WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS DON’T EVEN TOUCH THIS PAGE IF YOU’RE NOT READY:
For perhaps the first time in the history of the HBO original series “Game of Thrones,” Sunday night was an emotional rollercoaster for every single fan.
After missing his deadline for the next installment in “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, author George R. R. Martin told impatient fans on Jan. 2 “The Winds of Winter” would not be ready in time for the much anticipated season six premiere. Which meant all the hard-core book-reading GOT fans had nothing to prepare them for Sunday night. The fandom has been equalized.
Season six picked up exactly where it left off, but without adequately answering the biggest question in television history: Is Jon dead?
Sure, we saw his lifeless, cold body lying in the snow. We heard the mournful howls of Ghost. We watched Davos and the other loyal members of the Night’s Watch put his stiff dead body on a table and plot his revenge, and we saw Melisandre (the Red Woman) look at Jon in disbelief and whisper, “I saw him in the flames fighting at Winterfell.”
So Jon looks pretty dead. But he doesn’t feel dead, right?
Martin is known for killing off pretty much whatever characters he wants to when he feels like he needs to, but Jon was different. Not only is Jon the underdog we all root for, there are also too many unanswered questions surrounding him that feel too essential to the plot of GOT to just abandon. Who is Jon’s mother? Was Ned Stark even his real father? And what about Sansa? The poor girl has gone through enough trauma to emotionally obliterate any normal person, and now all she has left to keep going is the promise of Jon helping her out at Castle Black, so if Jon really is dead and Sansa goes all the way to the Wall only to find Jon’s an ice zombie, I honestly think I might explode.
But we still have Melisandre, who seems to be the fan-favorite option for pulling together a Jon Snow resurrection, right? Well, maybe.
The Red Woman has been kind of off in her predictions lately (i.e. very dead Stannis) and it has really shaken her faith in the Lord of Light. But she still has some kind of magic power going for her, as we see at the end of the episode when she (finally) takes off that really uncomfortable-looking necklace and we all understood she was not joking when she said she was centuries old.
So is she up to the task of bringing Jon back to life? If you recall in season three, when Melisandre sees Thoros, another missionary for the Lord of Light, has been brought back from the dead several times, she isn’t too comfortable with idea. So we know it can be done, and we know she’s not a fan of the idea, but maybe there’s still hope?
Meanwhile, Sansa and and Theon (AKA Reek) are trying to get away from a very pissed-off Ramsay, who is scrambling to scoop them back up and do gods know what to the pair for throwing his side chick off a very tall ledge. I applaud this scene for beginning to repair the very complicated relationship between Sansa and Theon, and for finally, after six seasons, putting Sansa in the company of someone like Brienne and sweet, sweet Podrick. It was the most hopeful scene of the entire show, and I’m sure next week our hearts will get ripped out of our chests and stomped on because nothing good ever happens to Sansa.
Back in King’s Landing, Cersie (who is really rocking the pixie cut) has her already-broken heart dashed to pieces again when Jamie returns from his mission to save Myrcella with her body wrapped in a golden shroud. Just like that witch told you would happen, Cersie, but did you listen? No.
Still, we all felt bad for her and Jamie, who in spite of all the evil they have caused, are human people with feelings. Creepy feelings towards each other, but feelings. I personally hope Cersie rises up and becomes that woman we love to hate again to protect Tomin, her only living child. Cersie loves her children, and after her legendary walk of shame last season, I feel for her.
Arya is blind, but I’m guessing she’s going to figure out how to be a badass all over again and probably learn a lesson along the way, and Tyrion and Varys are trying to hold down the fort for Dany who took off on a dragon and still wound up getting kidnapped and taken (prisoner?) by another Dothraki horde who have zero respect for her as a woman but change their tune as soon as they find out she used to be married to a dead guy.
Honestly, Dany’s storyline is the one stressing me out the most. She went through all that trouble to conquer all these cities only to wind up being marched off against her will to some Khal-widow temple, which is probably already sad for her because Khal Drogo and Dany ended up being so perfect together after he dropped that whole misogyny thing, and to be honest, I’m still crossing my fingers that the sun will rise in the West and set in East.
Overall, this episode was a success. It also addressed nearly every story line (which is amazing because there are, like, 40, it feels like) in one tightly-wrapped package, giving us just enough information to ease back into Westeros. (Except where is Bran and Rickon? And Hodor? No one has forgotten about Hodor, Martin. Where is he?)
Questions got answered, but more were asked, which is a good way to start off a new season.
A lot of characters have been broken down, and it’s going to take time to build them back up again; hell, Jon Snow has to come back from the dead!
As fans, we don’t trust Martin enough to lend ourselves totally over to the hope that everything is going to work out, but we also trust these characters enough to pull through. All we can do is pray to the Seven George R. R. Martin has mercy on us and doesn’t kill off any more of our favorite characters next Sunday.
