It has never been the practice of Game of Thrones to end a season on a massive cliffhanger or series of major plot twists.  But why should this season play to convention?  “Hardhome” is ostensibly the kind of action and gut-punching that would come in Episode 9 of a season, after all.  Pretty much everything since the controversial Ramsey/Sansa scene has seemingly been designed to both shake this season out of its early malaise and defy audience expectation.

 

 

I might as well start with the beginning.  A number of fans were angry, and justifiably so, by Stannis’ decision to burn Shireen to death in the name of achieving his destiny.  Well, one might be tempted to say he met it rather definitively!  And it didn’t take long for Melisandre to see the writing on the wall.  The Lord of Light may have given someone favor, but it wasn’t Stannis Baratheon.  Over and over again, Stannis is treated to the consequences of his actions, and his end (which had to happen to clear the North for someone else) was well-deserved.

 

Of course, a few things come to mind.  We never quite saw Stannis die; Brienne swung that sword, her intent seemingly obvious, but Game of Thrones is rarely of the habit of panning away from violent acts.  Not even elsewhere in the episode!  So I wonder if that means something.  Also, it is not remotely random that Melisandre returned to Castle Black instead of staying with Stannis.  There is someone else with king’s blood in that general vicinity, after all!

 

 

I suppose I shouldn’t bother putting that one off, should I?  Jon Snow was always going to pay the iron price for going the right thing, because that’s the way things work in Westeros.  However, I find Kit Harrington’s claims to be done with Game of Thrones to be hilarious.  If his contract extensions weren’t a known quantity, then the fact that others have played this very obvious game (see: Stephen Amell) only reinforces what anyone with insight into the story knows: Jon Snow is very much still in the game.

 

Unless the writers of the show are going to shockingly have Sansa step into Jon’s intended role, something that would derail a number of plot elements seeded throughout the series, Jon’s death is rather important.  For one thing, Melisandre was eyeing him earlier in the season and even alluded to his potential future when she tried to seduce him.  She can resurrect the dead, as other Red Priests have done.  If hints to Jon’s family lineage pan out, if she does bring him back, there’s a damn good chance burning him won’t mean a damn thing.  Oh, and that oath to the Night’s Watch?  It is null and void upon death.  Funny how that would eliminate those issues about claiming titles, wives, etc., isn’t it?  So rest easy, Jon Snow fans, I seriously doubt he is out of the picture!

 

 

Over in Meereen, I’m a little disappointed that Tyrion won’t be going along on the quest to find Dany, but having Jorah and Daario bicker now and then will be fun.  And it actually makes a lot of sense to have Tyrion, Varys, and the rest of the gang run Meereen in Dany’s absence.  I still see the challenges to her rule in Meereen to come into play, but considering that she just met another tribe of Dothraki who might eventually be inclined to help her return to Meereen and put down her enemies, maintaining the Targaryen control of Slaver’s Bay is all that is required.

 

Speaking of Dany, I’m a little disappointed that a rather major plot element that should have taken place during her time away with Drogon was skipped.  It might come into play later, considering that some other plot threads have seen some rearrangement of plot elements, to say the least.  But the missing plot point corrects a certain misconception that changes the outlook of Dany’s future.  Let’s just say that Dany’s restoration of a Targaryen dynasty seems to hold a rather important complicating factor that may not be a factor after all.

 

 

Wandering a bit more to the west, but still in Essos, my favorite part of the episode had to be the awesome and brutal introduction to the very deadly Arya Stark.  More than once, I wondered if we were being treated to a dream sequence, but Arya’s dispatch of Ser Meryn Trant was brilliant.  Arya continues to prove out all of the complaints about Sansa’s lack of agency, because for every step that Sansa takes in the right direction, Arya takes leaps and bounds.

 

The consequences that Arya must suffer are a bit confusing, though it does perhaps prove out my theory that “Jaqen” is not, and never has been, the “Jaqen” we met in the second season.  It’s not quite clear what happened, but Arya was always going to pay for stepping outside the role of the Faceless Ones to dispense justice on the terms of the Many-Faced God.  Yet her talent is without question, and it’s more a matter of correction than rejection.  In the source material, her blindness came earlier and was irritating, so hopefully this lesson will pass quickly in the sixth season.

 

 

Across the Narrow Sea, the writers did everything possible to make something out of the disappointment that has been the Sand Snakes.  In the source material, Myrcella was maimed at one point, and that was going to become a sticking point between the Lannisters and the Martells.  Also, Prince Doran was revealed as playing his own long game.  Doran’s role might still come into play in the sixth season (it would be easy enough to redirect his plans to align with the simplifications of the adaptation), but I suppose we now have Myrcella’s death to initiate whatever is to come between King’s Landing and Dorne.

 

One might wonder if Tommen and/or his family will try to use the Sparrows against Dorne; it would seem easy enough to point the religiously righteous in the direction of perhaps the most decadent region of Westeros.  And it would have the benefit, perhaps, of turning the attention of the High Sparrow from the Lannisters for a time.  Since the constant strife in Westeros continues to be designed to weaken the existing powers to make Dany’s arrival to stop the march of the White Walkers a lot easier, something has to weaken the Sparrows as well.  They certainly wouldn’t like the idea of a Targaryen coming in and stripping away their authority again!

 

 

Which brings me to the scene that will no doubt anger many: the Walk of Atonement of Cersei Lannister.  I can only imagine the reactions from those who accuse the series of denigrating women; that this is a major plot element of Cersei’s downfall in the source material is not necessarily a defense of how it was portrayed.  It certainly lasted much longer than I anticipated.  However, that all said, the long march allowed the audience to experience what I believe was intended: first, a bit of satisfaction to see Cersei finally brought low, and then rising horror at how badly she was being mistreated by the misogynist masses.  It makes the prospect of  Dany coming along and delivering harsh justice on the patriarchy a rather delicious thought.  (The hint that Cersei and the Lannisters aren’t done with their machinations is, perhaps, a sign that even those brought low might never learn true humility.)

 

And so ends this season of Game of Thrones.  If this season was full of changes from the source material and massive excisions of subplots to allow for the condensing of two massive books into ten episodes, then the sixth season will be new territory for everyone.  There’s little chance that George R. R. Martin will get the sixth volume on the shelves before the new season, after all, and just about every plot thread has made it to the end of the existing source material.  So no one truly knows where the story goes from here; only where the foreshadowing has been beating the audience about the head for five seasons gives any indication.  Regardless, it is going to be a very long wait for April 2016!