Game of Thrones Discussion S6E5: “Close the Door and Lock It”

“The Door” — one of the most unexpected and heartbreaking of Game of Thrones episodes — saw heroic sacrifices made for uncertain purposes. Multiple characters –– including Jorah Mormont, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, and Yara and Theon Greyjoy — left their old paths for new ones. How many of their paths will cross?

Sigh sadly along with three fans with different perspectives. Rosalyn Claret, who has read the books yet says she “forgets” how many times; Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the television and book series; and Cheryl Collins, who does not read. Maester Corrin Bennet-Kill is on hiatus.

Please join the discussion in comments!

Cheryl
As usual we start in the North — but this time not with Jon but with Sansa! She’s sewing — doing womanly work — when she gets that letter and goes off without telling Jon.

Rosalyn
But takes Brienne.

Laura
Sansa knows to keep Littlefinger at a distance, even the information he gives her. I think she simply doesn’t want to have to explain the long history of how she doesn’t trust Petyr Baelish at all, but at the same time knows he tells the truth occasionally and can be useful. This level of intrigue isn’t a place where Jon can reach, yet.

Rosalyn
But she knows she needs backup — and to send a message to Littlefinger that she has it and is not afraid to use it.

Laura
Whether she made the RIGHT call or not, I’m not sure yet.

Cheryl
She makes him confront — really be present — to the horrors of Ramsay. She did not let him wiggle away. Yay.

Rosalyn
I think that’s part of the decision to take Brienne, to make sure Littlefinger knows right away where he stands with her.

Cheryl
And she made sure to call him a “brothel keeper” to put him in his place — and that she was nothing but one of his sexual objects in his eyes. Score.

Rosalyn
And I think he gets that right away. Did he really expect just to snap back into place, to present himself as her protector again? I think he did.

Laura
I love watching Littlefinger realize what kind of woman he helped create — he didn’t realize she’d survive and grow so much. Serves him right.

Cheryl
What can he say? Just make a parting jab at Jon’s half-brother status. However, she takes what he says as true — she’s not up for his mastery of the game yet.

Rosalyn
How much do you think this scene was influenced by the meta discussion after Season 5’s treatment of Sansa and the backlash against the showrunners? David and David wrote this episode.

[Editor’s note: The simplified version of that criticism is that Sansa’s rape was gratuitous to the plot and exploitive, and further, that her lack of agency was sexist and played into a tired stereotype.]

Cheryl
I wondered about that too, Rosalyn! I tend to think “not” because they have the episodes plotted out years in advance, it seems.

Rosalyn
Do you think Sansa’s dialogue here was foreshadowed by the reaction to the original events with Ramsay? Do you think the showrunners had it planned all along — though they never gave me the impression they understood the criticism?

Cheryl
My sense — just mine — is that they just sat back and allowed people to punch them on it, knowing what they had in their back pocket with their plot plans. However, the lowering of the level of gratuitous nudity and sex does seem to be a reflection of the “enough is enough” attitude of so many. Plus, there really is not time now for long meandering brothel scenes, for example.

Rosalyn
It was powerful to hear the direct point of view of the person who experienced this violence. This is maybe the first time Sansa — or any other character — has had this kind of voice in a show filled with sexual violence. It was significant on many levels.

Laura
I’m still not a fan of making Sansa motivated by rape-revenge. She clearly has more to be angry about, such as how the Boltons played a role in the Red Wedding. Still, if rape was going to be thrown back in anyone’s face, it should be Littlefinger’s. That felt somehow right. Balanced.

Cheryl
She was a captive. He raped her. She had no agency. People were pissed off about it. But it really helps explain her transformation from bargaining chip for the big boys to empowered woman who wants revenge and is ready to lead armies now.

Laura
To be clear, I am a fan of Badass Sansa. One Sansa to rule them all, etc.

Rosalyn
She pointedly questioned Littlefinger’s assessment of her as “unharmed.”

Cheryl
She understands on a base level what it means now for Ramsay to have Winterfell — it is a nightmare, a heresy.

Rosalyn
To me, that mirrored a lot of the reaction of the fanboy audience when the sexual violence was questioned in the first place. Shrugging it off as a plot point or being “true to history” (which I think is irrelevant, but I digress). I thought those were insufficient justifications because it IS different to delve into those issues with a POV character. This scene reinforced that from me. Hearing from Sansa herself forced a confrontation of that reality. For Littlefinger AND for us.

Laura
To harp on the book versus show for a moment: I may regret this perspective, but I very much prefer Sansa’s Game of Thrones storyline to her A Song of Ice and Fire one. I won’t go into detail, in case spoilers are still somehow possible, but she’s much more passive (literally motionless, staying at the Aerie almost the entire time) and as such has fewer ways to show her growth and maturation.

Rosalyn
This is also not the first time Littlefinger has glossed over rape or betrayed his woefully insufficient understanding of it — remember his discussion near Lyanna’s grave, how Rhaegar “chose” her? And Sansa corrected him: Rhaegar kidnapped her. (Based on Sansa’s understanding of those events, anyway.)

Cheryl
Interesting point Rosalyn, because of course the show cannot show us the details of his degradation of her. Which makes hearing it from her so important. She is saying she is not over it, and good for her.

I find it interesting that she is all grays now — after she escaped with Littlefinger, she was all blues and reds (if I recall correctly), which is the color scheme of every Madonna painting ever. After her defilement by Ramsay: it’s all gray.

Laura
Her attire is gray and her hair is, seemingly, redder than ever. She’s only the second bit of color, after Melisandre, to grace the Wall. She looks redder than Tormund, for goodness’ sake.

Rosalyn
I think Littlefinger knows he’s made a terrible mistake and is grasping trying to regain control of the situation and of Sansa. How much did his personal interest in her factor into his decision to force the Vale to march on Winterfell? Hmm.

Laura
And we’re again left wondering what the hell Littlefinger’s next move will be.

Rosalyn
Also, on screen, at least, Brienne hasn’t heard this from her lips until now. I watched her watching Sansa as she spoke to Littlefinger about it.

Littlefinger tells Sansa he came to “rescue” her and she just scoffs. “You can’t protect me,” she says. I feel like she’s been looking for a protector for the entirety of her story. Her fundamental understanding of the world has shifted.

And you can tell Littlefinger is afraid of Brienne and his miscalculation, because at the point where he would have started basking in his own cleverness (revealing the Blackfish taking power at Riverrun), he made a pitiful parting shot and a quick exit instead. What a relief.

Cheryl
Last week, when she asked Jon “Where will you go?” and he replied, “Where will WE go?” she seemed to relax and smile: finally someone will undergird her. It’s not just her against the world anymore (though of course, Brienne).

Anyway, great scene: the power dynamic has shifted.

Rosalyn
It was righteous and satisfying and rang true to me, but I wish I could shake my mistrust of the two Davids and my knowledge of all the exhausting, tiresome discussion that has surrounded Sansa in the show. It took away from my ability to just be carried along. Sigh.

Cheryl
That’s why I mostly stay away from all discussion, on any aspect of the show: just to really focus on what I see and how I respond.

Laura
Shall we move to Braavos?

Cheryl
I found the explanation of the founding of the House of Black and White confusing!

Rosalyn
Of course it was founded literally by no one: a nameless slave.

They killed the masters and founded the Free City of Braavos.

Hard not to think that this is the inkling of a precedent for what Dany’s trying to do …

Cheryl
I thought he said “the masters and oppressors’ went away.”

Laura
Interesting that the Faceless Men were started by former slaves, and now Arya is told to simply obey and not question anyone. Anyone else find that suspect? Is this somehow a further trap/lesson for Arya?

Rosalyn
The slaves became Faceless Men (through some mysterious transfer of knowledge from the Many-Faced God, which was not explained) and “many gifts were given” until there were no more masters …

Cheryl
Freedom from the oppressor was a theme this week. “We are free: but just obey me.”

Laura
Plus, you can call killing the masters “giving gifts” all the livelong day, but it smacks of revenge. How is Arya’s list so bad again?

For a house of Black and White, there’s a lot of gray area, right?

Cheryl
And of course Jaqen sends her on a mission that is designed to make her confront her identity and tempt her to seek revenge — again.

Laura
Yes, that was so clearly a test. She could tell, of course, but is still unwilling to just follow orders, bless her.

Cheryl
There was so much gray this week —the inside of House Black and White is gray, gray, gray.

Laura
Gray Sansa! Greyscale!

Rosalyn
Greyjoys!

Cheryl
And everything in the North is gray.

Not everything is so clear after all — sometimes you have to kill nice people.

Rosalyn
I was kind of rolling my eyes during the stage play for the simple reason that I’m not sure why the Braavosi would be just so fascinated with this story of King’s Landing (and so accurately able to reproduce costuming and hairstyles).

Cheryl
Seeing her family tragedy played as farce must have been brutally cutting for Arya.

Laura
Still, when Arya pushes back about the assignment, she’s told that the payment for the gift has been made. Just when the Faceless Men seem very spiritual and magical, we’re reminded they’re also assassins. I’m confused.

Rosalyn
Was it the first update Arya’s had on her sister? Does she know that Sansa survived and was married to Tyrion? Or not?

That mention of payment was sort of jarring to me, too, Laura.

Still, again forcing Arya to confront the fact that random death is universal and is not just the destiny of the deserving.

Cheryl
But it’s not random, right?

Laura
So, we know that the Tyrion character is based on stereotypes of dwarves, mixed with a general lascivious bent to plays like this. I guess we also learned that Northmen have a reputation for being hicks?

Cheryl
And not too bright. Apparently they would never use a word like “gallivant.”

Rosalyn
Or that Ned Stark’s stubborn honor basically translates to stupidity when viewed from a distance. Which is perhaps a justifiable perspective.

Laura
Yet Cersei and Joffrey get off nearly scot-free.

Cheryl
Also, last week we mentioned a seeming preoccupation with odors and smells. And here we had several mentions, like the farting Robert Baratheon and the piece of clothing that was tossed to Arya with words something like “this stinks of me.”

Laura
Odors, smells, and other mundane (literally non-magical) affairs of the body … is that why we got the backstage nudity? What was its purpose?

Cheryl
That may have been the first close-up penis I have ever seen on TV.

Rosalyn
I took it as kind of a jab. It’s what increased my suspicion that the writers are aware of and vaguely responding to criticism.

“You want equity in nudity? Here you go. Look, we can placate you!”

If that’s what its function was, it was missing the point.

Laura
One of those moments I regret the HD viewing revolution.

Cheryl
Maybe it was to balance the gratuitous boobage.

Laura
As much as it’s an affront to viewers, it’s kind of a gross-out to men, right? There’s a heteronormative assumption that men don’t like being forced to see dick. And that was a screenful of it.

The nudity was one way to show how comfortable the troop of actors are with one another, that they are tight-knit. It’s also a way to point out the lack of magic in this scene, the mundane-ness. Do I think nudity was the best or only way to do that? Noap.

Cheryl
But the larger point of the scene is, Arya likes the actress. She does not want to kill her.

She doesn’t want to kill her if it’s just owing to jealousy by the younger, less talented actress. She is told to “just obey” — kind of like Abraham being ordered to kill his son by God as a test.

Laura
And we’re back to wanting Arya to be Arya, right? If she sees through the motivation for the killing, she’s right to question it, in my mind. How is that holy, or even balanced?

Cheryl
You must have faith: it’s a test. But of course now I want her to run away ASAP.

Rosalyn
It’s another reminder that she is mindlessly, doggedly pursuing something that I’m not sure she really signed up for. A good reason for the House of Black and White to be testing her, honestly.

Laura
At this point, if she fails she’s not just kicked out of Fight Club; she gets killed and put in the hall o’ faces. That was a direct threat, right?

Cheryl
Right now, she wants to beat that girl who is knocking the shit out of her, and she might have put the Faceless Men’s larger goals in the background.

Rosalyn
She’s basically talked and thought of nothing but killing people for the entirety of the series, and now she needs to understand the full weight of what it means to have that power.

Laura
This is her quest: to understand what death really means, and the responsibility you have for taking even a single life.

Rosalyn
Balanced with the need for survival.

Cheryl
Arya is told “a servant does not ask questions,” meaning, do not engage in critical thinking. However, that is the flip side of Grey Worms’ journey: to listen to his own thoughts and ideas and to act on them, not simply be a killing machine.

And: it’s how cults work.

Laura
So next we get that all-too-brief Bran vision of the Children.

Cheryl
And another origin story: the creation of the White Walkers.

Rosalyn
This was a huge reveal. The White Walkers were created by the Children as a weapon against man. That’s their express purpose.

Laura
So in some ways, it’s man’s fault, for attacking the Children and cutting down heart trees without compunction.

Rosalyn
Possibly even the forebears of the Starks.

It’s easy to think of the Children of the Forest as tra-la-la fairy folk merely kind of decorating the story with some mysticism and deus-ex-machina magical force field caves and such. I’d thought of them as sad and sympathetic and to be protected, assisting Bran and the cause of men. But that’s not how enmity works. I assumed that because we take Bran’s POV. We take the point of view of the modern humans in the North. But they are conquerors. We’re placed into the POV of conquerors.

So now we have to wonder why the Children can’t control their creation any more, and why they are now fighting against them, and even dying in that fight?

Laura
My husband thought it was tied up too neatly, to have the White Walkers be something besides an ancient and unknowable force. But, seeing how the series is reveling in tearing down tropes of high fantasy, I find it perfect to reveal they are a weapon created for good that spun out of control. It’s almost too heavy-handed, but it’s an atom bomb type of thing, right?

Rosalyn
Totally. And, at very least, it does kind of weave the various forces and mythologies together. They’re not unrelated. We even know the Valyrians are involved somehow (with their steel that shatters the Others), their “dragonglass.”

Cheryl
And now the two once-enemies have to ally to defeat them: Leaf even sacrificed her life for Bran. And so did the direwolf.

I thought: it’s only a matter of time before Ghost gets it now.

Laura
We’re down to Ghost and Nymeria (Arya’s missing direwolf)!

Rosalyn
But Summer is Bran’s best warging buddy! How will he go out into the world now? Sadface.

Cheryl
As we see that the Children and humans, once enemies, are now working together, it knits together the “strange bedfellows” theme.

Last week it was Olenna — who killed Joffrey, for chrissakes — and Cersei and Jaime, and then Davos, Brienne, and Melisandre.

On to the Iron Islands and that cold and windswept outcropping — where we got a full dose of sexism.

Laura
A dose and a half.

Cheryl
Yara makes a good case. Theon — who has his hair cut and is cleaned up, but still looks not quite 100 percent — backs her up, just as a new claimant shows up.

Laura
In an interesting twist, Uncle Euron admits to killing Balon, because he knows Balon wasn’t popular anyway.

Cheryl
And he made the same points that Yara did, to her father’s face, it seems to me.

Rosalyn
You know, this scene didn’t deliver all the lines and characters one could have hoped for from the scene in the books, but I mostly dug it.

Laura
It was a seriously fast-forwarded version of the kingsmoot. Almost hilariously so.

Rosalyn
One interesting thing is that Euron’s tactic for maintaining dominance — turning words that were meant to cut him down back out upon his rivals as a weapon — is Yara’s big, wonderful skill in the book.

Even when it’s kind of a stretch (as with “gallivanting”), if it works, it works.

Laura
What beat her in the show-moot, for sure, are words alone. Not wealth or intrigue, but words. And sexism.

Cheryl
I did not love the way this scene was shot or directed. Euron’s appearance was kind of a dud, fell flat.

Rosalyn
I think this actress is KILLING IT, and I think the dynamic between Theon and Yara is becoming complex, strange and special. So all of that made me largely not object. She has more talents than just brashness.

Cheryl
All Euron had to do to undercut anything Theon said is remind the audience that he is dick-less.

Laura
Yes, sexism not just against Yara, but also against Theon’s emasculation.

Rosalyn
Yeah, of course it comes down not only to: a conqueror has armies and hates the lords of Westeros as much as we do! (Okay … I guess that works) but also: and she needs my cock!

Cheryl
Yeah, he’s gonna show Dany his BIG SHIPS and that will seduce her. I almost gagged on that.

Once again we have a resurrection: “what is dead may never die” now has a new twist in meaning (I never understood it before), and “what rises again is harder and stronger” (kind of penile, come to think of it).

He dies, is reborn — and then immediately wants to kill off Theon and Yara. And the others go along. But Yara outsmarts them.

Rosalyn
Obviously resurrection is a big theme, especially this season. But remember that this is perhaps THE center of the religion of the Iron Islands. “What is dead may never die” are not just words; the faithful are actually held underwater, drowning — and (welp) they just wait to see if the drowned come back or not. This intense elemental rite of passage is fascinating to me, and it’s largely why I dig the Iron Islands so much in the book.

The Ironborn are constantly and willfully dancing around the edges of life and death explored elsewhere in the book. In other cases we’ve seen — bringing back the Mountain (through “science”?); invoking the Lord of Light’s power through incantation, or Dany’s unburntness — these are treated as rare, shocking, miraculous events. — completely aberrant.

But on Pyke, they go to that edge and back as a matter of course, and they’ve been doing it for generations. The shallowest dip into death and back. They’re not killed thoroughly. The Iron Islands are a place of transition, a “gray” area. See what I did there. GREYJOYS, get it?

Cheryl
So the Iron Islands is a place of transition between this world and the next, not just for special people — people who have special miraculous powers — but for everyone?

Rosalyn
Right. Being drowned (literally) and coming back is a part of the everyday fabric of life.

Laura
I was also fascinated that Euron’s speech to Balon when he killed him was quite different from his kingsmoot pitch, which didn’t mention that he considered himself the actual Drowned God.

Cheryl
I’m happy that Theon has found his voice again, and he used it to support Yara.

And I so love that they have not glammed Yara up, à la Dany.

Rosalyn
Dany, who I guess found a replacement hairdresser among the Dothraki. AND a white horse. White horses only, please.

Laura
Dany made sure to get back her finery after her Khal BBQ.

Jorah is sent off to find a cure, which means we don’t know where he’s going. If I can make a strongly educated guess, though, I’d guess the Citadel.

I was a big Jorah fan for many seasons, but I think he kind of jumped the shark for me this episode. I didn’t get all weepy with Dany, at all. What have I become?

Admitting he loves Dany is, well, old news. Not even that touching. And why is Dany all of a sudden sad that Jorah might die? I didn’t buy it.

And why is Daario there just gaping at the two of them? Give them space, you nosey perverted warrior.

Cheryl
And later, it was made clear that Mormont is one of the houses that Jon and Sansa will seek support from, right?

I think Sam will help find a cure for Jorah (Mormont), and serve as a link with Jon, somehow.

Rosalyn
Mormont’s home is Bear Island, led by a matriarch at this point, actually. His father was Lord Commander.

I thought the point of the scene was less to deploy Jorah off to another character convergence (Sam and the citadel? Maybe, good thought) and more to basically bring an end to his relationship and history with Dany. He can go off into the sunset and die, but they made up. Shrug.

Cheryl
It felt like they were quickly dispatching him so he could lead us to the next plot point. Jeezus, we are just GALLOPING along in the plot now. There is no nuance, it’s full steam ahead on all fronts.

I think somehow he will be the link between Jon and Dany. He will facilitate their interaction.

But now she’s got a new horde and is heading back for Meereen, it seems.

Laura
It was sailing through Old Valyria’s ruins that Jorah was attacked by the greyscale guys. We know Princess Shireen survived greyscale, with many scars, thanks to a maester who tried out some cures.

The Targaryens are from Old Valyria originally, the eastern city that has been mysteriously destroyed.

Cheryl
I am reminded that Stannis turned over every rock in the world to cure her — he tried everything — and then he killed her because Melisandre told him too. UGH!

So back to Meereen.

Rosalyn
Tyrion sends for the Red Priestess, but she might as well have sent for him. To inform them that their ends are the same.

Which is kind of more information than Tyrion or Varys really bargained for … they had a very pragmatic purpose, not necessary to get tangled up with worship, resurrection, and saviors reborn.

Cheryl
I don’t trust this chick, and neither does Varys — but he seemed scared shitless, the first time we have ever seen him back on his heels like that.

Rosalyn
“Fanaticism,” as Varys puts it, with some bite.

Cheryl
I felt that oops, they may have just made a deal with the devil and not realized it.

Laura
As with Melisandre, this new priestess — who has some high rank in the Lord of Light religion, it seems? — has legitimate powers. She knows Varys’s past, and that throws him.

Tyrion lent some good old-fashioned dark comedy to that scene, cowering behind Varys as he tries to diffuse the situation.

Rosalyn
And this priestess names Daenerys as Azhor Azai reborn; meanwhile, at the other end of the world, Melisandre has named Jon.

Cheryl
Ah, dueling red women.

Laura
With the same getup, necklace, the whole deal.

Cheryl
Except Melisandre is chastened now, on her back foot — not emboldened, like this one.

Rosalyn
Varys is used to being the puppet master. The priestess arrives to tell him someone else is pulling the strings, including his, and there’s nothing he can do about it: The Lord of Light.

There’s a larger game, and he’s just a bit player, and his role is to help bring the Lord’s light into the world.

Laura
Do we know what the priestess Kinvara was going to say to Varys? He’s told this story before, but not the detail she was holding over him, right?

Cheryl
I don’t think we know what Varys heard or what the name of its speaker is — and it seems that Varys does not want to know the name, either.

Rosalyn
Kinvara throws in another reference to not only “this war, but also the great war that will come.” Framing the larger conflict, again.

Cheryl
Yes, she’s got her eyes on that prize, and who knows what war she is referencing — I assume between the believers and the non-believers.

Rosalyn
Which is maybe a good throwback to North of the wall, where the Night’s King marks Bran.

Cheryl
Just a side note: at the table meeting in Castle Black, there are three men and three women.

Rosalyn
Melisandre was silent, but I noted her presence. Because in the background, out of focus, you can still see her turn her head and avert her gaze behind Davos when he’s speaking of how men jdon’t want to see their wives and children die for a lost cause.

Laura
This may not matter, but just before that discussion, we got Bran’s vision with the Night’s King marking him. We then see the Winterfell planning and then cut back to the tree scene at the end.

Cheryl
Yes, he started to warg and then poof off to Castle Black.

Rosalyn
Yeah, way to go Bran, attracting the Night’s King with your solo visioning.

Laura
It may only be a narrative device to build up suspense, but I wonder if there’s some connection to be made between the Starks here.

Rosalyn
“But am I ready?” “No.”

Laura
That could be it: no one is ready, but the time is now, or never. Arya’s not ready, either.

Cheryl
We have only two seasons (maybe three) left for chrissakes. You better be ready!

Rosalyn
I like seeing Sansa in the war room. It reminds me of Catelyn. I don’t know about her decision to trust Littlefinger’s information about the Tullys and the Blackfish, though.

Laura
And has no way to confirm it, since as Brienne points out, she can’t even send a raven to Riverrun. It’s a long way between the Tully land and the Wall.

Cheryl
Who knows what trap is awaiting Brienne at Riverrun.

Sansa now is quite confident, almost cocky. She really pushes back against Davos — but listens too.

Rosalyn
I guess it gets Brienne out into the world again, where who knows what she may encounter…

And Sansa ups the Stark style for both her and Jon. This is just a little side note, but Sansa has adapted the style of every place she’s come to. Here, she made her own gown and cloak, with the direwolf sigil.

Even Jon can notice that bit and compliment it.

Laura
As a special “fuck you” to Littlefinger for the jab about half-brother, which was reiterated in the war room (that he’s not a Stark, that is), she makes him a proper Stark cloak.

Cheryl
Jon has shed his Night’s Watch cloak and now has one modeled after his father’s.

And she’s now wearing a dress she made — another way she is asserting her own identity. They both are ready for the next chapters in their new lives.

But Sansa withholds some key info from Jon. Is Littlefinger’s planted doubt working?

Laura
Sansa’s lie about the Blackfish’s army was … odd. I think it was spur of the moment, when she realized she wanted to contribute something to the war map and then had to backtrack to avoid name-dropping Baelish.

Cheryl
Yes, she seemed quite pleased with herself that she could drop that in. But when Brienne asks her about it, she cannot answer why she lied about it.

Rosalyn
It seems risky though. I wouldn’t trust that Littlefinger was actually giving her information to help her, and not control her. (Though, at the end of the day, I do imagine he wants her to live.)

Laura
The warriors of the Vale are right here, and she doesn’t mention them. They’re at the Starks’ disposal, and even have some allegiance through now-dead Lysa and still-irritating Robin.

Rosalyn
That is an excellent point and probably a large plot hole, Laura.

Laura
She wants Littlefinger as far as possible. Why not talk to the men of the Vale and expose him? They’d rally to her side!

Rosalyn
It’s interesting that no one brought it up at all.

Of course, in recent memory, Catelyn originally sought help for the Starks there, and found no aide — worse than no aide.

Cheryl
I wrote in cap letters: FINALLY JON GOES SOUTH. Thank god.

Laura
Talk about cloistered! He’s gone north of the Wall, but never south, since he got there.

Rosalyn
Also, what the hell is Baelish going to do with himself now? His position at the Vale is shaky, his position in the rest of the realm rests on the Lannisters remaining in power, and I feel like all his master planning used Sansa as the lynchpin. WHOOPS.

Tywin Lannister gave him the Wardenship and a title, but I think he was in cahoots with Olenna Tyrell, too, technically. Crafty.

And he is definitely shown telling Cersei he still owes her allegiance though and will “find Sansa” for her.

Cheryl
On to the death of Hodor and Summer and all the carnage.

Rosalyn
Why did Summer the direwolf have to die? I guess because Bran was busy warging into Hodor and couldn’t do both at once, and Summer is a fierce and defensive direwolf. How sad. I am sad.

Laura
And why, in the midst of packing up to flee, do Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven warg back to that Winterfell scene?

Rosalyn
I knowwwwwww.

Laura
Other than the sort of time-travel inevitability we find out later…

Cheryl
We’ve had the death of both Bran and Rickon’s wolves now. Summer, Hodor, Leaf, and the Three-Eyed Raven all gave up their lives for Bran.

Laura
And a bevy of unnamed Children as well!

Rosalyn
First, what is shown is, apparently, Ned Stark departing Winterfell to be fostered at the Vale alongside Robert Baratheon, under Jon Arryn. His father tells him: “But if you have to fight, win.”

Laura
Then, just as we saw the White Walkers and wights lock eyes with Bran in his previous vision, Wylis sees him.

Bran discovers he’s responsible for changing Hodor’s life irrevocably … and his death.

Cheryl
Talk about not ready: he royally fucked up by warging without approval.

Laura
I love that Meera is Bran’s champion now. Another woman taking on the traditional mantle of a man.

Rosalyn
It’s just down to them. Meera and Bran. The Three-Eyed Raven wasn’t kidding when he told Meera that Bran would need him out there.

Cheryl
I had to wonder: where the hell are Meera and Bran going, exactly, out in the tundra? And how come the zombies can’t follow them?

Rosalyn
I just found it all largely heartbreaking. None of that would have happened if Bran hadn’t gone for his middle-of-the-night lone warging expedition and brought the Night’s King to their door.

Hodor suffered a horrific death, and his vision of it as a young boy/man changed him forever.

Cheryl
It was a huge sacrifice on multiple fronts. Hodor’s sacrifice was heroic. The future and past merged into one as he had his seizure.

Rosalyn
Maybe Bran will understand the scope of his power in a larger sense, now, rather than just thinking of it as a way for him to experience the world again outside the confines of his body.

Cheryl
And maybe understand that warging is not just for fun to go back to your happy place.

Rosalyn
How far can Meera go pulling basically a grown man behind her on that sledge? It’s worrisome. And yes, Hodor is truly heroic. Who else could have held that door so long? I wondered at Meera knowing she had to ask that of him, too, and then not hesitating to do it.

Desperate and heartbreaking.

Cheryl
It was epic that scene — but not in a good way.

Rosalyn
All tragic, and the Obi-Wan figure definitively gone, too, and possibly even the very very last Children of the Forest gone. I had the sense that was their last enclave.

Laura
Final thoughts: I’m so, so glad that Hodor got to be more than a pack mule and (more than mildly ableist) punchline for dudebro fans of the show. The way Wylis became “Hodor” through Bran, in real time for Bran, has me rethinking how time works in general in this universe. It’s only some people who can hear wargs like Bran when they come to visit. I’m reminded also of how Ned seemed to hear Bran, faintly, in the vision of the Tower of Joy—perhaps another hint that Bran’s ability is somehow related to his bloodline, and that Ned had a weak or dormant version of the skill. Does this mean that Hodor, pre-seizure was a little on the warg-y side? Perhaps. We’ll never know, now, but I’d like to think this tragic scene actually let his character exit on a high note.

The episode’s title is “The Door,” clearly a reference to “hold the door,” but how else does it connect to this herky-jerky episode? Walking through a door is making a choice, taking a direction, and metaphorically can also be about leaving unmade choices behind. It seems many of our characters are at turning points: Sansa and Jon march to battle, Arya either clinches her Faceless Men status or loses it forever, Dany sends Jorah away, Tyrion and Varys join with Kinvara, and of course Bran’s literal and figurative door exit.

Cheryl
Remember when Jon, Sansa, and company marched out of Castle Black, and one guys asks Edd “Shall we shut the gate now, Lord Commander?” I took it that the door is shut; Jon’s life at Castle Black is closed now. (Thank god.)

But maybe it’s about more than Jon. The last episode started with the gate opening with Sansa, Brienne, and Pod entering. One door opens, one door closes …

Osha, Hodor, even Summer and Shaggy Dog were the last connections to Old Winterfell — all killed off in the last three episodes. Everyone seems to be marching into the next phases of their lives.

Last point: this was a weird fucking episode!

Squawks:

Laura
In light of Bran’s visions this season, we went back to Bran’s first big glimpse through a heart tree in Season 4,  when the Three-Eyed Raven first tells Bran to look for him.

The shadow of a dragon flying over King’s Landing is even more foreboding now than it was then.

Rosalyn
I wanted to believe in the scene with Sansa and Littlefinger and that made me question it. Sansa’s dialogue was right on. It’s true to character and true to life. If in the later scene with the close-up penis the showrunners were saying, “How ’bout some onscreen dick, haters. That fixes it, right?” then I still don’t quite trust them with the story.

Cheryl
1) Was that farce Arya watched a commentary by the showrunners of Game of Thrones and its audience — that is, us?

The two old crones next to Arya who were shocked, just shocked, when “Sansa’s” dress was ripped and her boobs bared.

Was their meaning something like: “this is what it’s like trying to appeal to the masses, guys! You get farting Baratheon jokes!” That farce did not seem to have any deeper meaning or political commentary. Maybe it’s their way of saying: “Stop trying to read so much into it, people! It’s just entertainment!”

2) Huh. Check out Wylis holding the reins of Lyanna’s horse, and note the horse’s color:

Please join the discussion in comments! But no spoilers, please!