Over in Meeren, Tyrion is quite happy that his newly brokered peace actually seems to be holding – being a consummate politician he decides to double down and follow up with a PR coup. They need a powerful, well respected and incorruptible body to spread the wonders of Daenerys far and wide.
2) The Red Priests also have terrifying woo-woo as we’ve seen before and as the priestess demonstrates again with Varys. Varys loathes her with the super fiery passion of a thousand suns.
This may backfire on Tyrion.
Unfortunately in comes uncle Euron to claim the throne. I curse him because I want Yara to be queen but his plan: to ally with Daenerys (who badly needs a fleet) actually makes more sense. Ultimately Yara and him could both see the problem but only Euron really has a solution – her plan of a thousand ships was basically more raiding and destruction. Euron has a solution and Euron was also the one who ended the disastrous war by killing the last, useless king. I can see why he’s convincing.
In the North Sansa is showing more and more steel. Baelish arranges a visit with her and she chews him out epicly for selling her to Ramsay. He cannot possibly have been this ignorant of Ramsay’s nature and she lets him have it with both barrels. Go Sansa. She does learn that her uncle has retaken Riverrun – that the Tullys have an army again.
At the war planning she’s also there with solutions for Davos and John Snow’s doubts about how to retake the north (though Davos has some excellent points about how people tend not to be special and relying on the Northern’s super special loyalty is flawed). She sends Brienne to Riverrun to rally the Tullys while she plans to do a tour of the Northern houses to rally as much support for the Stark name as they can (a name she carries even if Jon doesn’t).
Jon may end up being the new lord Stark, but it is Sansa who has come through the flames and it is she who will lead the resurgence of House Stark. Oh Sansa, I love this turn around, I love to see her rising from everything she has endured.
Also note that she doesn’t tell her brother about Baelish – she is keeping him and the Knights of the Vale in reserve, she is keeping an ace in the hole in case she needs support even against her brother.
Surprisingly I don’t find Arya’s story as fascinating. She continues her training montage with the Faceless men who still doubt her. I can see why, her ego is still very apparent and her responses seem very much rehearsed words she knows they want to hear. When she sees an actor troupe playing the politics of Kings Landing and the death of her father in ridiculous terms, her emotion is powerfully plain to see.
(A note on the troupe though – in some ways this really shows how the Game of Thrones IS a game of noble houses unless you’re a peasant unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. They make a mockery of this because, despite what various lords and ladies think, the actual rulers matter little to the common people).
She is being given another mission to assassinate someone – and she keeps asking questions. Who is good. Who is bad. Who deserves to die, who hired the killers – these are not the questions the Faceless men should be asking.
Which brings us to Bran.
Now marked the vast and utterly terrifying army of Wights (seriously this is absolutely horrifying depiction. The Walking Dead has nothing on this) launches at the mound and the tree. Bran’s people rally: the Children of the Forest can’t come close to stopping the overwhelming numbers. Even a barrier of fire doesn’t stop them just digging through the mounds. Summer the dire wolf is overwhelmed and dies. The Children of the Forest die. The Raven in his tree dies. That leaves Meera to try and get Bran out of the mound through the escape tunnel.