Here's What You Need to Know About Game of Thrones' Expansive Citadel

The season premiere of Game of Thrones proves that we're in for a very wild (and possibly dangerous) ride. Well, everyone except for Samwell, who spends the first hour of season seven stuck at the Citadel serving questionable-looking food, scrubbing out bedpans, and restocking books. The Citadel is a humongous library where Sam thinks he would come for an easier life, but, as we learn tonight, he has to pay his dues before he's allowed to seek out the knowledge he has come for.

Think of the Citadel as a university attended by all the Grand Maesters we've seen on the show like Pycelle, Luwin, Aemon, and Marwyn, who is introduced on Sunday. Located in Oldtown, the newest location to be added to our handy-dandy pop-up map, the Citadel is basically the stomping grounds of the Grand Maesters, and it's also where prospective maesters come to train.

The end of season six sees Sam and Gilly arriving at the Citadel so that Sam could finally begin studying to become the new Grand Maester of Castle Black. Unfortunately for Sam, he hits a bit of a roadblock on his journey, doing less learning and more grunt work than he probably imagines. Not to mention that there's a blocked-off area of the library that just happens to contain books with the information he needs to help Jon in his fight against the White Walkers.

The Citadel and Sam's eventual studies are probably going be a big part of this season, since his main reason for journeying there is to learn key information on how to stop a White Walker attack. Hopefully he can get his hands on something fast, because the Night King's army is growing fast (literally, as he has giants now), which means things aren't looking too good for the people of Westeros right now.