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Game of Thrones: One Tiny Detail Helps Explain Euron’s Confusing Battle

Here’s how Euron carried off that brutal attack on Yara and the Sand Snakes.
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Battles that take place at night are only clear at the best of times. But sea battles take place at night? Those can be rougher still. So Game of Thrones fans can be forgiven if a few of the details surrounding Euron Greyjoy’s Season 7, Episode 2 attack on Yara, Theon, and the Sand Snakes left them with a few questions. Hopefully, here, we can clear some up.

The most popular question I’ve been asked: how did Euron find his niece, nephew, and their Dornish companions so quickly? The answer, my friends, is simple geography. Last week, we saw Euron sail in to Blackwater Bay in order to visit Queen Cersei.

And according to Tyrion’s battle plan this week, Yara was tasked with escorting Ellaria and her daughters from Targaryen headquarters at Dragonstone down to Sunspear in Dorne. The plan was then for Yara’s Iron Fleet to ferry them back up to King’s Landing so the Dornish could lay siege to the capital. We know these Targaryen allies are just setting out on their way south to Dorne when Euron attacks, because just before he does, Ellaria (seductively) promises Yara: “When we reach Sunspear, I will treat you to a Dornish red, the best in the world.”

The show has been going out of its way to include maps at every juncture this season. Cersei and Jaime are tromping around on one; Dany is planning her attacks on one. Still, it’s tricky to keep track of geography in a fictional kingdom. But if Euron left Cersei in King’s Landing and set sail out of Blackwater Bay, he would practically trip over Yara and Ellaria heading south from Dragonstone. (That’s assuming the timelines roughly match up.) The two Queenly headquarters, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, are much closer than you think.

Map via

In fact, the better question might be this: how did Daenerys let Euron into Blackwater Bay in the first place? Shouldn’t her massive fleet have a chokehold on access to the capitol’s harbor? Maybe all that fog is obscuring her view.

Once Euron found Yara, there was really no hope for her. She’s good, but he’s legendary (“from Oldtown to Qarth, when men see my sails, they pray”) and he had the element of surprise. But speaking of hard-to-see fleets, an as-yet unanswered question about Euron’s attack is how a person can wage any kind of organized warfare when their men and ships look an awfully lot like the men and ships they’re attacking. There are a few subtle differences between Yara’s Iron Fleet and Euron’s Iron Fleet, though. Their Greyjoy sigils are slightly distinct (Euron’s has that creepy red embellishment), and the shape of the sails are different as well. Yara favors square rigs, while Euron—outside his own terrifying galley, Silence—prefers support ships that employ triangular fore and aft rigging.

Still, kraken-emblazoned square and triangular rigs don’t look all that different in the dead of night, do they?

And with all the Greyjoys wearing similar kraken breastplates, I have to imagine there was plenty of friendly fire taken in this Ironborn-on-Ironborn skirmish. Something tells me Euron won’t mind.

What he might mind, however, is a poisonous departing gift from the Sand Snakes. A few viewers have wondered if perhaps Euron was fatally dosed when he caught the business end of Obara’s spear.

I could be wrong, but I believe in the context of the show, only the dagger-yielding Tyene poisons the edges of her blades. And she was downstairs stabbing as many men as she could get her hands on when Euron attacked. So Euron, alas, is probably safe and un-poisoned for now. But there’s still hope for a violent poisonous death for Euron. Tyene survived the fight—and, along with her mother Ellaria, will probably make up the precious gift Euron promised Queen Cersei. How convenient that he’s still so close to Blackwater Bay.

Meanwhile, Tyene’s sisters, Nymeria and Obara, died brutally, and their corpses were put on display. There’s some confusion over this parting shot—but yes, that is Obara impaled on her own spear and Nymeria dangling from her trusty whip.

And now for the most pressing question of all. Who will fish poor, cowardly Theon out of the ocean? Presuming he’s still anywhere near Blackwater Bay, we can only hope it will be a familiar (to us) face who knows his way from Dragonstone to King’s Landing.

O.K., fine: Gendry probably isn’t still rowing. So we’ll see what savior or piece or driftwood will rescue Theon Greyjoy this time.