SPOILER ALERT. This recap will recap the events of episode five, as recaps tend to do. There’s plenty to cover.
If you haven’t watched the episode yet, flee now. We’ll hold the door for you on your way out.
Last week’s recap: Book of the Stranger
NORTH OF THE WALL
The White Walkers were created by a pack of sentient cabbages.
I don’t think that’s what they’re officially called. George R.R. Martin refers to them as “children of the forest”. But their heads look like rotten cabbages, dammit, so I’m sticking with it.
In his first deeply disturbing vision of the episode, Bran watches Leaf — yes that’s her name, and yes cabbages have leaves, so it fits perfectly — plunge some obsidian into the chest of some random human prisoner. He screams in agony, and then his eyes turn that familiar icy blue. Meet the first White Walker.
As you may recall, the very same cabbage lady has been helping Bran and co survive while he trains with Bloodraven. When Bran wakes up, he has just one question for her: “WTF?”
“We were at war. We were being slaughtered. Our sacred trees cut down. We needed to defend ourselves,” Leaf fires back.
She has a point. Thousands of years ago, when Leaf conducted her weird Frankenstein experiment, men had driven the cabbage people to the brink of extinction. They had to act. On the other hand, creating a race of near-immortal ice zombies with the power to command murderous undead armies was probably shortsighted.Moving on ... what does Bran have in common with Tiger Woods? He’s addicted to roots. And what does he have in common with teenage boys? He can’t resist that urge to grab the wood when no one’s looking.
This all explains Bran’s foolish decision to touch one of Bloodraven’s magical tree roots without permission, throwing himself into a vision alongside the Night’s King. Unlike everyone else Bran spies on, the White Walkers’ leader can see him, and brands him with some sort of mark which means everyone is now in mortal danger. Nice going there.It gets worse. A short while later, Meera says something optimistic: “We can go home now, Hodor.” Uh oh.
This is the Game of Thrones equivalent of a phenomenon sports broadcasters call “the commentator’s curse”. If a commentator says one team is certain to win, it is guaranteed to lose. And if a Game of Thrones character is happy, something awful is definitely about to happen.
So naturally, the White Walkers show up while Bran and Bloodraven are still sharing one last vision together, leaving Meera to organise a desperate evacuation.Bloodraven dies. So do the cabbage people. Bran’s direwolf, Summer, meets a heroic end. And that’s all very tragic, but it’s nothing compared to what happens to Hodor. I’m in no emotional condition to form coherent paragraphs right now so let’s resort to bullet points:
1. Meera needs Hodor’s help, but he’s freaking out. She begs Bran to help;
2. Bran wargs into Hodor from his vision, where he’s standing near young Hodor, aka Wyllis;
3. Meera tells Hodor to hold the passage door shut so she and Bran can escape from the wights chasing them;
4. Wyllis falls to the ground in Bran’s vision and starts repeating Meera’s words. “Hold the door. Hold the door. Hold door. Hold door. Hodor.” Everyone in Winterfell is like: “Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Wyllis?”
5. The wights tear present day Hodor to shreds, permanently traumatising Wyllis.
