By Jessica Whitney ’16 | Staff Writer

SPOILER ALERT

After an incredibly disappointing fifth season of “Game of Thrones”, season six is stepping up its game. Almost the entirety of the Stark family was killed off throughout previous seasons, but now the remaining Starks are finally fighting back. This is officially the season of the Starks, and I am confident by the end of this season they are going to take back Winterfell.

The season started off after Jon’s death at Castle Black. It was obvious that he was going to get brought back to life, because the Red Woman was staying in Castle Black. Why else would she still be there?

The Red Woman is now convinced that he is the prince that was promised, and I’m convinced of the same. He’s easily RheagarTargaryan and Lyanna Stark’s son, not Ned’s bastard. This would give him both the blood of the dragon and of the wolf. Basically, that gives him the power to come back from the dead and be really cool.

After an unnecessarily long amount of time being trapped in a corrupted Winterfell, Sansa and Theon finally escaped. This was so delayed; I think that Sansa’s entire excursion in Winterfell was pointless.

She had already been tormented by the Lannisters, was it really necessary to have her raped by Ramsay every night? But in this show there’s no such thing as too much suffering.

Theon’s torture scenes with Ramsay as “Reek” just got gross and boring to watch. We get it, Ramsay is a psychopath and Theon is stupid, let’s move on.

Theon decided to go back to his original home at the Iron Islands and win back his sister’s trust. I think this was a very smart decision by him; he’s finally taking initiative and not being controlled by Ramsay.

Brienne took Sansa to Winterfell to reunite with Jon Snow, and this was easily the happiest moment in Game of Thrones since maybe season one. Not a single Stark has been together since season 3.

Sansa and Jon were never even close growing up, because Sansa arguably used to be the worst and picked on Jon for being a bastard. But after everything they’ve been through, that all is behind them when they see each other for the first time and hug. The second they embraced each other I think the whole country let out a sigh of content.

Sansa asks Jon, “where will you go?,” and he immediately shuts that down with a corrective, “where will we go?”. Now that they are reunited, Jon is determined that he will never leave Sansa behind and will protect her. At this point, my heart was a pile of mush. Sansa has had the greatest character development, transforming from a bratty, love struck teenage girl from season one, into a strong and graceful woman.

I should have known after having such a happy episode, the writers would shut that down really quick. And what is their favorite thing to do when they feel that an episode was too happy? They kill a dire wolf, of course.

Rickon was captured by the Bolton’s after Sansa and Theon escaped. This wasn’t a big deal, because who really cares about Rickon that much? He’s a Stark, yes, but he was too young in the previous seasons before he escaped Winterfell for him to do anything significant.The real heartbreak was what happened to his wolf, Shaggydog.

Shaggydog was decapitated by the Umber’s to prove to Ramsay that Rickon was actually Rickon Stark. When they threw Shaggydog’s poor head onto the table, I lost it. Honestly, I’d rather them have just decapitated Rickon and left the wolf alive. Rickon has had zero character development and is probably the most pointless character on the show. Shaggydog, on the other hand, like all the other wolves, was loyal and fierce. He protected and fought for Rickon to stay alive.

Rickon better have the best character development of all time to make up for the death of his wolf. He better kill the Bolton’s himself or the writers are going to get a strongly worded letter from me.

If that death wasn’t enough, they had to kill another dire wolf.

This time it was Summer, Bran’s wolf, and it was all Bran’s fault. He had to be doing his creepy eye whites thing and warging in Hodor’s mind. Meera and the three-eyed raven tried to wake up Bran, but he was being selfish and going against the rules and warged by himself. So obviously something went wrong, and a white walker touched him in the vision. This allowed the white walkers to be able to touch him in present time, and therefore gave them the ability to kill him.
For whatever unknown reason, Bran is important and needs to stay alive. So Summer did her best to try and protect him from the white walkers, that are just about impossible to kill. She had a super brutal death, as she was beaten and ripped apart by a large group of the walkers. The sound of Summer’s cries joined mine in my living room.

If Bran had woken up, he could’ve gotten away from the white walkers faster, and Summer would probably still be alive. Bran didn’t deserve Summer’s protection, but she was so loyal and gave it to him anyways.

The writers need to stop killing dire wolves. There were never even that many wolves in the first place, seen as they had been thought of as extinct for hundreds of years. The Stark’s discovered them way back in season one, where they found the dead mother wolf and six wolf pups, enough for each of the Stark children and Jon Snow.

They all took them and raised them from babies to adults. Sansa’s was the first to die in the first season, by execution. Aria sent her wolf away so that it would not be executed. Then Robb’s was slaughtered at the infamous red wedding. So for the past five seasons, there have only been two wolf deaths, and one missing. Now, just in this one current season, there have been two deaths.

Summer’s death isn’t a complete waste to the show, however. No matter how heartbreaking it was, it was also symbolic. It was literally and figuratively the “death of Summer”. Winter isn’t just coming anymore, like the Stark’s house saying, Winter is here. Summer is dead, the white walkers touched Bran, and basically everyone is screwed.

Not only is Bran at fault for Summer’s death, but he is completely to blame for Hodor’s. He literally forced Hodor to die, against his own will. Since Bran was warged in Hodor’s mind in the past for the duration of these events, he controlled all of Hodor’s actions.

Bran forced Hodor to barricade the door with his body, blocking the white walkers from following Bran and Meera. They repeatedly yelled at Hodor to “hold the door!”, as the white walkers pulled at Hodor’s flesh through the door and ripped him apart.

This is the long desired explanation for why Hodor could only ever speak the words “Hodor”. His real name was Willis, but since Bran was warged into Hodor’s young body, he traumatized Hodor. After repeatedly hearing the words “hold the door”, Hodor lost his mind and from that point on could only say Hodor.

So not only is Bran responsible for Summer and Hodor’s death, he was literally the reason for Hodor’s torment throughout his entire life.

I don’t know what Bran and Meera think they’re going to do or go without Summer or Hodor. Hodor carried Bran around everywhere, and Summer protected them. What is a boy that is paralyzed from the waist down, and a teenage girl going to do to protect themselves from the winter and the white walkers that are searching for them. Hodor’s dead body isn’t going to hold that door for long.

I wish Bran would warg into one of the Night’s Watch minds and see that Jon and Sansa are together at Castle Black, and go there too. They could all take back the North together, and every living Stark besides Arya would be reunited. It’s just that, a wish, though, because as I previously wrote, Bran is an idiot and will probably stay far away from Winterfell because he has some type of duty or whatever.

But with Jon and Sansa together, and the wildling army, I think they could easily take back Winterfell and become the wardens of the North. They could save Rickon and then try to get Arya back from her stupid excursion in Braavos. With the Stark’s back and fiercer than ever, they could be unstoppable.

The North remembers.