This a recap of the important bits you may well have forgotten about in Season 6 of Game of Thrones. It’s been so long since this season aired that it’s definitely understandable if you haven’t rewatched it to remember what the hell is going on in Westeros. So let me take you through it…

We start over at Castle Black where hero and bastard John Snow has just been freshly killed by his own men. Of course this sucks although by the time Season 6 is aired we’re all feeling pretty sure he’s probably coming back to life in some way or another. His loyal direwolf Ghost is howling away, mirroring that of the bells in King’s Landing when Tywin Lannister takes an arrow to the knee gut/shoulder at the hands of his son Tyrion. It’s quite easy to miss but a nice touch.
Found by his good friend Dolorous Edd and ex Stannis enthusiasts Melisandre and Ser Davos, he’s taken to a quiet room where they mourn the ex Lord Commander’s death by Aliser Thorne and his cronies, whilst said killers argue their case and justify what they’ve done to the rest of the Night’s Watch.
Meanwhile Sansa and Theon (formally Reek) have escaped the clutches of Roose and Ramsay Bolton and are legging it as fast as they can before he catches up with them. They don’t get far and are caught up by Ramsay’s men and dogs and when it all looks like it’s about to go to shit, Brienne turns up with Pod and takes them all down. We see an awesome moment where Theon kills one of the men attacking Pod, which keeps him on his road to redemption with the viewers. Remember, Brienne has been tasked with finding Sansa by Jaime (another character on the path to redemption) and seeing that she’s returned to her family safely. Also take not that he gave her his sword Oathkeeper, which was a gift for Jaime from Tywin and importantly forged from Ned’s giant sword Ice. Ice is Valyrian Steel which we know can take down White Walkers… so Brienne in battle with a White Walker for Season 7 is surely a given? Awesome! Theon departs for the Iron Islands and he and Sansa go their separate ways.
While this is happening, Ramsay takes the decision to kill his Father Roose Bolton and declare himself Warden of the North. He also kills his new born brother by feeding him and his Father’s wife Lady Walda to the Hounds.

Image result for ramsay kills rooseRoose Bolton speaking to Ramsay before he is killed by his son.

Back at King’s Landing Jaime returns home from Dorne with some bad news for Cercei. Myrcella, Cercei’s only daughter, has been killed en route with poison by the Sandsnakes (Oberyn’s children and lover Ellaria Sand) importantly leaving Cercei with just one of her beloved 3 children remaining. This is important as Cercei clearly shows a plethora of times that her children are the most important thing in the world to her. Her insane spiral continues from here-out.
Speaking of Ellaria and the Sandsnakes… they’re continue to be engulfed in their conquest for revenge after Oberyn is killed during Trial by Combat in Season 4 and take down Oberyn’s cowardly Brother Prince Doran Martell, the leader of Dorne. We see them later in the season conspiring with Lady Olenna of House Tyrell later in the season. A very interesting match up indeed, but we’ll get back to that.

Image result for sand snakes and lady olennaLady Olenna and the Sandsnakes discuss their next moves, which we find out later is to ally with Dany

Across the Narrow Sea, with Dany missing, Tyrion is having trouble in Meereen when Slaver’s Bay is destroyed by Masters of Yunkai and the City is attacked from outside and within when we find out that the Son’s of the Harpy (creepy guys with the gold masks) are revolting against Dany’s reign. Dany has been taken captive by a giant Khalasar and delivered to Vaes Dothrak where all widows of fallen Khal’s are supposed to go when their lover dies. She’s to live out the rest of her days there, but Jorah and Daario have other ideas and are teaming up to find her.
They eventually do but she has it all under control. She’s able to get all of the Khal’s into one room and proceeds to lock them in and burn it to the ground. Once again we have this awesome scene of Dany emerging from the fire and it feels like every time this happens she’s stripped (literally) and reborn stronger than before. The Khalasar and the whole of Vaes Dothrak bow down to her and once again she adds to her ever-growing army and heads back to Meereen.

At The Wall, Davos approaches Melisandre and asks her to revive John Snow but she explains it’s not that simple and she cannot choose who comes back, but it’s the Lord of Light who enables Priests to do so. We also see a bizarre scene where Mel removes her necklace and transformed into what us assumed to be her actual self and old crone of a woman. Let’s remember that Mel uses all sorts of potions to make people do for her what she wants and it’s largely believed that she uses some sort of glamour potion to make herself this beautiful young red-headed fire woman and the necklace itself helps enhance that glamour. Whether it’s just the necklace that does it or not we don’t know but there’s definitely more to come from this.
Despite falling ever so slightly out of love with the Lord of Light himself, she decides to attempt to resurrect John and when it looks like she’s failed, he comes back to life and our hero has returned.
John hangs his killers for treason including Olly and Alliser Thorne, which is a significant piece of revenge, considering Alliser has been plotting against him since he joined The Night’s Watch in Season 1!

Image result for alliser thorne hangedJohn Snow hanging the men who killed him.

Bran is still living in the tree acting as a cave for the One-Eyed Raven. It’s taken Bran 6 seasons to get here, so we’re expecting a hell of a lot from this man and he definitely delivers. He teaches Bran the sight enabling him to view the past, giving him key information which will help in the wars to come, but one thing that’s key is that Bran can’t stay in this “trance” for too long, otherwise he’ll lose sight of dream and reality and may never return.
He sees his Father Ned and his Aunt Lyanna Stark when they were younger, which is a nice mirror of Season 1 where Bran, Rickon and Arya are in the courtyard practising archery and swordplay. We also see a young Hodor who whilst is still a big clumsy oath of a stable-boy, he can talk very well and it’s a very shocking surprise.
In another of Bran’s dreams he sees his Father arrive at the Tower of Joy during Robert’s Rebellion. He’s looking for his Sister (who is also King Robert’s wife) which is what started the whole war in the first place. He believes her to be kidnapped and locked away here by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and finds some of Rhaegar’s best swordsman including the legendary Arthur Dayne guarding it. Strange that this men would be guarding one woman whilst Rhaegar is mid-battle fighting King Robert (and is killed doing so by the way). A young Ned and his best friend Howland Reed end up defeating Arthur Dayne and find Lyanna Stark dying from childbirth in bed at the top of the Tower of Joy and then it’s revealed. John Snow wasn’t Ned’s bastard son after all, but his sister’s child. This makes John Snow, John Targaryen in truth and probably explains that Lyanna wasn’t taken by Rhaegar at all, but they were lovers and he was protecting the woman he loved and his son.
This news is of course gigantic as John has always believed he’s just a bastard and of no importance whereas now we find out he has Stark and Targaryen blood running through his veins and only Bran (and maybe Howland Reed) know this!

Image result for r + l = j game of thronesNed explains to John he will tell him about his mother when they next meet. Of course they never meet again.

Arya meanwhile is living the life as a beggar after Jaqen H’ghar took her eyes. She is trained whilst blinded daily by the waif and eventually Jaqen allows her back in and gives her an assignment to take on. She is to kill a Lady Crane, an actress in a play wrongly depicting the events of Joffrey and Margeery’s wedding day. When she gets behind the scenes and gets to know Lady Crane, she decides that she cannot do it and Jagen is displeased with her, telling her that it’s not up to her who chooses who the Many Faced God kills. She owes him and life and that life is hers, so Arya goes on the run with the waif given leave to hunt Arya down and kill her. Here we’re given a glimpse of the real Arya. She’s Ned Stark’s daughter and mindless killing for a God is not her style. Despite and twisted change in Arya, it’s very nice to see that her honourable Stark routes still remain.
She is eventually hunted down by the waif and Arya leads her to a dark secluded place where only a candle lights the room. She knows she can’t beat the waif in combat, so this is a very clever move. She cuts the candle leaving them both in darkness, which mirrors her training whilst blind… after defeating the waif, the Many Faced God has the death promised to him and Jaqen allows her to go free. It’s a strange ending to a very strange storyline but Arya has essentially travelled to Bravos to become an assassin, realises it’s not for her and leaves to become Arya Stark once again.
Arya travels back to Westeros but returns with her assassin training skills in tact and finally takes her revenge on Walder Frey at the Twins, by wearing a mask of a previous Many Faced God victim. Is Jaqen going to be cool with that? I guess we’ll find out. None-the-less, this is a great piece of revenge, as it was Walder Frey who conspired with Tywin Lannister and Roose Bolton to allow her House to be practically wiped out at the Red Wedding.

Image result for arya kills walder freyArya finally getting revenge for the Red Wedding.

Over at the Iron Islands, Balon Greyjoy is killed by his long lost brother Euron Greyjoy who then declares himself Lord of the Iron Islands. Theon also makes it back around this time and declares himself to his sister Yara claiming she is the rightful heir.
Coming back and killing his brother does’t sit well with everybody but Euron’s speech at the King’s Moot gets the majority of Ironborn on board and Theon and Yara are forced to flee with half the Ironborn and the majority of their ships. They set sales for Meereen to declare themselves to Dany and when they do find her later in the series and alliance between Targaryen and Greyjoy is formed with the promise she’ll help them take back the Ironislands from their uncle Euron.

Sam and Gilly are en route to the Citadel where Sam can train to be a Maester for the Watch and pass through Sam’s hometown Horn Hill where they hosted by his Father, Mother, Brother and Sister. Sam’s Dad, Randyll Tarley hates him for being a “fat waste of space” and when the dinner goes horribly wrong Sam sneaks away with Gilly and Little Sam in the night taking the family heirloom Heartsbane (another Valyrian sword!) with him. This sword is extremely important to Randyll Tarley, so I’m not sure he’ll be best pleased Sam has ran away with him, so expect more from this storyline. He, Gilly and Little Sam arrive at the Citadel and that’s where we leave them.

Back at The Wall, Sansa arrives with Brienne and Pod and we’re given an amazing mini reunion between Starks, where John and Sansa come face to face and embrace eachother. Sana explains that Ramsay Bolton has Winterfell and gives the horrifying news about how cruel and evil he really is. To make matters worse a raven arrives to inform them that Ramsay has Rickon Stark in his custody and they’re left with no choice but to rally whatever bannermen not declared to the Bolton’s and take him on and more importantly take their home back. Sansa and John grew up in Winterfell and whilst John was always closer to Arya, there is a connection between them due to what they’ve lost. Cat and their brother Robb killed at the Red Wedding, Ned beheaded by Joffrey in King’s Landing, Bran and Arya presumed dead and finally Rickon in Bolton custody, which Sansa even concedes; means he’s probably dead already, one way or another. So really they’re the only family one-another have left.

Image result for jon snow and sansaJohn and Sansa are reunited at The Wall.

Bran meanwhile still having his dreams finds out that it was the Children of the Forest who created the White Walkers. When the first men came to Westeros and started fucking shit up, they needed to fight back and so created this weapons to stop them. Clearly this got out of hand and that’s how the White Walkers came about. It’s a good mirror of the idea that one day Robots will turn on masters and take over humans. It explains why the Leaf is helping Bran and co.
One night when the three-eyed raven isn’t watching, Bran makes the silly decision to try dream again, but on his own. This proves very costly when the Night’s King finds him and touches him. The brand he produced on Bran allows him to somehow connect and the Night’s King knows exactly where he is. He assaults the tree/cave they’re in and they’re forced to retreat. Meera tries to wake Bran with Hodor but can’t, so they continue to drag Bran’s body to the exit whilst being chased down by White Walkers and Wights. Here we lose so many of the cast due to Bran’s stupidity and it’s extremely said. First Bran’s Direwolf Summer is killed trying to stop the onslaught of Walkers, then comes the three-eyed raven himself, then Leaf in a heroic way, let’s of one of her magic bombs, allowing herself to die in the process. We also believe Leaf to be the last of the Children of the Forest too, so this is an extremely sad moment. Then the big one… and this is a tough one to explain, so bear with me…
Bran wargs into young Hodor’s mind whilst using “the sight” and tells him to hold the door. He somehow creates an event where Hodor’s future is already written. He is to hold to door whilst Bran and Meera escape the White Walkers. This completely re-writes Hodor’s history from the moment Bran Wargs inside of him during a time when he was just a young stable boy. Holding the door to save Bran was his destiny and we find out how it completely brain damaged him from a young age because of what Bran needed him to do in the future. A sad moment for Game of Thrones.
(I just want to quickly point out that Bran doesn’t do this at the time. “The past is already written. The ink is dry.” as quoted by the three-eyed raven. So no, Bran won’t be able to go back and save Ned and alternate the future as what’s happened in the past has happened… in the past.)
Bran and Meera escape due to their companions heroics and are saved by a mysterious figure (Coldhands in the books) who turns out to be Bran’s uncle Benjen Stark. Benjen has been missing since season one after heading out of a Ranger’s task and we find out he is also partially Wight. How this has happened is a mystery, but once he gets them to The Wall he cannot pass himself due to the magic is possesses. That’s another good point. Try not to think of The Wall as literally a wall, but a powerful magical barrier which holds the White Walkers north, away from the cities and communities of Westeros. It’s not as simple as walking around the thing, haha.
Bran’s story ends here for now, but remember, we’ve lost Osha. Jojen, Leaf, Summer, Hodor and Three-eyed Raven all to save this one crippled boy and whilst Dany and John are the pinups of the series, for me Bran is the key to a Song of Ice and Fire…

Image result for hodor hold the doorHodor is ripped apart by Wights as his holds the door for Bran to escape.
His destiny written from when he was a child.

We’re given a brief glimpse this season of the return of a very loved character, The Hound or Sandor Clegane. What part he will play in the Game of Thrones is yet to be known, but he’s clearly on some kind of righteous road to cleansing himself and stumbles across a nice community who accept him. However, when this community is killed by Bolton men, his lust of revenge returns and he finds himself face to face with the Brotherhood Without Banners again, lead by Beric Dondarrion. They have taken the men who killed Sandor’s community captive and are about to hang them, when Sandor barters with them for two of their lives and kills them. We’re left assuming that The Hound will travel with the Brotherhood North, as Beric claims they’re going to fight the real battle.
We know he has beef with The Mountain, who is now Cercei’s royal monster/bodyguard, as afterall it was The Mountain who burned Sandor’s face when they were very young. We also know that him and Arya had a strong bond towards the end, despite the fact she left him to die, so who knows if they’ll meet again either. Rumours suggest he’ll join up with John to take on the Walker along with Brienne, which would be an interesting reunion considering the last time they met she knocked ten tonnes of shit out of him and nearly killed him. We shall see.

Back in King’s Landing, the High Sparrow, his loyal religious followers and other key characters including Kevan Lannister, Mace, Loras and Margaery Tyrell are all waiting in the Sept for Cercei’s trial. She has atoned via her walk of shame in season 5 to cleanse her, but needs to face trial before the God’s.
When Cercei doesn’t show, Margeary is the first to sense something isn’t right. We’re shown The Mountain stopping King Tommen from attending her trial too… and then we’re introduced to one of the biggest scenes in Game of Thrones history. Cercei (behind everybody’s back) has discovered secret wildfire hidden under the Kingdom and has it lit destroying everybody in and around the Sept, including all her aforementioned foes who have wronged her in the past. She even has Qyburn kill Grand Maester Pycelle with his newly acquired little birds.
A large portion of King’s Landing lights up with Cercei watching on with a smirk on her face sipping a glass of wine. It’s an amazing moment, but at the same time sad that we lose such a massive amount of main characters who have been with us since Season 1 and 2. None-the-less, this doesn’t come without a price. A distraught and confused King Tommen unable to handle the pressure jumps to his death and Cercei loses her final child as her prophecy in Season 5 predicted she would.
Cercei seems to mourn least for Tommen, which could show that she’s becoming less emotionally unstable and just pure crazy. Jaime returns to King’s Landing to find her sitting the Iron Throne, which by the way she suits more than any other person to sit upon it. Cercei is Queen now and this is massive for Season 7.

Image result for cersei iron throneCercei sits the ironthrone like she was born to do so.

The last we see of Dany is her triumph repelling the Master’s attacks on Meereen. She returns to see it under siege and with the help of he dragons, takes down the attackers and kills the Masters with the help of Missande and Greyworm. She honours Tyrion with a Hand of the Queen pin and we’re given a nice shot of how much this means to Tyrion.
They setup sale for Westeros with the Greyjoy fleet and we also discover that Varys has got the Sandsnakes and Tyrells on board too. You cannot underestimate how large this army is that she now has. Not to mention the Unsullied too. It will be interesting to see how her assault on Westeros pans out, as we’re assuming that Euron Greyjoy will team up with Cercei and the Lannisters at King’s Landing. That would be amazing!

Image result for dany travelling to westerosDany makes for Westeros with Tyrion as her hand, an Unsullied army,
Tyrells, Dornishmen, a Khalasar and half the Greyjoy fleet behind her.

Finally we end with the Battle of the Bastards. John and Sansa want Winterfell back and Ramsay wants John out of his life so he’s no longer a threat. Ramsay rallies all his bannermen for the battle and John forges a pact with the Wildlings and remaining loyal Stark Houses to fight for him. John has much fewer in his army and concedes he’ll probably lose but takes on Ramsay anyway; and when Ramsay kills his brother Rickon before the battle John and his men attack.
Ramsay’s plan to surround John’s men with more numbers is a great one and he’s so close to winning when his men begin to crush John and his men in a circle made up of dead bodies and Bolton men. It seems as though John is about to lose this fight when Sansa arrvies with Littlefinger and more importantly The Knights of the Vale. Littlefinger is now in charge of this men after pushing Lady Arryn out of the Moondoor and taking over the Eerie, and Sansa knows this but also knew that John would never have agreed to it. None-the-less, the battle is won due to her cunning plan to bring Littlefinger into the frey.

 Littlefinger, Sansa and the Knights of the Vale storm in last minute to win the battle of the bastards.

Ramsay retreats when he realises he’s losing and his chased down by John where John repeatedly punches him in the face (a very satisfying scene) before leaving him to Sansa. Sansa’s character ark has changed probably more than any other character in the whole of Game of Thrones. She has constantly been abused physically and mentally, whether it be by Cercei, Joffrey, Littlefinger or Ramsay and it’s nice to finally see her get her own back. She kills Ramsay by feeding him to his own Hounds and refuses to turn away as it happens and we finally see the end of one of the nastiest characters to ever grace out screens.

And that’s that! Wow, this ended up so much longer than I planned it to and if you made this far, thank you so much for reading. I really hope you enjoyed it and it helped refresh your memory of Season 6 ahead of Season 7 which starts tomorrow.

Keep an eye out for mine and Danny’s joint episode overviews throughout the new series!

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