Game of Thrones season 7: The Hound line cut from episode 1 could explain how the White Walkers will overcome the Wall

'The waves are frozen'

A key moment in Game of Thrones season 7 episode 1, 'Dragonstone', was Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane being forced to reevaluate his cynicism over the Lord of Light, his newfound ally Thoros of Myr asked him to gaze into a fire and, much to his surprise, The Hound indeed appearing to see a vision from the Brotherhood without Banners' deity.

"It's where the Wall meets the sea," Clegane said. "There's a castle there."

The line is a little longer in HBO's Viewer's Guide for the show (as spotted by Business Insider), including a short but potentially crucial clause in its middle omitted in the episode for reasons unknown:

"It's where the wall meets the sea. The waves are frozen. There's a castle there."

The Wall only meets the sea in the east, where there is a Night's Watch castle called Eastwatch - presumably the one The Hound was seeing (the same castle Jon previously asked Tormund and the Wildlings to defend).

Immediately north of the Wall from Eastwatch is the area where the Battle of Hardhome took place and where we last saw the White Walkers.

It is very possible, then, that the sea freezing over here ("the waves are frozen") will allow the Night King and his army to circumnavigate the Wall entirely - that could even have been what they were doing as they walked toward the camera near the beginning of episode 1.

There are a couple of problems with this theory though: the White Walkers simply walking around the Wall might not be that dramatic, plus it would seem to imply that they are entirely unable to swim.

That being said, a battle taking place on a frozen sea would be pretty cool, and allow the opportunity for Daenerys to swoop in on a dragon and melt a trench into the ice, impeding the White Walkers' march.

We can expect to see more of Daenerys next week, in an episode named after her, 'Stormborn'.