40. The Scorpion
When faced with the news of dragons, Cersei does what has become her new go-to and turns to her Dr. Frankenstein on retainer, Qyburn, to provide her with a solution. This monster-sized crossbow is what he comes up with. While the weapon only manages to cause a relatively minor flesh wound before Drogon incinerates it, it nonetheless serves as a reminder that even dragons can fall in battle—even before poor Viserion meets his end beyond the Wall. It’s also a weapon design Jon and Daenerys and company might want to look into themselves now that they’ve got a zombie dragon to deal with, considering not even Gendry has the sort of superhuman upper body strength that would be required to throw a spear freehand the way the Night King does.
39. Balerion’s Skull
For a long time, Balerion’s skull, hidden underneath the Red Keep, was a relic from a bygone era, a memory of a long-gone bogeyman. But just as the Night King has Sam scouring books of legends for clues to facing a real-life foe, Daenerys’s dragons turn the skull that once merely represented the distant past as an omen of the future.
38. Davos Seaworth’s Bag of Finger Bones
Crabber’s son turned advisor to kings, Davos Seaworth has always been humble to a fault and open about his origins. A smuggler who snuck in with much-needed food during the Siege of Storm’s End during Robert’s Rebellion, saving Stannis and his men from certain starvation, Davos’s commitment to both Stannis and fair judgment is made particularly evident through the bag of finger bones he wears around his neck—fingers Stannis chopped off as a punishment for smuggling before awarding Davos a knighthood. Much like the way he took a boat with an onion sail for his sigil in homage to his origins, this finger-bone talisman stands testament to Davos’s humility. That said, the loss of this pouch and the death of his son Matthos at the Battle of Blackwater Bay mark the beginning of Davos’s transformation into someone just as humble and committed to justice but a little more willing to speak his mind and even rebel when the occasion calls for it, such as when he helps Gendry escape Dragonstone before Melisandre can sacrifice him to R’hllor.
37. Lyanna Stark’s Statue
A whole lot of important conversations take place contemplating the statues in the crypts of Winterfell. Most of the major ones, ever since the very first episode, have revolved around the mysterious Lyanna Stark, whose “capture” fueled Robert’s Rebellion.
36. Doll Given to Sansa by Ned Stark
When Ned Stark buys daughter Sansa a doll from the same dollmaker who makes all Princess Myrcella’s toys, she sneers and tells him she doesn’t play with dolls. While Sansa knows better than to openly mourn her father’s death while stuck in the snakepit that is King’s Landing, her remorse over her father’s fate and the unintentional role she played in it is evident in the doll she now keeps in a prominent place on her vanity, both a reminder of happier times and past behavior she has come to deeply regret.
35. Red Wedding Bread and Salt
The offering of bread and salt solidifies “guest right,” a tradition generally held in the highest regard across Westeros, and betrayal of guest right is considered amongst the worst sort of sin. Not that that stops Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton, and Walter Frey. The three men all reaped rewards immediately following their betrayal of guest right, but have since then all gone on to meet terrible fates.
34. The Captured Flag of Yunkai
Daario Naharis is a somehow both weird and kinda dull, and that’s even before you get into his recasting. But narratively, he serves a purpose, as he proves when he captures Yunkai for Daenerys simply because he can and he thinks she’s beautiful, a decidedly odd personal philosophy that he nonetheless makes good on when he presents her with this bloodstained flag.
33. Ramsay Bolton’s Torture Cross
A lot of people feel a real connection to their sigils. The Stark children find direwolves as pets. Daenerys hatches three dragons. And Ramsay flays people—among, you know, other things.
32. The Key to Xaro Xhoan Daxos’s Vault
Xaro Xhoan Daxos is the “richest” man in Qarth, a status which he proudly flaunts through the vault key he wears as a pendant. He offers Daenerys half his riches if she should agree to marry him. After her dragons are stolen and she discovers Xaro’s involvement, she decides a fitting punishment will be to lock the merchant inside his own beloved vault—and discovers it empty, teaching the Dragon Queen a valuable lesson about the power of bluffing and how appearances can be misleading.
31. The Lineage and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms
“A ponderous read” that contributes to the deaths of two consecutive Hands of the King, this whos-who of Westeros helped clue both Jon Arryn and Ned Stark into the fact that something fishy is going on regarding the parentage of the royal children. It also contributes to Cersei Lannister’s ability to stop these men from revealing her biggest secret to the world, as the book is held by Lannister lackey and informant Grand Maester Pycelle.
Related Topics: Game of Thrones
