Where We Left Everyone on Game of Thrones

Oriana Schwindt April 8, 2015, 6:00 am

With the approach of every new season of Game of Thrones comes certain invariable questions: Who’s dead, again? Who wants to kill whom? And where in Seven Hells was everyone at the end of the last season? We’ve got you covered.

THE WALL

1. Jon Snow (Kit Harington)

2. Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane)

3. Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds)

In an alternate universe, there’s a great sitcom here about the wacky hijinks that inevitably ensue when people from different cultures (wildlings vs. soldiers from the Seven Kingdoms) share close quarters. In this universe, there’s a lot of anger and blood as the wildlings, who’ve just been beaten by Stannis’ army, try to adjust to life amongst the “kneelers” (southerners who obey the rule of a king) on the southern side of the Wall, where they’ve been conscripted as allies against the hordes of ice zombies and wights coming for them all. Jon lost a lot of friends—goodbye, Pyp and Grenn—battling the wildlings and had to burn the body of his former wildling lover Ygritte, so it’s grim times up at Castle Black.

WINTERFELL

4. Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen)

5. Lord Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton)

6. Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon)

Ugh, the flay-happy Boltons. Roose and his no-longer-a-bastard son Ramsay have made themselves at home in the ancestral Stark demesne, now that Roose is Warden of the North. Theon is still very much a shell of his former self, limping around performing menial tasks for his masters. The Lannisters are the ones who gave Roose the title of Warden of the North, but since patriarch Tywin is dead, he can’t rely on any support if/when Stannis decides to bring his army down from the Wall and take Winterfell. Suck it, Roose.

THE WALL

1. Jon Snow (Kit Harington)

2. Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane)

3. Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds)

In an alternate universe, there’s a great sitcom here about the wacky hijinks that inevitably ensue when people from different cultures (wildlings vs. soldiers from the Seven Kingdoms) share close quarters. In this universe, there’s a lot of anger and blood as the wildlings, who’ve just been beaten by Stannis‘ army, try to adjust to life amongst the “kneelers” (southerners who obey the rule of a king) on the southern side of the Wall, where they’ve been conscripted as allies against the hordes of ice zombies and wights coming for them all. Jon lost a lot of friends—goodbye, Pyp and Grenn—battling the wildlings and had to burn the body of his former wildling lover Ygritte, so it’s grim times up at Castle Black.

WINTERFELL

4. Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen)

5. Lord Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton)

6. Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon)

THE EYRIE

7. Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner)

8. Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aidan Gillen)

9. Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie)

10. Sandor “The Hound” Clegane (Rory McCann)

Brienne and her squire Podrick “The Tripod” Payne are technically 10 miles away from the Eyrie, where she met the Hound in a brutal battle that left him dying at the bottom of a cliff. (We didn’t actually see him die, though, which feels like an important detail.) Arya Stark refused her offer of protection in favor of hopping a ship to Braavos, so the only way for Brienne to fulfill her oath to Jaime Lannister—to find the Stark girls and keep them safe—is to figure out where Sansa is and offer the girl her services as well.

Sansa went full on Fierce-Ass Black Swan in Season 4’s penultimate episode. Cousin and Eyrie heir Robin Arryn is about to embark on a tour of his realm after the death of his overprotective mother (and Sansa’s aunt), finally coming down from that castle in the sky, and Sansa and Littlefinger are set to accompany him for at least part of the way. Might want to teach the sickly little thing how to wield a sword, first.

KING’S LANDING

11. Cersei Lannister (Lena Heady)

12. Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau)

13. King Tommen Baratheon (Lannister) (Dean-Charles Chapman)

14. Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer)

Jaime and sister Cersei were enjoying a rare moment of, er, tenderness when last we saw them. Of course, that was before Jaime engineered Tyrion’s escape and Tyrion murdered their father on the privy. Their next talk may not be quite so full of sweet nothings.

Margaery’s awesome grandmother Olenna (nicknamed the Queen of Thorns for good reason) has unfortunately gone back to the Tyrell home of Highgarden, leaving Margaery to battle Cersei over young Tommen all by herself. Cersei’s recent turn towards the lushier side of life might make that a more equal fight than it first appears.

DORNE

15. Myrcella Baratheon (Lannister) (Nell Tiger Free)

This is mostly a reminder that Cersei and Jaime’s daughter is down in Dorne as the “guest” of Prince Doran Martell, because we’ll actually be seeing her in Season 5.

THE NARROW SEA

16. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams)

17. Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage)

18. Varys (Conleth Hill)

Tyrion is on a boat after killing someone: Shooting his father Tywin with a crossbow while the man was on the latrine. (He also killed his whore/former lover Shae after finding her in Tywin’s bed.) He’s fleeing a death sentence for the one murder he didn’t commit (his nephew Joffrey), smuggled to the Free City of Pentos by Varys.

Arya is on a boat after not killing someone: She left the Hound to, presumably, die a slow death from the wounds he suffered at Brienne’s hands, and now she’s on her way to Braavos after presenting a ship captain with the coin that assassin Jaqen H’ghar gave her before changing his face and sauntering off way back in Season 2. What’ll she do in Braavos? Not die, probably, which is way better than her options in Westeros.

MEEREEN

19. Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke)

Dany got a difficult lesson in politics and ethics last season: What happens after you abolish slavery in a city that has survived solely on that trade for thousands of years? You can tell everyone they’re equal, but when a society has operated under the opposite assumption for that long, problems are going to arise. One such problem goes by the name the Sons of the Harpy, a group of assassins hired by former masters to undermine Dany’s regime.

Not helping matters for our Dragon Queen is big bad dragon Drogon, who’s causing mayhem in the countryside, which forced her to confine Drogon’s brothers Rhaegal and Viserion underground, lest they follow his example. And she had to cut loose trusted advisor Jorah Mormont after learning he’d been spying on her for the court in King’s Landing. At least she still has hot sellsword Daario Naharis to comfort her in times of need.