's seventh season.
Called “Collide”, the 1-minute, 40-second trailer opens with a Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) voiceover saying: "Enemies to the east, enemies to the west, enemies to the south, enemies to the north. Whatever stands in our way, we will defeat it. We’re the last Lannisters. The last ones who count."
The trailer then shows Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), her dragons and her army as she proclaims: "I was born to rule the seven kingdoms, and I will." Jon Snow is seen being lauded as king of the north and the trailer ends with Snow (Kit Harington) declaring "The great war is here." The YouTube description adds: "The great war begins 17:7:17. Rally the realm."
This official trailer follows March's teaser clip, called “Long Walk,” which was posted straight to Twitter. That 90-second trailer shows Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and Jon Snow walking to individual thrones.
Game of Thrones season 7[/link] will premiere simultaneously on July 16 at 9pm ET on HBO in the US, which is 2am July 17 on Sky Atlantic in the UK. The show will also be repeated at 9pm on the Monday in the UK.
Previous seasons have aired in April and rumours suggested this year's series would (incorrectly) premiere on April 25. Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss said this change was "because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here' – and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes anymore."
Season six ended in fine form. Following the Battle of the Bastards, the power struggle in Westeros ended with a new Queen, a big reveal about Snow's mother and – as has become tradition – the deaths of a number of very high-profile characters.
Some storylines from the series overlapped with the most recent book, A Dance with Dragons but others were original, written by the HBO team in consultation with George R.R. Martin. The next book will be titled The Winds of Winter in line with the final episode of the latest TV series.
HBO announced it had renewed the show for a seventh series at the start of last year. In August, actress Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, tweeted that she has finished reading the script for season seven and "shit gets real". She added that "nothing will prepare you" for the next series and ended the series of tweets simply with "holy balls."
After season six ended, Twitter analysis revealed the The Winds of Winter episode from season six was also the most popular from across the entire series of Game of Thrones. It was followed in popularity by The Red Woman and season five's Mother's Mercy.
The top ten episodes on Twitter so far have been:
The Winds of Winter: Season 6 The Red Woman: Season 6 Mother's Mercy: Season 5 *Battle of the Bastards:*Season 6 Home: Season 6 *The Door:*Season 6 The Wars to Come: Season 5 Two Swords: Season 4 Book of the Stranger: Season 6 *The Lion and the Rose:*Season 4
Earlier in the year, Twitter produced an interactive visualisation to show just how popular the iconic TV show is.
In the graphic, each episode represents a character map, with names linked to one another and emoji representing sentiment towards each character.
In third-season episode, The Rains of Castamere, for example - featuring the famous Red Wedding episode - Robb Stark's name is accompanied by sad emoji and the broken heart emoji. Daenerys' name, which is prominent in each episode, is often accompanied by the dragon emoji.
The visualisation allows users to see "how popular each character was, with each circle representing a character with its size proportional to how often the character was mentioned".
Characters are also linked - when two characters are mentioned in the same tweet, the visualisation "infers there is a connection", with the thickness of the line connecting the two "indicating how often the two characters were mentioned together".
Other visualisations have mapped how Game of Thrones has had an impact on the British public – one ONS graphic even showed how GoT names have inspired baby names in the UK.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
