Remember last week when I said Game of Thrones makes me happy, well I take that back as I bawled through this week’s episode ‘The Door’ as I’m still busy mopping up my tears.
This episode moved even further than what book readers are aware of, advancing the plot exponentially and giving us new information. A few characters made their end, Jon and Sansa made a plan and the Greyjoy siblings are making their way east.
Bran and his visions – Hold the Door
So we learned two origin stories from Bran’s visions this week – firstly that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers as a way to protect them from men, and that Hodor got his name from a continuous time loop of Meera telling him to ‘Hold the Door’ against the White Walkers.
Both of these visions have lasting implications that the White Walkers were once men and this is probably the reason why dragon glass can kill them because they were created with that, and that Bran can affect the past or already has.
The sequence also saw the death of four characters – the Three Eyed Raven, Leaf – one of the Children of the Forest, Summer – Bran’s direwolf and Hodor – who all died trying to save Bran and Meera from the onslaught of White Walkers and wights who were attempting to attack after the Night’s King marked Bran in a vision.
Besides the heartbreaking death of Hodor and Summer, we did learn that Bran is on his way to become one of the most powerful forces in the game. Many have compared the Three Eyed Raven’s death of disappearing into blackness as similar to Obi Wan Kenobi’s in Star Wars: A New Hope. He also died before he was barely able to teach Luke about the force. It will interesting to see if the Three Eyed Raven comes back as a ghostly figure or if someone else completes the training with Bran (maybe Howland Reed) because Bran doesn’t even seem a little bit ready.
Sansa and Jon take back the North
Oh what a glorious moment it was to see Sansa finally confronting Littlefinger for giving her to Ramsay knowing what a sadistic bastard he was. Littlefinger and his jet (I’m assuming because he moves around Westeros super fast) hopped over to Moles Town and simultaneously told Sansa that her uncle, the Blackfish, was holed up in Riverrun with an army and tried to plant seeds of doubt in her head about Jon. This made me hate him so much. But it did convince her to send Brienne to go get the Blackfish and the army to join them in the upcoming battle.
Jon and Sansa also team up to attempt to rally the Northern Houses to their cause, and we’ll see the fruit of the labors next week. I must say I am truly enjoying this new Sansa, someone who is standing up for herself, who believes in her own abilities and does not need anyone else to protect or affirm her. Sansa has singularly the greatest character development in the show.
The Kingsmoot
Talking about strong female leaders, Yara made her claim for the Driftwood crown which Theon endorses – basically mansplaining why he deserves it but then her uncle Euron comes out with a speech drowning (did you see that) in misogyny which the Ironborn root for and what causes Yara and Theon to make a run for it and take Euron’s best ships off to Essos.
So we can guess that the Greyjoy siblings are making their way off to Daenerys who is seriously lacking in the ships department, so hopefully they can return to Westeros on the winning side with Daenerys and her Unsullied, her Dothrakis, Tyrion and Varys. The ultimate squad goals.
Catching up with the other characters:
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- Tormund is still hot for Brienne
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- Arya is commissioned by the Faceless Men to kill an actress in a play which basically represents the storyline in Season 1. AND Yay we got to see our first penis!
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- Jorah declared his love for Daenerys again and told her about his greyscale situation, and she ordered him to find a cure.
- Tyrion and Varys met with another Red Priestess named Kinvara who is convinced that Daenerys is the reincarnation of the price that was promised and agreed to do some good PR for them.
Game of Thrones airs on HBO on Sundays at 9pm E.T