Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 5: The Door
Damn, before I watch the new episode, let's talk about this one first. It's... a very good episode, as all Game of Thrones episodes are wont, but that ending! I've grown sort of immune to characters dying in these kind of works of fiction with a high body count, but sometimes it's a special kind of death -- or a series of deaths -- to really jolt you back into attention. And, well, considering the massive fan reaction that this episode brought out, well, it certainly did its job pretty well.
Let's keep that spoiler death until the end so people don't accidentally spoil themselves. I'm absolutely lucky to not have the ending spoiled for me, but it would be totally shitty if you did get it spoiled for you. And if you did get spoiled, it's not going to be from this review, no sir.
Now we go back and forth between several locales, of course. The Castle Black scenes are pretty cool, even if nothing ultimately happened. Sansa Stark finally gets a couple of great scenes as we address the emotional and mental wounds that Ramsay's rape had done to her -- something that last season received justifiable criticism for. Sansa addressing these injuries without breaking down doesn't make them any less horrible, and her confronting Littlefinger who just wants to get back to her good graces is pretty awesome. On one hand, yes, as Brienne points out -- those are the Knights of the Vale, very needed manpower in their fight against the Boltons. On the other hand... when has trusting Littlefinger has ever led well to anybody? Ask Sansa. Or Ned.
It's a pretty awesome line, too. "If you knew, you're my enemy. If you didn't know, you're an idiot."
Of course, even when he's told to fuck off (and he has the decency to look sorry about it, at least) Littlefinger isn't content with just walking off. He plants some doubts in Sansa about Jon, which manifests in two ways -- Sansa pointing out that Jon isn't a trueblooded heir of the Starks in their little strategy meeting, and, as called out by Brienne, the fact that Sansa hid from Jon the information about how she knew about the Blackfish amassing Tully forces. On the other hand, though, Sansa's vote for confidence about Jon, consistently calling him 'my brother' instead of half-brother, and creating a new Ned-Stark-inspired armour for both of them, points the other way. Ah, Sansa, you wonderfully complex character. You've grown a fair bit ever since you were a two-dimensional whiny bitch, yeah?
Oh, and Tormund and Brienne are just easily the most hilarious scenes in the season, and they probably only take three seconds each.
Meanwhile, in Braavos, Arya is sent by "Jaqen H'ghar" to kill a target, a woman that plays Cersei in a local play (that adapts the events of Season One in a very Targaryen/Baratheon-favoured manner), for no real reason. This ain't Assassin's Creed, Arya! She's smart enough to figure out that the younger actress playing Sansa is probably the one that ordered the hit, but "Jaqen" gives no shits, telling Arya that it's the last chance that the Many-Faced God will give her. It's a nice little scene, even if it went too long, to see how the winners write the history. It's a plot element that always appeals, and definitely one that serves as a great reminder how ultimately unsung the deeds of heroic characters like Ned Stark and Tyrion Lannister are, still being vilified in the eyes of the public.
One of the more interesting scenes this episode is the one set in the Iron Islands, as the Kingsmoot begins. Yara's speech get lambasted by people who are all 'we want a king, not a queen', and Theon Greyjoy steps up to the plate, and gives a rousing speech about how Yara Greyjoy is a true Ironborn, and the only real candidate. Right up until Euron shows up, and does not hide the fact that he killed Balon -- citing Balon's rule as weak and inefficient. Also makes fun of Theon's cocklessness.
Euron, though, has an actual plan beyond Yara and Theon's "let's make big ships and stabilize!" Euron wants to make a big fleet too, but instead of just hoping that they can make do, Euron wants to throw in with Daenerys Targaryen and her army of freed slaves, mercenaries and dragons. Oh, Euron also wants to marry Daenerys, but his plan seemed to be more centered in siding with the winners. It's honestly a lot better than Theon and Yara's plan, and really the only reason why we're not siding with the more sensible Euron is that he's a crazy motherfucker whose first rule as king is to declare a manhunt to kill his niece and nephew with the most gleeful tone ever.
Of course, while we get a nice little atmospheric moment of Euron's crowning (which involves the dude getting drowned and having to cough his way to life) with a very awesome narration of the Greyjoy motto ("what is drowned may never die" is probably the most awesome line in the entire series) and the shittiest crown in the world... it also took enough time for Yara and Theon to round up their loyalists... and make away with the entire fleet. Apparently Theon and Yara's speech struck a chord with enough Ironborn. Of course, whether Theon and Yara are planning on reaching Daenerys first, or if they're going to throw their lot in with someone else, we have no idea.
Euron, meanwhile, just demands everyone work to the bone to make even more ships.
In Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys has her new big-ass army even without the Ironborn. Her scenes mostly involve forgiving Jorah, the revelation about his disease, and telling him to go and find a cure and return to her. It's nice and heartwarming, but ultimately with so much going on, having Jorah set off on his own isn't exactly the most exciting thing out there.
In Mereen, Tyrion and Varys decides to consult a priestess of R'hllor, Kinvara. Who also wears the same necklace as Melisandre, so she's probably secretly an old lady too. Kinvara shares Melisandre's penchant for mysticism, talking about how she saw Tyrion back when he's looking at a different red priestess, and generally being evasive and blaming all of R'hllor's mistakes on humans who aren't competent enough. Tyrion just wants a powerful Daenerys-associated figure to pin all the nice stability on, and Kinvara is happy to declare Daenerys Dragonqueen as the anointed one of the Sun God.
Varys... isn't happy. He gives some pretty harsh criticism about religion and being a fanatic and absolving themselves of all fault, right up until Kinvara gets into Varys's face and asks him if he needed to be reminded that the mysticism is real -- like the voice that spoke when the necromancer burnt little Varys's, well, Little Varys. Poor Varys just looks so stumped and scared! Man, I wonder if the burning of Varys's penis is going to actually be relevant instead of just character background for our favourite Spidery eunuch.
And we finally get to that last scene in the episode, the one that most likely defines what anyone is going to talk about for the next week or two. The scene at the old weirwood with Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, Hodor, Meera, Summer and the Children of the Forest. The roll-call is quite necessary considering what happens next. It starts off innocent enough as we seem to get yet another cryptic backstory flashback lesson courtesy of Bran and the Raven, as we see not the thrice-damned Tower of Joy, but far before that, as we get the unexpected origin story of the White Walkers. The Children of the Forest, apparently, during their ancient war against the humans, used a dragonglass dagger and some weird ritual to transform a human into a White Walker.
And not just any White Walker! The Night's King himself. Whether they were just being assholes or if it was a true necessity for that time, it's hard to say, but whatever they did, it had ramifications even until now. It's a strange and sudden bit of information they're giving us, and we also find a couple of additional tidbits as well. The strange stone/corpse formations associated with White Walker sightings throughout the previous five seasons are near-identical to the rituals done by the Children of the Forest to create White Walkers, and the weirwood tree that the Children of the Forest used to create the Night's King... was the very weirwood that the Raven was rooted to.
It's all a bit mysterious and whatnot, and Bran, total idiot that he is, tries to go green-see on his own. Because, well, while his flashbacks haven't exactly been totally informative in telling us just what our heroes need to do to defeat the giant zombie wight army, it's not like Bran's in a real hurry. And, well, after a really chilling moment as Bran walks through the entire forces of the Undead Scourge, he comes face-to-face with the Night's King himself. Who apparently can see Bran despite him just technically being a phantom or a vision or a whatever.
The Night's King apparently 'marks' Bran through the dreams, which allows the White Walkers to bypass the magic leafy charms they used to repel the White Walkers. Which... I honestly hoped that there was at least a hint or foreshadowing about, but it's not the craziest asspull out there. In any case, the White Walkers' army gives no time for our heroes to plan, and it's all because Bran can't be patient at all because a bunch of immortals who had waited for Bran for thousands of years ended up giving their life just to protect the 'Chosen One'... who, unlike Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins (or even Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen), hasn't exactly proven his worth in why, exactly, he is the one that should be ultra plot-relevant.
The White Walker army are awesome, from the White Walker generals being mounted on undead horses all four horsemen of the Apocalypse like, to the shambling abandon of the undead as they charge and get blown up by the Children of the Forest's awesome seed bombs that look absolutely impressive. (Also, insert obligatory Plants-vs-Zombies joke here). It's a great moment as one by one the nameless Children get slain by the White Walkers, while the lesser undead hordes just circumvent the whole 'holy ring of anti-undead' thing and just swarm the roof and sides of the little underground cave and just tear it apart.
Leaf, the only Children of the Forest to even get a name, ends up kamikaze-ing herself, allowing the wights to swarm over her and as she gets stabbed all over she blows up the last seed bomb. Summer does a stupid kamikaze charge as well, charging into the undead hordes all heroically before being subjected to the most humiliating fate as he gets whacked down to nothing while yelping quite pathetically. Man, those direwolves can't catch a break.
Meera manages to murder one of the White Walker generals with a dragonglass spear, making her only the third person after Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly to murder a White Walker, which is awesome. She's also the only non-Bran character to survive through all this.
While everything is going to hell, Bran and the Raven are, inexplicably, seeing young Ned Stark go off away from Winterfell, which is the least plot-relevant flashback they really could've chosen. The Raven might've been uploading (for lack of a better term) all his knowledge to Bran's brain or some shit, but it's not really clear why they aren't just getting the hell out of dodge at that point. Well, the Raven's physical body ends up being killed and his dream self explodes into smoke. Bran went into a semi-coma.
And something absolutely bizarre yet still quite sensible happens. In the present, Hodor is holding off the only door separating Bran and Meera from being reduced to two tiny parts of the White Walker's undead Scourge. In the dream-world that sees into the past, Bran is witnessing... young Hodor, before his brain broke. And as Bran wargs into Hodor in the present while his... spirit... is greenseeing or timeseeing or whatever, apparently Bran can influence things in the past, even if it's only to create a stable time loop.
Yeah, 'Hodor' is apparently short for 'hold the door', which was somehow transferred from the present day all the way to the Hodor of the past, absolutely frying the poor kid's brain in the past... meaning that despite all our curiousity about the Origin of Hodor, it's a far more tragic story than we thought as something beyond the control of Bran (well, other than him being an idiot and greenseeing without supervision) happens. His warging and self-preservation attempts causes Past!Wyllis to become, well, Hodor, meaning that his entire life has been nothing but to lead him to hold this one door, to perform a noble sacrifice, and there really isn't anything anyone can do about it. Hodor holds the door in a way that would make Gandalf the Grey proud, and gets claws to death while Meera and Bran make their safety.
Is it... worth it, in the end? I certainly would rather have an immortal quasi-human with memories of a thousand years connected to every weirwood in the North, an army of immortal Children of the Forest armed with flaming seeds, a direwolf and a giant of a man as opposed to, well, Meera and Bran, who really don't matter much. And, goddamn it, Hodor's death is as sad as fuck!
It's a very emotional moment, a very touching moment, and honestly it made me a little angry too that Bran has possibly fucked up the most likely venture to stop the White Walkers just because he's a bit antsy about his time-travel powers. A very powerful scene as it mixes tension, action, drama and tears in ways that a good death scene is supposed to do. And, well, even if you might expect Hodor's death this episode (I certainly didn't) who would've thought that it would be this sad?
Hold The Door.
Let's keep that spoiler death until the end so people don't accidentally spoil themselves. I'm absolutely lucky to not have the ending spoiled for me, but it would be totally shitty if you did get it spoiled for you. And if you did get spoiled, it's not going to be from this review, no sir.
Now we go back and forth between several locales, of course. The Castle Black scenes are pretty cool, even if nothing ultimately happened. Sansa Stark finally gets a couple of great scenes as we address the emotional and mental wounds that Ramsay's rape had done to her -- something that last season received justifiable criticism for. Sansa addressing these injuries without breaking down doesn't make them any less horrible, and her confronting Littlefinger who just wants to get back to her good graces is pretty awesome. On one hand, yes, as Brienne points out -- those are the Knights of the Vale, very needed manpower in their fight against the Boltons. On the other hand... when has trusting Littlefinger has ever led well to anybody? Ask Sansa. Or Ned.
It's a pretty awesome line, too. "If you knew, you're my enemy. If you didn't know, you're an idiot."
Of course, even when he's told to fuck off (and he has the decency to look sorry about it, at least) Littlefinger isn't content with just walking off. He plants some doubts in Sansa about Jon, which manifests in two ways -- Sansa pointing out that Jon isn't a trueblooded heir of the Starks in their little strategy meeting, and, as called out by Brienne, the fact that Sansa hid from Jon the information about how she knew about the Blackfish amassing Tully forces. On the other hand, though, Sansa's vote for confidence about Jon, consistently calling him 'my brother' instead of half-brother, and creating a new Ned-Stark-inspired armour for both of them, points the other way. Ah, Sansa, you wonderfully complex character. You've grown a fair bit ever since you were a two-dimensional whiny bitch, yeah?
Oh, and Tormund and Brienne are just easily the most hilarious scenes in the season, and they probably only take three seconds each.
Meanwhile, in Braavos, Arya is sent by "Jaqen H'ghar" to kill a target, a woman that plays Cersei in a local play (that adapts the events of Season One in a very Targaryen/Baratheon-favoured manner), for no real reason. This ain't Assassin's Creed, Arya! She's smart enough to figure out that the younger actress playing Sansa is probably the one that ordered the hit, but "Jaqen" gives no shits, telling Arya that it's the last chance that the Many-Faced God will give her. It's a nice little scene, even if it went too long, to see how the winners write the history. It's a plot element that always appeals, and definitely one that serves as a great reminder how ultimately unsung the deeds of heroic characters like Ned Stark and Tyrion Lannister are, still being vilified in the eyes of the public.
One of the more interesting scenes this episode is the one set in the Iron Islands, as the Kingsmoot begins. Yara's speech get lambasted by people who are all 'we want a king, not a queen', and Theon Greyjoy steps up to the plate, and gives a rousing speech about how Yara Greyjoy is a true Ironborn, and the only real candidate. Right up until Euron shows up, and does not hide the fact that he killed Balon -- citing Balon's rule as weak and inefficient. Also makes fun of Theon's cocklessness.
Euron, though, has an actual plan beyond Yara and Theon's "let's make big ships and stabilize!" Euron wants to make a big fleet too, but instead of just hoping that they can make do, Euron wants to throw in with Daenerys Targaryen and her army of freed slaves, mercenaries and dragons. Oh, Euron also wants to marry Daenerys, but his plan seemed to be more centered in siding with the winners. It's honestly a lot better than Theon and Yara's plan, and really the only reason why we're not siding with the more sensible Euron is that he's a crazy motherfucker whose first rule as king is to declare a manhunt to kill his niece and nephew with the most gleeful tone ever.
Of course, while we get a nice little atmospheric moment of Euron's crowning (which involves the dude getting drowned and having to cough his way to life) with a very awesome narration of the Greyjoy motto ("what is drowned may never die" is probably the most awesome line in the entire series) and the shittiest crown in the world... it also took enough time for Yara and Theon to round up their loyalists... and make away with the entire fleet. Apparently Theon and Yara's speech struck a chord with enough Ironborn. Of course, whether Theon and Yara are planning on reaching Daenerys first, or if they're going to throw their lot in with someone else, we have no idea.
Euron, meanwhile, just demands everyone work to the bone to make even more ships.
In Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys has her new big-ass army even without the Ironborn. Her scenes mostly involve forgiving Jorah, the revelation about his disease, and telling him to go and find a cure and return to her. It's nice and heartwarming, but ultimately with so much going on, having Jorah set off on his own isn't exactly the most exciting thing out there.
In Mereen, Tyrion and Varys decides to consult a priestess of R'hllor, Kinvara. Who also wears the same necklace as Melisandre, so she's probably secretly an old lady too. Kinvara shares Melisandre's penchant for mysticism, talking about how she saw Tyrion back when he's looking at a different red priestess, and generally being evasive and blaming all of R'hllor's mistakes on humans who aren't competent enough. Tyrion just wants a powerful Daenerys-associated figure to pin all the nice stability on, and Kinvara is happy to declare Daenerys Dragonqueen as the anointed one of the Sun God.
Varys... isn't happy. He gives some pretty harsh criticism about religion and being a fanatic and absolving themselves of all fault, right up until Kinvara gets into Varys's face and asks him if he needed to be reminded that the mysticism is real -- like the voice that spoke when the necromancer burnt little Varys's, well, Little Varys. Poor Varys just looks so stumped and scared! Man, I wonder if the burning of Varys's penis is going to actually be relevant instead of just character background for our favourite Spidery eunuch.
And we finally get to that last scene in the episode, the one that most likely defines what anyone is going to talk about for the next week or two. The scene at the old weirwood with Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, Hodor, Meera, Summer and the Children of the Forest. The roll-call is quite necessary considering what happens next. It starts off innocent enough as we seem to get yet another cryptic backstory flashback lesson courtesy of Bran and the Raven, as we see not the thrice-damned Tower of Joy, but far before that, as we get the unexpected origin story of the White Walkers. The Children of the Forest, apparently, during their ancient war against the humans, used a dragonglass dagger and some weird ritual to transform a human into a White Walker.
And not just any White Walker! The Night's King himself. Whether they were just being assholes or if it was a true necessity for that time, it's hard to say, but whatever they did, it had ramifications even until now. It's a strange and sudden bit of information they're giving us, and we also find a couple of additional tidbits as well. The strange stone/corpse formations associated with White Walker sightings throughout the previous five seasons are near-identical to the rituals done by the Children of the Forest to create White Walkers, and the weirwood tree that the Children of the Forest used to create the Night's King... was the very weirwood that the Raven was rooted to.
It's all a bit mysterious and whatnot, and Bran, total idiot that he is, tries to go green-see on his own. Because, well, while his flashbacks haven't exactly been totally informative in telling us just what our heroes need to do to defeat the giant zombie wight army, it's not like Bran's in a real hurry. And, well, after a really chilling moment as Bran walks through the entire forces of the Undead Scourge, he comes face-to-face with the Night's King himself. Who apparently can see Bran despite him just technically being a phantom or a vision or a whatever.
The Night's King apparently 'marks' Bran through the dreams, which allows the White Walkers to bypass the magic leafy charms they used to repel the White Walkers. Which... I honestly hoped that there was at least a hint or foreshadowing about, but it's not the craziest asspull out there. In any case, the White Walkers' army gives no time for our heroes to plan, and it's all because Bran can't be patient at all because a bunch of immortals who had waited for Bran for thousands of years ended up giving their life just to protect the 'Chosen One'... who, unlike Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins (or even Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen), hasn't exactly proven his worth in why, exactly, he is the one that should be ultra plot-relevant.
The White Walker army are awesome, from the White Walker generals being mounted on undead horses all four horsemen of the Apocalypse like, to the shambling abandon of the undead as they charge and get blown up by the Children of the Forest's awesome seed bombs that look absolutely impressive. (Also, insert obligatory Plants-vs-Zombies joke here). It's a great moment as one by one the nameless Children get slain by the White Walkers, while the lesser undead hordes just circumvent the whole 'holy ring of anti-undead' thing and just swarm the roof and sides of the little underground cave and just tear it apart.
Leaf, the only Children of the Forest to even get a name, ends up kamikaze-ing herself, allowing the wights to swarm over her and as she gets stabbed all over she blows up the last seed bomb. Summer does a stupid kamikaze charge as well, charging into the undead hordes all heroically before being subjected to the most humiliating fate as he gets whacked down to nothing while yelping quite pathetically. Man, those direwolves can't catch a break.
Meera manages to murder one of the White Walker generals with a dragonglass spear, making her only the third person after Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly to murder a White Walker, which is awesome. She's also the only non-Bran character to survive through all this.
While everything is going to hell, Bran and the Raven are, inexplicably, seeing young Ned Stark go off away from Winterfell, which is the least plot-relevant flashback they really could've chosen. The Raven might've been uploading (for lack of a better term) all his knowledge to Bran's brain or some shit, but it's not really clear why they aren't just getting the hell out of dodge at that point. Well, the Raven's physical body ends up being killed and his dream self explodes into smoke. Bran went into a semi-coma.
And something absolutely bizarre yet still quite sensible happens. In the present, Hodor is holding off the only door separating Bran and Meera from being reduced to two tiny parts of the White Walker's undead Scourge. In the dream-world that sees into the past, Bran is witnessing... young Hodor, before his brain broke. And as Bran wargs into Hodor in the present while his... spirit... is greenseeing or timeseeing or whatever, apparently Bran can influence things in the past, even if it's only to create a stable time loop.
Yeah, 'Hodor' is apparently short for 'hold the door', which was somehow transferred from the present day all the way to the Hodor of the past, absolutely frying the poor kid's brain in the past... meaning that despite all our curiousity about the Origin of Hodor, it's a far more tragic story than we thought as something beyond the control of Bran (well, other than him being an idiot and greenseeing without supervision) happens. His warging and self-preservation attempts causes Past!Wyllis to become, well, Hodor, meaning that his entire life has been nothing but to lead him to hold this one door, to perform a noble sacrifice, and there really isn't anything anyone can do about it. Hodor holds the door in a way that would make Gandalf the Grey proud, and gets claws to death while Meera and Bran make their safety.
Is it... worth it, in the end? I certainly would rather have an immortal quasi-human with memories of a thousand years connected to every weirwood in the North, an army of immortal Children of the Forest armed with flaming seeds, a direwolf and a giant of a man as opposed to, well, Meera and Bran, who really don't matter much. And, goddamn it, Hodor's death is as sad as fuck!
It's a very emotional moment, a very touching moment, and honestly it made me a little angry too that Bran has possibly fucked up the most likely venture to stop the White Walkers just because he's a bit antsy about his time-travel powers. A very powerful scene as it mixes tension, action, drama and tears in ways that a good death scene is supposed to do. And, well, even if you might expect Hodor's death this episode (I certainly didn't) who would've thought that it would be this sad?
Hold The Door.
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