The closing moments of Season 6, with the camera tightly focused on Cersei’s face as she sat on the Iron Throne, suggested as much—she was less triumphant (the thrill of victory passed once she realized Tommen was dead) than grimly determined. The power is hers now, but she has little else left, and she’s surrounded by citizens who bear no love for her (her coronation didn’t get any cheers) and twisted advisers like Maester Qyburn (a mad scientist) and the Mountain (a mute, zombified corpse). We’ve yet to see her confrontation with Jaime—her brother and Tommen’s father—but the look of horror on his face when he returned to the smoking wreck of King’s Landing said it all.

In Season 7 (no episodes have been provided to critics), Cersei is now gearing up for rebellion on at least three different fronts, with only her family’s Lannister forces committed to protecting her. In the north is Jon Snow, who has retaken the Stark lands alongside the re-emerged Sansa, and has been proclaimed “King in the North” after defeating the nasty Bolton occupation. Jon has always wrestled with his sense of duty—he knows there’s a zombie invasion coming from the frosty lands of the White Walkers—but he’s also long nursed a desire for vengeance over the death of his “father” Ned in the show’s first season. I say “father” because, of course, Jon’s true parentage was confirmed at the end of last season. He’s the progeny of a Stark and a Targaryen—the son of Ned’s sister, Lyanna, and the former Mad King’s son, Rhaegar Targaryen, which makes him more uniquely suited to the Westerosi throne than he knows.

In the south are the rebellious Dornish, nursing a decades-long grudge against the Lannisters and, in particular, the Mountain. The nearby Tyrells allied with them in the last episode, with the ruthless Lady Olenna Tyrell looking to avenge the death of Margaery (and her useless son Mace) at the hands of Cersei. They look to be partnering with Rhaegar’s sister, Daenerys, arriving from the east by boat, who has finally gotten herself together and left the show’s distant worlds of Essos to conquer her homeland, allied with the navy of the Iron Islands and the horse-riding Dothraki, and with three fire-breathing dragons in tow. While Jon is bound to leadership by a sense of duty, Daenerys sees herself as a liberator, a queen steeped in moral righteousness who freed slaves across the sea for the greater good.

Then there are the show’s other heroes who aren’t vying to rule the continent: Arya Stark has become an avenging angel, an assassin who broke free from her training with the Faceless Men but retained their stealthy skills. It’s hard to see how she’d find her way back into the show’s courtly politics, or why she’d want to. Her brother Bran has turned into a literal flashback machine, designed to peer into the show’s past with his psychic powers and learn things the audience needs to know. Cersei’s brother Tyrion, meanwhile, is seeking his own form of redemption and revenge wrapped up in one job: serving Daenerys in her quest to reclaim Westeros.