7 Questions 'Game Of Thrones' Needs To Answer Before The End Of The Season

By Emily Cutler | Game of Thrones | May 25, 2016 |

By Emily Cutler | Game of Thrones | May 25, 2016 |

This week’s episode finally answered a couple of important questions in Westeros. Specifically how the White Walkers were created and how Hodor got his name (sob). But that doesn’t mean this season is off the hook yet. We’ve still got a few questions that need to be answered before the end of episode 10. And before we get into the details:

1) What exactly happened when Bran warged into Young Hodor?

We know that Bran warged into Wylis during a vision of the past that gave him a seizure and turned him into the Hodor we know and love loved (sob again). But what actually happened? As Lord Castleton mentions in his astoundingly detailed recap:

And then, inside the vision, Bran looks at young Wylis and wargs into him. In the present, a very important thing happens: Hodor’s eyes roll back and go to warg-state, but then they come back. This is key.

And it’s key because:

Now, when you’ve wiped away the onions, let’s talk about Bran. Because by not following Doc Brown’s laws of time travel, didn’t he basically destroy young Wylis? By warging into him in the past, didn’t Bran condemn Wylis to live out his life constantly in a state of Holding the Door?

Bran didn’t seem to be physically controlling either Wylis or Hodor during this warg. So what exactly was happening? It’s not just important to flesh out the details of Bran being the only person known to both warg and greensee, it’s also key to understanding Bran’s morality. If Bran’s actions inadvertently showed Wylis his future and Hodor chose to accept that future, we can recognize that his sacrifice was noble. And that Bran, while a bit of a petulant asshole, didn’t knowingly kill his oldest friend and most loyal companion. If Bran is so important that others are willing to die for him, I can accept Hodor’s death even if it breaks my heart. But if, as it’s looking right now, Bran just basically lobotomized a man and then left him to die a terrible death, we’ve got a bad Winterfell case of affluenza.

2) When did Ser Davos forget he hates the Red Woman and loves Shireen?

This is less plot and more character driven, but still annoys the ever loving shit out of me. Hey, Onion Knight? Why did it take you 5 goddamn episodes before you bothered asking, “Hey, so what happened to the very young, basically defenseless girl I formed a deep, fatherly attachment to? Anybody seen her around?” Sure, maybe he imagined the worst had happened to her, and couldn’t bring himself to hear the details. But what if instead of being killed she was just kidnapped by someone in the Bolton army? Wouldn’t he want to make sure she wasn’t being Reeked by some asshole in the next castle over?

And at what point did he think, “Well sure, I was jailed for trying to kill this woman because I hate her and her black magic, but this guy I met once seems pretty important so maybe I should check if she can black magic him back to life.” What? Why? Davos was a great character because he had only a few, very important characteristics: he’s loyal, he’s compassionate, he’s brave, he will fuck your shit up if he believes it’s the right thing to do. Even if he liked Jon and disliked all of the shit that was going on at Castle Black, why would he turn to the Red Goddamn Woman to help out? He’s ceased to be a character and now just acts as a plot point. Which sucks because his character was the best. You can’t make us fall in love with someone named the Onion Knight, and then fuck his entire vibe up. Get it together, D&D.

3) Can we make Brienne more into Tormund?
Listen, this scene happened.

And I said out loud, “I would like to watch their sex tape.” I’m very into this. America is very into this. This is the shipping to end all shipping. But then they did this.

And the finished up with this.

See how Brienne is getting progressively less into this with each encounter? And Tormund doesn’t seem to be getting the hint at all? So maybe on a show which has historically mishandled rape and female nudity we shouldn’t have a relationship result from a guy not being perceptive about the feelings of the woman he’s attracted to. And sure, it could be that Brienne the Beauty is unused to and therefore uncomfortable with male attention. All the more reason to not turn our beloved, ginger wildling into a creepy bastard about it. Maybe they could start with having an actual conversation? Then the next time Tormund eyefucks Brienne as they’re about to go kick someone’s ass, we know that he at least knows her name.

4) Where the fuck is Bronn?

Seriously, where the fuck is he? Have they mentioned him once this whole season? I know characters have disappeared for long stretches at a time, but we usually have at least an idea about what they were doing. Bran was heading North to figure out his powers, Littlefinger was plotting some shit somewhere while being a dick and probably having creepy fantasies about both Catelyn and Sansa Stark, Gendry’s on a boat. But Bronn supposedly came back from Dorne (although we never saw that), and full on disappeared. Presumably he went back to his new knighthood and his new wife, but we’re never told that. Couldn’t we get an off-hand comment? Just to let us know he’s ok? I get that after losing the love of your life you might need some time to recover, but we need some reassurances too.

5) Cersei’s gonna fuck up some shit, right?
Like she has to, right? Like if Cersei explained to Dany all the shit that the High Sparrow had done, Dany would be all, “Yeah, you can totally borrow my dragons. Go fuck that shit up.” And then Cersei would Dothraki-eat the shit out of the High Sparrow’s heart? We need to see it. We need to.

6) Why this Ayra plotline?

To quote my good friend and fellow writer Sarah Carlson:

Is there any point, as far as the larger story goes, to what’s happening with Arya? This last episode made me think she’s not only not ready to be nameless/faceless/whatever but that she shouldn’t be. She’s a Stark. They need to band together. But I don’t know how thrilled I’ll be if she had to go through all the Braavos stuff to realize that. Don’t see the point.

It was one thing when we thought Arya was training to be a deadly ninja-Jedi. That’s clearly the best training for her to go back to Westeros and get her vengeance. But no one wants to see Arya turned into a low-level, hit woman. She didn’t march her ass all over the Seven Kingdoms just to end up hanging out in a dark cave and killing B-list actresses, right?

7) Why?

WHY? I mean really, why? Do Benioff and Weiss hate us? Does George R.R. Martin? Does God? Why did this have to be a thing I know?

Did you just tear up? Why does this thing we love so much hurt us so bad? Why does Martin know not only how to hit the exact right notes to make sure we ugly cry but also know that we will always come back for more? Why do we want to punish ourselves? WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?

I can’t wait to see what happens next week.