After the whirlwind that was Season Four, a colossal eight million viewers sat down to watch the fifth season of Game of Thrones premiere this April. As ever, the fantasy drama series has stayed gruesomely true to the characteristics which increasingly define it: betrayals, beheadings, dragons, debauchery, and a certain level of controversy. However, this season has been like no other in that the writers have made serious deviations to the storylines laid out in the source material. With regards to our favourite houses, have the plots they’ve created been effective? Our writers decide.
House Stark
House Stark has featured as a prominent noble family ever since the conception of Game of Thrones. With every season, their words ‘Winter Is Coming’ have become increasingly relevant, and with the ominous arrival of the White Walkers in their thousands this year, it seems that the Stark motto has finally rung true. Although Starks are typically brave and honourable characters, they have suffered savage losses over the years; just four legitimate members of their family remain, three of whom are presumed dead. Season Five has focused on sisters Arya and Sansa Stark, and their bastard half-brother, Jon Snow. While Sansa has finally returned home to Winterfell (albeit to a terrible marriage), Arya has crossed the Narrow Sea to Braavos, and Jon resides at the Wall, serving as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Despite being separated by geography, the North remembers – and so do the viewers who are firm supporters of house Stark.
Arya Stark:
Since the defining death of Ned Stark in Season One, his youngest daughter seems to have ventured to just about every mossy corner of Westeros. Whether serving Tywin Lannister in the blackened rules of Harranhal, or plundering the Riverlands for chicken with Sandor Clegane, Arya Stark consistently evades permanent capture and is presumed dead by many. The Season Four finale at last showed Arya escaping the perils of Westeros, and boarding a ship to Braavos in order to learn the lethal arts of The Faceless Men. Come Season Five, however, Arya’s path to vengeance proved to be paved with hurdles.
In the titular Season Five episode, we see Arya drifting through the faintly Venetian-looking Braavos and begging admission into ‘The House of Black and White’. When first denied entrance into the temple, Arya exhibits the endurance that has hardened her into a practiced killer throughout the seasons, repeating the ever-diminishing list of names that have become integral to her very identity. “Cersei, Walder Frey, The Mountain, Meryn Trant” … these individuals represent the dissolution of her family and, to some extent, her future – as (quite rightfully) Arya cannot see past exacting revenge. However, as she is repeatedly told by Jaqen H’ghar, becoming a servant of the Many Faced-God requires letting go of past grievances – in essence, becoming “no one”, which proves to be Arya’s greatest obstacle throughout Season Five. For instance, in Episode Three, she is ordered to dispose of her personal belongings in order to forget her past self. The quotation from the corresponding novel (A Feast For Crows) is as follows:
“‘It’s just a sword,’ she said, aloud this time…
… but it wasn’t.
Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow’s smile.”
Following this episode, we see a whole lot of sweeping floors and washing bodies, while Arya becomes increasingly frustrated that she is not learning anything that will be of use to her. Therefore, despite instructions from Jaqen H’ghar to take the life of another, when the opportunity presents itself to cross another name off her list, Arya is powerless to resist. She kills Meryn Trant in a brutal fashion, calling him “no one”, which indicates how little she has learned in her time at the House of Black and White. Losing her sight as a result, the Season Five finale suggests that Arya has a long way to go before she is ready to become a faceless assassin. While her character may not have particularly progressed this season, it has been a relief to see Arya out of the immediate danger that comes with being a female member of a noble family in Westeros – sadly, more than can be said of her sister.
Sansa Stark:
Poor Sansa Stark seems to have been dealt the worst hand of cards on the show, and this season has been no exception. After her imprisonment in King’s Landing for four seasons – not to mention her betrothal to the brutal boy king, Joffrey – it seemed as if Sansa’s quota of misfortune was at its limit. That is, until show writers decided to swap a minor character’s storyline for her own, and marry her to the notoriously sadistic Ramsay Bolton.
Initially, this decision appeared to be out of sync with Sansa’s character arc. By the Season Four finale, Sansa appeared to have shed her naivety along with her auburn hair, revealing what seemed to be a hardened game player in cahoots with Littlefinger. However, Sansa’s upcoming nuptials were foreshadowed even in the season premiere, when Littlefinger referred to how the “gift of a great name” can sometimes be “all one needs”. In the eyes of Westeros, Sansa is the last remaining member of house Stark, and thus holds the key to the North. This ‘gift’ therefore proves to be a double-edged sword, as it means she cannot simply reinvent herself as Alayne Stone – not when her guardian is the scheming Peter Baelish, that is. The realm defines Sansa’s worth by her family name, and in order to become a true game player she must use it to her advantage – or have it used against her.
Nevertheless, Sansa’s storyline has attracted great controversy this season – in particular, her wedding night, in which she is brutally raped by Ramsay Bolton. While Game of Thrones isn’t known for being shy when it comes to inflicting harm upon the ‘good guys’, this particular scene ultimately seemed distasteful and ineffective for achieving anything other than shock value. Sansa had more than enough reason to want escape her marriage as it was – after all, the Boltons were the perpetrators of Season Three’s ‘Red Wedding’. Nor did viewers need another example of Ramsay’s depravity, as his unrelenting mental and physical torture of Theon has spanned seasons. What’s worse, as the camera lingered on Theon’s tearful reaction to this brutal scene, Game of Thrones managed to make the rape of a woman about a man.
Fortunately, there have been some highlights to Sansa’s dismal fare this season. The revelation that her brothers may still be alive should give her at least a modicum of hope. Her final scene is left on an ambiguous note, as Sansa and Theon leap from Winterfell’s battlements in order to escape Ramsay. In any case, viewers can only hope that writers respond to the criticism that this season has attracted, and that Sansa’s storyline is not quite so desolate next year.
Jon Snow:
Leagues away, the Season Five premiere shows Jon Snow dealing with the whims of kings before and beyond the Wall. When Jon is unable to convince Mance Rayder to accept the authority of Stannis Baratheon, Stannis plans to have Mance burned alive for treason. Through his mercy killing, Jon exhibits the characteristics that would make for a great Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch – but it is his sympathy for the wildlings which ultimately dooms him.
In Episode Two, Jon is elected the 998th Lord Commander of the Night Watch – and rightly so, as early on this season he exhibits the characteristic Stark traits that prove he is the right man for the job. Despite his aforementioned mercy killing, he is unafraid to put rebellious Janos Slynt to the sword – himself. Not only is this indicative of his bravery and honour, it also suggests that he has the firm hand required for commanding the Night’s Watch – meriting a nod from the notoriously steely Stannis Baratheon himself. Most impressive, however, is Jon’s unwavering loyalty to the Night’s Watch, turning down the offer to be legitimised and appointed Lord of Winterfell. This would have been a highly tempting offer to a young Jon Snow, who always felt like an outsider at Winterfell and envied his legitimate half-brother, Robb. However, by making an alliance with the Wildlings that will allow them to settle south of the Wall, Jon changed the dynamics of the Night’s Watch forever. The Night’s Watch are sworn to be the “shield that guards the realms of men”, which makes Wildlings their natural enemies. As a result, the Season Five finale shows Jon brandished as a “traitor” and stabbed to death by his Watch brothers.
However, despite assertions from Kit Harrington that he will not be returning for Season Six, will Jon Snow stay dead? A popular fan theory suggests that due to the warging abilities of the Starks, Jon will effectively be transported into the body of his direwolf, Ghost. This theory is (unintentionally) supported in the video below:
https://www.facebook.com/tyrionfans/videos/924553640950692/
Another theory suggests that Melisandre will resurrect Jon, as she conveniently arrives at the Wall in the same episode that Jon is killed. Perhaps when it was established that sacrificing Shireen did not aid Stannis, it confirmed her suspicions that Stannis was not the prince that was promised, or Azor Ahai reborn after all – Jon was. This would explain her earlier attempts to seduce Jon, and urges for him to harness his “power”. This argument falls under the umbrella of the widely accepted ‘R+L=J’ fan theory, which states that Jon is not the bastard of Ned Stark and an unknown woman after all, but is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. This is neatly explained in the video below:
Furthermore, if Jon was to remain dead, then what was the point of the R+L=J foreshadowing we see in Episode Four? In the crypts of Winterfell, Littlefinger tells Sansa of the tourney in which Rhaegar proclaimed Lyanna the ‘Queen of Love and Beauty’, above his own wife, Elia Martell. Therefore, there is strong evidence to suggest that we haven’t seen the last of Jon Snow.
Overall, Jon’s storyline has unfurled into one of the most captivating plots of Season Five. Episode Eight, for example, has been heralded as one of the best episodes of the season and the entire show. At Hardhome, the fifteen minutes of death and destruction we see at the hands of the White Walkers would rival the carnage caused by the zombies of The Walking Dead (kudos to Game of Thrones’ special effects team). When the Night’s King reanimates fresh corpses at a metaphorical flick of the wrist, we know, more than ever, that we need Jon Snow.
Words by Rose Wolfe-Emery