This is the image Season 2 left us with last year; a horde of White Walkers and wights marching on the Wall.

The third book in Martin’s fantasy saga, A Storm of Swords, opens with this scene. It was moved to the end of the second season of Game of Thrones to up the cliffhanger quotient for a finale, and that was probably a very smart decision judging by its reception.

Before Season 3 kicks off this Sunday on HBO, let me remind us all where we left off, and guide us back with some potent imagery from “Valar Morghulis”.

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King Robert Baratheon, ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and resident of the Iron Throne of Westeros, is dead.

His son – in name only – reigns as Boy-King, strings tugged by the villainous family he unknowingly owes the entirety of his incestuous bloodline to; Robert’s brothers lay dormant, yet assuredly plotting in city-states half a continent away; his old enemies conspire across a northern sea in a country forgotten by the current, imperiled kingdoms; a young man commands a kingdom at war in the north newly receded from the governance of the Iron Throne; and a new queen rises across a second sea in the east, mother to a rediscovered power that tore Westeros apart a century before.

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