I really wish the show would stop using “the North remembers” as a death omen.

I mean, sure, it can be. It includes a promise that they are not just going to let injustice stand, and that they are going to fight to right the wrongs done to their people, but it’s also a rallying cry. It’s a demonstration of loyalty. The North remembers the Starks. The North remembers oaths and pacts made thousands of years ago, they remembers Winterfell’s protection and generosity and justice. The North remembers is Wylla Manderly bravely speaking out against her own family to remind everyone in the Merman’s court that the Starks took them in and nourished them, it’s Meera and Jojen Reed pledging Greywater’s hearth and heart and harvest, it’s the mountain clans choosing to fight and die for the Ned’s little girl, it’s Alys Karstark seeking out Jon Snow because he is a son of Winterfell and she associates Winterfell and the Starks with protection and safety.

These are not just words to brandish only upon the death of someone who did the Starks wrong, or when the show needs to whip them out to explain how Jon was declared king. They are a riveting declaration of faith and loyalty that the show hollowed out and stripped of all hopeful connotation last season by having the North abandon the Starks, only for Lyanna Mormont to growl them at the lords after the fact to shame them. That’s what these words are now – something to say over dead bodies and to shame those who randomly decided that letting the Boltons get away with their crimes was fine.

But then again, what is there for the North to remember? Ned and Robb made stupid mistakes and lost their heads for it, amiright?