The Door

Season 6, episode 5

[Be warned: here there be spoilers, including for the movie '12 Monkeys'.]

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Well we're half way through the season already. I forgot to mention in my introductory posts that my reviews will have spoilers, although that's probably pretty obvious.

Spoiler one: the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers. Not much detail given, but okay, a sort of Frankenstein's monster scenario on a wider scale.

Sansa meets Balish for the first time since he gave her to the Boltons. He seems genuinely bothered by what happened to her, and certainly it was never established that he knew what an evil sadistic shit Ramsey was. Still, I just think he will keep betraying people and they'll never learn.

I previously had a suspicion, based partly on rumours I've read for season 6, that Sansa will fall back into the hands of Ramsey, who will murder her before he eventually gets killed. I won't go into the details yet as I currently doubt this will be the case, but if things go too far south for Sansa - literally and figuratively - I'll be worried.

I think it would be a huge mistake in storytelling as Sansa's character development has been one of the most interesting and the most organic of the show. To waste that on a 'shock death that reminds us that on this show anyone can die at any moment didn't you know?' with the only relevance being how it further motivates a male character (Jon), would be a shame. Winter is coming, but that doesn't mean they should start putting women in refrigerators.

In Meereen, it was oddly disturbing to see Varys completely thrown by the local Lord of Light High Priestess's response to his cross-examination.

Meanwhile, in the Iron Sands poor Theon still can't catch a break. He did the right thing and supported his sister and it almost worked, but then Euron just turns up and takes the title. I thought the writing here wasn't great: his argument that got (almost) everyone at on his side was pretty weak and relied on many claims that the no one had any reason to believe from a person they wouldn't have any reason to give the benefit of the doubt. I guess it could be argued that this demonstrates just how difficult it is to get a patriarchal society to choose a Queen when they can have a King. She has to achieve twice as much and only gets half the credit.

The other major revelation: oh no Hodor's dead! My guess is that the moment Hodor in the past went from saying 'hold the door' to clearly saying 'Hodor', was the 'moment' that his future self died. Possibly the most heartbreaking death of the series after Shireen's* and the Red Wedding.

[*Although I also thought Shireen's death was excessive. Another example where the show runners got carried away with their 'we will shock you you with what cruel things people are willing to do'.]

I wonder if George R R Martin watched the film 12 Monkeys, and thought he could top it with an even more tragic, elaborate version. In that film Cole as a child witnesses his future death (also obviously involving time travel but achieved in a different way than the The Door). Both cases of men spending most of their lives haunted by seeing their own death. Except in Cole's case he didn't realise it, he just had unexplained visions of a death. Hodor, on the other hand, was left to some degree aware of the sacrifice he would be called on to make.