Spoilers through Season 5 of 'Game of Thrones' and the corresponding books follow.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in Sunday night's episode of Game of Thrones was the revelation that Littlefinger has arranged a marriage between Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton.
This is a departure from the books, where Roose weds Ramsay to a fake Arya. It's a pretty terrifying prospect for Sansa, too, though she knows nothing of Ramsay's murderous cruelty.
Apparently Littlefinger knows nothing of it, either, though I have a hard time believing that. In any case, his argument to convince Sansa to go through with the marriage seems pretty weak to me.
"There's no justice in the world unless we make it," he tells her. "You loved your family. Avenge them." Little does she know that the best way to do that would be a dagger through her new uncle's heart. His many betrayals put almost all of Sansa's family tragedies into motion.
We're still not sure what Littlefinger's actual plans are at this point. He seems to be playing every side of the conflict he can manage. Cersei is still in contact with him, we learn, in a scene where we're reminded that the Mountain may indeed still be alive.
And though Ramsay swears to Littlefinger that he'll never hurt Sansa, and he pulls off that sincere expression so well, we can only imagine the cruelty rolling around in his twisted brain.
Faceless Girl
In Braavos, Arya begins her transformation into...something else. A Faceless Man (or girl) stripped of her identity---though her keeping Needle when she tosses her other possessions into the sea indicates that she won't ever fully succeed at becoming one of these death worshipers.
It's likely no accident that after Arya's scenes we cut to an image of Theon "Reek" Greyjoy, whose own identity has been stripped at the hands of Ramsay. In Winterfell, Sansa is welcomed by the northerners. An old woman tells her "The North remembers." But Reek remains in hiding.
Meanwhile, Brienne and Podrick remain on Sansa's trail. They have a nice bit of bonding, finally, as well, as Podrick reveals his origins as a squire and Brienne tells her story of humiliation at a ball her father hosted for her. Of all the boys invited, only Renly Baratheon treated her with any decency.
Poor Brienne. At least she's become a seriously awesome fighter.
Not far off, Jon Snow once again refuses the entreaties of Stannis Baratheon to take on the Stark name and become Lord of Winterfell. Stannis also urges Jon to send Ser Alliser Thorne away. Instead, Jon makes Thorne First Ranger. He does, however, attempt to send Janos Slynt away to watch over Greyguard, a Night's Watch ruin.
Slynt refuses, and Jon takes swift action. This was, quite possibly, my favorite scene in A Dance with Dragons (or at least right up there.) "You can stick your order up your bastard ass," Slynt tells Jon Snow.
"Take Lord Janos outside," Jon says. "Ollie, bring me my sword." For a moment it looks like Thorne will protect his crony, but he moves out of the way soon enough. The odds are against him. Slynt begs for mercy, says he'll obey Jon's orders, but Jon---wisely---refuses him mercy. Slynt was only going to cause trouble and rebellion against Jon. Any weakness shown here, and mercy would no doubt be seen as weakness, would undermine Jon's leadership.
Chop. We're reminded of Ned Stark's execution of a terrified ranger in the first season. Stannis approves.
Sparrows Have Come To Roost
In King's Landing we see the first happy wedding in a long time. Tommen and Margaery are wed, and Margaery begins her slow manipulation of Tommen against his mother.
There's certainly no love lost between the two women. Margaery pokes fun at Cersei, sure to make lots of sexual references about Tommen in her presence, and generally asserts herself as the true queen. "What do we call you now?" she asks Cersei, in front of her tittering ladies in waiting.
Meanwhile, the religious zealots known as the Sparrows have flooded the capital city. Sparrows invade Littlefinger's popular whore house and take the High Septon on a walk of shame through the city for his sins (foreshadowing!) after which he demands that Cersei have their leader, the High Sparrow, executed.
Instead, Cersei locks up the High Septon and goes to meet the leader of the zealots, the High Sparrow himself, with whom she believes she can form an alliance. Cersei is playing with an all-new kind of wild-fire here, though she seems awfully confident that her alliance with the High Sparrow will be in her favor, a way to set the Sparrows against her new daughter-in-law.
Tyrion and Varys continue to travel toward Dany. They stop to gawk at a red priestess, and then make their way to a whore house and tavern where Tyrion is surprised to find he's too rattled by his recent traumas to take part in one of his favorite activities: whoring. Interestingly, the most popular prostitutes in the East are the Daenerys lookalikes, though Tyrion finds himself chatting up a brunette.
Lo and behold, we see another familiar face here as well: Jorah Mormont, the disgraced adviser and spy. Of all the gin joints in all the world, he walks into this one.
And, of course, the knight of Westeros recognizes Tyrion instantly. He probably recognizes Varys, too, since he was ostensibly working with the Spider. When Tyrion goes out to take a piss, Jorah bags and tags him. The credits roll.
This was yet another great episode in Season 5, but man does it diverge from the books. While the basic building blocks are the same, having Sansa actually sent to wed Ramsay is a huge departure. In the books, fake Arya is Jeyne Poole, a friend of the Stark girls.
Spoiler warning for non-book readers:
The things that happen to Jeyne at the hands of Ramsay are among the worst we encounter in the entire series. These and Reek's own torture and dismemberment. I'm really worried about what this means for the show, though I admit it works on a narrative level. In fact, it works really well. It makes the coming conflict between Stannis and the Boltons, and the role of Jon Snow and Theon, all that much more frightening.
End spoiler for non-book readers.
The rest of the episode was strong, though we're still very much setting stages as we go. Arya is slowly beginning to become a part of the Faceless Men, though that's still very much a slow burn.
Cersei is walking into far more dangerous territory than she thinks. The High Sparrow comes off as such a nice guy here. Of course, he's the leader of a radical religious movement, nice guy or not, and Cersei has no clue what that actually means. She thinks she can play politics-as-usual, and underestimates the true feelings of the people and the religious zealots toward her and her children.
We saw nothing of Jaime or Dany this time through, and still no glimpse of Bran or Rickon. So there's lots of question marks as we wrap the episode up. But I'm getting more and more excited to see where the show goes, as it departs ever further from the source material, while still remaining surprisingly true to the story.
Thoughts?
