Game Of Thrones: 7 Big Problems With Season 5
3. Brienne’s Storyline
In the books, the Brienne storyline was kind of disappointing at this point, as she spends an insufferable amount of time wandering around looking for Sansa and never getting anywhere. But with Season 5, the character's journey started off strong and she actually ran into Sansa, which was a huge improvement. Finally she'd have something to do!
And then that really didn’t go anywhere. Brienne spent about half the season staring at the tower in Winterfell, but presumably she was placed there for some sort of great payoff at the end. What happened? She looks away from the tower at the literal exact moment that Sansa gets there, wanders into the forest, and maybe kills Stannis but maybe not. The end.
If Season 6 opens with Brienne and Sansa running into each other, this will all be somewhat redeemed. But having her spend the entire season in one place waiting for a thing to happen, and then looking away at the exact moment it happens, is just such frustrating storytelling. It was a buildup to absolutely nothing. Maybe if she unambiguously killed Stannis it would at least feel like she abandoned her watch for some purpose, but at this point, it’s not even clear if she really did kill him. If not, she missed Sansa for no reason at all.