‘Game of Thrones’ season 6, episode 5 review: Hodor, ‘hold the door’, and Sansa the leader
Now that Jon and Sansa have decided to head to Winterfell and take back their home (and get Rickon out of Ramsay’s clutches) is the Stark family’s luck going to finally turn around? This is a family that has really struggled to get a win over the years, but wouldn’t it be great to see Sansa and Jon, who have gone through their own personal journey’s of hell, come out on top? Let’s see what “Game of Thrones” has in store for us tonight.
Sansa: The last time she saw Petyr he was handing her off to Ramsay as his new bride, and now she has a chance to confront him leaving her with a sadistic brute after promising over and over to protect her. She told him about the atrocities Ramsay committed to her body, mind and soul, and Petyr assures her that he didn’t know and apologizes. Sansa says that she will never trust him again, and he promises to do anything he can to make it up to her, but it’s too late. We also saw how knowledgeable Sansa is about the North while she helps plan how she and Jon will gather the rest of their army to take back Winterfell and this is the Sansa we have enjoyed seeing as of late – strong, self aware and no longer a spoiled brat. Sansa sends Brienne to Riverrun to talk to her uncle and get the support they need while Jon, Sansa and their small army head off to get the the resources they need.
Bran: While Bran is having a vision, the white walker king sees him, touches him and now he knows where Bran is… and he’s come for Bran with a massive army. Bran is able to escape with the help of Hodor as he holds the door shut to the exit, but we see the white walkers breaking through and hurting Hodor and it looks like he may be sacrificing his life for Bran to escape. We saw Hodor screaming “hold the door” in Bran’s vision, and back in present time we saw him literally holding the door closed for Bran’s escape. It seems that Hodor short for hold the door and this is this why “Hodor” is the only word he can say over and over.
Theon: Yara makes a claim to the throne and people are concerned as they have never had a woman ruling over the land, especially since Theon is back and they want him to rule. Theon stands beside his sister saying that she should rule, but Balon’s younger brother also wants to rule the Ironborn and is making claims for the throne. Yara calls her uncle out for killing Balon and he admits it, but also claims that after building the huge fleet that he will make Daenerys his Queen combining their armies, making her dragons his own and together they will take over the 7 kingdoms, so the people choose him as their ruler over Yara. Theon and Yara steal the best of the ships and leave as their uncle is sworn in as king and once he is sworn in, he commands his people to build a thousand ships and swears to murder Yara and Theon.
Other tidbits: Tyrion has enlisted the help of a lord of light priestess named Kinvara until Daenerys returns, Arya is set to poison someone she doesn’t know, and Daenerys has commanded Jorah to find a cure for his grey-scale and then return to serve her.
For us, we have never been the biggest fans of the Bran storyline, but we’ve always loved Hodor, so to get more backstory on him and see some of the mystery surrounding him lift was a treat. We don’t know if the white walkers have killed Hodor, or if he’s merely been wounded, but we worry that he will never be the same again if he does survive this. Episode grade: A-
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