Television Review: Book of the Stranger (Game of Thrones, S6x04, 2016)

Book of the Stranger (S6x04)

Airdate: 15 May 2016

Written by: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
Directed by: Daniel Sackheim

Running Time: 58 minutes

The fourth episode of Game of Thrones’ sixth season, Book of the Stranger, arrives as a corrective and a promise. Following the relatively pedestrian, business-like approach of Oathbreaker, which largely served to tie off lingering threads and reposition pieces, this instalment returns to the grand operatic spectacle the series has been oriented towards in its latter seasons. That return is not, however, immediate or total; the episode builds methodically, saving its most pyrotechnic flourish for the final scene, a deliberate structural choice that creates a satisfying narrative crescendo after an hour rich in emotional and strategic manoeuvring.

The episode’s most anticipated moment arrives early: the long-awaited reunion of the Stark siblings. As Jon Snow prepares to depart Castle Black, having abandoned the Night’s Watch, Sansa Stark arrives accompanied by Brienne and Podrick. The encounter is handled with a quiet potency that underscores the show’s evolved priorities. While the ancillary meeting between Brienne and Melisandre is fraught with unspoken accusation (Brienne rightly holds the Red Priestess and Davos responsible for Renly’s murder), the core reunion is stripped of such baggage. Jon and Sansa share a genuine, aching relief at finding family again. The script wisely has Jon explicitly forgive Sansa for her childhood arrogance, a minor but necessary bit of psychological housekeeping that allows their relationship to move forward as a partnership of equals, not a grudging alliance. Sophie Turner and Kit Harington sell the moment with a weary authenticity, though their subsequent, lengthy conversation reminiscing about Winterfell does risk redundancy and a noticeable slowing of pace. Nevertheless, it serves a crucial dramatic purpose: it is, effectively, the first proper conversation these two characters have ever shared on screen, and it lays the groundwork for Sansa’s steely resolve to retake their home. Jon’s post-traumatic apathy—a believable consequence of his death and resurrection—clashes with Sansa’s determined fury, especially after she learns Ramsay holds Rickon. Her declaration that she will act with or without him forces Jon to re-engage, a decision he weighs in a pragmatic council with Tormund, who starkly outlines their military disadvantage: 2,000 wildlings against 5,000 Bolton men.

In Winterfell, Ramsay Bolton continues to exemplify the series’ most chilling brand of villainy. His interrogation of Osha is a great example of cruel dramatic irony. Osha, believing she can use her feminine wiles to get close enough to kill him, attempts a seduction. Ramsay, however, has already extracted every detail of her previous escape from Theon Greyjoy. He knows her capabilities, and rather than playing along, he simply slits her throat. While George R. R. Martin has praised the television version of Osha as superior to his literary creation, her death here, though logically consistent with Ramsay’s character, feels like a sudden and wasteful disposal of a compelling figure, robbing the narrative of her unique perspective and resourcefulness.

The theme of fraught family reunions extends across the sea. Theon Greyjoy arrives on Pyke, a broken man seeking redemption. His offer of support to his sister Yara for the Salt Throne is met with a torrent of deserved scorn for his treachery and weakness. Yet, in Alfie Allen’s pained performance, one senses the first fragile stirrings of Theon’s return to selfhood. In the Vale, another kind of manipulation unfolds as Petyr Baelish, the ultimate political puppeteer, deftly manipulates the immature Lord Robin Arryn and coerces the reluctant Lord Yohn Royce to commit the Knights of the Vale to a campaign in the North—a chess move that will have profound repercussions.

King’s Landing offers a more psychological battlefield. The High Sparrow continues his insidious campaign to break and remake Margaery Tyrell in his own image. By granting her access to her broken brother Loras, he provides both a temptation and a lesson. Natalie Dormer is excellent here, showing Margaery’s calculation as she encourages Loras to endure, even as she seemingly begins to parrot the Sparrow’s teachings. The title of the episode, “Book of the Stranger”, is derived from a text within the Faith’s Seven-Pointed Star, which Margaery has memorised during her captivity and quotes to the High Sparrow. This intellectual submission horrifies the Tyrells, who, upon hearing Margaery may face a Walk of Atonement, contemplate a desperate alliance with their erstwhile enemy, Cersei Lannister, to launch a military strike against the Faith Militant.

In Meereen, Tyrion Lannister grapples with the grim realities of governance. His negotiated compromise with the slavers of Yunkai, Astapor, and Volantis—a seven-year gradual abolition with financial compensation—is manifestation of realpolitik. It is also morally repugnant to idealists like Missandei and Grey Worm. Tyrion, acutely aware of his own physical and charismatic limitations, defends the plan with pragmatic coldness: outright abolition would trigger a war they cannot win. The historical parallel to Abraham Lincoln’s conflicts with the Radical Republicans during the American Civil War is somewhat heavy-handed but fits neatly into the morally ambiguous world of the series. It presents Tyrion not as a heroic liberator but as a capable, if morally compromised, administrator, a fascinating evolution for the character.

The episode’s narrative engine, however, is its triumphant finale in Vaes Dothrak. Jorah Mormont and Daario Naharis track Daenerys to the Dothraki holy city and, posing as merchants, make contact with her and a sympathetic khaleesi, Ornela (Hannah John-Kamen). They offer a conventional rescue, but Daenerys, having spent her captivity observing and planning, reveals a grander ambition. Brought before the gathering of khals in the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, she is defiant. When the khals respond to her confidence with threats of rape and violence, she executes a plan of breathtaking audacity. Touching a burning brazier without flinching, she topples it and sets the wooden structure ablaze, immolating the khals within. She then emerges from the inferno, nude and utterly unharmed, before a stunned populace who immediately kneel in submission. This is the grand spectacle the episode has been promising, a visceral, cathartic release of pent-up narrative energy.

The scene is a deliberate homage to Daenerys’s emergence from the funeral pyre in Season 1, but director Daniel Sackheim reportedly infused it with a visual nod to Fritz Lang’s silent epic Die Nibelungen, which ended with similar images. It is also a scene laden with meta-textual significance. Daenerys’s conquest of the hyper-masculine Dothraki society was, at the time, often interpreted through a feminist lens, reflecting the showrunners’ stated progressive aims and coinciding with a US election campaign widely expected to result in Hillary Clinton’s presidency. The scene is also notable for Emilia Clarke’s return to full nudity. Persistent rumours that she had a no-nudity clause led many to assume a body double was used. Clarke, however, publicly and emphatically quashed these rumours, clarifying that while she refused gratuitous nudity, this scene was integral to the story and that she performed it herself. The filming logistics, split between a closed set in Belfast for close-ups and a large-scale set in Spain for wide shots, created minor lighting inconsistencies that fuelled the double speculation, but the actor’s confirmation is definitive.

Book of the Stranger is an episode fascinating for its parallel reunions of three sibling pairs: Sansa and Jon, Theon and Yara, and Margaery and Loras. Each reunion examines a different facet of familial loyalty under extreme duress. Critically, the script, while continuing the season’s practice of deliberate plot advancement, is remarkably coherent; characters act with intelligence and rationality, their choices flowing logically from their established personalities and immediate circumstances. This internal consistency is a hallmark of the episode’s strength.

The episode was met with widespread critical acclaim. Ultimately, Book of the Stranger works because it balances its intimate character work—the quiet pain of Jon Snow, the calculated resilience of Margaery, the pragmatic cynicism of Tyrion—with a finale of uncompromising, fiery spectacle. It demonstrates that even in its later seasons, Game of Thrones could deliver both emotional depth and the kind of iconic, visually stunning moments upon which its reputation was built.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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