Two episodes in and it’s already been a good year for the good guys on Game of Thrones. Sansa finally met up with Brienne. Tyrion made some dragon friends. Other important things happened. Now, Arya Stark has confirmed some more good news.
Spoilers follow.
Any time people have talked about the return of an old character to the show, Game of Thrones fans immediately think of Sandor Clegane, whose reappearance was hinted at in the books and which upcoming guest star Ian McShane has announced at practically every chance he’s gotten. This character is someone different… and potentially far more important.
In an interview with BBC Radio, Maisie Williams confirmed that the all-but-forgotten Rickon Stark will be back in season six.
Rickon is the youngest Stark male, played by Art Parkinson. Most people in Westeros believed him to be killed by Theon Greyjoy along with his brother Bran, but we know Theon actually killed two other boys, not the Starks. Bran fled Winterfell with Hodor and the Reeds, while Rickon went off with the Wildling Osha. That was the end of season three and, tangential references aside, we haven’t seen or heard from him since.
After six seasons of terrible awfulness, you may be tempted to say it’s nice to see good things happening for the Starks. But we don’t know what Rickon has been doing, if anything. Sure, he could have been leading a happy, idyllic life in some cabin in the woods somewhere, but this is Game of Thrones. At the very least, he knows a large portion of his family is either dead or missing. Something tells us he’s not going to return in a particularly good mood.