During the finale episode of Game of Thrones season 6, we saw a lot of jaw-dropping moments, and since there were so many new developments in the episode, we might have overlooked a seemingly vital one. One of them was the part where Samwell Tarly reaches the Citadel and steps into the library, where he has a total fanboy moment when he looks at the gigantic library full of millions of books (most of us book fans would also have a similar reaction, so props to Sam for bringing it to life). Sam seemed to be more than ready to study to be a Maester, but a lot of people didn’t understand what exactly the whole point of that scene was. Why did that moment seem as important? Most fans believed it was because of the gyroscopes or astrolabes to be precise hanging in the library prominently, and the moment we saw it, we reflected back to the opening credits where we’ve seen them since the start of the series.
And according to John Bradley, the actor who plays Samwell, it was most probably because of those gyroscopes. Here’s what he said about them during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter:“I only became aware of that after I saw the episode. On the day, it was all green screen. It’s only after I saw the episode and people started telling me about the gyroscope. I think it could mean any number of things. One theory is that what we’re seeing now and how we’re experiencing Game of Thrones is Sam telling the story of Game of Thrones. If you take the logic of the story now, the story of Westeros and the story of the battle for the Iron Throne, it would be a book in that library. The visual motif of that is you’re about to be told a story — the sense of an idea of being told a story, and people gaining that knowledge, the way Sam is absorbing knowledge in the library.”
This theory suggests that Sam is an outside figure who is narrating the story of Game of Thrones, and that in the Citadel library the book about all of the events of Westeros and Essos can be found. It could well be that Sam is the one who is recounting the White Walker invasion and the fight for the Iron Throne, narrating the whole story through his words. As believable as this theory is, it only makes the series all the more interesting than it already is. What do you think about Bradley’s theory? Tell us in the comments.
