A Song of Ice and Fire / Call Back

Call Backs found in HBO's adaptations of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire universe.

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Game of Thrones

Littlefinger calls back to his own statement that he's not to be trusted when he betrays Ned Stark and his attempt to depose Joffrey.
"What do we say to the god of death?" "Not today."
Ser Dontos Hollard, the drunken knight who was demoted to a court jester in "The North Remembers", is shown juggling for the ladies of the court in "Blackwater".
Arya is reintroduced into "The Night Land" with a very similar tracking shot to her introduction in "Winter is Coming".
When Varys asks about his plan to defeat Stannis, Tyrion says "pig shit," calling back to Bronn's accusation that Pyromancer Hallyne was a Snake Oil Salesman as either Foreshadowing or a "Eureka!" Moment. Later, in Season 7, Tormund says the south smells to him like pig shit.
After gleefully telling Tyrion he's lost all his power, Grand Maester Pycelle flicks him a coin and says, "For your trouble," calling back to when Tyrion arrested him, took away his power, and tipped his prostitute using the same words.
In the House of the Undying, Daenerys rejects the Lotus-Eater Machine vision of her husband and son by repeating Mirri Maz Duur's words that Drogo will return and she will have another child "when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, etc." When she rejects the vision, Drogo's face goes expressionless like he was after the botched ritual.
In "Valar Morghulis", it turns out the Dothraki can lift Xaro's golden peacock after all.
Bran's dream in "Dark Wings, Dark Words" calls back dialogue from his introduction in "Winter is Coming".
In "Dark Wings, Dark Words", Sansa has to remind Loras that he gave her a red rose at the Tourney of the Hand in "Cripple, Bastards, and Broken Things". The audience knows Loras doesn't remember because he was too busy making eyes with Renly at the time.
During her scene with Talisa in "Dark Wings, Dark Words", Catelyn is frantically making another of the protection charms she made "The Kingsroad".
When Littlefinger calls his brothel the safest place in the city, Tyrion replies, "Not for bastards," referencing the murder of King Robert's infant bastard daughter there in "The North Remembers".
The Big "NO!" Brienne lets out in "Walk of Punishment" is reminiscent of the one she gave in "The Ghost of Harrenhal", the last traumatic event in her life.
In "Walk of Punishment", Jaime explains his wide vocabulary is due to being forced to read as a child, something Tywin previously mentioned as his cure for Jaime's dyslexia.
The beheading of Rickard Karstark in "Kissed by Fire" strongly resembles that of Rodrik Cassel in the "The Old Gods and the New", sharing music, weather, and the condemned using their last words to condemn their executioner. Both scenes, as well as the execution scene of Janos Slynt, harken back to Ned's beheading of the deserter in "Winter is Coming", showing how he has influenced Robb, Jon, and Theon.
In "Kissed By Fire", Gendry refers to Arya as "milady," just like when he first learned her identity in "The Nightlands".
When Tyrion learns of his arranged marriage in "Kissed By Fire", he asks if Tywin has forgotten that he already was wed, referencing the story he told Bronn and Shae in "Baelor". Tyrion also protests that his prospective bride is just a child, but Cersei assures she is not by bringing up the events of "A Man Without Honor." In "The Last of the Starks", Brienne scores a point in Tyrion's game by guessing he was married before Sansa.
In "The Climb", Theon finally comes face to face with "that fucking horn blower" who tormented him in "Valar Morghulis". It's even less pleasant than before.
Olenna tells Tywin in "The Climb" that it's a rare man who lives up to his reputation, calling back to her disappointment with Tyrion in "Kissed By Fire".
Loras' description of his dream bride wearing a "beautiful gown of green and gold brocade" is reminiscent of the rich attire Renly wore to the Tourney of the Hand.
Littlefinger also makes good on his threat about bad investments from "The Night Lands" at the end of "The Climb".
In "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", Jaime tells Roose Bolton to give his regards to Robb. Several episodes later, Roose passes on the sentiment as premortem one-liner.
In "Second Sons", Tyrion sarcastically declares himself the "god of tits and wine," the hypothetical god he pondered in "The Prince of Winterfell".
The Dothraki phrase that leads Missandei to correct Daenerys' pronunciation in "Second Sons" is the same phrase Irri taught her in "Lord Snow".
Those who remember Maester Cressen in "The North Remembers" know what an empty gesture it is for Melisandre to taste the wine to prove it isn't poisoned in "Second Sons".
Arya doesn't believe the Hound when he tells her that he saved her sister during the riot of King's Landing. When he first captures her, he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder exactly the same way he did with Sansa.
Sam beams when Gilly says he's like a wizard in "The Rains of Castamere", something he admitted he wanted to be in "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things".
Jorah throws Barristan's "loyal servants, no matter the cost" lecture from "Kissed By Fire" back in his face when Barristan wants to join him on a mission in "The Rains of Castamere".
The Season 3 finale "Mhysa" features several call backs to the Season 1 finale "Fire and Blood". When Joffrey intends to make good on the threat he made to present Robb's head to Sansa, Tywin dismisses everyone but Tyrion with the same terse "Not you," and he answers one of Tyrion's questions with, "You're my son."
Jaime's departure from Tywin's office in the Season 4 premiere "Two Swords" is shot from the exact same angle as Tyrion's departure from the same office in the Season 3 premiere "Valar Dohaeris".
In "Two Swords", Shae brings up the payoff Varys offered her in "Mhysa", which Tyrion honestly knew nothing about.
Podrick recognizes the contortionist at Joffrey's wedding as one of the whores Tyrion rewarded him with in "Walk of Punishment".
In "Breaker of Chains", Shireen brings up that Davos struggles with reading the "gh" in words like "knight", which was depicted in "Mhysa" when he couldn't pronounce "Night's Watch."
When Sansa asks what Littlefinger wants in "Oathkeeper", he replies, "Everything," which is the same answer he gave to Ros at the end of his Character Filibuster in "You Win Or You Die".
Margaery smugly proves she is not intimidated by Cersei in "First Of His Name" when she questions whether to call Cersei "sister" or "mother" after Cersei made it very clear she didn't like being called "sister" in "Second Sons".
The mystery of Jon Arryn's death established in the series premiere is finally definitively resolved rather anticlimactically in "First of His Name".
Just before Polliver kills Lommy with Needle he sarcastically asks, "Something wrong with your leg, boy?" and laughs when Lommy asks to be carried. Much later, in "Two Swords," Arya wounds Polliver in the leg and asks him the same question, before killing him with Needle.
Locke's response to a warning about Karl's knife skills is to asks, "Have you seen what I can do with a knife?" Jaime Lannister certainly has.
Yara's speech in "The Laws of Gods and Men" is a rehash of Tywin Lannister's speech about reputation in "You Win Or You Die".
Tywin: If another house can seize one of our own and hold him captive, with impunity, we are no longer a house to be feared.
Yara: As long as they can hurt our prince with impunity the word 'Ironborn' means nothing!
In "Mockingbird", Hot Pie seems to have taken Gendry and Arya's lesson from "The Night Lands" that not every person wearing armour is ipso facto a knight, and he asks that Brienne deliver a much-improved version of his wolf-shaped pie from "Walk of Punishment" to Arya if they find her.
While pondering the various words for murder in "The Mountain and the Viper", Jaime is obviously remembering his actions in "A Man Without Honor" when he brings up cousin slaying. Incidentally, "consobrinicide" is the very obscure word he was looking for.
Ralf Kenning's Spiteful Spit in Reek's face calls back to Rodrik Cassel doing the same to Theon in "The Old Gods and the New". Given that Reek immediately lapses into his Madness Mantra at that point, the significance is probably not lost on him.
Ralf Kenning's death, attacked from behind by one of his own men who didn't want to join his Last Stand, has obvious parallels to what happened to Theon in "Valar Morghulis".
Sansa's appeal to Bronze Yohn Royce in "The Mountain and the Viper" mentions his son Ser Waymar, the first character killed in the series way back in the Cold Open of "Winter is Coming".
A mysterious boy who works for Varys delivers a pardon for Ser Jorah Mormont in "The Mountain and the Viper" as in "You Win Or You Die". This time, however, it is deliberately delivered to implicate Jorah rather than reward him.
Maester Aemon references his discussion of love and duty with Jon in "Baelor" during a similar conversation with Sam in "The Watchers on the Wall".
When Tyrion and Varys arrive in Volantis in "High Sparrow", Tyrion takes note of the slaves' tattoos, indicating their assigned work—something Talisa had mentioned to Robb two seasons earlier when telling the story of why she left her hometown.
Mance Rayder lives up to his boast of lighting the biggest fire the north has ever seen in "The Watchers on the Wall".
Jon apparently remembered Karl spitting in his face during their duel and puts it to use himself against Styr in "The Watchers on the Wall".
In Stannis's introductory scene, he corrects Davos's incorrect use of "less" instead of "fewer." In the Season 5 episode "Kill the Boy," he mutters "fewer" when a Night's Watchman makes the same grammatical mistake. This is called back again in Season 7, when Jon makes the same mistake and Davos is shown pointing it out.
Melisandre recalls meeting Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr in "The Climb" to Davos in "Home".
In "Home," Melisandre mentions the best thing they could do for Jon Snow is leave him be (as in, dead). Beric tells Arya basically the same thing in "Kissed By Fire" when she asks if it'd be possible to bring Ned back.
Ramsay gets the Ironborn holding Winterfell to surrender by sending in an unarmed Theon with his offer of safe passage( on which later he reneges). In Season 6, Jaime will use the same technique to end the siege of Riverrun.
In Season 6, Dany gives a Rousing Speech echoing Drogo's mighty declarations made way back in Season 1.
Later that season, Euron, newly crowned, exhorts his fellow ironborn to pursue Theon and Yara with the line "Let's go murder them!", echoing Tyrion's speech at the Blackwater in Season 2.
In "No One," Tyrion starts telling the story about his trip to a whorehouse with a jackass and a honeycomb that he previously started at his trial in the Eyrie, but again gets cut off.
In 6x10 "The Winds of Winter," Jon tells Sansa, "We can't afford to fight a war amongst ourselves. We have so many enemies now." After she agrees, he kisses her forehead. Shortly after that, Sansa tells Jon that a white raven came from the Citadel, announcing that winter has come. They both smile and say "Well, Father always promised." All the way back in Season 1x03 "Lord Snow", Ned had told Arya, "We have come to a dangerous place. We cannot afford to fight a war amongst ourselves." How did Ned start that little speech? By asking Arya to say their words: 'Winter is coming', and explaining the meaning behind it: banding together with loved ones and protecting each other during the hard times. Jon may be Ned's nephew by blood, but he clearly learned from his father.
After Arya impresses Brienne with her fighting skills in "The Spoils of War", Brienne asks Arya who taught her to fight. "No one", she says, evoking her days in Braavos with the Waif and Jaqen.
In Season 7, when Cersei captures Tyene and poisons her with the Long Goodbye, the same poison that killed Myrcella, and forces Ellaria to watch, she brings up watching her face "collapse to bone and dust." She spoke of wondering about what her mother looked like after she died, and dreading having Myrcella's body decay. Forcing Ellaria to watch Tyene's is literally the worst thing she could think of inflicting on her.
Season 8 opens with a young boy moving furtively through the woods, trying to get a better view of Dany's army arriving at Winterfell—just like Season 1 showed us Bran climbing around Winterfell to get a better look at Robert's procession.
After Dany and Jon take their maiden dragon flight together, they land at a waterfall and Dany says "we could stay here for a thousand years" echoing Ygritte's line to Jon that they could stay in that cave forever several seasons earlier.
In "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms", Tyrion mentions his desire to die "with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my cock." He also said this back in Season 1 after being taken prisoner by the hill tribes of the Vale.
Arya gives Sansa a dagger and advises her to "stick them with the pointy end", the phrase Jon Snow used when he gave her Needle back in the first season.
"The Bells" wasn't the first time someone risked the ire of their monarch and released Jaime Lannister from captivity in order to send him to King's Landing.
The series finale has several, many of which seem to help emphasize the fact that it's the last ever episode:
- Daenerys gives a speech to her assembled forces, and when addressing the Dothraki, thanks them for doing exactly what Khal Drogo initially promised to do in his big speech from Season 1.
  Daenerys: You have killed the men in their iron suits and torn down their stone houses!
- When Daenerys approaches the Iron Throne for the first time, it (and the Throne Room) looks as it does in Dany's vision from "Valar Morghulis".
- Daenerys mentions to Jon her vision of breaking the wheel of the great families, something she initially shared with Tyrion in "Hardhome".
- Jon cradles Daenerys's body in a similar way to how he cradled Ygritte when she died in "The Watchers on the Wall".
- Whilst incarcerated, Tyrion recalls strangling his lover, as well as shooting his father in "The Children".
- Jon recalls Maester Aemon's words to him in "Baelor": "Love is the death of duty." Aemon also told this to Sam in "The Watchers on the Wall".
- Tyrion tells Jon "I'm talking to the only man alive who knows where I'm going" — indirectly referring to Jon's death in "Mother's Mercy". He also says that Jon is "the shield that guards the realms of men" — referring to the oath of the Night's Watch.
- In that same conversation, Tyrion says that Daenerys murdered the slavers of Astapor ("And Now His Watch Is Ended"), crucified hundreds of Meereenese nobles ("Breaker of Chains"), and burned alive Dothraki Khals ("Book of the Stranger").
- Once again, a Stark (well, technically half-Stark) is sentenced to be sent to the Night's Watch for treason. Unlike what transpired with Ned, however, this time it actually happens.
- In Season 1, while discussing Bran's accident, Arya laments to her father that he will never achieve his ambition to be a knight of the Kingsguard. While Eddard concedes that this is true, he reassures Arya that there are other ways for Bran to rise to a high station in life; speculating that he might become a great lord in his own right, raise castles like Bran the Builder, or even sit on the Small council. With Bran's ascension as king, and the Red Keep in the process of being reconstructed, all three of these things have come to pass.
- Davos still can't stop correcting people's grammar.
  Bronn: The Master of Coin looks forward to helping the Master of Ships, but first, he has to ensure that we're not wasting coin, or soon there won't be no more coin.
  Davos: Any more.
  Bronn: You Master of Grammar now, too?"
- Edmure Tully returns after a long absence. It doesn't take long for him to reclaim his Butt-Monkey status.
- When Tyrion is making his pitch to have the assembled surviving Lords make Bran the new King, he specifically mentions Bran surviving the tower fall, as well as the experiences that turned him into the Three-Eyed Raven.
- When Jon believes he and Tyrion will never see each other again, Tyrion seems less sure, saying: "A few years as Hand of the King would make anyone want to piss off the edge of the world." This is a callback to "Lord Snow", where he does just that; in "The Kingsroad" he said to the other Lannisters "l just want to stand on top of the Wall and piss off the edge of the world".
- Tyrion tells Jon "The world will always need a home for bastards and broken men", referring to his words about "cripples, bastards and broken things".
- Brienne is shown updating Jaime's entry in the Kingsguard's White Book, adding everything that happened since the outbreak of the War of Five Kings, culminating in his death. The brutal shortness of the original entry was brought up multiple times in Season 4.
- Arya says that she intends to find out "what's west of Westeros". She mentioned that she wanted to do this when talking to Lady Crane in Season 6's "No One". Arya also repeats to Jon what she told Lady Crane, that nobody knows what's west of Westeros and that's where all the maps stop.
- Jon asks Arya if she has "her needle".
- Tyrion's final line is "I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel...". Once again, we don't get to hear the rest of the story.
- The final scene of the show mirrors its first scene: the door in the Wall opens, and members of the Night's Watch go out into the wild.

House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon

In the pilot, Aemma tells Rhaenyra that as a woman, the birthing bed will be her battlefield. Later, the brutal fight among young warriors is intercut with her excruciating labor.

Call Back / A Song of Ice and Fire
aka: Game Of Thrones

Alternative Title(s): Game Of Thrones, House Of The Dragon

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Call Back / A Song of Ice and Fire aka: Game Of Thrones

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Alternative Title(s): Game Of Thrones, House Of The Dragon

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Call Back / A Song of Ice and Fire
aka: Game Of Thrones