Tony Black looks forward to what we might expect from Game of Thrones season six…
Game of Thrones is about to do something unprecedented and remarkable, something no previous television show has ever accomplished in quite the same way: it’s upcoming sixth season, which drops on April 24th in the US and 25th in the UK, is about to overtake George R. R. Martin’s legendary series of books, A Song of Ice and Fire, from which it spawned. Martin is a notoriously slow writer, and his last published novel A Dance of Dragons was back in 2011, with the follow up The Winds of Winter not due until at least 2017. By then, let alone season six, Game of Thrones will be gearing up to premiere it’s seventh season in a series that will in all likelihood run to eight seasons, even if HBO want ten. In other words, in just over a week, it’s the beginning of the end. Winter is finally coming, or indeed as Davos Seaworth comments in the second trailer which appeared this week “The dead are coming.”
The big question is precisely what will happen next in a series that has always had an arm of its fandom holding keys the rest of them didn’t, namely having read the source material. In truth, show runners David Benioff & D. B. Weiss haven’t strayed all that far from Martin’s work over the years. Seasons one and two are almost precise translations of the first novels A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, with a few tweaks here and there (one of the most memorable being swapping the dull Roose Bolton for Charles Dance’s wonderful Tywin Lannister in scenes with Arya Stark at Harrenhal). Seasons Three, Four and Five began to dip in and out of the successive three novels, A Storm of Swords, A Feast For Crows and the aforementioned Dragons, picking and shifting scenes and character arcs to form their own cohesive narrative. For instance, the entire Cersei Lannister-arc of Season five takes place in A Feast For Crows, before in print many other season five events. Truthfully though, Crows and Dragons to a degree sit beside each other chronologically, they weave in and out. Benioff and Weiss have done a pretty good job of streamlining, better than some may think.
Anyone who reads the books knows that Martin, as great a writer as he is, is prone to waffle and will happily circle around a million different characters rather than advance his plot in great strides, especially in Crows and Dragons. Seasons four and five corrected this to a large degree in the changes they made, a key one being the differences in exploring Dorne with the books. Martin does a lot more in the southern kingdom than Benioff & Weiss, and while on the one hand there’s a legitimate argument that Jaime Lannister & Bronn’s European Vacation was hugely truncated, if you read the books the opposite in many respects is true – it’s not even Jaime & Bronn who go there, and everyone knows if you *can* pair Nikolai Coster-Waldau & Jerome Flynn, you do it. Equally the books have a *lot* more of Brienne and Podrick wondering the wilderness almost endlessly and still don’t do all that much, whereas season five gave Brienne a much more urgent and interesting story, and indeed season six potentially promises the same.
What does season six promise, then? The point is that we no longer have weighty tomes from Martin to go on. Almost everything from his previous five books have been covered, with indeed the exception of some Brienne stuff, the adventures of Samwell Tarly and most significantly, the Greyjoy’s and their charming Kingsmoot. Season six is likely to cover a heavy amount of Martin’s forthcoming The Winds of Winter, though he and the show runners have gone on record stating the book and show narratives are increasingly veering away from each other. That could be talking up to ensure people don’t feel cheated, and remain invested, as given how closely the books and show have hued so far it’s hard to see just how differently Martin’s prose will venture from a TV show that is likely to finish way before him, as he has at least A Dream of Spring to still write and hasn’t even confirmed the seventh book is the last. Season six, then, is open and exciting territory and the most recent trailer suggested a myriad of possibilities.
Firstly, that Jon Snow isn’t dead, and credit to HBO because they’ve trolled us magnificently this last year. Frankly if Melisandre doesn’t give her life to resurrect Jon believing he’s Azor Ahai reborn now Stannis Baratheon is dead, I will eat my Valyrian steel sword. What’s looking likely is that Jon will be reborn in fire, much like we’ve seen happen to Beric Dondarrion, and with Davos as his loyal charge will decide—given the Night’s Watch are a bunch of traitorous fuckwits who deserve to die (looking at you Allister Thorne)—to be the Stark Lord that Stannis was prepared to make him. My money is on he and Davos ultimately teaming up with the escaped Sansa, who with Theon Greyjoy will help Asha Greyjoy win the Kingsmoot on Pyke and rally the North—plus the Jon-friendly Wildlings—under a revived Stark banner to defeat Roose and smug Ramsay Bolton. Why? Because of the real threat, the White Walkers. Dots need to be connected, and confirmation we’ll be seeing the infamous Euron ‘Crows Eye’ Greyjoy may complicate the above somewhat, but a revived Stark army fighting to reclaim Winterfell as ‘winter falls’ is my bet.
Rallying armies I suspect will also be what, variously, Daenerys Targaryen and Jaime Lannister will be doing. Firstly across the Narrow Sea, having been captured by the Dothraki, Dany will need to work hard in convincing them the wife of Khal Drogo and her dragons are a worthy cause to fall behind. Quite what this leaves Tyrion & Varys to do back in the city of Meereen is uncertain, but a brand new Red Priestess (presumably filling a Melisandre shaped hole…) looks to be in the frame, so could this tie in with the greater threat? Back in Westeros, the battle for Kings Landing will likely rage apace. Cersei, shamed and backed by her FrankenMountain Ser Robert Strong, knows she’ll need every last man to defeat the devout High Sparrow and his puritanical flock and given we see flashes of Frey’s and Tully sigils, might Jaime be dispatched to the Riverlands to recruit Tywin’s old pal Walder Frey so they can take back the city and restore Cersei to power? Where does Tommen fit in? Or the imprisoned Queen Margaery & her brother Loras? Plus, importantly, at what point do we get more Diana Rigg?
Perhaps most intriguing, however, are the wild cards the trailer presents. Arya is the first, continuing her terrifying training now blind in the House of Black & White in Braavos, with Jaqen H’ghar giving her one more chance to prove she is no-one – is this finally where Arya becomes the silent assassin we all so desperately want her to be? The other, the most tantalising indeed, is her brother Bran – back after a season away, being taught the weirding ways by Max von Sydow’s recast Three-Eyed Raven (let’s hope he gets more to do than in Star Wars, eh?), and all signs are hinting at possibly via Bran’s visions into the past we may see the legendary ’Tower of Joy’ sequence that would confirm the greatest fan theory in Thrones lore – that Jon Snow was born to Ned Stark’s sister Lyanna, the product of impregnation by Rhaegar Targaryen, which would make him one of the several rightful heirs to the Iron Throne. Thematically, imagine a premiere episode which begins with Bran witnessing Jon’s birth and ends with Jon’s REBIRTH. It’s perfect. Almost too perfect infact. But if true, expect the fandom to go nuts with excitement.
Plenty of rumours are circulating which suggest a lot more exists we haven’t seen in that trailer, and of that you can guarantee. Only be sure of two things at this stage. That season six may well be one of the defining seasons of Game of Thrones, and of modern television. And that winter is most definitely, at last, coming our way.
Tony Black
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
