Cersei Had One Last Surprise For Daenerys in King's Landing on 'Game of Thrones'
Game of Thrones served up quite a bit of fire in the penultimate episode of its final season. Daenerys chose violence and torched the hell out of King's Landing. But we didn't only see red hot dragon fire as the city burned-there was some green fire in there as well. That's because as we saw in spectacular fashion at the end of Season Six, Cersei has a shit-ton of wildfire hidden beneath the city. While it's never spelled out in the episode, it's likely that Cersei had placed stores of wildfire throughout King's Landing as a last line of defense.
Although it's unclear what, exactly, her battle strategy was. She's repeatedly reminded throughout the episode that she's absolutely going to lose this battle. Unconvinced, Cersei stays in the Red Keep until it's too late. Did she think the wildfire would be enough to stop Daenerys' army as it approached the Red Keep?
As the Game of Thrones Wiki describes the Red Keep:
The Red Keep is made of pale red stone and overlooks the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. The Red Keep has seven massive drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts. The castle is smaller than Winterfell and is patrolled by gold cloaks. Much of the Red Keep is connected underground.
Massive curtain walls surround the castle, with nests and crenelations for archers. Thick stone parapets, some four feet high, protect the outer edge of the wall ramparts, where the heads of traitors are traditionally placed on iron spikes between the crenels at the gatehouse. The walls have great bronze gates and portcullises, with narrow postern doors nearby. The castle also has great cornerforts. The immense barbican has a cobbled square in front of it. Behind the walls are small inner yards, vaulted halls, covered bridges, barracks of the City Watch of King's Landing, dungeons, granaries, kennels, and stables. Relics of the Targaryen dynasty, such as dusty suits of black armor, sit in some corridors.
In their final scene together we see the Targaryen relics beneath the Red Keep when Jaime and Cersei are eventually crushed during the destruction. Now, if Cersei believed that the Red Keep would never fall, she likely assumed she could stay safe within its walls while she torched the invading army with her wildfire. As the wiki also notes about Wildfire in Season Six:
Wildfire featured prominently in Bran Stark's visions after his and Meera Reed's escape from the Battle at the Cave of the Three-eyed raven that included visions of dragons and White Walkers.
The exploding wildfire in Bran's vision is not from the past during the the Mad King's reign but instead is from the future. Cersei Lannister and Qyburn use wildfire, presumably the wildfire the Mad King had ordered to be placed under the Great Sept of Baelor as part of his long ago wildfire plot, to destroy the Great Sept on the day of Cersei's trial for her role in the death of her husband, King Robert Baratheon. The explosion kills all of those inside and surrounding the sept, including the High Sparrow, the Most Devout, the Faith Militant, many nobles, and most of House Tyrell including Queen Margaery Tyrell as well as a massive amount of civilians in the area around the sept. Cersei's son, King Tommen I witnesses the explosion in his room high in the Red Keep and quickly commits suicide by jumping from his window. Soon after, with no one left to challenge her, Cersei is crowned Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men by Qyburn in the Red Keep.
This could possibly mean that Bran actually saw Daenerys' sack of King's Landing in a vision and knew Cersei would have wildfire throughout the city.
Regardless, the green fire is an interesting callback to the tool that the Lannister family used to protect the city (and kill their enemies) throughout the series. Tyrion famously used it during the Battle of Blackwater Bay and Cersei used it to kill all of her enemies in the Sept of Baelor.
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