Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 5 is out, and it is huge, so let’s begin.
At Mole’s Town – a little village just south of the Wall – Sansa confronts Littlefinger
for having given her to Ramsay.
Littlefinger says he’s sorry, he didn’t know Ramsay was so cruel, and apparently he’s
telling the truth, he really didn’t know – which is a pretty major fuck-up, right?
He gave up Sansa, one of his most valuable strategic assets, and someone he loves in
his own creepy way, to a family that’s famous for flaying and betraying Starks , somehow
not suspecting that they’d hurt her.
Littlefinger is usually a master manipulator but with Ramsay he made a mistake, and he
admits it – he presents himself to Sansa unprotected, at her mercy, to apologise.
So as much as Littlefinger is using Sansa for his own political goals , he also seems
to sincerely want Sansa to forgive him.
He’s a complicated character.
Like, this meeting happens at Mole’s Town, right, which is interesting because Mole’s
Town has the brothel where the men of the Night’s Watch come – at least until the
wildlings sack the town in Season 4.
But it’s in the ruins of that brothel that Littlefinger chooses to meet Sansa – just
as he meets Cat in a brothel, and Olenna in a brothel – prostitution is a big theme
in Littlefinger’s story, in fact the whole situation of Petyr giving Sansa to Ramsay
kind of is an act of pimpery, right?
So much of Littlefinger’s character is rooted in his sexual history with Lysa and Catelyn,
which is tied up with his feelings of self-worth and power and status – “I’m not going
to fight them.
I’m going to fuck them.
That’s what I know.
That’s what I am” – in Littlefinger’s mind, sex is deeply linked to power and control,
so it’s no coincidence that prostitution and pimpery are recurring themes in his story.
Anyway, Littlefinger offers Sansa the support of his knights from the Vale, but she refuses
him.
She’s probably right not to trust him.
But at the same time, she and Jon and co.
really do need more men right now.
Those knights will probably end up in battle at Winterfell anyway, cause you don’t bring
an army to the north and not use it.
Also, Littlefinger says the Tullys, led by Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, have retaken
Riverrun, and may be able to support Sansa in the north, which could be a huge help.
And on his way out, Littlefinger calls Jon Sansa’s half-brother, not brother, which
seems to make Sansa doubt if she can trust Jon.
In Braavos, Arya trains with “the waif”, because hitting people with sticks is clearly
the path to becoming a great assassin, then Jaqen turns up and tells Arya the story of
how the Faceless Men began.
This was hundreds of years ago in Valyria, the empire of the original “dragonlords”,
who ruled most of the known world through the power of their dragons and their slaves.
In the books, we’re told the slaves would mine for gold beneath volcanic mountains called
the Fourteen Flames, and that the mines were so hot and the work so hard that slaves would
pray for “an end to [their] pain” – so the first Faceless Man was someone who killed
the slaves who suffered the most . Arya says he should have killed the slave masters, not
the slaves, and she’s told that “He would bring the gift to them as well” . Some fans
believe this means that the Faceless Men caused the Doom of Valyria, the massive fiery catastrophe
that suddenly destroyed the empire two hundred years ago.
If it’s true that the Faceless Men were behind the downfall of the original dragonlords,
they might not be a fan of Daenerys, this new Valyrian queen , conquering cities with
her dragons.
Maybe the Faceless Men will try to kill Dany.
Arya’s told to kill an actress, so she goes to see a play.
The play is a retelling of recent events in King’s Landing – the death of King Robert,
the downfall of Ned, the marriage of Sansa to Tyrion.
It’s cool to see how the public perception of what happened is so wrong – like, Ned’s
portrayed as an idiot who wanted the Throne, when he was the opposite.
Tyrion plots with then betrays Ned, when that was actually Littlefinger.
Cersei tries to follow the rules, when she actually broke them.
Joffrey’s a noble prince instead of a nasty little shit, and he’s kind to Sansa when
he actually threatened and beat her.
And Tyrion wants to marry and sleep with Sansa, when in truth he wanted neither.
But the real drama of this scene is that Arya has to relive the horrors that happened to
her family, she’s forced to watch her father’s execution for the second time.
Maybe the Faceless Men are testing her here by confronting her with memories of her family
– to become “no one”, she’d have to let go of the people she loves.
Afterwards, Arya spies on Lady Crane, the woman she’s meant to murder, and she seems
nice, so back at the House, Arya talks as though she doesn’t wanna kill Crane.
Jaqen says she she’s not meant to care if she’s nice, she’s not meant to ask questions,
she’s meant to blindly serve the Many-Faced God, the god of death.
So again, Arya’s being tested.
Will she give up her sense of justice and murder an innocent woman?
Jaqen says she’s on her last chance, it’s make or break time, and hints from the books
and show suggest she’s gonna leave the Faceless Men – and it’s gonna be bloody.
Beyond the Wall, Bran has a vision of the children of the forest creating the white
walkers.
This would have happened some ten thousand years ago, when humans first came to Westeros
and started a war with the children, who had been there long before . Eventually the children
and the First Men made peace, in an agreement called the Pact, but this scene seems to suggest
that sometime before the Pact, the children created white walkers as a weapon for their
war against the humans.
At some point the children must have lost control of the walkers, because thousands
of years later, the Long Night happened, when white walkers attacked and almost took over
Westeros . They were stopped by the humans and the children working together to fight
and win the War for the Dawn – after the War, the Wall was built to keep the walkers
out – though they didn’t make the walkers pay for the Wall . This was all thousands
and thousands of years before the story of the series begins, so the history’s pretty
hazy here, but we do finally know what walkers are – they’re like a Frankenstein’s
monster, an experiment that got loose, or like, the robots in Terminator, weapons that
turned on their creators.
We don’t know how the walkers got out of the childrens’ control – but maybe the
problem was that they learned how to make more of themselves by converting human babies
– it’s a problem when your killing machines can self-replicate, right?
Or maybe the problem was the wights, the zombies that the walkers raise from the dead.
Cause the thing is, we saw that dragonglass was used in the creation of the walkers.
Dragonglass kills walkers, and the children had lots of dragonglass, so maybe they figured
they could control the walkers that way.
But the wights, these zombies, aren’t hurt by dragonglass – the children can’t easily
stop them – so maybe the walkers went rogue when they started raising armies of the dead.
Also, this first white walker appears to be the Night King, the walker who now leads the
army of the dead.
Which means the Night King must be like ten thousand years old – so are the walkers
immortal?
That might explain why there have been thousands of years in between their attacks – they
can afford to be patient.
Also this child of the forest is Leaf, the same child who’s alive in the present – so
maybe the children are also immortal?
Weird though, cause in the books, Leaf says she’s only two hundred years old . Anyway,
the pattern of stones around the tree where the walkers are made is similar to the pattern
of corpses the walkers leave in Season 3 – so it looks like the walkers mimic the symbols
used by their creators – except the walkers make them out of corpses.
It really does seem that the walkers are purely evil, a weapon gone rogue that needs to be
wiped out.
But is it really that simple?
We know, at least in the books, that they have language, and culture – maybe they
have a society – cities, or civilisation in the far north.
They do do a lot of killing, but they’re still thinking feeling creatures.
Look at the Unsullied – they are slaves raised as soldiers, bred for war – but the
character of Grey Worm shows us that even people who are created to be mindless killers
can come to love and live like anyone else.
It is true that every walker we’ve seen so far has been a merciless murderer, but
we can’t assume that every walker’s like that.
That’s racist.
Admittedly it doesn’t look likely that the walkers will be more than monsters, at least
in the show, but maybe let’s just think about the possibility of peace.
Finally, readers may wonder whether this revelation about the walkers is true for the books as
well as the show – because the walkers, or Others, are very different in the books.
But as Reddit user Lucifer_Lightbringer points out, there are strong hints in the books that
the children made the walkers, for example one character compares a walker to “some
child’s snow knight” – which is exactly what the walkers are if they’re warriors
for the children.
So yeah it’s not certain, but it does seem likely that this stuff is true for the books
as well as the show.
At the Iron Islands, the ironborn hold a kingsmoot to elect their new king.
Yara talks about making the Iron Islands great again, building the largest fleet the world’s
ever seen, and when a man questions her for being a woman, Theon speaks up in her support.
So everyone seems on side, until Euron arrives.
He makes fun of Yara and Theon, boldly admits to killing his brother King Balon, and says
he’ll sail to Daenerys and ally with her to take Westeros.
And the people are convinced – they make Euron their new king.
This scene is better in the books.
For starters, Euron has more personality, he’s this charismatic, swaggering, crazy
scary pirate, like some darkest-timeline version of Captain Jack Sparrow.
He rocks up with this an entourage of bastards and “mutes and mongrels”, from all over
the world, he gives out chests of gold to the ironborn to show how awesome he is , and
he has a magic horn called Dragonbinder, said to be able to control dragons.
He’s got power, he’s got loot, and he’s got a clear plan, and that’s why the ironborn
choose him.
Yara, or Asha, is also different in the books, she’s got this great funny speech using
chests of pinecones and turnips and stuff, she argues for peace, instead this vague marking
our mark stuff . The show's version's okay, but the book version's cooler.
Anyway Aeron Greyjoy, a priest of the Drowned God, performs a drowning ritual on Euron.
And Euron finds out that Theon and Asha have run off with their best ships, so Euron says
he’ll hunt them down and orders the ironborn to build a thousand ships, as though that’s
something you can do in a short time.
So it looks like the ironborn are racing to reach Daenerys, to forge a great alliance
between the kraken and the dragon – so “let all the world beware” .
In Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys and Jorah have a tearful reunion.
Jorah shows Dany his greyscale, the stony disease that’s killing him, and she sends
him off to find a cure.
In the books, there’s no mention of a cure.
You can sometimes survive the disease as a child, like Shireen did, but there’s no
magic potion that’ll fix it.
In the show, though, there’s a scene where Stannis says Shireen’s greyscale didn’t
just go away naturally, he had it cured by a bunch of maesters and healers.
So maybe Jorah can do something like that.
Another idea that’s popular at the moment , is that Jorah might do what the character
Victarion does in the books – he has his wounded arm healed by a red priest, which
leaves it all bloody and burned and smoking.
Maybe Jorah will do something similar.
Anyway while Jorah the Explorer looks for a cure, Dany rides for Meereen with her massive
khalasar.
In Meereen, Varys says the peace deal with the masters seems to be working.
But Tyrion still reckons they have a bit of PR problem so they go and have a chat with
Kinvara, the high red priestess of Volantis.
Kinvara agrees to go “spread the word” in support of Daenerys, because she believes
that Dany’s Azor Ahai, or the prince that was promised – the prophesied saviour of
the world.
As Varys points out, Melisandre said the same thing about Stannis, and now Jon – so the
red priests really can’t seem to decide who their chosen one is.
But Kinvara hits right back at Varys, talking about his castration by a sorcerer when he
was a child.
Varys’ cock and balls were burned in some magic flame and he remembers hearing words
coming from the fire.
Kinvara claims to know what those words were, and Varys, perhaps understandably, is really
shaken.
Varys is normally so cool and collected, a master of disguising his true feelings, but
here we see him openly uncertain and vulnerable.
Just like how we saw Littlefinger vulnerable and exposed.
Power structures really are shifting this season.
Anyway, it does seem good for Dany’s cause that Kinvara is on side, though Tyrion is
concerned that she’s wants to burning heretic and stuff?
This could be a problem, especially given that Daenerys is also in a pretty burny mood.
When they meet, the dragon queen and the red priestess might get along like a– house
on fire.
Maybe Dany will convert to Kinvara’s Red God, feeding her fire further, turning her
closer to violence and blood.
Back beyond the Wall, Bran goes off and has a vision without Bloodraven’s guidance,
going back to the spot where he saw the white walkers made, but much later.
He sees the army of the dead, and he sees the white walkers who lead them, including
the Night King himself, who somehow touches Bran, through the vision, leaving him marked,
which breaks the magical protections on Bloodraven’s cave, and leaves them all vulnerable to the
walkers.
Bran’s training under Bloodraven’s gotta finish up real quick, so he plugs into the
Matrix and starts downloading as much as he can before they leave.
Back at Castle Black, Jon and Sansa and co.
strategize, trying to work out which northern houses might support them.
The Boltons already have the Umbers and the Karstarks.
But they could still win the Manderleys, Glovers, Mormonts, Cerwyns, Hornwoods, Tallharts, and
many other minor houses.
If they can get the houses together, they could stand a chance against the Boltons.
Sansa also brings up the Tullys, who could also be a huge help, but she lies to hide
her meeting with Littlefinger, and his offer of the knights of the Vale.
It seems like Sansa doesn’t totally trust Jon – or maybe she only lies to keep Littlefinger
out of all this.
Either way, she does give Jon a fancy new coat so it seems like things aren’t too
bad between them.
Everyone heads off to recruit allies, leaving Edd in charge at Castle Black.
Jon jokes about the Wall falling, which is some seriously scary foreshadowing.
Then back beyond the Wall, Meera and Hodor get packing, while Bran and Bloodraven keep
greendreaming, but knock-knock, the walkers are here.
The children try to defend the cave with fire grenades – but the walkers and wights get
in Meera kills a walker, Summer’s killed by wights, Bloodraven’s killed by the Night
King, Leaf sacrifices herself, and Hodor has a psychic warging time travel seizure vision
of his own future death from the past while he sacrifices himself, saving Bran and Meera
by holding the door, and holy fuck, if that’s not the biggest and bloodiest ten minutes
in Game of Thrones since the Red Wedding.
Let’s– process this.
So Meera kills that white walker with spear with head made of dragonglass – making her
the third person known to kill a walker, along with Sam and Jon, which is cool.
The death of Summer is so sad.
With Lady, Grey Wind, and Shaggydog all dead, Ghost is the last known surviving direwolf.
There is also Nymeria, who Arya let loose in the riverlands in Season 1.
There are strong hints in the books that she’s still out there, leading a wolf pack – so
we may see her again – but that’s just two of the original six Stark direwolves left.
The death of Bloodraven is huge, cause he’s one of the oldest, most powerful and knowledgeable
and mysterious characters in the series, yet we never really found out his secrets before
he died.
In the books we know he’s a hundred-year-old Targaryen bastard and brother of the Watch.
But beyond that, we really know nothing.
Who is he?
How did come to be a psychic tree?
What does he know, what are his goals, and what exactly was his plan for Bran?
What’s his history with the walkers?
The way the Night King looked at him it looks like they got years old beef.
And Leaf – it is poetic that she was killed by the monsters she created, but was she the
last of her species?
As far as we know, the children in that cave were the last of the children of the forest.
And finally – Hodor.
Poor, sweet, innocent Hodor.
We learn that Hodor is the way he is because in a vision of the past, Bran warged into
young Wylis, reached through his mind such that his present self would hold the door
to save Bran and Meera from wights.
This is so tragic and fucked up on so many levels.
Wylis was a happy, healthy kid who had his mind and his whole life taken away from him.
Every word he said for the rest of his life was a premonition of his death, yet everyone
around him just thought it was funny.
And did he have a choice in this?
Did he know all his life the way he’d die, and bravely continued on anyway?
Or is he a handicapped man being taken advantage of, used for reasons he didn't understand?
Further, since Hodor was killed by wights, he’ll probably be raised as a zombie himself,
forced to serve even after his death.
And this is all Bran’s fault.
He messed up, having that vision on his own, and as a result, most of his friends are dead,
and he destroyed the life of an innocent man, past present and future.
Bran’s learning the hard way that with great power comes great responsibility.
A lot people are asking about the whole time travel thing, and it looks like this isn’t
like Back to the Future, where Marty creates alternate future timelines by changing the
past.
Bran didn’t change anything – he just caused a past event which had already happened
in his timeline.
Hodor already was Hodor, Bran just went back and made it happen, it’s time travel, but
it's a closed loop, yeah?
All in one fixed timeline.
Like Bloodraven says, the past is written, the ink is dry.
So it's not like Bran can go to the past and stop the walkers ever being made, or stop
Ned from ever dying, the past is written.
What Bran and Meera really need to worry about is the future.
Cause what are they gonna do now?
They’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, the wights and walkers are right behind them,
they’ve got no Hodor to carry Bran, no Summer to protect them, no Bloodraven to guide them.
They’re gonna need to be rescued – and their saviour will probably be this mysterious
figure from the trailer, who might be Jon’s long-lost uncle Benjen, who’s been missing
beyond the Wall for like five seasons.
It could also be Coldhands, a mysterious friendly zombie from the books, or it maybe even some
combination of the two?
We’ll see what happens.
Whoever rescues them, Bran and Meera will probably head for the Wall.
But if they do, will the Night King’s mark on Bran be a problem?
The Wall and Bloodraven’s cave both seem to be protected by the same kind of magic,
the magic of the children of the forest.
What if the moment Bran steps through the Wall, the whole thing comes crashing down,
and the walkers walk right through?
Poor Edd can’t catch a break.
That was a hell of an episode.
We're now half way through the season, and with war in the north, Arya against the Faceless
Men, red priests in Meereen, pirates sailing east, and every possible fuckin crazy thing
happening north of the Wall, not to mention King’s Landing, and Oldtown, and Dorne,
it's only gonna get more intense.
Thank you for watching.
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