History Recap / GameOfThronesS8E1Winterfell

** The Golden Company's war-elephants "aren't suited for sea-voyages," which may have been a polite way of saying "we couldn't afford all that food." As noted in real-life accounts and by modern zoos, a single elephant needs HUNDREDS of pounds of food per day. With space at a premium on ships, and it would have been difficult if not impossible to cram all that in along with the elephants themselves. It's noted in the books that they ''tried'' to bring the elephants over, but [[CaptainObvious most of them died.]]

** The Golden Company's war-elephants "aren't suited for sea-voyages," which may have been a polite way of saying "we couldn't afford all that food." As noted in real-life accounts and modern zoos, a single elephant needs HUNDREDS of pounds of food per day, and with space at a premium on ships, that would have been difficult if not impossible to keep up. It's noted in the books that they tried to bring the elephants over, but [[CaptainObvious most of them died.]]

** The Golden Company's war-elephants "aren't suited for sea-voyages," which may have been a polite way of saying [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome "we couldn't afford all that food."]] As noted in real-life accounts and modern zoos, a single elephant needs HUNDREDS of pounds of food per day, and with space at a premium on ships, that would have been difficult if not impossible to keep up. It’s noted in the books that they tried to bring the elephants over, but [[CaptainObvious most of them died.]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Jon not only bends the knee, but does so to House Targaryen, the house that killed the previous generation's Warden of the North and his eldest son and (as far as they know) kidnapped his daughter. The Northern Lords, and Jon's own family, are furious; Lord Glover loses all faith in Jon and retreats to his own stronghold, and Sansa is not inclined to be very civil to the daughter of the man who killed her grandfather and uncle.
** So, you brought a huge army to help defend your home and people against the army of the dead and wage war in what's gonna be a '''very''' long and harsh winter? You also brought a lot more mouths to feed. As Sansa points out, feeding an enormous army ''and'' two dragons is going to stretch Winterfell's meager supplies well beyond the breaking point, and additional help isn't likely to come from the South, either. They're in between a rock and a hard place -- the North needs those armies and dragons to stand any chance of surviving the army of the dead. At the same time, this help might starve the North out.
** Many of the North's newest allies are from southern noble families, several of whom Daenerys has already torched both on the battlefield and in public executions. As shown by Sam's [[SuppressedRage visceral reaction]], this could cause serious problems in the near future.
** The leadership of the North may understand the strategic importance of their new allies, but their people and soldiers probably do not not appreciate their presence. The Southerners and foreigners are treated with a mixture of suspicion, disgust, and awe (having never seen Essosi people before) by the famously xenophobic North. Also, the sight of dragons is understandably enough to send civilians running and screaming in a panic.
** Qyburn casually saying that one of the girls has an STD freaks out Bronn, but this is a reality check on the series' earlier use of {{Fanservice}}; in a medieval world, protection from venereal diseases is difficult to come by.
** Though Randyll Tarly was a horribly abusive father even by the standards of this show, Sam is visibly distraught rather than happy at first upon hearing about his death. [[NiceGuy Dickon's]] death just further compounds this.
** As the Golden Company commander points out, elephants make excellent war beasts, but aren't suited for long sea voyages, meaning no elephants for Cersei. As noted in real-life, elephants were AwesomeButImpractical.
** With the CGI budget mostly used for the dragons, rendering the Golden Company war elephants would have been too much. So, to explain their absence, we're told that the elephants couldn't make the journey from Essos.

* AnAxeToGrind: Sandor has Gendry forge him a dragonglass axe, with Gendry even noting that it was rather difficult to forge something so big out of the material.

** Cersei is (possibly) pregnant with Jaime's child while talking to Euron who she has slept with, and who promises to put a prince in her belly. In other words, Cersei is once again in the same situation she was with Robert, a shallow dead-end relationship which she is going to undermine by means of an incest baby that her consort expects will be his child.

* NotHelpingYourCase: After Sansa justifically made known her concern about the limited food, Daenerys arrogantly tell her and the Nothrern Lords, whom doesn't trust her one bit, that her dragons can eat whatever they want. Yeah, this girl needs to learn some lessons in diplomacy.

** The Golden Company's war-elephants "aren't suited for sea-voyages," which may have been a polite way of saying [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome "we couldn't afford all that food."]] As noted in real-life accounts and modern zoos, a single elephant needs HUNDREDS of pounds of food per day, and with space at a premium on ships, that would have been difficult if not impossible to keep up.

** The Golden Company's war-elephants "aren't suited for sea-voyages," which may have been a polite way of saying [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome "we couldn't afford all that food."]] As noted in real-life accounts and modern zoos, elephants need HUNDREDS of pounds of food per day, and with space at a premium on ships, that would have been difficult if not impossible to keep up.

** As the Golden Company commander points out, elephants make excellent war beasts, but aren't suited for long sea voyages, meaning no elephants for Cersei. As noted in real-life battles where elephants were AwesomeButImpractical, [[EasyLogistics elephants are large, hard to control, and need hundreds of pounds of food EACH per day.]]

** As the Golden Company commander points out, elephants make excellent war beasts, [[AwesomeButImpractical but aren't well-suited for long sea voyages,]] meaning no elephants for Cersei.

* NotSoDifferent: