No One

"No One" is the eighth episode of the sixth season of Game of Thrones. It is the fifty-eighth episode of the series overall. It premiered on June 12, 2016. It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by Mark Mylod.

Plot
While Jaime weighs his options, Cersei answers a request. Tyrion's plan bears fruit. Arya faces a new test.

King's Landing
Qyburn informs Cersei that the Faith Militant have been permitted entry to the Red Keep and they demand to see Cersei. Among the Faith Militant is Lancel, who tells Cersei that the High Sparrow would like to speak to her in the Sept of Baelor. However, Cersei refuses, even when Lancel warns her that that was a command and not a request. Cersei retorts that the High Sparrow promised that she could stay in the Red Keep until her trial, which Lancel replies that no such promise was made. When Ser Robert Strong threatens the Faith Militant, Lancel ask Cersei to order him aside or there would be violence. Cersei refuses to let the Kingsguard stand down. One of the Faith Militant proceeds to attack Ser Robert Strong in the chest, but his weapon could no pentrate his armor. In retaliation, the Kingsguard rips off his head, forcing Lancel and his men to stand down.

Later on, Cersei, Qyburn and Ser Robert Strong enters the Great Hall to find a large crowd as there was a royal announcement. Kevan Lannister bars her from standing beside her son and told her that her place was in the gallery "with the other ladies of the court". Cersei reluctantly takes her place there while the other women stand aside, not wanting to be near her or Ser Robert Strong.

In Meereen
things unfold

In Braavos
Shit goes down

Deaths

 * Ser Brynden Tully
 * Lem Lemoncloak
 * Gatins
 * Morgan
 * Lady Crane
 * The Waif

Cast
Starring
 * Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister
 * Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ser Jaime Lannister
 * Lena Headey as Queen Mother Cersei Lannister
 * Emilia Clarke as Queen Daenerys Targaryen
 * Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
 * Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
 * Conleth Hill as Varys
 * Rory McCann as Sandor Clegane
 * Jerome Flynn as Ser Bronn
 * Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth
 * Tom Wlaschiha as Jaqen H'ghar
 * Dean-Charles Chapman as King Tommen Baratheon

Guest Starring
 * Richard E. Grant as Izembaro
 * Essie Davis as Lady Crane
 * Julian Glover as Grand Maester Pycelle
 * Anton Lesser as Qyburn
 * Ian Gelder as Ser Kevan Lannister
 * Faye Marsay as the Waif
 * Jacob Anderson as Grey Worm
 * Richard Dormer as Lord Beric Dondarrion
 * Paul Kaye as Thoros of Myr
 * Clive Russell as Ser Brynden Tully
 * Tobias Menzies as Lord Edmure Tully
 * Tim Plester as Walder Rivers
 * Daniel Tuite as Lothar Frey
 * Daniel Portman as Podrick Payne
 * Eugene Simon as Lancel
 * Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Lord Mace Tyrell
 * Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Ser Gregor Clegane
 * Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Lem
 * Melanie Liburd as a Red Priestess
 * Leigh Gill as Bobono
 * Rob Callender as Clarenzo
 * Sam Redford as a Tully bannerman
 * Ricky Champ as Gatins
 * Ian Davies as Morgan
 * Ross McKinney
 * Steve Love
 * Brahm Gallagher
 * Adam Turns
 * Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir as a musician
 * Ragnar Þórhallsson as a musician
 * Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson as a musician
 * Brynjar Leifsson as a musician
 * Kristján Páll Kristjánsson as a musician

Cast notes

 * 12 of 28 cast members appear in this episode. * Starring cast members Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Aidan Gillen (Petyr Baelish), Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell), Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), Carice Van Houten (Melisandre), Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand), Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark), Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane), Michiel Huisman (Daario Naharis), Hannah Murray (Gilly), Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton), and Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont) are not credited and do not appear in this episode

General

 * The title refers to the "identity" the Faceless Men in Braavos take: "No One".
 * In the books, Arya is often asked "who are you?" by various people - the kindly man, the Waif and a man she referred to as "plague face" - and she answers consistently "no one". In response, they almost always tell her she lies, implying that she has not given up yet her past identity as Arya Stark, therefore she is not ready to join the Faceless Men. Only after she peforms successfully her first mission, the kindly man accepts her answer "no one" without responding that she lies.
 * Dorne does not appear in this episode. The Night's Watch, Bran Stark and his subplot, The Vale, Samwell and Gilly in the Reach, and House Greyjoy also do not appear in this episode. No storylines in the North appear at all, neither Jon and Sansa's new Stark army or Ramsay Bolton at Winterfell. Most of the episode focuses on the converging subplots at the siege of Riverrun.
 * Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr return on-screen in this episode, having not been seen since Season 3.

Callbacks
This episode is filled with callbacks to prior events:
 * As they eat around the campfire, the Hound says that he would have preferred having chicken. This references the Season 4 premiere "Two Swords" when he sardonically told Polliver that he was going to have to eat every chicken in the room - implying that he would eat all of the chicken Polliver and his men were having after he killed them. Then he indeed killed them all (with Arya's help), and rode off eating a piece of their chicken.
 * Beric's line that "the cold winds are rising in the north" repeats the warning in Jeor Mormont's letter to the Small Council in early Season 2, saying that undead men and worse were stirring beyond the Wall.
 * Tyrion Lannister refers again to the alleged (but possibly fictitious) incident in which he allegedly took a honeycomb and a jackass into a brothel. He started reciting this anecdote back in Season 1's "A Golden Crown" when he was a prisoner at the Eyrie and was shaming Lysa into allowing him to demand a Trial by combat. Lysa thought he was being disgusting so she cut him off before he could explain what exactly he did with these. In this episode he adds the extra line "and the madam [of the brothel] says..." before being cut off again.
 * Bronn offers to train Podrick Payne how to fight dirty, which is how you survive in a real fight. He gave similar advice to Jaime when he began training him to fight left-handed at the beginning of Season 4.
 * Bronn refers to Podrick as having a "magic" cock, as he apparently impressed the three prostitutes greatly which he spent time with in Season 3 episode 3 "Walk of Punishment"
 * Jaime Lannister quips "the things we do for love" to Edmure - a variation on Jaime's famous quote, "the things I do for love", which he said ruefully right before shoving the young Bran Stark out a tower window, crippling him, in the series premiere, "Winter is Coming". *Jaime directly points out that he was Catelyn Stark's prisoner, but the roles are reversed now in a sense, as her brother Edmure is now his prisoner. Jaime also recounts that Catelyn hit him in the head with a rock, which occurred soon after he was taken captive, in the Season 1 finale "Fire and Blood".

Riverrun

 * Due to the way Season 5 was heavily condensed, Brienne of Tarth didn't head north to the Wall in the books looking for Sansa and Arya Stark: instead she continued to wander around the Riverlands searching for Sansa, her progress slowed through that war-torn part of the countryside. The TV series had Brienne spot Sansa on the road out of the Vale, and thus follow her to Winterfell, where she spent the rest of Season 5 largely waiting for Sansa to light a candle in a window as a signal (actress Gwendoline Christie has openly said that after Season 5, fans would walk up to her on the street and complain that she didn't do much in Season 5 other than wait for a candle). Brienne's storyline picked up again at the beginning of Season 6, however, and gave a plausible and unconvoluted reason to send Brienne back to the Riverlands, and thus her subplot from the fourth novel: Sansa simply commands her to head south and try to develop a line of communication with her Tully allies commanded by her great-uncle Brynden.
 * Brienne doesn't try to reach Riverrun in the novels, though at the very end of the fifth novel she cross paths with Jaime again with his army in the Riverlands.

Sandor Clegane

 * It was unclear in the last episode why members of the Brotherhood Without Banners would slaughter the villagers that Sandor Clegane was staying with, given their previous efforts to defend the commoners, and the Freys this season even saying that the Brotherhood was rallying the commoners against them. This episode explains that it was just seven rogue members of the Brotherhood led by Lem Lemoncloak who did this without permission, and when the leadership of the Brotherhood found out what they did they hanged Lem and his surviving men. Therefore, the Brotherhood Without Banners as an official organization actually hasn't been drastically changed from the novels (as seemed possible after last episode).

King's Landing

 * Tommen says that Cersei and Loras's trials will begin "on the first day of the festival of the Mother" - referring to The Mother, one of the seven aspects of the godhead in the Faith of the Seven. In the books, no such holiday has specifically been introduced yet, but it is somewhat established that there are various holidays throughout the year devoted to all seven aspects of the Seven, i.e. the "Maiden's Day" is a major holiday devoted to The Maiden.
 * It is mentioned that the ecclesiastical trials of the Faith of the Seven traditionally include seven septons. As Tommen said, the Faith lost the right to hold ecclesiastical trials under the Targaryens but this is one of the powers they regained when Cersei recreated the Faith Militant.
 * Qyburn tells Cersei that an "old rumor" he had the Little birds investigating turned out to be true. Cersei is also now desperate that the High Sparrow is aware enough not to let her demand a Trial by combat. Bran Stark's flood of visions two episodes ago in "Blood of My Blood" included a brief shot of an entire underground stockpile of Wildfire exploding - which has actually not happened yet. In Season 3's "Kissed by Fire", Jaime mentioned that the Mad King hid staches of wildfire all over King's Landing, including under the Great Sept of Baelor and the Red Keep itself. In this episode, Jaime also remarks that Catelyn and Cersei were the kind of mothers who would "burn cities to ashes" if anyone hurt their children. It's possible that this was all a lot of foreshadowing that Cersei found the wildfire cache still under the Great Sept and is going to try to detonate it.
 * In the books, the wildfire caches hidden under the Great Sept and elsewhere were actually recovered by the Alchemists' Guild and used in the Battle of the Blackwater - it is how they were able to provide so much at such short notice. Cersei does commission the Alchemists to continue making more wildfire, and in a fit of pique and petty revenge she burns down the entire Tower of the Hand using wildfire, as a slight against Tyrion's memory after he flees to the Free Cities. Therefore, while in the books the old cache of wildfire from under the Great Sept was collected, Cersei has been producing new wildfire reserves which she may try to use as some kind of trump card.

Meereen

 * Varys criticizes Tyrion Lannister for making "a deal with fanatics", asking the Red Priestesses of the Lord of Light religion to win back the masses of Meereen by preaching that Daenerys Targaryen is the Lord's Chosen. This seems to parallel how Tyrion's sister Cersei Lannister herself made "a deal with fanatics" when she recreated the Faith Militant, but that proved to have severe negative consequences for her.
 * Varys is going back to Westeros to negotiate with potential allies for if/when Daenerys returns and them moves to retake the Iron Throne. In the books, Varys fled King's Landing when Tyrion did, but his exact whereabouts afterwards were unknown (he never traveled to Meereen). Varys does later reappear in Westeros, however, leading to the question of whether he went to Pentos and then returned, or if he was hiding out under false identities in Westeros the entire time.
 * Jacob Anderson has said that he worked out with the writers a slow build for Grey Worm's humanity, gradually stepping him away from being a mindlessly robotic slave-soldier with no sense of self. In Season 5's "Sons of the Harpy", a lot of focus was given on Grey Worm actually grimacing when he was badly wounded in a fight - as he later explained to Missandei, this wasn't due to pain but out of fear: he used to be a fearlessly robotic soldier who cared so little for his own life that he would fall on his sword without question if his slave-master ordered him to, but now he has things he actually cares about, and he feared never seeing Missandei again. The long scene of Tyrion trying to encourage Grey Worm and Missandei to make jokes finally culminates in Grey Worm actually making a joke: "That's the worst joke I've ever heard" "What? You just said you don't even know what jokes are" "I know, that was a joke". Missandei laughs at this and Grey Worm even cracks a smile: another significant step in reclaiming his humanity.

In the books

 * The episode is adapted from the following chapters of A Feast for Crows:
 * Chapter 44, Jamie VII: Edmure surrenders the Riverrun, and the Lannisters and Freys win their battle and take over the castle.


 * The episode is adapted from the following chapters of A Dance with Dragons:
 * Chapter 30, Daenerys V: A naval blokade is established around Meereen.
 * Chapter 48, Jaime I: Brienne and Jaime reunite at the Riverlands.


 * The remaining material appears to be based on what will come in the sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, particularly the storylines of Arya.