BWW Recap: GAME OF THRONES Reveals Shocking Truths in 'The Door'

This weeks episode of GAME OF THRONES entitled "The Door," revealed a lot of information and answers to some of the biggest questions of the series, as well answered some questions that don't necessarily need answering. In a show riddled with plot holes, some of which were highlighted this episode, their ability to carry out reveals and give us answers isn't always up to task. If your biggest concern watching GAME OF THRONES was finding out the origin of Hodor's name, then this was the episode for you! If the importance of finding out the origin of the White Walkers, the biggest threat that endangers the lives of all of our characters, is highest on the scale for you, you'll get answer, but the attention and care given to revealing said answer may disappoint you. It's all apparent just looking at the recaps and reactions. The most used phrase from an episode in which we learn where the White Walkers came from, another direwolf dies, a mythic race goes extinct, and the Starks make a battle plan, is "Hold the door!" That says quite a lot.

We start out this week where we've started every week; the Wall. Sansa Stark is sewing once again, something she seemed to have given up previously. It's nice to see her sewing because for a moment, I thought "feminine" qualities weren't considerEd Strong on this show...Oh wait, lets see what happens next! Sansa meets with Little Finger who has taken his magical speedy teleportation device to Mole's Town. Should we still call her Sansa though? Remember that different character Sophie Turner was playing last week on our screens? That awesome, sassy, and uber-confident lady? Well she's back with a vengeance and she is certainly not Sansa Stark. This NEW GIRL tells Little Finger everything we've been thinking as an audience member last season, as we watched him hand her over to the Boltons. She literally says, "If you did not know, you are an idiot. If you knew, you are my enemy." While I agree with every thing she is saying, and would too feel tempted to allow Brienne of Tarth to stick a blade through him, everything she does is so incredibly unlike Sansa. What happened to the girl who believed and encompassed the phrase "courtesy is a lady's armor"? Where is she? That is supposed to be Sansa's journey. She's the one who learns how to play the GAME OF THRONES the long way and use her strength in her courtesies to get what she wants; very much inline with how Little Finger plays the game. However, this girl is more like Arya. She's not afraid to be blunt, ruthless, and take charge. I like this girl, but I don't like what she implies. Making Sansa this way now, with no indication of her ever BECOMING this person before, to the point where it faults the writing, not only implies that her rape empowered her, but she needed to be raped in order to become "strong." If Sansa had to be a victim of sexual violence for us to get to this "Women on Top" personality we're being thrown this season, implying that this made it all "worth it", is off-putting and worrying to say the least.

Empowered™ Sansa then goes on to tell Little Finger to shove his forces from the Vale you-know-where and leave. She rejects a massive force that would stand behind her and help save her home and her brother just because she's angry with Little Finger. Granted, she has every right to be mad at him and I was nodding my head feverishly in agreement with her every word, but to refuse an army of this size in a time as important as this seems contrite and foolish. Sansa would use this and use Little Finger for her advantage, but Empowered™ Sansa can't see beyond her short-sided rashness which ends up just seeming a bit reckless. Little Finger doesn't want leave without giving her a bit of help though. He tells her her uncle Brynden, the 'Blackfish', amounted all of the remaining Tully forces and took back Riverrun. This seems a bit convenient and also confusing, but we're given no further explanation as to how this was accomplished! Thanks for the info drop though Little Finger! It will come in handy! In what is the most awkward and unearned "mic drop" ever, he also reminds Sansa that Jon is her "half-brother," before walking out.

Across the Narrow Sea in Braavos, the other remaining Stark daughter is once again getting beat with a stick, which one can assume is still for training purposes, although it just seems like the Waif is taking pleasure in hitting her. The Waif tells Arya she is not ready to become no one, that she will never renounce her identity as Arya Stark, which is seemingly inline with all of the Stark children's arcs. However, instead of threading in Arya's inability to let go of her name and identity, we have seen her time and time again working hard and succeeding in BECOMING "no one," and all of the Waif's discouragement just seems to come from a source of the harmful trope that "all girls are catty." Why else would she hate her pupil learning so much?

Jaqen H'ghar decides she's ready enough though, because he gives her the backstory of the Faceless Men, who were founded upon a slave REVOLT and then sends her on a mission. Arya, as Arya oddly enough and not with any of the faces in the Hall put on, stands in the back of an audience and watches a mummer's farce recapping season 1, as actors mock her sister and father right before her to a crowd's humor and delight. A lot of the jokes and dialogue felt overtly modern here, a trend creeping into the latest episodes of Thrones that tends to pull you out of this fantasy world. However, Arya watches in distress and disdain as her family and tragedy is ridiculed on stage. All of this is an appropriation of the events one of Arya's sample chapters released from Winds of Winter, the yet to be released book of Martin's Ice and Fire series. She figures out her target is the actress who plays Cersei Lannister, telling Jaqen later on that the younger actress portraying Sansa hired a faceless assassin to do away with her fellow actress out of jealousy for her talent. Again, in Thrones, or at least in the writer's room, all girls are catty. So catty, in fact, that they would hire an assassin to kill another woman just because of jealousy. Also, why was Arya just walking around backstage as herself? Is it not the point of a faceless assassin to be "faceless"? They would certainly not stake out their target with their own face. Hopefully when she actually does the poisoning she will don one of those many expensive custom made masks from the Hall of Faces that cost Thrones so much of their budgeting last season.

Jumping right along, as Bran visions always do, we are thrown into a flashback of the Children of the Forest (COTF) performing some sort of blood ritual. They are standing around a human and pushing an object, resembling an obsidian dagger, though his chest. Bran stands along watching in horror until suddenly, the human's eyes dilate and turn the icy blue color of an Other. Bran wakes up in shock, and angrily accuses the COTF of creating the White Walkers, to which one of them responds that they only did it to defend themselves from humans, like Bran, in the "war." Now, this is seemingly a massive reveal. We were just given the backstory to the big "villains" of our story who are threatening to wipe out the human race. However, it didn't feel that way. It felt very low-stakes and was delivered to us in an incredibly nonchalant way, in the middle of the episode, with seemingly no repercussions regarding it in the near future. Bran was shocked, sure, but no one else was and the direction, writing, camera work, and visuals we were given didn't stress the situation either. In fact, it's one of the biggest problems with the Bran flashbacks. Flashbacks, as even D&D have said, are often "cheap" and "easy" expositional solutions in writing. Thus, in using them, all of them have to be of the utmost importance and have an impact. That can be done beautifully when they parallel and contrast starkly with the present-narrative. Bran's visions, however, have all just come out of nowhere, with no introduction, and give no indication, visually, of being different than the current story being told. Thus, when these flashbacks are meant to feel important, there are no visual cues to tell us, and often big moments, like this White Walker origin reveal, lose their impact and feel ordinary.

Down on Pyke, the STAKES are seemingly high, as the Kingsmoot to decide the next ruler of the Iron Islands is being held. Immediately Yara Greyjoy, played absolutely beautifully once again by Gemma Whelan, STAKES her claim, delivering an impassioned speech that begins to sway the Ironborn. Speaking of which, there weren't that many who turned up to find out who their next ruler would be, were there? Anyway, everything seems to be going Yara's way, when one of the Ironborn men call out that they have never had a queen and question why they should start now with Balon's true born son and heir standing right before them. Yara looks at Theon, daring him to give her the support he promised and the moment switches. Whereas before, this was Yara's tale, her story to be told and an impassioned and inspiring moment of empowerment and power, it now became Theon's. All of Yara's agency in the situation is given over to him, and it is he who must persuade the Ironborn to stand by Yara and proclaim her as their queen.

Yara's (Theon's) moment doesn't last too long, for their uncle, Euron, shows up and makes his own claim for the throne. In the wake of Yara's accusations, he immediately admits he murdered his brother, their king, and somehow, this moves the crowd. This season may not have themes of overarching significance, but it does have a theme of perpetuating the idea that kinslaying and kingslaying is not only no big deal, but are endearing qualities of a ruler. We saw it in Dorne with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, in Winterfell with Ramsay, and now here with Euron. The Ironborn flock to support him and his claims that he will command the biggest fleet in Westeros and present them to Daenerys Targaryen, "along with [his] big cock."

As now ruler of the Iron Islands, Euron is baptized (drowned). Instead of giving him resuscitation and claiming the Drowned God breathed life back into him, they just leave him lying on the shore, waiting to see if he magically survives. Guess what? He does. He arises, and asks where his noticeably absent niece and nephew went, uttering the most atrocious line of the episode, "Let's go murder them!" Meanwhile, in the time it took for that to happen, somehow Yara and Theon moved at lightning speed and managed to steal the Iron Fleet right out from under him. He runs up to find the ships already out to sea and still wins over his men, demanding that they cut down every tree (Is the land suddenly rich enough to grow trees and thus making their house motto of "We Do Not Sow" irrelevant?) to build a new fleet, proclaiming he will lead them into greatness.

Speaking of the "Dragon Queen," we find her over in Esssos, confronting Jorah about his need to respect her decisions and boundaries after repeatedly disobeying her wishes and orders to leave her company. This truth telling, and truly empowering moment, doesn't last for long because the narrative favors "Nice Guy" Jorah, who is simply "friendzoned." Not for long though! Jorah reveals his greyscale and "gallantly" tells her he will go far away from her, because he loves her and does not wish to endanger her. The smallest violin plays in the background for Jorah, and Dany is convinced. Her anger turns to sadness because, as the narrative shows us, she finally realizes his worth. She literally apologizes to him, for what I do not know, and commands him to find a cure and come back to her. Of course, Iain Glen's talent, looks, and beautiful voice make it a lot easier to sympathize with this Jorah more than his book counterpart, but for goodness sake, he did send information about her over to Westeros, ensuring a target remained on her back, a long time after his moment of realization when he saw her walk through the flames. How is this, and the following scene where the Dothraki follow a woman without question after she burned down their sacred temple, walked through the flames, and singlehandedly dismantled their whole culture, way of life, and structure, meant to be empowering?

Tyrion's masterplan from the last episode apparently worked though, because Tyrion can do no wrong, and now he and Varys just want to make sure the people know that it was their Queen who made all this peace possible. Tyrion is just that nice...he's willing give Dany all the credit, without her even knowing about it. Thus, he enlists the help of a completely random red priestess (dressed in a replica of Melisandre's exact outfit) whom we have never seen before. She also apparently traveled all the way from Volantis in the time between that first Tyrion scene and this one. She must also have that teleportation device! Or maybe it's her gift from R'hollor! She declares that any friend of Dany's is a friend of hers, for Dany is the prophesied chosen one (move over Jon Snow), and she will spread the word of Dany's triumph far and widE. Varys acts quite emotional and out of character in this scene, for he is quite skeptical of her and her support because he knows how wrong a red priestess's predictions went for Stannis. She proves him wrong as she starts recounting the details of his mutilation, convincing him of her powers. However, why they needed to call in this random Red Priestess for this is a mystery. When the first Tyrion scene started and they needed a person to speak for them, whom the people would respect and listen to, he repeated Varys' line from last season, "Who said anything about him?" Originally, one would have thought this was referring to Missandei, the person there who not only can relate to the people insurmountably, but also has their respect and admiration, but that turned out to be false. Apparently she's just there to disagree with Tyrion's plans but she's not allowed to do anything about it. She's not even there to translate, the one thing she should definitely be able to do in this situation, for everyone magically can now speak the Common Tongue!

Speaking of magic, back across the sea, beyond the Wall, everyone is asleep in the Weirwood Cave, so Bran decides to go for a naughty trip down the Weirwood net, unsupervised. He's transported in the middle of a large field of snow, but dun dun dun, he is face to face with an army of Wights led by the Night's King. Bran looks around, distraught but safe inside his vision, until, suddenly, the Night's King turns to him and the Wight's follow suit, seeing him. Bran, visibly frightened, makes to run but the Night's King grabs his arm and Bran wakes up, screaming, in the cave. The Three Eyed Raven seems remarkably chill about it all, knowing something like this would happen, and tells Bran that because he touched him, the Night's King not only knows where he is, but is now able to enter their previously safeguarded tree-cave. He tells Bran the time has come to become him, but Bran is worried and asks if he is ready. "No," the Three Eyed Raven bluntly states, as everyone else panics about the army of the dead coming upon them.

Before they can come however, we must go South to the most exposition-y scene of exposition at Castle Black. Empowered™ Sansa, Jon, Davos, Brienne, Tormund, Edd, and Melisandre (who doesn't say one line of dialogue but is in the background) are convening a war council to decide their next move. Empowered™ Sansa takes charge of the whole thing, explaining to them how they will get the support they need. Davos says that no one will rally behind someone who's name isn't Stark, but Empowered™ Sansa won't let that casual sexism slide. Her name is Stark and they will follow her! Jon notices this in a weird moment that seems to be seeding some sort of resentment between the two. This is furthered when she lets them know that her uncle has an army of forces at Riverrun and, when Jon asks her how she knows this, she lies to him and claims that she saw a raven Ramsay got before she left Winterfell. So much for their newfound close sibling relationship! I guess they don't trust each other all that much. Maybe Little Finger's mention of him only being her "half-brother" really got to her, because the sweet dynamics we got last episode where they were joking about Old Nan and their childhood seemed worlds away.

Empowered™ Sansa then commands Brienne to go off to Riverrun, despite Brienne's reasonable trepidation of leaving Sansa alone. I don't know how Brienne is meant to make it to Riverrun and back with an army in time, but perhaps she too has a magical teleportation device! Everyone in the world has one now! All that sewing Sansa did in the beginning of the episode payed off because she managed to not only sew herself a beautiful dress, but also a cloak for Jon that resembled Ned's old cloak in that short time. She's a really good sewer! It's a sweet moment of support when she gives it to Jon, but there's still a strange underlying current of awkwardness and animosity between the two that I surely hope doesn't continue down the line. They set off to go gather support, and just as they leave, we get the biggest confirmation of the whole episode. Dolorous Edd is indeed Lord Commander! Who needs elections anyway?

Back up North, the Three Eyed Raven decided there was just enough time to do some more tree warging and we flashback to Winterfell where a young Ned Stark is leaving to go be fostered under the care of Jon Arryn at the Eryie. There's no indication of what the purpose of warging back into this particular moment in time was and why the Three Eyed Raven found it so important,despite the impending threat, that they just had to make time for it, but we're there. Young Hodor is also there, watching on. While this is all happening however, predictably White Walkers and their army of Wights arrive. Meera, while packing, understandably freaks out and tries to wake up Bran. The COTF try and fight them off with their molotov cocktail fireballs that everyone loved from season four, but it's not enough. The army comes right through the entrance and envelopes the tree-cave, surrounding it from seemingly every side. They start breaking in and Meera and the COTF manage to kill a few with regular swords and weapons (since when are Wights able to be killed with standard weaponry like real zombies?) but it's not enough. There are too many. Meera keeps calling to Bran, begging him to wake up and warg into Hodor and at first, things seem hopeless.

All is not lost though, for Bran starts to hear her in the vision world and the Three Eyed Raven tells him to listen to her. He seems to warg into young Hodor and thus, also, present day Hodor in the cave. How that works exactly we don't know, and even after the episode, it's still not very clear. However, Bran-Hodor comes to help Meera carry Bran's body away from the fray of Wights. It's all very hectic and then Summer jumps in to help them, fighting off Wights, but is immediately attacked, surrounded, and ultimately killed. RIP Summer! Seriously, what is up with all these quick direwolf deaths? All we have left is Ghost and the now probably extremely feral Nymeria, which is quite depressing. Hopefully they can reunite, even if their human counterparts do not!

Bran-Hodor, a COTF, and Meera run with Bran's body down a long corridor that is thankfully and conveniently lit with torches, which one must give thanks for the break on her strained eyes, but the Wights are catching up. The Night's King then walks into the center of the cave and stabs the Three Eyed Raven! It nice having you while you lasted Max Von Sydow! Then the COTF, the last of her kind, sacrifices herself for Bran to allow Meera and Co. to escape. Is Bran, a human, meant to be their "savior"? Why else would literally all of the COTF sacrifice themselves, and thus extinct their entire race, for him? Well we must say a farewell to the COTF! It was nice knowing you while you were here! We've gone though a lot together, two whole character design changes and a lot of fireballs! However, her sacrifice doesn't do them that much good sadly, because the door at the end of the corridor wont budge and the Wights are gaining on them! Luckily Bran-Hodor manages to push through just in time and Meera starts to pull Bran's body out the door, through the snow storm and away from the cave. There's still a lot of Wights trying to get through the door though, so Meera shouts at Bran-Hodor to "Hold the door," which seemingly suggests that she is knowingly asking Bran to sacrifice Hodor without Hodor's knowledge or consent. Meera keeps shouting it at him as she pulls Bran's body farther and farther away until young Hodor, back in Winterfell, begins to have a seizure, repeating the phrase "Hold the door!" over and over again, until eventually, he's just saying "Hodor." Bran stares in shock, sad, as he watches Hodor fit on the ground. All of this parallels with present day Hodor "holding the door," as the Wights attack and kill him.

This whole scene was incredibly disturbing. Not only is the cause of Hodor's disability a result of Bran's powers, but also his complete lack of agency in any of the decisions that were made regarding his life was rather alarming. I don't think we were meant to come out feeling anything different than that, but I do think the implied feelings we were meant to have were a result of a different reading of the scene itself. In the Inside the Episode, DAVID BENIOFF and D.B. Weiss state that George R.R. Martin actually told them about this in that legendary meeting they had with him where he told them most of how the series would go. They state that he said "Hodor" came from "hold the door," which blew them away, but it seems like perhaps in Martin's story, this revelation might come in a very different manner. However, the idea that something of this nature is the result of Bran's warging is in line with the thread Martin began running throughout the story, where countless of times the concept of warning into another human body is considered troubling, wrong, and immoral. In the Varamyr Sixskins prologue chapter, he states, "to seize the body of another man was the worst abomination of all." It's made clear the unethical and upsetting nature of the act when Bran wargs into Hodor and Hodor is said to have curled up in ball, cowering in the corner of his mind. Thus, the idea that Bran warning into a human ends up having dire consequences is not unheard of. In that same Varamyr chapter, his mentor Haggon tells him, "Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become." Perhaps it does happens this way in the books. Perhaps Bran is at fault, although in the show, Meera is certainly to blame as well, but ultimately, there was no seeding of any of this in the show, so the impact of it all comes as more of an immediate shock rather than a lasting statement on our protagonist, Bran, and the world he lives in.

The context also matters greatly. Despite their insistence that this happens in the books, they've been known to have said things of a similar nature before regarding scenes that might garner some criticism that we know can't play out the same way in the novels. For example, last year, with Shireen's burning, they also cited Martin as the reasoning behind their choices. This notion is a bit frustrating because no matter what Martin told them, they have claimed numerous times the show is the show and the books are the books, even stating that they are diverging so far off the books this season that the show is becoming it's own beast, and in hiding behind Martin's word, they resist taking responsibility for their own writing. The context matters in every sense of the word and hopefully, because it wasn't necessarily structured that way in this sequence, we see the consequences of Bran and Meera's actions in the future episodes. Otherwise, they forced a disabled person, whom they seemingly disabled, to die for them without his knowledge or consent and, because of this whole timey-whimey jumble, that's what his entire life was about. Granted this was a disturbing realization to say the least, but to make it the focus of the episode, one can only hope that it must have been so to paint Bran in a different light. Although, if he turns out to be "bad", he can't be the great savior can he? I guess the Three Eyed Raven was right. He's not ready.

This episode was packed with a lot of information and a lot seemingly happened, but it didn't really feel that way. The episode was filled with illogical fallacies and some wheel spinning, but set up quite a lot of situations to explore in the future episodes. The greatest fault of this season is it's overtly fast-paced plot checklist being ticked off while feeling at the same time as if it were nothing was being accomplished. These big moments need set up and time to be explored, yet we spend minutes upon minutes listening to pointless conversations in Meereen as Tyrion attempts to "govern," and we watch Arya get hit with a stick every week. Hopefully these dire implications are explored next week though, as we get a peek of them in the trailer, and where we have an action packed episode of the crown's face off with the Sparrows while Sam returns home with Gilly to the likes of the infamous Randyll Tarly!

Check out the preview for next week's episode below and be sure to share your thoughts and reactions to this weeks episode in the comments!

Photo Credit: HBO

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