Recap / Game of Thrones S6E5: "The Door"

Within Castle Black, Sansa puts some more stitches into her needlework before receiving a message sealed with a red mockingbird. It's an invitation from Littlefinger to meet at Mole's Town. With Brienne by her side, Sansa puts Littlefinger on the spot for handing her over to a psychopathic sadist and demands an apology: "You freed me from monsters who killed my family and gave me to other monsters who killed my family." Littlefinger isn't prepared to offer one, but he does offer one useful tidbit: Sansa's uncle, Brynden Tully, called The Blackfish, has raised an army and retaken Riverrun, and will doubtless be willing to help avenge his niece's fortunes.

Over in Braavos, No One (Arya) is still training at stick-fighting with the Waif. The Waif defeats her handily, claiming that "Lady Stark" will never be a full member of the Faceless Men. The man who calls himself Jaqen H'ghar claims that the Jerkass Has a Point, as most of the original Faceless Men were slaves toiling away in the mines of Valyria. To test his theory, he gives a girl orders to kill an actress who is participating in a bawdy re-enactment of the events of Season 1, which annoys a girl with how her father is portrayed. A girl observes that the actress does not seem to deserve death, but Jaqen H'ghar tells her to follow orders.

Beyond The Wall, Bran and The Three-Eyed Raven are greenseeing into something important: the children of the forest driving what looks like a blade of obsidian into the chest of a man who has been bound to a weirwood tree. This man becomes the first White Walker. Leaf explains that the White Walkers were created as an act of desperation: long ago, the Children of the Forest were being invaded by the First Men, and losing. Obviously they regret this decision now, but regret won't stop winter from coming.

In the Iron Islands, the kingsmoot occurs. Only two people make their claim. The first is Yara, who is mostly laughed down, especially when a trueborn son of Balon Greyjoy is present. But Theon adds his voice to Yara's and supports her claim, proclaiming Yara is the best option they have. Unfortunately, the whole thing falls apart when their uncle Euron Greyjoy makes his claim. He has heard of someone across the narrow sea who hates the lords of the Seven Kingdoms as much as the ironborn do, and possibly more; someone who also has the one weapon that conquered the Seven Kingdoms: dragons. Yes, Euron Greyjoy intends to ally with Daenerys Targaryen, proposing to build a giant fleet with which to serve her. This is enough to win him the Salt Throne. While Euron is baptized in the traditional ironborn way—drowning—Theon and Yara make a break for it, stealing the best longships of the Iron Fleet. This proves a prudent decision, as King Euron's first official act is to order his niece and nephew slain. Since they're out of his grasp, he moves forward with his plans to enlarge the Iron Fleet.

Outside Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys confronts her two rescuers. Mostly she is concerned with Jorah Mormont, who she exiled twice and who has ignored her both times. She claims that she can neither welcome him back nor send him away. Jorah admits his unrequited love for her, but also admits that he has greyscale, and claims that Daenerys had best pick the second option. Instead, the queen takes a third: she sends him away to find a cure, so that she can welcome him back later when she begins her conquest of Westeros. Jorah watches her ride away at the head of the might of the Dothraki before setting off on his quest.

In Meereen, Tyrion, Grey Worm, Missandei and Varys ponder the fortnight of peace that Tyrion's end-slavery-in-seven-years deal has brought. They decide that they need a figurehead who can sell not only the peace, but the prosperity that Daenerys (or rather they, in her name) has crafted, and settle on Kinvara, high priestess of R'hllor. She is an unsettling figure, managing even to make Varys uncomfortable. However, if she can intimidate him, the people of Meereen will probably fall in line.

We return to Beyond The Wall with Bran, who takes an unscheduled greenseeing trip of his own. He returns to the weirwood where the first White Walker was made all those millennia ago, and finds himself amidst an army of wights, led by the Night's King. The Night's King touches Bran, marking him and allowing the Walkers to penetrate the sanctuary of the cave. The Three-Eyed Raven announces that it is time for Bran to leave.

At Castle Black, Jon has assembled his war council, consisting of his sister Sansa, Brienne, Ser Davos (and Melisandre), Dolorous Edd and Tormund Giantsbane. Ser Davos delivers the sitrep, pointing out that House Umber has sworn to House Bolton directly, as has House Karstark. Sansa dismisses the Umbers out of hand — "They gave Rickon to our enemies, they can hang" — but wonders if the Karstarks can be swayed. Ser Davos counters with the reminder that they watched a Stark behead their lord. Sansa and Jon settle on rallying the smaller houses of the North — Mormont, Cerwyn, Manderly, Hornwood, Tallhart, etc — which they hope to supplement using the Tully army Sansa has mentioned, which — she claims — she heard about from a raven that Ramsay received just before she left. To this end, she sends Brienne on a quest to contact the Blackfish directly, since Ramsay can intercept any raven they send from Castle Black. She explains her brother Jon will protect her and that she trusts him, but Briennne isn't worried about leaving Sansa with her brother as she sees Jon as trustworthy (rather, Brienne isn't so sure about the others: Davos, Melisandre, and Tormund). She has an Armor-Piercing Question for her liege lady: why did she lie about how she learned of the Tully army? Sansa has no answer.

With that, the war party saddles up: Jon, Sansa, Tormund, Ser Davos, Melisandre and Brienne (Tormund continues to make eyes at the Beauty). Sansa has enforced Jon's Significant Wardrobe Shift by sewing him a cloak that resembles the one their father Ned wore. The party sets out to rally the North... thus leaving Dolorous Edd as the 999th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, much to his dismay.

In the Cave beyond the Wall, Meera and Hodor make their preparations — only to discover that the White Walkers have arrived. Leaf and the few remaining Children of the Forest fight a fierce delaying action, and Meera kills a White Walker with her dragonglass-tipped spear, but one by one the children are struck down. Summer, the direwolf, hurls himself into the fray. He does not emerge.

Bran doesn't see any of it: he and The Three-Eyed Raven are watching a scene in Winterfell where a young Ned Stark is being sent away to the Vale of Arryn by his father Rickard (where he will meet a young man named Robert Baratheon and forge a lifelong friendship). Even as the Three-Eyed Raven is struck down in the real world and dissolves out of the green dream, Bran hears Meera's yelling: "Hodor! Help! Bran, warg into Hodor!" By now, she and Hodor are fleeing, battling with a giant wooden door, trying to get it open, trying to hold it closed against a rushing onslaught of undead. "Hold the door!" Meera screams.

And Bran — the one in the green dream — wargs into the Wylis of forty years ago, who was the young stableboy who can still talk.

Wylis topples over, twitching, with his eyes white, as Stark household members — both real and time-traveling — descend on him. Intercut is Hodor, pushing the door back against the inevitable tide of wights. In the distance, Meera disappears into the snow, lugging Bran's comatose form on a sledge. Young Wylis' eyes stare wide, unseeing at the sky, as Bran imprints on him the geas that will rule his life and death.

"Hold the door!" he repeats. "Hold thdoor! Hold door! Holddoor! Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!"

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This episode contains the following tropes:

• 0% Approval Rating: Euron freely confesses he murdered his brother, (even saying that his only regret is that he didn't do it sooner) relying on Balon's lack of popularity to get away scot-free.
• A House Divided: The Lord of Light now has two champions. Melisandre believes in Jon Snow while Kinvara believes in Daenerys and urges others to do the same.
• Adapted Out
  • Victarion Greyjoy is completely absent and may very well not exist in the show's canon. The other candidates in the kingsmoot (Lord Gylbert Farwynd, Erik Ironmaker, and Lord Dunstan Drumm) are absent as well. There is also no mention or hint of Aeron Greyjoy's hatred of Euron.
  • In-Universe, the play omits the existence of Stannis (it is made to look like Ned wanted to be king) or Arya (who is actually watching).
• Adaptation Personality Change: The play depicting season 1 has a different take on the characters involved.
  • Joffrey is a well meaning but ineffective ruler.
  • Cersei is kind and not at all involved in treason.
  • Ned is a greedy buffoon.
  • Tyrion is the villain responsible for everything.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: In-universe example. The play depicting the events of Season 1 is made Denser and Wackier relying mainly on Toilet Humor and Black Comedy.
• Adaptational Context Change: While the event has yet to occur in the books, GRRM has indicated that there won’t be can actual door for Hodor to hold, with him instead being told to hold a corridor.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • The Children of the Forest as creators of the White Walkers get this. ^{In the books...}, the author has repeatedly insisted that the White Walkers are akin to The Fair Folk and not of human origin, and so presumably cannot be monsters transformed from men by another species.
  • While not a traditionally "heroic" character in either continuity, the show version of Aeron goes along with Euron's plan to kill Yara and Theon, something his page-bound counterpart would have resisted.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Arya in this episode is easily swayed by the play in Braavos. In the excerpted chapter Mercy from which the scene derives from, she was an actress in the play, playing Sansa and was so immersed and competent at her task that the content of the show didn't get to her at all. That being said, so far there's been no mention of Ned in the books version of the play, which instead focuses on Tyrion and seems to be more of a tragedy in the vein of Macbeth or Richard III.
  • Yara speaks which much less cockiness than her book counterpart Asha.
  • Euron doesn't appear to have magic items or powers, unlike his book counterpart, and his rallying speech is less powerful because of it.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The Viewer's Guide reveals that the play is called "The Bloody Hand", just like its book counterpart. The Viewer's Guide also confirms that Aeron the Drowned Man is Aeron Greyjoy, a.k.a. "Damphair", brother of Balon and Euron. The Greyjoy family tree confirms Aeron is the youngest of the three in show canon as well.
  • The Winds of Winter mentions the names of some the rest of the mummers: King Robert is played by Izembaro and the boar is played by Brusco.
  • Not much has been said in the show itself about the more ancient history of Westeros (though the animated Blu-ray featurettes cover it). A short summary is contained here.^note Once upon a time, the children of the forest ruled all of Westeros. But then a migration of Homo sapiens came across the narrow sea: the First Men, with weapons of bronze. After centuries of conflict, the two peoples formed the Pact, saying that the children would be unmolested in the deep forests, while men had dominion over the open lands. The First Men also adopted the children's religion: the worship of the white weirwood trees which House Stark, amongst others, still practices today. The two races, in alliance, even weathered the first advance of the White Walkers, the "War for the Dawn," after which the Wall was created and the Night's Watch formed. But after that came the Andals, with their steel and their Faith of the Seven; they beat back the First Men and the children both, which is why the blood and traditions of the First Men are strongest in the North, while the six southron kingdoms mostly keep the Faith of the Seven. The children, meanwhile, dwindled and disappeared; the ones guarding Brynden Bloodraven are the first to have been seen since the Andal invasion, some six thousand years ago. They may also have been the last.
  • Inside the Episode #5 reveals a few tidbits that aren't obvious in the episode, itself: that Bran didn't intentionally seek visions of the White Walkers, but ended up in the Night's King's presence by chance, and that both he and the Three-Eyed Raven remained comatose during the climactic scene because the Raven was trying to "upload" as much of his knowledge to Bran as he possibly could before his death, and the process apparently couldn't be easily stopped.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: At the climax, the White Walkers and their wight army assaults the Three-Eyed Raven's cave.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Jorah tells Daenerys (in front of Daario) that Tyrion was right; that he does love her and he will always love her when he finally reveals that he's been slowly dying of greyscale. Whether Daenerys returns his love or doesn't has yet to be seen, but she does forgive him and demands that he find a cure and promptly return to her side.
• Anti-Intellectualism: Euron mocks his nephew Theon for using a fancy word like "gallivanting".
• Arc Symbol: The reason for the spiral symbol around White Walker and wight locations is finally revealed: it is a symbol used in the rituals of the Children of the Forest to create the White Walkers.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When Davos points out how the Northerners' loyalty is different from each other, Sansa tries defending their loyalty only for Davos to ask her how many rose up against the Boltons when they betrayed her family, which Sansa couldn't answer.
  • Sansa can't answer when Brienne asks her why she lied to Jon about the source of her information.
  • Kinvara deflects Varys's tirade against her religion by revealing to him she knows about the circumstances of his castration and asking if he'd like to know who was the voice he heard during the ritual while the sorcerer burned his manhood.
• Artistic License: In-Universe. Oh so much of it in the Braavosi play about the death of King Robert.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Euron is the new king because he has the best plan and is known as one of the best sailors, also every king must at least survive a minute underwater and gulp salt water on cue.
• Ax-Crazy: Euron announces "Let's go murder my niece and nephew!" with the glee of a child saying "Let's go to Disneyworld!". That said, the lack of any shocked reaction may mean this is business as usual among the Ironborn. ^note From the books...: It's mentioned in the fourth novel that after a previous kingsmoot, a historic Ironborn king had the sons of his predecessor all executed to prevent them becoming rivals, so there is precedent for such an act..
• Badass Creed: The crowning of a ironborn king's sacrament.
  Aeron: Let Euron your servant be born again from the sea as you were. Bless him with salt, bless him with steel. Listen to the waves, listen to the God, He is speaking to us and He says "we shall have no kings but Euron Greyjoy". Let the seas wash your follies and your vanities away, let the old Euron drown, let his lungs fill with seawater, let the fish eat the scales of his eyes for is dead may never die but rises again harder and stronger!
• Badass Normal: Meera manages to conventionally fight off a bunch of wights and kill a White Walker.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Invoked. Sansa tells Littlefinger that Ramsay was at least smart enough to not do anything to her face (she still needed to be recognizable as Sansa Stark for his claim by marriage to the North to be legitimate) or her, um, lady parts (he still needed to be able to produce an heir with her). Anything in between, anything normally covered by clothing, was apparently fair game:
  Sansa: [acidly] The other things he did, ladies aren't supposed to talk about those things, but I imagine brothel-keeps talk about them all the time. I can still feel it. I don't mean "in my tender heart it still pains me so", I mean I can still feel what he did in my body standing here right now."
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Played with. The ending scene cuts between the past (through Bran's greenseeing) and the present, showing Hodor's birth (due to Bran warging into him while greenseeing, damaging his mind and making Wylis become Hodor) and his death protecting Bran and Meera from the wights by holding the door of the cave.
• Book Ends: A Freeze-Frame Bonus on the Pilot Episode shows Hodor in the Winterfell grounds during the welcoming of Robert Baratheon, but his actual introduction happens with him entering the door of Bran's room to help him get to see Tyrion. His final scene involves him closing the door of Bran's training room so he can get away from the White Walkers, which then cuts to the flashback scene of him lying on the Winterfell grounds to close the episode.
• Brutal Honesty: When Bran ask if he is ready to become like the Three-Eyed Raven, the latter simply answers no before doing it anyway.
• Call-Back:
  • Sansa and Brienne meet Littlefinger at Mole's Town which still hasn't recovered from the wildling attack in season 4.
  • Varys's extreme dislike of sorcery and religion, particularly that of the Lord of Light, comes up again in the meeting with Kinvara, as do the details of his castration.
  • Kinvara also mentions Tyrion listening to the red priestess on the Long Bridge. As with the above example, Tyrion is noticeably thrown for a loop.
  • Varys also brings up Melisandre backing Stannis as "the Chosen One" and his several failures, and also again acknowledges Tyrion as being the one who saved King's Landing during Stannis' attack at the Battle of the Blackwater.
• Casanova Wannabe: Downplayed by Tormund. The man is comically disastrous in seducing Brienne.
• Cast Incest: In-universe version. The actress who plays Cersei in the play is apparently in a relationship with the actor who plays Tyrion. A particularly interesting case considering the actual Cersei's situation.
• Cerebus Retcon: Thought Hodor's Pokémon Speak was cute and endearing? Turns out it comes from Bran warging into him as a child and forcing him to hear "Hold the door" so that he may one day perform a Heroic Sacrifice so Bran and Meera could escape. In short: the point of Hodor's entire existence is death.
• Character Death: Summer, Leaf (as well as the rest of the Children shown), the Three-Eyed Raven, and Wylis/Hodor die in the White Walker assault.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: Once the White Walkers get in the cave, all hell breaks loose. The only survivors of the massacre are Bran and Meera.
• Cassandra Truth: Yara shows serious doubts that her uncle has a chance with Daenerys. While the Ironmen can't know, the viewers certainly have seen many times that the Dragon Queen only agrees to marriage on her own terms and has rejected men who've had more to offer than Euron.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Hodor, of all people. His entire purpose in life was to be there and hold the door to buy time for Meera to escape from the White Walkers with the unconscious Bran.
• Cliffhanger: Downplayed. Bran and Meera are still in mortal danger at the end of the episode, since even Hodor's sacrifice didn't buy them that much time and the wights will no doubt catch up eventually.
• Composite Character:
  • In-universe: in the play, Littlefinger's role in the betrayal of Ned Stark is given to Tyrion himself.
  • Kinvara fills the role of Benerro as the High Priest of the Red Temple of Volantis and Moqorro's role of the Red Priest that travels to Meereen to aid Daenerys and sway her and followers towards the Lord of Light.
  • Doubles with Decomposite Character: In the books it is Stannis, who is still alive, the one that seeks to rally the Northern houses not alligned with House Bolton to oppose them instead of Jon and Sansa, although in the books Stannis did base his strategy on Jon Snow's advice.
• Constantly Curious: Arya doggedly questions Jaqen about who wants Lady Crane killed and why, speculating that it's the younger actress. Her curiosity is another indication she's not cut out to be an assassin as Jaqen tells her the reason doesn't matter, merely that the price was paid - something Arya is obviously uncomfortable with.
• Cool Crown: Averted; Euron Greyjoy receives and wears what surely must be the most modest crown in all of Westeros; not only is it not made of a precious metal (or iron, as might be expected for the King of the Ironborn), it's not even a single piece: the Ironborn crown is composed of a bunch of interlocked segments of driftwood (wood washed away by the sea). It's called the Driftwood Crown, befitting the King of a sea people, and the Ironborn consider it a cool crown.
• Create Your Own Villain: The Children of the Forest created the White Walkers, who ended up killing them as well aside from killing men.
  • Also inverted. Just as we saw the children of the forest create the means of their own destruction, we see Bran create the means of his own salvation. The only thing in common is that both parties feel like horrible people afterwards.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Hodor is last seen holding the door in this fashion before being overcome by the wights breaking it.
• Cry into Chest: Play!Joffrey is clasped to Play!Cersei's bosom, which counts as another incest joke as the actor is clearly enjoying it.
• A Death in the Limelight:
  • The episode shows us how Hodor became who he is just before he dies holding off the wights.
  • We also see more of the Children of the Forest and Leaf, as well as an important reveal about them from ages ago. They also sacrifice themselves so Bran can get away.
• Deconstruction: The possible dangers of Mental Time Travel is fully shown via poor Hodor's fate.
• Depraved Dwarf: Tyrion is portrayed as such in The Bloody Hand, jumping at the chance to seize Sansa for himself after Joffrey is crowned. The dwarf actor, Bobono, plays it straight, though in a light-hearted manner.
• Devoured by the Horde: Well, stabbed and torn to pieces, but this still fits for nearly everyone that perished at the Three-Eyed Raven's cave.
• Disneyfication: In The Winds of Winter, The Bloody Hand seems to be a more poetic tragedy or history in the vein of Macbeth and Richard III, including a Then Let Me Be Evil soliloquy for the Tyrion Lannister character similar to the one in Richard III.
• Dissonant Serenity: Kinvara remains unfazed and nice even during and after Varys's tirade against her beliefs, accentuating her own alienness.
• The Dog Bites Back: Littlefinger tries to get himself back into Sansa's good graces, but she rejects him for giving her to the Boltons.
  Sansa: "If you didn't know, you're an idiot. If you did know, you're my enemy."
• Dope Slap: Bianca does this to Bobono, who isn't tall enough to be Imp-slapped.
• Downer Ending: Easily on par with "Baelor", the Red Wedding etc. We're another direwolf down, the Three-Eyed Raven's cave gets completely destroyed and he is killed, Hodor dies in a forced Heroic Sacrifice, and his Origin Story is revealed to be even more tragic than assumed. And Bran and Meera face an uncertain survival, all alone in Haunted Forest.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Countries that started airing the show dubbed from the very start before this episode with Hodor's nickname intact are gonna have a hard time figuring out how to work "Hodor" to whatever "hold the door" means in their respective language. More or less, The Reveal will likely have to necessitate either a Dub Name Change or complete reliance on subtitles in order to square the discrepancy.
  • Some countries were able to find their way around it by changing “Hold the door” to other words which sound similar and have similar meaning.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe example. Arya is not pleased on how her father and sister are depicted in the play.
• Dungeon Bypass: The wights, unlike their White Walker masters, can't get past the magic fire protecting the Three-Eyed Raven's cave, so they just dig their way in.
• Dwindling Party: Only Bran and Meera are left of their party.
• Escort Mission: The climactic scene turns into the non-video game version of this: protect and evacuate comatose Bran while all of the Three-Eyed Raven's knowledge "uploads" to him.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The Children weaponizing humans into omnicidal maniacs with frost power and necromancy was not very well thought-out. Also, the sacrifice takes place north of what will be the wall, and it's lush and green. Whatever the Children did, it seems to have also created the Land of Always Winter (and possibly even Westeros' seasons).
• Evil Uncle: Yara takes one look at Euron and flat-out accuses him of murdering her father which Euron fully admits. Upon being baptized and crowned King, Euron leads an angry mob to straight-up murder Theon and Yara, who quickly high-tail it out of the Islands.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • The Three-Eyed Raven does not panic in the face of his imminent death.
  • Leaf is calm before she kills herself along with several White Walkers.
• Fan Disservice: We get a close-up of the penis of the actor playing Joffrey. His self-lampshaded warty penis.
• Fanservice: Bianca, the actress mummer playing Sansa, gets two topless scenes, possibly to balance out with the trope above. The first is In-Universe when she's stripped on stage to the lewd appreciation of the audience.
• Find the Cure!: Instead of just letting him go, Daenerys commands Jorah to find the cure for grayscale, wherever it is in this world.
• Flashback to Catchphrase: This episode for Hodor.
• Foreshadowing: The Faceless Man that lectures a girl about service mentions that death comes for the wicked and the innocent alike. At the end of this episode, several good characters on Team Bran are mercilessly wiped out.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The origin of the Faceless Men is revealed as former slaves from Old Valyria who learned how to take faces, then overthrew their masters.
  • The White Walkers too, the origin of the the Night King is shown. He Was Once a Man, tied to a weirwood tree and stabbed with a Dragonglass dagger. This, somehow, turned him into the Humanoid Abomination he is today.
• The Fundamentalist: Varys accuses Kinvara of being this, citing Melisandre and Stannis' defeat as an example. Kinvara defends herself by stating that humans can err in belief, but the Lord of Light undoubtedly exists, as Varys himself can attest.
  Kinvara: Everything is the Lord's will but men and women make mistakes. Even honest servants of the Lord.
• Gender Flip: Kinvara's counterpart in the novels is an older male Red Priest with flames tattooed on his face named Benerro. He also preaches that Daenerys is the Lord of Light's chosen.
• Godzilla Threshold: Creating the White Walkers for the Children of the Forest, who would otherwise have been wiped out by the First Men.
• Gone Horribly Right: Since the White Walkers were created specifically to fight and kill humans, they're either succeeding fantastically in that job, or failing horribly since they will kill anything that isn't them or a wight.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: In getting Hodor to hold the door to the hut closed, Bran manages to, across time, transform the young Wylis into Hodor in the first place.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: After the Waif disarms Arya from her stave, she doesn't employ any of the fancy She-Fu she'd been using up to that point to finish Arya off, choosing instead to knock her on her ass with some good old fashioned boxing.
• Gory Discretion Shot: When the Night King kills The Three-Eyed Raven, it shows his body disintegrating from the vision rather than the actual death.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Leaf, Summer, the Three-Eyed Raven, and Hodor, leaving Bran and Meera stranded beyond the Wall amidst a full-on White Walker invasion.
• Hero Killer: Now the Night's King is officially one, having killed the Three-Eyed Raven and caused the deaths of Hodor, Summer, and the Children of the Forest.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: While scouting for her assassination mission, Arya attends a play that retells the events of Robert Baratheon's death. In the play, Robert is portrayed as a boorish glutton, Joffrey and Cersei are noble and honorable rulers, Ned Stark as a bumbling power-hungry idiot, and Tyrion as manipulative schemer looking to play everyone and who forces himself on Sansa. Arya is not pleased.
• History Repeats: Arya once again is present when her father is beheaded, this time in a play.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Children of the Forest end up being killed by the White Walkers that they created.
• Hope Spot: As Team Bran gets ready to leave the cave, Meera and Hodor have a nice little slice-of-life scene, and things appear to be looking up. Alas, this is Game of Thrones...
• Idiot Ball:
  • Euron is so preoccupied with his approaching Awesome Moment Of Drowning that he didn't think to keep an eye on Yara, Theon and all their supporters, who have made pretty clear their opinion of him. While he's off being crowned, they steal the entire fleet, setting back his plans.
  • The Three-Eyed Raven could have warned Bran against spying on the Army of the Dead and the Night's King, since he's clearly aware what happens if someone marked by him stays in the cave. And even afterwards they are in no hurry to leave, having a prolonged vision quest and allowing the White Walkers and their wights to siege the place and kill everyone. Just about the only justifiable excuse would be if the Three-Eyed Raven was aware of all this and allowed it to happen for the sake of another Stable Time Loop.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In order to create the first White Walkers, the Children of the Forest slowly impaled a sacrificed man with a dragonglass dagger.
• Ironic Echo: Tyrion paraphrases Varys, echoing their conversation in Pentos about who was the best candidate to the Iron Throne.
  Tyrion: We need someone the people trust, someone they know can not be bought or influenced.
  Varys: Sounds like quite the hero. Where will we find him?
  Tyrion:: Who said anything about him?
• Irony as She Is Cast: In-universe version. The actress who plays Cersei in the play and the actor who plays Tyrion are implied to be in a relationship. The actual Cersei is infamous for two things regarding her relationship with her siblings; her Twincest with Jaime and her absolute resentment for Tyrion.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Euron's argument for why he should be King of the Iron Islands is actually rather sound. He points out that his brother was a General Failure and that Yara's biggest support, Theon, also failed dishonorably in his task. His plan to raise a great fleet to form an alliance with Daenerys Targaryen is also a sound strategy.
  • To help bring it in, by contrast, Yara and Theon run an attack ad on Euron, saying it was cowardly to run away and stay away for years from Westeros. Euron pushes that aside by saying he was growing stronger overseas while Theon was just learning fancy words such as "gallivanting". Yara states the plan to raise a great fleet first, but she failed to mention what to do with the fleet. That's how Euron sweeps the victory from them, by actually having a plan for the fleet.
• Justice Will Prevail: Discussed trope between Jaqen and Arya, as she mentions Lady Crane seems like a good person and questions why she's being killed, implying that she doesn't deserve to die. Jaqen asks her if death only come for the wicked and Arya - after all the innocent people she's seen die - has no comeback. Given all her previous kills have been in self-defense or driven by her own ruthless sense of revenge-justice, whether she'll go ahead with the assignment is left hanging.
• Kill the Cutie: Hodor is probably the sweetest character in the series, or at least in a tie with Shireen. Naturally he dies in a gruesome manner.
• Klingon Promotion: While this technically isn't a custom that the Iron Islanders follow, Euron claims that he wanted the throne and paid the Iron Price for it by killing Balon. It's ambiguous as to whether or not this would pass muster if someone who wasn't a member of the incumbent royal family attempted it, but seeing how neither of Balon's two legitimate heirs are considered desirable (Yara because of her gender, and Theon because of his having been castrated and stil clearly being in an Heroic BSoD), it ends up making his claim to the throne rock-solid.
• Kryptonite Factor: Leaf created the first white walker by stabbing him in the heart with a dragonglass dagger while bound to a weirwood tree. The white walkers, as Sam and Meera demonstrated, die when cut by dragonglass.
• Last Stand: Done by the unnamed children of the forest, Summer, Leaf and Hodor in a quick succession in order to protect Bran from the White Walkers invading the cave.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Driven by instinct to protect Bran, Summer mindlessly charges into a bigger group of wights and promptly gets cut down. It buys the group some time at least.
• Manipulative Bastard: Despite being rejected by Sansa, Littlefinger does still try to take the opportunity to manipulate her more. He advises her to seek out Brynden the Blackfish so that she will have troops loyal to her since Jon is only her half-brother. The fact that she hides this meeting from Jon implies that the seeds of doubt may have been planted.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Arya notes that the actress who starred in the mock reenactment of Ned Stark's tragedy seems like a decent woman.
• Mental Time Travel: Young Hodor seemed to have experienced this when Bran warged into his older self while green-seeing. The result was heart-rending.
• Meaningful Name:
  • It's revealed here that "Hodor" comes from "Hold the Door."
  • Summer dies fighting the White Walkers which are associated with winter (read: Summer dies as winter arrives).
• Mid-Season Twist
  • Arya is given her first kill assignment.
  • Euron Greyjoy is made king after revealing his plan to seduce Daenerys with the Iron Fleet which she could use to invade Westeros. Yara and Theon decide to beat him to the punch.
  • Tyrion gets the Lord of Light's church establishment to support Daenerys. Now the Red God had two champions; Dany and Jon Snow.
  • Dany, at the head of a new khalasar, start the ride back to Meereen. Jorah is ordered to find a cure for his greyscale.
  • Jon and Sansa leave the Wall to try to piece together an army to beat Ramsay Bolton, not knowing that the Knights of the Vale are parked at Moat Cailin. Sansa can give the order and they will join but she is reluctant because of Littlefinger's involvement.
  • The White Walkers kill the Children of the Forest, Summer, Hodor and the Three Eyed Raven. Bran gets the old man's powers but he and Meera are on the run again.
• Mind Rape: Bran does this by accident to the young Wylis, by warging while greenseeing. In doing so, he transforms Wylis into Hodor.
• Ms. Fanservice: Seems to be one of Bianca's roles in the theater troupe.
• Musicalis Interruptus: The music accompanying Theon standing up for Yara stops when Euron appears.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Bran has a broken, anguished look on his face when he realizes that not only did he make Wylis into Hodor, he also turned the guy's entire life purpose into a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Mythology Gag: The Title Drop for the next book during The Bloody Hand.
  Play!Cersei: I feel the winds of winter as they lick across the land.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bran accidentally draws the White Walkers to him and they end up slaughtering 3/4 of his supporting cast, including his beloved direwolf, the very last members of a thousand year old race and the only being who could teach him how to defeat the White Walkers. What's more, he also accidentally ensures he and Meera will be able to escape by completely breaking Wylis's mind, filling him with the compulsion to 'hold the door' and turning him into Hodor.
• No-Sell:
  • The White Walkers just walk through the magical circle of fire protecting the Three-Eyed Raven's shelter. This works on the wights, but they just tunnel through the ceiling.
  • Before that, the bombs used by the Children of the Forest fail to impede or even affect the White Walkers' march on the cave.
  • One of the Children of the Forest tries to kill a white walker with her spear. His armor deflects it and he kills her (although immediately after that, Meera succeeds with a better placed strike at his unprotected neck).
• Not What I Signed on For: Arya has a brief case of this with The Faceless Men in regards to who she has been assigned to kill. Arya feels the actress is not deserving of death, but the Faceless Man reminds her that she does not get choose who her assignments are, and that if she were to fail in her task again The Faceless Men will claim a face, one way or another.
• Nothing Personal: The Faceless Men have no concept of "deserving" death. Their targets are their targets, no matter how wicked or decent the person may be.
• Obi-Wan Moment: The Three-Eyed Raven calmly accepts his death while greenseeing with Bran, then he disintegrates into the air and disappears.
• Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: We hear that the Blackfish has managed to retake Riverrun from Frey/Lannister occupation, which is probably one hell of a story, but don't get to see it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Varys may mildly snark or object at times, but when the red priestess shows up, he can barely hide his contempt. He also becomes more shaken than we have ever seen him on the show when she brings up details of his castration.
• Origin Story: This episode shows that of Hodor and the White Walkers. The Faceless Men's history is also discussed.
• Passing the Torch: The Three-Eyed Raven tells that it's time for Bran to become him and starts some of his legacy transfer.
• The Place: Referring to where Hodor makes his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Plot Parallel: Downplayed with Sansa threatening to sic Brienne on Littlefinger, which is more than a little reminiscent of another high-ranked noblewoman with an unstoppable super-knight obeying her every command. It's also not the first time that Littlefinger irked a noblewoman and said noblewoman toyed with the idea of having him killed then and there.
• Poke in the Third Eye: The Night's King pokes Bran in his third eye when he tries to spy on the present-day godswood where the Children first made the White Walkers aeons ago. A horde of wights are being stored there, and the King and his entourage of walkers see him. And then all the wights see him. And then the King grabs him and marks him, blowing the cover of Bloodraven's sanctum right off.
• Psychotic Smirk: Delivered by Kinvara when she succeeds in making Varys unconfortable with her knowledge of his past.
• Rank Up: Much to his delight, Edd gets promoted, becoming the 999th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
  Watchman: Shall we close the gate, Lord Commander?
  Edd: I'm not the Lord Comman—"
  (all the Watchmen gather around, looking at Edd expectantly)
  Edd: Yeah.. *Ahem*. Close the bloody gate.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Varys goes on a tirade against the Lord of Light's faith after Kinvara manifests her hope for Daenerys' dragons to burn all unbelievers. Kinvara replies in kind by reminding Varys of his own experiences with magic at the hands of a "second rate sorcerer" (implying that she is the real thing):
    Kinvara: Knowledge has made you powerful, but there is still so much you don't know.
  • Sansa dismisses Littlefinger's petty excuses about engaging her to Ramsay, mocking him for his ideas that he could protect her when he failed horribly, and notes that not knowing about Ramsay's real nature makes him an idiot.
  • Theon points out Euron had abandoned the Ironborn years ago while Yara was there proving herself as a fighter and leader.
• Redemption Equals Death: Leaf, who created the first White Walker, gives her life to help Bran and Meera escape.
• Refuge in Audacity: Euron bold-facedly admits to killing Balon in front of all the Ironborn in order to convince them this was a necessary act. Despite admitting guilt to regicide, fratricide, and general kinslaying, he gets away with it by laying out how much Balon sucked as king of the Ironborn and construing it as paying the Iron Price.
• The Resenter: According to Arya, Bianca is envious of Lady Crane and is the one who has paid the Faceless Men to kill the older actress.
• The Reveal: "Bran learns a great deal" indeed...
  • The Children are responsible for the White Walkers.
  • Hodor's handicap came from a greenseer-warging-induced seizure, courtesy of Bran.
  • In related news, time-travel (sort of) is a thing in the series' cosmos.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The Renfaire style play is done entirely in rhymes, not very good ones. Real Renaissance plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe were done in unrhymed blank verse and prose.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Euron's plan to ally with Daenerys Targaryen is rather forward-thinking. The problem with his logic is his confidence that he can force her to take him on as her husband.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Theon gives one to show his support for Yara, and why she should be Queen of the Iron Islands. This gives Yara a lot of supporters, but it was ruined when Euron arrived.
  • Euron gives one of his own, promising to join Dany and rule the Seven Kingdoms if he's made king. It works.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • A wolf named Summer fights a bunch of guys who are associated with winter. Summer loses. And winter is coming...
  • Bran sees four White Walkers mounted on horses.
• Rule of Threes:
  • A girl has been given a second chance. There will not be a third.
  • Play!Joffrey gets slapped twice, but also gets to dish one out to Ned Stark.
• Run or Die:
  • The only options available when the White Walkers come knocking on your door with their merry wight friends. Meera ran (carrying Bran with her), but the other ones...
  • Theon and Yara have a similar choice. Their followers experience a lower mortality rate, since their pursuers were busy at the time drowning/crowning their next king. They also absconded with all the Ironborns' best ships.
• Running Gag: Play!Joffrey gets slapped. Twice.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Yara and Theon after their uncle wins the Kingsmoot. Considering that Euron's first demand upon ascending to the Salt Throne is to have his men build a fleet to kill them, it's probably a good call.
• Secondary Character Title: Referring to Hodor after The Reveal of his Origin Story.
• Secret Underground Passage: Meera, Bran and the others in their party escape the White Walker assault through a long, straight tunnel to somewhere far from the cave itself, away enough to not have any enemies around.
• Show Within a Show: The theater show in Essos adapting the events of Season 1.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Sansa made herself and Jon some new outfits bearing Stark house emblems to help them tell the North that the Starks are back in town.
• Sinister Schnoz: The actor playing Tyrion in "The Bloody Hand" wears a long crooked nose over his real one to complete his wicked look.
• Slasher Smile: The Night King gives off a subtle but extremely creepy smile when he and his lieutenants pass through the Children's defensive fire unharmed.
• Snow Means Death: For Summer, The Three-Eyed Raven, Leaf, and Hodor.
• Stable Time Loop: Amazingly, since this series doesn't really have many time shenanigans in it; the reason Hodor became Hodor is because Bran warged into him while he was greenseeing a memory of Hodor when he was still Wylis. This, combined with Meera ordering him to hold the door from the wights in the present, caused young Hodor to have a seizure and start yelling out "Hold the door!", which eventually just became "Hodor." Through this, he was set on the path he would take in life to ensure he would be there to hold that door, thus allowing Bran to warg into him and make Wylis into Hodor in the past.
• Storming the Castle: The White Walkers raid the Three-Eyed Raven's keep.
• Stylistic Suck: The play Arya witnesses which dramatizes the deaths of Robert and Ned and Joffrey's ascent to the throne.
• Suicide Attack: Leaf sets off one of her magical firebombs while it's still in her hand when the wights are stabbing her, destroying enough of them to buy Bran some time.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The play is spoken entirely in rhyme except this one moment where it is cut off.
  Joffrey: Good people, you may all relax. My father's friend shall be spared the—
  Ned: *head falls off*
  Joffrey: Oh.
• Taking You with Me: Part of the Last Stand performed by Team Bran. Both Summer and Leaf die trying to kill as many wights as they can to protect Bran.
• Textile Work Is Feminine:
  • Sansa sews for yet another Significant Wardrobe Shift, this time a good version for her half-brother.
  • Euron shares this viewpoint, as shown by his second command after becoming king.
    Euron: I want every man bending planks. I want every woman spinning flax for sails.
• Title Drop: The Wham Line.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Hodor.
• Transhuman Abomination: It's revealed that the Night King was created from a First Man thousands of years by the Children of the Forest, in a ritual which involved forcing a dragonglass dagger into his chest.
• Trauma Button:
  • Intentionally triggered on Varys by Kinvara by bringing the details of his emasculation to the conversation. Varys's face is priceless.
  • Downplayed by Euron, mirroring Kinvara, brings to the discussion the castration of Theon. The latter is seemingly disturbed when his uncle mentions that issue.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot:
  • Sewing, actually. Sansa took very little time to make herself and Jon some new clothes.
  • Played straight with Littlefinger as per usual, who has practically teleported from Runestone in the previous episode to Mole's Town, a distance of a half continent (the North is the biggest of the 7 Kingdoms after all). Even if we assume that Littlefinger sailed from the Fingers up to White Harbor or Eastwatch-by-the-Sea◊ and ridden the rest of the way, that is still a great length to cover, bigger than the distance between the Narrow Sea that separates Westeros from Essos, not accounting for the cold water, ice floes and pirates mentioned by the Braavosi merchant at the end of S4.^{From the Books} This sea route is considered highly dangerous in the books as noted by Ser Davos because of the Pirate Lords on the Three Sisters Islands between the North and the Vale, notorious for deceiving and sabotaging ships sailing that route and greatly delaying journeys and travel times.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card:
  • Kinvara's titles: High Priestess of the Red Temple of Volantis, the Flame of Truth, the Light of Wisdom, and First Servant of the Lord of Light.
  • Earlier, Tyrion also lampshades Daenerys' many titles when he says "Mother of Dragons... Breaker of Chains... all that."
• Turned Against Their Masters: The White Walkers, originally a magical weapon of mass destruction against the spread of humanity, clearly have no sense of loyalty to their creators, the Children of the Forest.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Say what you will about Balon Greyjoy, but he wasn't a kinslaying sociopath like Euron, the new King of the Iron Islands.
• The Unsmile: You can't really blame Brienne for being uncomfortable with Tormund's clumsy smile.
• Undying Loyalty: Dany lampshades how she's banished Jorah twice now, and he still came back for her. For this reason, she bids him to find the cure to greyscale and return to her side once more.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Whatever their intentions were in creating the White Walkers, the Children sure as shit couldn't have known what they would become.
  • Bran decides to greensight without the Three-Eyed Raven's guidance. He ends up in front of the army of White Walkers and the Night King notices his presence and marks him, causing everything that happens in the climax.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In-universe example. The play that Arya watches depicting the events of Season 1 is both horribly inaccurate and mischaracterized.
• Villain Ball: Apparently, completely surrounding the hideout, despite clearly having the necessary numbers, never occurs to the Night's King.
• Wham Episode: We learn that the White Walkers were created by Leaf in an attempt to win the war with the First Men, the majority of the characters in the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven die protecting Bran from them, we learn the origin of Hodor and how that is intrinsically related to his own Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the episode. Also, Euron is made King of the Iron Islands, forcing Yara and Theon to flee, presumably to Essos.
• Wham Line: "HOLD THE DOOR! HOLD THE DOOR! HOTHEDOOR! HO-DOOR! HODOR! HODOR! HODOR!"
• Wham Shot: The Children of the Forest are sacrificing a man... and his eyes turn icy blue... And how Wyllis became Hodor.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Kinvara, despite all the furor made over her, is a One-Scene Wonder, and does not appear again throughout the entire series. However, Word of God is that Drogon took Daenerys to visit her after the events of the Series Finale, a Sequel Hook if ever there was one.
• Written by the Winners: Cersei and Joffrey are portrayed as noble, sympathetic rulers in the play in Braavos, while Ned and Tyrion are portrayed as unlikeable traitors to the crown.
• You Are in Command Now: It takes Edd a bit to realize he's Lord Commander now, and he doesn't look particularly pleased about it.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Theon and Yara are forced to flee the Iron Islands after Euron is made the new King.
• You Have Failed Me: The Faceless Men warn No One that either her face will be added to their hall, or theirs.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Summer, Leaf, and Hodor all do this in succession to protect Bran from the White Walkers.
• Zerg Rush: The Three-Eyed Raven's cave is assaulted by a few White Walkers, aided by a horde of uncountable, fast-moving wights.

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