If there's one thing Game of Thrones is not, it's subtle. So in order to prove the show can out-do its last season, which was a messy and bloody gut-wrencher, the HBO series crammed the first trailer for Season 4 with lots of action and drama – and haunting bon mots.
First off is King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) who's telling now-back-in-King's Landing Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) that the people love him because he saved the city and won the war. To which his secret-dad Jaime, rightly, responds, "the war's not won."
Speaking of wars, Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) next steps in to remind Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) that "It's tempting to see your enemies as evil, but there's good and evil on both sides of every war ever fought." Shortly thereafter Dany – less a fan of grey areas – says, presumably about the people in whatever area of Essos she'll be taking on next, "They have a choice: They can live in my new world, or they can die in their old one." (I, for one, welcome my new Queen of Dragons overlord.)
Melisandre (Carice van Houten) who comes on – following a montage of Jon Snow in battle, Jaime getting his golden hand, and our first real glimpse of Prince Oberyn Martell (the Red Viper, played by Pedro Pascal) – has a far dimmer view of current events. "There is only one hell," she intones. "The one we live in now."
So, see you all in hell on April 6 when Game of Thrones returns? Awesome.
