The Winds of Winter

"The Winds of Winter" is the tenth episode of the sixth season of Game of Thrones. It is the sixtieth episode of the series overall. It will premiere on June 26, 2016. It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by Miguel Sapochnik.

First

 * Lord Cley Cerwyn
 * Lord Wyman Manderly

Deaths

 * Grand Maester Pycelle
 * Ser Lancel Lannister
 * The High Sparrow
 * Most of not all members of the Faith Militant
 * Ser Loras Tyrell
 * Queen Margaery Tyrell
 * Lord Mace Tyrell
 * Ser Kevan Lannister
 * King Tommen Baratheon
 * Ser Walder Rivers
 * Lothar Frey
 * Lord Walder Frey

General

 * The episode title is a reference to the name of the unpublished sixth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter.
 * At 69 minutes running time, this episode is the longest episode in the entire television series so far.
 * In the Title sequence, House Stark's direwolf sigil is restored to Winterfell. The Bolton sigil replaced it from Season 4 onwards, and in Season 3 the animation showed Winterfell burning (after it was burned at the end of Season 2 - at the end of Season 3 it was revealed that Ramsay and the Boltons burned it). Thus this is the first time that Winterfell has appeared restored, with the Stark sigil, and not a burning ruin since the Season 2 opening credits.
 * All storylines in the TV series will have surpassed the books as of this episode. The TV series adapted certain subplots out of synch with each other, thus while Jon Snow's storyline surpassed the books starting in the Season 6 premiere, other major subplots this season such as the Greyjoy subplot and Tully/Frey subplot were holdovers from other novels. Now even these remaining subplots have caught up. The Slaver's Bay storyline surpassed the novels in the preceding episode.
 * Two subplots were omitted from the TV show but won't be introduced now: when Tyrion flees east to get to Meereen it introduces a major new political shakeup happening in the Free Cities, while the Dorne subplot in Season 5 was drastically condensed, then outright abandoned at the beginning of Season 6. Because Dorne is close to the Free Cities, preview chapters for the next novel reveal that the Dorne and Free Cities subplots are going to combine with each other into one big subplot -- all of this was removed in the TV version.
 * Jaime and Brienne each had about another chapter's worth of material involving running into the Brotherhood Without Banners in the Riverlands, but this subplot has also apparently been omitted entirely.

In the North

 * WhiteRaven.jpg isn't a spoiler because it appears in the episode preview: a white [[Ravens|messenger-raven]] is seen flying north to Winterfell. White messenger-ravens are a special sub-breed kept by the Maesters from The Citadel in Oldtown, which are larger, stronger, and smarter than normal ravens: they are only sent out to carry the important official announcement across Westeros that the seasons have changed. The Citadel gathers reports about weather from maesters all over Westeros, and after much deliberation determines when one season can be considered to have officially ended and the next begun. A white raven previously appeared in the Season 2 premiere, "The North Remembers", when it was delivered to the Small Council to inform them that the ten year long summer had officially ended and turned to autumn (though the episode didn't explain in dialogue why the raven was white, this is a detail from the books). For six seasons, the TV series has been promising the Stark words that "Winter is Coming". The white ravens in this episode officially announce that winter has come.
 * In the books, the white ravens announcing the arrival of winter are sent out soon after Cersei's Walk of atonement. The TV series adapted several storylines out of synch with each other, thus the white ravens only arrive at the time of her trial.
 * Cersei previously mentioned to Littlefinger in Season 5 that they could tell autumn would be ending relatively soon, noting that the weather had started to turn. The length of the years-long seasons in Westeros can be unpredictable, but they can get a general sense when a season is drawing to a close, i.e. cold weather in early November/early December still technically isn't "winter", but people can observe the gradual shift.

In the Riverlands

 * In the books, Jaime Lannister's army doesn't advance all the way north to The Twins after the Second Siege of Riverrun, and thus he never personally met Walder Frey. After leaving Riverrun in the books, his army does advance north but only as far as Raventree Hall, the seat of House Blackwood (earlier episodes in Season 6 did mention in passing that the Blackwoods were also in revolt like the Tullys).
 * Instead of advancing to Raventree Hall as in the books, in the TV version Jaime travels all the way to the Twins, then returns back south to King's Landing. Given his comments to Lord Walder, and because Raventree Hall is between Riverrun and the Twins, it's possible that they're implying the other rebelling Riverlands Houses (Blackwood and Mallister) were subdued again off-screen.

In Dorne

 * Two episodes ago Varys was shown leaving Meereen in a ship to head back to Westeros, explaining he was going to woo potential allies there. In the novels, it wasn't really clear where Varys went after Tyrion killed Tywin Lannister: he didn't appear again when Tyrion was let out of his crate in Pentos, nor did he travel to Meereen. Varys does reappear later in Westeros, but it is unclear if he traveled east to the Free Cities and then returned, or if he was in hiding in Westeros the entire time, still orchestrating his spy network.

In the books

 * The episode is adapted from the following chapters of A Feast for Crows:
 * Chapter 45, Samwell V: Samwell Tarly arrives at the Citadel and has to deal with a bureacrat of the Order of Maesters.


 * The episode is adapted from the following chapters of A Dance with Dragons:
 * Chapter 19, Davos III: Davos Seaworth and Lord Wyman Manderly witness a young northern noblewoman deliver a moving a speech about loyalty to House Stark.
 * Chapter 37, The Prince of Winterfell: Meat pies made with missing Freys are served by a member of the northern nobility in revenge for the Red Wedding to other Freys.
 * Epilogue: Grand Maester Pycelle is killed. Varys's little birds stab a member of the Small Council to death. The master of the little birds tells their victims that he doesn't bear any will towards their victim and that he doesn't deserve to die alone. Ser Kevan Lannister is killed. White ravens sent by the Citadel arrive on a castle, confirming that winter has arrived.


 * The rest of the episode appears to draw material from what will come in the sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, particularly Jon and Cersei's storylines.