'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 2 Promo Gives Jorah This Valyrian Steel

The ominous teaser for next week’s Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 2 bodes ill for Jaime Lannister. The 30-second clip opens with Jaime standing before Daenerys Targaryen in the main hall of Winterfell stripped of weapons and armor. “When I was a child, my brother would tell me a bedtime story about the man that murdered our father — and all the things we would do to that man,” Daenerys says. What is she going to do with the Kingslayer? For starters, she might give his Valyrian steel sword to her favorite knight, Jorah Mormont — or Jorah might get a different Valyrian steel blade just in time for the Great Battle of Winterfell.

Later, in the same preview for Episode 2, we see Jorah pull a sword out of its scabbard. It’s nighttime, so we don’t get a clear look at it, but he’s wearing his full armor, so we can safely assume this happens shortly before the upcoming battle.

When Inverse spoke with Game of Thrones weapons master Tommy Dunne about dragonglass weapons, he said, “What’s the point of having any other weapon? Nothing normal is gonna work on the wights and the White Walkers.” The only other option the warriors of Westeros have is to wield a Valyrian steel sword.

If Jorah’s gearing up for a fight against the Night King and his army of undead, and gazing lovingly at a more traditional-looking sword rather than some kind of dragonglass weapon, then it has to be one of the Valyrian steel swords.

But which?

One possible explanation is that after Jaime Lannister arrives, Bran Stark and/or Daenerys has him immediately stripped of his weapons and interrogated. Daenerys is likely to imprison Jaime rather than let him fight alongside them in the upcoming battle, especially because Cersei Lannister betrayed their alliance and didn’t send her armies north. They’re also not just going to let a sword like Widow’s Wail go to waste.

Along with Oathkeeper, currently wielded by Brienne of Tarth, Widow’s Wail is one of the two Valyrian steel swords crafted by melting down Ned Stark’s oversized Ice. Joffrey was gifted the sword at his wedding — the Purple Wedding — shortly before his murder. And after Jaime gave Oathkeeper to Brienne, he held onto Widow’s Wail.

The alternative is that Jorah gets Heartsbane, the ancestral Valyrian steel sword of House Tarly. Sam mentioned the sword in Season 8, Episode 1, and even if trailers make it seem like he’ll be present for the battle, he knows that a sword like that is better off in the hands of a capable warrior.

Despite the upsetting scene where Sam learned that Daenerys killed his father and brother with Jorah standing there awkwardly, he and Sam do share some kind of bond after Sam saved the knight’s life by curing his greyscale.

With Sam a member of the Night’s Watch, House Tarly has effectively gone extinct. And because Jorah has officially agreed to let Jon Snow keep Longclaw, traditionally a House Mormont weapon, we might be due for a continued case of Valyrian steel weapon-shuffling.

In the Season 8 trailer released in March, Jorah rides a horse and has a sword at his hip that looks an awful lot like Heartsbane — but it does admittedly also look similar in design to Widow’s Wail.

Everything from the approximate size of the sword to the shape of the pommel and hilt, however, do make it seem like the sword is Heartsbane. Also, keep in mind that both Widow’s Wail and Oathkeeper are classified as longswords, and Longclaw is a bastard sword that’s a little bit bigger. But Heartsbane is a greatsword only a little bit smaller than Ned Stark’s massive Ice.

That makes Heartsbane the single largest Valyrian steel blade around, so it pretty much has to be wielded by a large warrior like Jorah or the Hound if it’s going to be of any use. And because we know that the Hound already has a huge dragonglass greataxe, Jorah is the obvious candidate.

Now that Ser Jorah Mormont has reclaimed his honor — and assuming he survives the upcoming war — maybe Heartsbane will become the new pride and joy of House Mormont for generations to come.

Game of Thrones Season 8 airs Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. Eastern.