After a long wait of 2 years, Game of Thrones season 8finally premiered yesterday. And while the episode did not have any of the large scale battle scenes, it had a lot of easter eggs to make your day. 

1. Jon and Dany’s arrival in Winterfell is a throwback to the first episode of GoT when Robert Baratheon arrived with similar pomp.

Ramin Djawadi even used a similar background score as the greatest army the world has ever seen marched across the North to the castle of Winterfell. 

The scenes were eerily similar, with crowds watching in awe of the people riding infront of them. 

PS, both marches had one incestuous couple!

2. Arya watches a little kid running around trying to get a glimpse at Jon and Dany and their army, just she did all those years ago. 

In the first episode, the Starks await the arrival of King Robert Baratheon. And while all the Stark children were dressed up and waited with their parents, Arya snuck out and tried to get a little peek at the festivities in the city. 

In this episode, Arya sees herself in another child who was too excited to see the titans marching through the crowd. 

3. Sansa greets the new queen, Daenerys the same way Ned Stark had greeted Robert Baratheon on his arrival. 

Upon Robert’s arrival in Winterfell, Ned Stark greeted him by saying, ‘Winterfell is yours, your grace’. 

Sansa said the exact same thing to Danerys after meeting her in Winterfell. 

4. The new opening credits depict certain events from the series that have become legends in the folklore of Westeros. 

The opening credits are significantly different in season 8. The rings surrounding the clockwork map throughout the credits tell different stories of the different events from the series. 

The first one depicts the fall of The Wall.  

The second one shows us the Red Wedding.  

And the third one takes us back to the birth of Dany’s dragons.  

5. Qyburn hires Bronn on Cersei’s orders to assassinate Jaime and Tyrion, using the same crossbow the youngest Lannister used to kill their father. 

Calling Cersei a vengeful person is the biggest understatement of the series. So it is not surprising when she hires Bronn to kill the brothers that betrayed her. 

But with her weird sense of poetic justice, she also gives him the crossbow that was used to kill Tywin Lannister. 

6. There’s a subtle reference to Ed Sheeran having his face molten during the attack Daenerys carried on Jaime and co just outside King’s Landing. 

Mind you, this is not a direct reference as the name of his character was never mentioned. But the prostitutes Bronn was hanging out with talk about ‘Eddy the ginger’ having his eyelids melted during the dragon attack. 

7. Dany told Jon that they could stay forever in Jon’s childhood hunting spot. 

This is a throwback to the time when Jon and Ygritte spent that night in a cave, where the latter told him to shirk all their responsibilites and spend the rest of their lives there. 

There’s just something about Jon and natural splendour that makes women go gaga over him. 

8. Sam reveals Jon’s true past while both of them are standing in front of a statue of Ned Stark in the crypts of Winterfell. 

Just before Jon left for the Night’s Watch, Ned Stark promised him that he would tell him about his mother the next time they met. But the honourable Ned Stark could not keep his word as he died before he could meet Jon again. 

But if you watch carefully, you’ll notice that Jon was standing in front of his statue, when Sam tells him the truth of his true heritage and the right to sit on the Iron Throne. 

9. The children turn into walkers in both the episodes and the Night King uses severed body parts to make some sort of symbols. 

In the very first scene of GoT,  a ranger of the Night’s watch walks into a wildling camp and sees death unlike he had never seen before. The most haunting part of that scene was the face of a child who turns into the undead. 

The showrunners repeated history with the death of Ned Umber in the Last Hearth. 

The white walkers had also used severed body parts to create a ritualistic symbol of some kind. 

They did the same with this episode too. 

10. Arya’s new weapon is going to be something we haven’t seen on the show. 

In the episode, Arya gives Gendry a model of the new weapon she wants him to craft. GoT’s weapon master, Tommy Dunne had earlier told reporters that there was one creation in season 8 that was absolutely phenomenal and could be a showstopper.

And although we only a got a little peek into what the weapons might look like, it seems that the blade Arya wants needs a complex mechanism of some kind that would open it up into two separate weapons when the situation demands. 

11. The opening credits pretty much tell you how far down South the Night King’s Army has already travelled. 

The opening credits are brilliant and beautiful. But there’s one thing that can only be seen if you observe carefully. The solid ground from the broken wall at Eastwatch keeps turning to ice till it reaches the Last Hearth, revealing how far down south the white walkers have travelled. 

12. Cersei getting disappointed about not getting elephants is a subtle nod to fans wanting elephants but not getting them because ‘itna paisa mein itna hi milega’.

Seriously though, they have gone bonkers with the production of this season. Hell, I’m not surprised that they couldn’t afford elephants. I mean, we haven’t even seen Ghost yet. 

If there any other easter eggs that you think we might have missed, let us know.