The world of Game of Thrones is rich and layered, but it's also damned confusing. Unless you're the guy from A Beautiful Mind, you probably have to do a little Googling now and then to keep things straight. And that's okay. It's also why we're here to help.
Everyone knows Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is dead (for now), but can you remember where we left Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen), or the Greyjoys? Probably not. So check out our guide to where every major Game of Thrones character is right now:
Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke): The reopening of the fighting pits turned into deadly chaos after a Son of the Harpy attempted to take Dany's life. Khaleesi was able to escape on Drogon's back, but shortly afterward Dany was captured by a Dothraki khalasar.
Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane): Stannis' decision to sacrifice his daughter Shireen was all for naught. His wife Selyse killed herself, Melisandre (Carice van Houten) fled to Castle Black, and before he could lay siege on Winterfell, the Boltons' army advanced on the few men Stannis had left. Brienne discovered a defeated Stannis on the battlefield and after he confessed to killing Renly, she finished the king off.
Arya Stark (Maisie Williams): After finding her way to the Braavosi brothel where Meryn Trant was abusing young girls, Arya revealed her true face and killed the man who killed Syrio Forel. In order to pay her debt for taking a life which was not hers to take, Jaqen (Tom Wlaschiha) blinded Arya.
Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau): After his disappointing dalliance in Dorne, Jaime headed back to King's Landing with Bronn (Jerome Flynn), his niece-daughter Myrcella, and her fiancé Trystane in tow. But while their ship was in route, Myrcella died from a poisoned kiss from Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma), who clearly has no plans to stop rebelling against Prince Doran.
Margaery (Natalie Dormer) and Loras Tyrell (Finn Jones): Olenna's (Diana Rigg) attempt to force the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) to release Queen Margaery and Ser Loras' failed. The siblings remain imprisoned for perjury and for being gay, respectively.
Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey): The Queen Regent broke down and confessed her sins to the High Sparrow (with the exception of sleeping with Jaime). But before she could go to trial, Cersei was forced to make a naked walk of shame from the Sept of the Baelor to the Red Keep.
Jon Snow: Upset with Jon's Wildling sympathies, the Night's Watch turned against the Lord Commander and killed him, with little orphan Olly delivering the final stab.
Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage): While Daario (Michiel Huisman) and the grayscale-plagued Jorah (Iain Glen) went to rescue Daenerys, Tyrion was instructed to remain behind and keep order in Mereen with Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), Varys (Conleth Hill), and Grey Worm (John Anderson).
Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright): Along with Jojen (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Meera (Ellie Kendrick), and Hodor (Kristian Nairn), Bran made it north of the Wall. But before they reached the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow), Jojen was killed by a group of wights. A Child of the Forest helped the survivors into a magic cave, where the Three-Eyed Raven began training Bran to use his powers.
Rickon Stark (Alex Parkinson): Bran instructed Osha (Natalie Tena) to bring Rickon to Last Hearth, the seat of the Stark loyalist House Umber. Bran's direwolf, Shaggydog, accompanied the duo on the journey.
Samwell Tarly (John Bradley): After the death of Maester Aemon (Peter Vaughn), Sam, and Gilly (Hannah Murray)—who officially took their relationship to the next level—headed south to Oldtown. Sam hoped to become a maester and discover how to defeat the White Walkers.
Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner): With the help of Theon (Alfie Allen), Sansa managed to escape Winterfell in the confusion of the Stannis and Bolton battle.
Brienne of Tarth: Brienne and Pod stood vigil all season, waiting for Sansa to light the candle in her window that signaled she needed help. However, when Sansa did need her, Brienne had gone to kill Stannis.
Littlefinger: Lord Baelish told Cersei that Sansa was alive and betrothed to Ramsay Bolton. He promised that the Knights of the Vale would fight for the Lannisters if he was named Warden of the North in Roose Bolton's place. Littlefinger then gave Cersei the prostitute Olyvar, who was crucial to the Faith Militant's case against Margaery and Loras. However, Littlefinger also got Lancel to reveal his affair with Cersei, which lead to her own arrest.
The Boltons: Roose (Michael Elhatton) announced he's expecting a son with his new wife, Walda Frey, which doesn't bode well for his bastard son Ramsay's (Iwan Rheon) inheritance.
The Free Folk: In the middle of talks about a possible alliance with the Night's Watch, the Night's King led his army of White Walkers and wights against the Free Folk in Hardhome. The few thousand surviving wildlings sought refuge at Castle Black, where they were allowed south of the Wall.
The Greyjoys: Yara (Gemma Whelan) attempted to rescue Theon from Ramsay, but Theon insisted he was Reek and refused to go with her. Yara returned to the Iron Islands, claiming her brother—King Balon's (Patrick Malahide) only son and heir—was dead.
The Cleganes: The Hound (Rory McCann) was critically wounded by Brienne and Arya left him for dead on the side of a road in Vale. His brother, The Mountain (Ian Whyte), was fatally poisoned by Oberyn's venomous spear, but Qyburn (Anton Lesser) managed to keep him alive—or rather, undead. He became a member of the Kingsguard.
Game of Thrones returns Sunday, April 24 at 9pm on HBO.
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Jul 30, 2016
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The show has a lot of content to get through and by that I mean characters need to move and it needs to feel natural and not forced. They don't have the time to dick around with useless side plots.
Stannis Baratheon: Technically, we don't know that Brienne "finished him off"---we only saw her swing her sword at Stannis while he was sitting wounded and defenceless against a tree. Without looking at casting rumours or any other meta-spoilers, it would be in-character for Brienne to, say, deliberately miss and sink Oathkeeper into the tree---a crisis of honour, perhaps, before she takes Stannis into (still living) custody.
Arya Stark: Arya was not blinded as punishment for killing Syrio's murderer at the brothel---those scales were balanced when the other girl at the House of Black and White killed herself by drinking poison (a life for a life). Rather, Arya was blinded as yet another test of whether she could truly shed her identity and become "no one".
Cersei Lannister: I'd add that, after her "walk of shame", she was picked up by creepy Grand Maester Qyburn's Frankensteinian creation and carried gently back into the Red Keep---while sending what will surely be remembered as the series' Most Significant Death Stare towards the camera. Cersei has hit rock bottom, but every frame of that final scene oozed with foreshadowing of her imminent resurgence. "The North Remembers" and all, but a Lannister always pays her debts. #TeamCersei
The Boltons: Probably the most important thing to remember about the Boltons going into Season 6 is that they are universally despised by the North. A quick think about the Stark legacy from Robert's Rebellion through the War of Five Kings should convince you why the North frakking loves House Stark---and the North also knows that House Bolton's betrayal on behalf of the hated Lannisters was what destroyed them. The North's absolute, universal, unconditional loathing of House Bolton is going to play a huge part in Season 6/7.
The Free Folk: I'm a bit hazy on this myself, mostly because I've read the books and get the stories confused sometimes. Were all the wildlings at Hardhome during the White Walkers' attack, and the only wildlings that still exist in Westeros are those that survived Hardhome? Or was there a group of wildlings that had already integrated into the Night's Watch (perhaps spreading to other fortresses along the wall)?
The Greyjoys: For everyone who believes the show has passed the books in terms of story progress, I direct your attention to the Greyjoys. With regard to the story of House Greyjoy as a whole, the television show is still somewhere in Book Three. And, because the Greyjoys are frakkin awesome pirate-vikings, there's no way in hell the show is going to give short shrift to this incredible arc. I for one cannot wait to meet Euron Greyjoy and Silence. I may be #TeamCersei, but I'm #HouseGreyjoy.
Dorne: Thus far, Dorne remains the only real case of the show-runners mishandling and, ultimately, failing a story that, in the books, was all sorts of cool. It started the moment they decided to write "Dorne" instead of "Sunspear" in the opening credits (it would be like writing "The North" instead of "Winterfell"). The Sand Snakes are so much cooler than this. Prince Doran is so much cooler than this. And where the hell is Darkstar? And why in the name of all that is holy did they decide to drop Arianne Martell, a brilliantly-drawn character and the books' principal Dornish POV? I hope they redeem Dorne in seasons to come, because it deserves it.
Great work on this article---I was able to offer a few corrections, sure, but there's no way I would have been able to summarize as much as you did, and as concisely. Thanks!
Most Significant Death Stare. I couldn't agree more:
There will be hell to pay #TeamCersei
I'm counting on it.
Source:
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/10/game-thrones-stannis-dead?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange
GoT doesn't kill characters off-screen, and I doubt Stannis would be the first.
The same consideration should be given to Stannis.