The day is finally here! The final season of Game of Thrones is premiering tonight on HBO, and fans are eager to learn the fate of their favorite characters in Westeros. One thing fans can expect to see tonight is the arrival of the Golden Company, the group of sellswords (although, they prefer to think of themselves as a “brotherhood of exiles”) that Euron Grejoy (Pilou Asbæk) set off to find at the end of season seven. Euron’s intention is to bring them back to fight for Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), but who exactly are they?
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Not to be confused with the Second Sons, the sellswords that Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman) once belonged to before pledging his allegiance to Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), the Golden Company boasts 10,000 sellswords based in Essos. They’ve been briefly discussed in previous seasons, and are finally getting their time to shine. In season four, Ser Davos (Liam Cunningham) suggests to Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) to hire them for their cause, but Stannis was against the idea.
More importantly, Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) used to fight for the Golden Company before hitching his wagon to Dany. This makes us wonder if he’ll be encountering any old friends.
Founded by Ser Aegor Rivers, the Golden Company is currently run by Harry Strickland. The mercenary is expected to show up in the new season, although his character will likely be different from the books. In A Dance with Dragons, Strickland gets mixed up with a boy who claims to be Aegon Targaryen, the supposedly dead son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. Since it’s unlikely they’ll be bringing a new Targaryen into the mix this late in the game, the story will likely only follow Strickland, an exiled knight, and Euron.
According to A Wiki of Ice and Fire, the Golden Company is “considered the finest and most powerful company of the Free Cities, with some considering them the most honorable. Despite the notorious unreliability of sellswords, the Golden Company is reputed to have never broken a contract. Their motto is ‘Our word is good as gold’, while their war cry, ‘Beneath the gold, the bitter steel’, pays homage to their founder.”
They may keep their word as well as Lannisters, but there’s always a chance they’ll change their tune once they come across some dragons and White Walkers.
The final season of Game of Thrones airs tonight on HBO at 9 pm EST.
