While everyone else in Westeros is dourly assessing how they’ll fight various wars, the Season 7 premiere, “Dragonstone,” found Samwell Tarly working the early days of training to be a maester. The montage of Sam serving soup and cleaning poop was both hilarious and gross, and has inspired all sorts of remixes. Here are a few of the best.
11. “Rocky IV” montage
The “Rocky” films are packed with classic montages, making them pretty good inspiration for a Samwell remix. This one borrows the song “Hearts on Fire” by John Cafferty from “Rocky IV.”
10. Wizard training
Way back when Jon Snow was picked as a steward, Sam admitted that he’d always wanted to be a wizard. This one imagines his time in the Citadel has a more magical bent — but also packs a “Rocky IV” song. This one is Robert Tepper’s “No Easy Way Out.”
9. Pink Floyd’s “Money,” but With Different Lyrics
YouTube user Ronny Richter thought of Pink Floyd’s “Money” during Sam’s Soup and Poop montage, which would have been pretty good on its own. But this video goes a step further with original, Tarly specific, maester-training lyrics.
8. “Till I Collapse”
The Eminem song has a lot of thematic similarities to what’s happening with Sam, and this edit makes creative use of sound effects from the show to bolster the track.
7. “Easy Street”
“Walking Dead” fans will remember this creepily chipper song that was used to torture poor Daryl during his confinement by villain Negan. Add the song, by The Collapsable Hearts Club ft. Jim Biano & Petra Haden, to Samwell’s time at the Citadel, and it takes on a much darker meaning.
6. “9 to 5”
The classic Dolly Parton song about working too hard fits Samwell’s miserable maester-school life extremely well.
5. “Push It To the Limit”
Sure, there are a lot of ’80s movie montage songs, but “Push It to the Limit” by Paul Engemann from “Scarface” is probably the ultimate ’80s movie montage song. It really feels like Sam is building up to the big ski race with the rich bully, so he can use the prize money to save the local troubled youth club.
4. “Mr. Blue Sky”
Playing Electric Light Orchestra’s upbeat track over Sam’s plight recalls that phenomenal opening sequence from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” and it also suggests that maybe Sam is a little more special than he realizes. His job still sucks, though.
3. “Montage”
You can’t do a montage without using the ludicrous parody song “Montage” from “Team America: World Police.” It was scientifically engineered for situations just like this one.
2. “Working for the Weekend”
Sam might not be working in a coal mine with his father and brothers while also being really, really, ridiculously good-looking like Derek Zoolander, but his job is still pretty tough. Loverboy’s song feels pretty apt.
1. Ed Sheeran & Samwell Tarly: “A New One”
The ultimate remix from the episode edits Sam’s montage into a musical interlude and combines it with another musical cue from “Dragonstone.” The song sung by Grammy winner Ed Sheeran during his cameo is just beautiful and haunting enough to add another level of melancholy to Sam’s dark reality of what it takes to become a maester.
Get more Samwell Tarly with our gallery of “Game of Thrones” fan theories for Season 7 and beyond.
And see where Sam stacks up against everyone else in our gallery ranking every “Game of Thrones” major character.
