Sophie Turner (Sansa) and Gemma Whelan (Yara) discuss their characters’ arcs

Before the season began, the Game of Thrones production boasted that Season 6 would be all about the women. Two characters who have taken on stronger roles this season are Sophie Turner’s Sansa Stark, who is working hard to manipulate events up north, and Gemma Whelan’s Yara Greyjoy, who sat out Season 5, is heading towards Meereen with ships she has no idea “this dragon queen” needs. Both spoke to Making Game of Thrones this week, after their characters made important choices in “The Broken Man.”

Whelan admits that having to spend a year away from the show was hard (she knew the producers had “big plans” for Yara in Season 6, though), even though she was “gainfully employed” in the meantime. (Whelan’s day job is as a comedian.)

"I was watching at home like a lonely puppy pawing at the TV…It was actually really sad to watch Alfie [Allen, who plays Theon] go through that. Alfie and I are good friends and we love our relationship as Yara and Theon. I was always like, “Aw, he’s working with other people! I want my brother back.” But I was so proud of Alfie and how fantastic he is in every moment. I knew we would be reunited, so I knew his struggle would make our storyline all the more interesting and strong."

As for Turner, she’s has to endure five long years of watching her character make bad choice after bad choice before getting to this point.

"She’s taking charge and becoming something of a leader alongside Jon, but she’s also very much putting herself in danger by doing so. Emotionally, I don’t think she feels vulnerable at all. She’s bitter and determined. She spent the first five seasons running away from people or plotting how to evade her captors. This time she’s going head-to-head, very publicly, against the people who have done her wrong. What draws me most to Sansa is probably just how resilient and determined she is, and how – as cliché as it sounds – what doesn’t kill her only makes her stronger."

She’s been putting that strength to use of late, even as her plan to unite the North against the Boltons hits a snag. “Other houses see House Stark as irrelevant now,” she said. “But it also makes her all the more determined. It’s a frustrating process, because she and Jon are doing damage control and they know it’s a lot to ask of these Houses. The odds are against them – Jon is a bastard and Sansa is technically a Bolton.” That’s what inspired Sansa to write that letter.

Meanwhile, Whelan says people think that Yara is being weak by running away from Euron—Whelan’s even been tweeted at by people who ask why Yara keeps retreating. “It’s because she’s playing the long game,” Whelan says. “It’s like chess and she plays several moves ahead – which makes her even more of a brilliant candidate to lead. She understands exactly how things will play out.”

Turner is less sure of her character’s ability on the chess board. “She’s had a front seat in watching master manipulators and big players in the game and she’s been learning silently from them. But she’s certainly not done learning how to play just yet. It’s been a slow process. She never had the “Dany emerging from the flames” moment. It’s been more gradual.”

When it comes to Yara’s screentime in “The Broken Man,” Whelan says that scene with Theon is “as close, sentimental and emotional the Ironborn get as family members– she takes him to a brothel and feeds him alcohol.” She also wasn’t aware that Yara was gay beforehand, but is rolling with it. “I reckon she’s any way. I don’t think she’d limit herself to one or another. Anything goes.”

As for that pep talk, Whelan said that Yara told Theon to man up because she saw glimpses of the capable advisor he could be back in Season 2 when he first returned to the Iron Islands. “She saw some fire in his belly. They’re siblings; they know what one another is made of deep down and what they went through to survive. I suppose she must recognize there’s some strength there even though it’s very buried.”

Sansa and Jon, too, are siblings, and like Theon and Yara, they weren’t particularly close when they were younger. In Yara and Theon’s case, it was because they were separated by distance. In Jon and Sansa’s case, their priorities were different. “[I]n Jon’s eyes, Sansa is still the 13-year-old naive girl whose greatest passions were very much the material, seemingly unimportant things in life,” she said.

"It’s going to be a big adjustment for him to listen to her and view her as an equal, especially when it comes to war tactics, simply because she’s a woman."

Even so, at the end of the day, Turner says that Sansa and Jon have each other’s backs. He is, after all, practically the only family she’s got left, and vice versa. Whelan agrees it’s the same for Yara. “There’s nothing like a family ally.”