Jon Snow’s body is still cold, but the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere had plenty of heat — and plenty of surprises — in “The Red Woman.”
Corpses. Remains. Leftovers. Bodies.
It is this, the husks of what came before, that most preoccupy the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere. Cold and bloodstained, these testimonies of recent crimes — and portents for future violence — goad the story forward into its first lurching steps of the season. The living pieces in this game make wary vows, but (with one lurid exception) remain mostly static around the stiffening evidence of last year’s deadly advances.
The episode begins and ends with a view on bodies, each in their own way broken. Jon Snow’s corpse, lying wide-eyed and gory on the ice of Castle Black, returns us viscerally to the scene of last season’s concluding action. It is Ser Davos who finds the evidence of the Night’s Watch’s treachery, and amidst the stunned and grieving loyalists, the Onion Knight plays like a firebrand against the darkness.
As Alliser Thorne effects his coup, Davos, and Jon’s last friends gather with his corpse to determine their next move. Thorne demands they capitulate and promises amnesty; Davos is not so trusting. Meanwhile, Melisandre seems to have passed the final outpost of her faith. Confronted with Jon’s body, haunted by another apparently false vision of Jon Snow walking the walls of Winterfell, Melisandre peels off the last layers of her deception. Her ruby removed, Melisandre is revealed to be just a shriveled, ancient (and kind of terrifying) body.
Slightly to the south, it is Myranda’s corpse that revives Ramsay Bolton’s bizarre passions. He orders his alleged love fed to the dogs, as his father highlights the pressure of ruling without an heir from Sansa Stark. Framed once again as a Bolton baby-maker, it’s not terribly surprising (though it is disappointing) that Sansa is as helpless as we have ever seen her in “The Red Woman.” Relying on Theon for every step, she sits and waits and as her Bolton captors advance, the more conveniently to be saved by Brienne’s fortunate — though gratifying — arrival.
The vow of loyalty and protection spoken between the two women is perhaps the highlight of humanity in the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere, though it too calls to mind another absent body. Catelyn Stark exchanged the same oath of fealty with Brienne back in season 2; we can only hope that Sansa and Brienne’s arrangement has a happier ending.
In both Kings Landing and in Dorne, Myrcella’s corpse bears with it violence behind and ahead. While Cersei ruminates on the doomsaying prophesy of her youth, a grief-stricken Jaime vows revenge… albeit rather vaguely. To the south Ellaria Sand is decidedly more specific, murdering Doran Martell when news of Myrcella’s death arrives in Sunspear. At the same time, the Sand Snakes brutally take care of Trystane, providing still more bodies for “The Red Woman’s” mill, and completing a coup that will probably leave the Lannisters with more death on their minds.
In Braavos, Arya fights against her blindness in a body she can no longer trust. On the hunt for Daenerys, Jorah Mormont continues to confront his own body, in the slow process of betrayal-by-greyscale.
And in Meereen, it is an absent body that proves to be most concerning. With Dany missing and the Sons of the Harpy briefly thrown back (though their elusive leader remains a mystery) Tyrion and Varys try to tackle the power vacuum in the ravaged city. They cannot, however, prevent Dany’s hard-won ships from being incinerated in the harbor; her plan for returning to Westeros is going to need to grow a few extra limbs.
Of course, Dany’s actual body, and her actual identity, is the subject of some contention in the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere. Marching through the Dothraki Sea as a slave, Dany is subjected to sexual harassment and threats of the sort that the writers of Game of Thrones are so adept at crafting. Brought before the khalasar’s leader, Khal Moro, the details of Dany’s body lead his wives to label her a witch, though Moro is more interested in raping her than killing her. Dany tries to wrangle some protection from the witch in her own past, reciting Miri Maz Dur’s prophesy along with her many grand (and mostly meaningless) titles.
But it is only when she conjures up the memory of Khal Drogo (“I burned his body,” she tells Moro) that Dany is able to land on safe, albeit uncomfortable ground. Moro respectfully unbinds her hands and vows that no one will touch the dead Khal’s widow — but Dany isn’t going back to Meereen. Instead, Moro vows to return Daenerys to her rightful place, to Vaes Dothrak, that city littered with the treasures of dead empires, where the crones of the Dosh Khaleen wait to add Dany to their library of preservations.
And so Dany’s value remains external to her own body and self, impressed only with the meaning given to her by men. Which is not unlike what happens to corpses, as their true stories and power evaporate and are replaced with the interpretations of the living. Myrcella is an avatar of revenge; Jon Snow the embodiment of treason, from multiple angles.
But like Melisandre’s withered, shocking body, not all stories — and not all bodies — end where we think they do. They are not always well-formed, not always comely and attractive; still, they hold their own kind of power. And at the start of Game of Thrones season 6, that seems a fitting thing to remember.