If the showrunners' funkos are anything to go by, they intended episode S8E05 to be the big episode of season 8 - and it was, in many ways. Given the significance of the episode, I assume they put some thought into the title - "the Bells". And if so, then the concept of bells should be significant.

But, why *bells*? Especially why in the context of Dany? Is the ringing of them just a convenient way to communicate the fact of the surrender, so we can clearly identify when Dany oversteps? Or is there meant to be something more symbolic in the reference to them, perhaps something that George told them ties into the books?

There seem to be a few options, some tongue in cheek, some a little more serious:

1. Tyrion declaring the Bells mean surrender was a subtle, darkly ironic callback to episode S2E09 where Davos says “I've never known bells to mean surrender" - on this occasion they really didn’t.

2. The name of the episode is a hangover from an earlier draft of the season where the ringing of bells sent Cersei mad, instead of or as well as Dany? The ringing of bells really does seem well suited as a device to send Cersei over the edge by reminding her of her walk of shame and causing her to lash out at the people of Kings Landing who witnessed it. In the books it is perhaps even more dramatic, because loud bells summon the citizens of KL to come and watch, as well as the septa ringing a smaller one behind her, so perhaps it refers to a possible book scene to that effect?

3. It's symbolic - just as the ringing of bells preceding Cersei’s loss of pride and punishment in episode S5E10 the ringing of the (much larger) bells preceded Dany’s fall from grace in S805.

4. The imagery of the bells ringing before everything goes to hell is a reference to Ernest Hemmingway’s “For whom the bell tolls”, which is about the morality of war and killing, or a reference to the poem about interconnectness by John Donne from which the title of that novel is drawn - but this would imply some thought went into the themes of the episode, and we all know what themes are for.

5. The ringing of bells is a direct reference to the Battle of the Bells - at the commencement of the battle of Stony Sept the sept tolled its bells to warn the citizens of the battle and to persuade them to stay inside their houses. Only in KL, when the bells rang, there could be no hiding inside houses, or anywhere else...

6. The bells are a reference to the stallion who mounts the world - in the legend it has ‘bells in its hair’. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but the stallion could be Drogon, with the sound of the bells in the air?

7. The bells or the way the ringing of them are a feature of George’s planned destruction of Kings Landing, and the showrunners tried to incorporate the same concept into the TV finale, but without context. This seems unlikely, given GRRM doesn’t appear to have provided this much detail about the ending, but it is fun to speculate. Ideas I have seen include:

(a) That the Bells remind JonCon of his failed quest for glory and his failure to capture Robert Baratheon at the Battle of the Bells, and this somehow leads to him to doing something extreme this time, like blowing Kings Landing - but as there is no JonCon in the show that plot got given to Dany (although I can’t see a minor character like JonCon blowing KL);

(b) That in the books, Dany (or someone else) ends up hunting, chasing or searching for Aegon or Cersei (or someone else) through the city, burning it she goes, and doing what JonCon refused to do in the leadup to the Battle of the Bells, and the title is a reference to that.

Chances are I am overthinking this, and I am not really convinced the show ending will have that much in common with the book ending (although I know this is an open question and others disagree). But it is interesting that, although bells seem to be so out of left field in the context of Dany, the ringing of them is well suited to unhinging both the book and show versions of Cersei, and to JonCon. Coincidence, or a peek into the future in the books?

Any other other theories or explanations...?