Spoilers for the latest episode of Game of Thrones follow, obviously.
This season, Game of Thrones set out for unexplored territory, moving past the stories in the glacially slow print novels or changing them in significant ways. For the first time, it's difficult or even impossible to know what the "real" story is, and that's part of what makes it so exciting.
This week, we get everything you expect from a Game of Thrones finale: shocking twists, massive betrayals, and the possible deaths of more than one main character. But the most exciting thing about it might be that for the first time in the history of the show, no one in the audience knows what's going to happen next.
In the aftermath of the queen's flight from the fighting pits, her supporting cast gathers in the throne room to figure out what to do. Jorah and Daario decide to head north after the dragon and try to track her down, while Tyrion stays behind to manage the city. Grey Worm will serve as the more visible figurehead, with Tyrion governing from behind the scenes. Varys appears as well to complete the political dream team, and offer the new shadow ruler help from his network of spies. Honestly, if the next season of the show is just a Meereenese version of The West Wing starring these two champs, I would not be upset.
Meanwhile, Daenerys finds herself stranded in the wilderness, where her slightly wounded and possibly lazy dragon refuses to take her back to Meereen. Instead of actually going anywhere, he just wants to lie around on the bones of his enemies and sleep, which is like the dragon version of watching Netflix. She decides to take a walk across the Lord of the Rings landscape, and soon sees a horse—then four, then dozens. It's the Dothraki. The moment she sees the khalasar descending, she takes off her ring and drops it quietly in the grass, a gleaming little breadcrumb for Jorah and Daario to pick up. The swirling mass of riders circles her, thousands strong, until she almost seems to disappear.
In the books: After her escape, Dany finds herself stranded in the Dothraki Sea (note: not an actual sea) with Drogon, who lets her fly around on his back but won't take her back to Meereen. When she gets hungry enough, she decides to start sharing some of Drogon's kills; when the Dothraki find her, she's standing beside a massive black dragon and eating a horse with her bare hands.
Rather than the full force of the khalasar, however, it's a much smaller party: Jhaqo, the khal who replaced Drogo and fifty of his 20,000 riders. Note that Dany really hates Jhaqo; After he proclaimed himself khal, one of his bloodriders took a girl named Eroeh from Dany, had her gang-raped and then killed her. Dany pledged to every god imaginable that "before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh." Think about it this way: If Daenerys had an Arya-style hit list, Jhaqo would be her Meryn Trant.
Jaime and Myrcella set sail for King's Landing, after bidding farewell to Doran and company. Elliara gives Myrcella what seems like an uncomfortably long kiss, but hey—maybe that's just how they do things in Dorne. On their way back, Jaime finally decides to get real with his secret daughter, but after he fumbles around for a while about how love is complicated, Myrcella stops him and says that she already knows the truth about him and Cersei. "And I'm glad. I'm glad that you're my father."
It's one of the greatest moments of his life, the first time when he is not only known but loved and accepted by one of his children. His joy lasts about five seconds, and then Myrcella starts bleeding from her nose. Back on the docks, Elliara wipes what seems to be poisoned lipstick from her lips, drinks what seems to be an antidote from a small vial, and leaves the docks, her vengeance finally sated.
In the books: Jaime never goes to Dorne and Myrcella never comes back from it. Although she loses an ear during a kidnapping attempt led by Doran's daughter, she hasn't died. There's no way to know whether this means she'll die in the books as well, although Maggy the Frog did promise Cersei that she'd see her children wear three golden shrouds, a prophecy that now seems two-thirds fulfilled.
Back in the solitary confinement of the Seven, Cersei is not doing well. This time, when the septa arrives with her daily demand for confession, she agrees and finds herself kneeling at the feet of the High Sparrow. Quiet and contrite, she admits to adultery with Lancel but denies everything else, especially the claims of incest that would threaten her children. The High Sparrow says that she'll still need to have a trial but thanks to her confession, she's free to go back to the Red Keep—after her atonement, of course.
That sounds ominous, which is accurate because it's going to be the worst. The septas come to give her an almost comically rough scrub-down to remove her accumulated filth, and cut off all her beautiful hair. Soon, she finds herself at the steps of the sept with the entire city watching as the High Sparrow announces her repentance, saying she will "cast aside all pride, all artifice, and present herself as the gods made her." They take her clothes, and force her to walk naked through the entire city while a septa walks behind her ringing a bell and shouting "SHAME" over and over like the world's most joyless bird. The throngs of people crowding around her call her a cunt, throw food and possibly excrement at her, and jeer at her until she stumbles and finally falls on her bloody feet.
If it seems like this scene goes on for a really, really long time, that's because it does: around 10 minutes by my count. It's incredibly upsetting, in part because it's such a perfect snapshot of misogyny: a woman stripped naked against her will for being insufficiently chaste and modest is forced to walk through the streets while people call her a whore and threaten to sexually assault her. In a certain sense, Cersei's punishment is the female experience writ large: the cruelty and indignity of being a woman surrounded by people who feel entitled to control, judge and demean you on the basis of your body. I haven't always loved Cersei, but real talk: I hope she heads back to the Great Sept with an army and burns it to the ground.
When she arrives at the Red Keep weeping and stumbling, her uncle Kevan is standing stoically nearby, but Qyburn is the one who rushes in to comforts her and wrap her in a cloak. He also offers her a gift: the newest member of the Kingsguard, a nameless knight in golden armor who stands at least seven feet tall. Qyburn claims that the knight has taken a vow of silence, and will not speak "until all his Grace's enemies are dead." So, basically never. The eyes behind the helm are oddly red, the skin gray. Given the talks between Qyburn and Cersei about his "experiments," and the strange, jerking body we saw beneath the sheet in his laboratory, I suspect that Cersei knows exactly who or what this new knight is. Perhaps that's why, despite everything, her tears stop when her literal knight in shining armor sweeps her up in his arms and carries her away.
Cersei always located her power and identity in her beauty, sometimes by necessity, much like Jaime found it in his sword hand. Now that they've both suffered such terrible losses around the things that once defined them, it will be interesting to see if she changes as much as Jaime did—for better or worse.
In the books: The Silent Sisters shave all hair from Cersei's body, rather than just cut her hair. Right before she begins the walk she remembers that this was where Ned Stark was beheaded, an act that ultimately led her to this moment. She also recalls that after the death of her grandfather, Tywin did the same thing to his father's mistress, humbling her by forcing her to walk through the streets naked. The silent, massive knight is named as Ser Robert Strong, and there is a rather well-supported fan theory about who he might be. Read it here, if you dare. The last words we hear from Cersei are her response to Qyburn's promise that Strong would kill all her enemies: "Yes, oh yes."
The winter storm that halted the march on Winterfell has finally thawed, and Melisandre is both thrilled and 100-percent sure that it's her reward for murdering a little girl. She's been consulting her weird fires again, and she informs Stannis that the future is bright: "The Lord has shown me Bolton banners burning." Have they also shown you lecherous Lannisters luging or mild-manner maesters making milkshakes? Whenever Melisandre's Fun-Time Coloring Book of Fire Visions goes on sale, sign me up for a copy.
Stannis is less thrilled because his daughter is dead, but things are about to get much worse. He finds his wife Selyse hanging from a tree, an apparent suicide. And the hits keep on coming: the sellswords that made up half of Stannis's army fled in the night, taking all the horses with them. And then comes the final blow: the news that Melisandre herself has fled this sinking ship, galloping out of the camp on horseback.
The last Baratheon brother barely pauses when he hears of this final betrayal. The only way is forward: He tells the men to get in formation and march. They walk on foot with their ragged banners to Winterfell but there aren't many of them left. You don't really see how small the army has become until the vastly larger Bolton forces surge around them in a swarm formation and attack like a virus. One soldier screams, "We've got no chance!" And he's right.
In the aftermath, Stannis staggers to his feet among the bodies and cuts down two more Bolton soldiers, but not before taking a nasty wound to the leg. As he slumps against a tree, a figure emerges: Brienne of Tarth. She accuses him of murdering his brother Renly with blood magic, the accusation she has repeated often but few people have believed. "I did," he admits. As she sentences him to die for his crimes, she asks him if he has any last words. He answers with the Stannis-est possible reply: "Go on, do your duty." She swings the blade.
In the books: Rather than betraying Stannis and riding back to the Wall, Melisandre simply never leaves, staying behind when his army sets out for Winterfell. We never find out what happens when he reaches Winterfell. For her part, Brienne is absolutely nowhere near the North at any point in the existing books; instead, she's still wandering around the Riverlands looking for Sansa. I know I say that every week and it's starting to get tiresome, but I promise it's more tiresome when you actually have to read it.
With a little help from a stolen corkscrew, Sansa escapes from her locked bedroom and wanders through the chaos at Winterfell to the broken tower, where she finally lights the candle just a moment too late for Brienne to see it. Apparently she waits around in the tower for the entirety of the battle, because when she finally heads back across the courtyard, the triumphant Bolton troops are already returning. She tries to slip back to her room without anyone noticing, but someone does: a bow-wielding Myranda, who's eager to torment the woman who was elevated above her.
Perhaps the most time-honored way to remove a woman's humanity is to reduce her to biological functions, and so that's exactly what Myranda does. She tells Sansa that while Ramsay might need her claim, "he doesn't need all of you. Just the parts he needs to make his heir, until you've given a boy or two and he's finished using them. Then he's got incredible plans for those parts."
Theon suddenly snaps and pushes Myranda off the balcony. She falls, landing with a wet crack on the courtyard below. When the gates open moments later and Ramsay's men start to return from the battle, Sansa and Theon exchange a look; they both know what will happen to them when Ramsay finds out. And so they step up to the edge of the ramparts, hold hands, and jump off.
In the books: Sansa never returns to Winterfell; instead, her childhood friend Jeyne is propped up as an impostor Arya Stark and married off to Ramsay. There is no confrontation with Myranda because Myranda doesn't exist in the books, but Theon and Jeyne do ultimately try to escape. When the traumatized Jeyne lets out an ill-advised scream that draws the attention of the guards, Theon throws himself and Jeyne off the ramparts rather than fall into Ramsay's hands again.
As promised, there are fresh underage girls waiting for Meryn Trant at the brothel in Braavos, and since he's not just a pedophile but a sadist, he begins by hitting them with a stick. The first two react to the blows, but the third one stays silent and still, even when he hits her again hard enough to break the switch. Guess all those times Trant beat Sansa for Joffrey were pleasure, as well as business.
He chooses the silent girl, and after the others leave, her punches her in the stomach, dropping her to ground. We don't recognize the face that looks up—until she pulls the face away. Underneath it is Arya Stark, who lunges at Trant with a knife and plunges it into his eye. After blinding his other eye, she gags his mouth to quiet the screams, and just keeps stabbing. "Do you know who I am? You know who I am. I'm Arya Stark," she tells him. And then she cuts his throat—the way someone once cut her mother's—and leaves his body on the floor.
It's the bloody, vicious triumph so many Arya fans have been waiting for. In Karate Kid terms, it's the moment where she kicks the Cobra Kai kid in the face and wins the tournament. But Jaqen is not Mister Miyagi, and he's not interested in helping her win any murder trophies. For the Faceless Men, death is a gift you give, not one you take for yourself.
There's a reason she couldn't throw away Needle, Arya Stark's sword: she wasn't ready to give up Arya Stark's revenge. And so when she returns to the House of Black, Jaqen informs her that she has stolen a life from the Many-Faced God, and a debt is owed. At first, it seems like he is going to force poison down her throat, but Jaqen empties the vial down his own throat instead, and falls dead to the ground.
Arya weeps, screaming that he was her friend, but not everyone agrees on that point. "He was no one," says Jaqen, appearing suddenly behind her. "The faces are for no one. You are still someone. And to someone, the faces are as good as poison." When Arya reaches out to touch the corpse, its face pulls away to reveal another face, then another, then another, until the last face is hers. It's the last thing she sees before she goes blind.
In the books: This scene mixes up two different parts of Arya's story: something that happens earlier, and something that happens later. The murder takes place in The Winds of Winter, a book that hasn't actually been published yet. It appeared in one of the preview chapters posted on George R. R. Martin's website, and if you don't want to know any more about it, skip to the next section.
Instead of Meryn Trant, Arya encounters someone else on her hit list: Raff the Sweetling, who killed her friend Lommy back at Harrenhal. She tells Raff that she's been paid to "please" him, and after he follows her to an empty room, she kills him in a way that mirrors Lommy's death. Although Arya does go blind during her time at the House of Black and White, this happens earlier and is part of her training rather than a punishment. After she completes her training and her sight is restored, that's when she's told to assassinate the corrupt insurance salesman, not before.
Safely back at Castle Black, Jon writes his own recap of the last episode for Sam, explaining how the White Walkers are coming to kill them all with an undead army tens of thousands strong. Sam has equally exciting news: He's not longer a virgin! In light of this sexy fact, he begs Jon to send him, Gilly and her baby to Oldtown, so they can escape all the rapists, and give Sam a chance to become a Maester to ultimately replace Aemon at the Wall. Jon agrees.
As the Lord Commander broods in his office one night after Sam's departure, Olly bursts in with some surprising news. They've found a Wildling who claims to knows the whereabouts of his Uncle Benjen, a ranger who disappeared beyond the wall in the first season. Jon rushes out to hear what he has to say, and he finds a small band of his sworn brothers waiting for him with knives, circled around a cross that reads "TRAITOR."
Jon dies the same way Julius Caesar did: stabbed to death over and over again by his former peers and friends. With Caesar, the assassins claimed they were doing it for the Republic, while Jon's killers shout, "for the Watch!" The first man to stab him is Ser Alliser, whom he forgave and elevated to First Ranger, and the last is Olly, the young orphan boy he took under his wing. The look on Jon's face when Olly stabs him is the most heartbreaking of all, perhaps because he loved him a little bit, maybe like a father would. Caesar had an Olly too, except he was named Brutus. The last thing we see this season is the blood seeping into the snow around Jon's body, and the light going out of his eyes.
In the books When Sam and Gilly head for Oldtown, they're accompanied by Maester Aemon, who is still very much alive. Also alive: Mance Rayder, whose death was faked by Melisandre and Stannis. When Jon hears that Arya is being married to Ramsay, he sends Mance to rescue her. Although we don't know for sure if Stannis was truly defeated at Winterfell, Jon receives a taunting letter from Ramsay that not only has Stannis been crushed, but he now holds Mance captive. Jon rallies both the Wildlings and volunteers from the Night's Watch to march against the Boltons—a betrayal of his vow to take no part in external conflicts. That's the final straw that inspires the mutiny, which is led not by Alliser Thorne but by Lord Stewart Bowen Marsh. Olly doesn't take part, because Olly doesn't exist.
