Game of Thrones Season 6: The Last Time We Saw The Boltons…
Rejoice, my Lords and Ladies, for the Ides of March have waned. Which means that April is now upon us, and we can officially begin to countdown the remaining few days to the Game of Thrones Season 6 premiere. If you’ve been following along, we’ve been refreshing your memories as to the whereabouts of the members of the major Houses of Westeros at the end of Season 5. So far, we’ve covered:
Today, we will be adding those villainous and traitorous usurpers to Winterfell and the North: the members of House Bolton. At the end of Game of Thrones Season 5, everything was coming up aces for House Bolton. But how did they get there? Let’s take a step back and look.
When we first met Roose Bolton, he was a loyal bannerman to House Stark, and had come to Robb Stark’s aid when the Young Wolf called his banners. Give or take a creepy stare or two, Roose seemed ready to march on King’s Landing and demand the release of Robb’s sisters. He even married Walda Frey, one of Lord Walder Frey’s daughters, to help temper the alliance between the Riverlands and the North.
At first, Lord Bolton fought valiantly for the Starks, but there was always a hint of darkness behind those grey lifeless eyes. Instead of taking prisoners as Robb Stark commanded, Roose Bolton prefered to flay the enemy, a practice that was reviled by other Northerners.
Later, after Theon Greyjoy betrayed the Starks and occupied Winterfell, it was Roose Bolton who convinced Robb Stark to allow him to send his bastard—Ramsay Snow—to retake the castle for the Starks. Ramsay, however didn’t so much retake Winterfell as he did murder everybody there and burn the place down. Then, Ramsay took Theon Greyjoy back to the Dreadfort, the ancestral home of House Bolton. There, he tortured Theon physically and mentally, stripping the Greyjoy scion of his identity. When the process was complete, Ramsay gave Theon a new name to fit his new personality: Reek.
At some point in this general time period, Roose struck up a secret alliance with the Freys, who had decided to turn on the Starks, and the Lannisters, who had wanted Robb defeated for a long time. The plan was to murder Robb Stark and his army during the wedding of Roslin Frey and Edmure Tully. This came to pass, and was known thereafter as the Red Wedding.
Roose Bolton, now known for betraying the Starks, was named the Warden of the North by the grateful Lannisters. He legitimized his bastard son, meaning that Ramsay Snow became Ramsay Bolton. The Boltons then marched to Winterfell and went about repairing it so they could make it their new seat.
In a cruel twist of fate, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish decided he could advance his own political agenda by marrying his ward—Sansa Stark—to Ramsay Bolton. The Boltons, eager to cement their position as the leaders of the North, accepted—many in the North remained loyal to the Starks, and having one in the family could only be good for PR. Littlefinger brought Sansa back to her family home, and then traveled back to King’s Landing to meet with Cersei Lannister, leaving her alone with the deeply unstable Ramsay.
During this time, Roose’s wife Walda announced she was pregnant. Ramsay was not pleased, as it meant his position as his father’s heir was now in question. If the baby was a boy, he would be Roose’s trueborn son and heir. Ramsay may have been legitimized, but he still born a bastard, and that meant his claim wasn’t as strong as it could be.
Sansa married Ramsay and endured abuse at his hands. Seeing his foster sister suffer seemed to awaken something in Theon, who by now had sunk deep into his Reek persona. He began to come around, and told Sansa that her two younger brothers—Rickon and Bran—were not dead, as she thought. Finally, when Ramsay and his army rode out to meet Stannis Baratheon’s army, Sansa and Theon escaped (after making Ramsay’s mistress Myranda take a dive off the Winterfell battlements) by jumping off Winterfell’s walls.
So what can we expect from the Boltons in Season 6?
According to interviews with the actors, not everything is rosy in the Bolton household ahead of Season 6. Roose is likely none too pleased that Ramsay let his new, politically important bride escape, so relations between father and son may be frosty (I mean, frostier than usual). Also, Ramsay is probably still on edge about Walda Bolton’s new baby. He could always win his way back into his father’s good books with leal service, but as a psychopath, he might also take the route of least resistance and just start killing people, maybe even members of his own family.
Ramsay has featured in HBO’s marketing and advertising for Game of Thrones Season 6. In this promo, he taunts someone and claims that “Winterfell is mine.”
Who is he talking to, and what does he mean? I bet I could hazard a guess.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
We know that Season 6 will feature an epic action scene called the crew has named the Battle of the Bastards. As one of the show’s more prominent bastards, Ramsay is probably one side of it. Now, whether his father is standing with him, or if Ramsay is fully in the driver’s seat at this point…well, that still remains to be seen.