The hype machine for “Game of Thrones,” HBO’s famously violent and sex-filled medieval fantasy drama, has been in overdrive as it trumpets the return of the series for its Season 6 debut. “I can tease that this next season is literally gonna blow televisions up,” actress Emilia Clarke told ComicBook.com. “It’s too big!”

The big storyline surrounds hero Jon Snow and his death (or not death?) at the end of last season. But the White Walkers are also closing in. The Lannister family is looking to rise again. And the Dragon Queen is back with the Dothraki.

Don’t worry if none of that makes any sense. Even some of the most ardent fans can barely keep the warring factions straight. But this season you might want to tune in to see some courageous women who serve as the heart and backbone of the stories. They have all been through bad situations — but have somehow survived.

Just who are those women? Here’s a look at six major female characters and where we last left them:

Cersei Lannister
Last season, we left Cersei — Queen Mother (actress Lena Headey, 42), having walked through a memorable and shocking Walk of Shame (punishment for her adultery with her cousin) completely nude as townspeople threw things at her. Now, actress Headey told EW.com, this upcoming season could be Cersei’s “most interesting” in that “she really has nothing to lose and she has everything to gain …” She’s out for revenge, she has no humility, and she’s desperate for power.

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Sansa Stark
Sophie Turner, 20 plays long-suffering Sansa Stark, who returns this season. Turner is actually hoping her character, who suffered a brutal rape by her husband, finally gets killed off. “If you’re on ‘Game of Thrones’ and you don’t have a cool death scene, then what’s the point?” she told The Wall Street Journal last month. “I think it would be really disappointing if I got to the end and I was just OK.”

Maybe it will happen, or maybe she’s going to rise above it all. Turner told EW, “This is the season I’m most excited for. Sansa’s coming into her own and standing up for herself.”

Arya Stark
For much of the last five seasons, we’ve watched Arya Stark (actress Maisie Williams, 19) grow up as the half-sister of Jon Snow. When we last left her she was blind, a result of being punished by her mentor for taking a life that wasn’t hers to take. Arya has kept a list of people she wants to kill and when she came across one of them, she did it — without permission from the Faceless Men. Let’s hope the blindness is temporary.

Daenerys Targaryen
One of the most beloved and popular characters from the books and the TV series is Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke, 29). She became the heir of the Targaryen dynasty after her brother’s death and plans to reclaim the Iron Throne herself, seeing it as her birthright. Fans are eagerly looking forward to her possible return to Westeros with her amazing dragons at her side (or should we say beneath her as she soars over her enemies). But at the end of Season 5, we left her surrounded by Dothraki bloodriders, her beloved dragon Drogon recovering from wounds he received while rescuing her from a Sons of the Harpy attack.

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Breinne of Tarth
Gwendoline Christie, 38, who plays Sansa Stark’s constant protector, Brienne of Tarth, is hoping to see more action this season. She stood vigil through much of last season, waiting for a sign from Sansa that she needed help. But when Sansa finally did light a candle as a cry for help, Brienne had gone to kill someone else.

“After season 5, people would come up on the street moaning about why wasn’t Brienne doing more,” Christie told EW. “I’d say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m not really in charge of that.’ I got the scripts for season 6 and I thought the story was so fantastic. It’s really exciting to see Brienne burst forth again.”

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Melisandre, Evil Sorceress
Sunday’s episode title is “The Red Woman,” which must mean that Melisandre, the sorceress played by 39-year-old Carice van Houten, must have a key part. But could anything be more heartbreaking and gruesome than when she convinced Stannis Baratheon to allow his innocent young daughter Shireen to be burned at the stake in an attempt to save his army?

“I didn’t win a lot of sympathy points there,” she told EW, adding that she got a lot of death threats to her character. But this season, she says, her story arc is finally going into a different direction. “It’s changing and I really like it. We see her from a really different side of her now.” All her security and pride are gone.

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Margaery Tyrell
Natalie Dormer plays Margaery, the only daughter of Lord Mace Tyrell. When last we left her she was in prison — thrown there by her mother-in-law Cersei Lannister. Fans are hoping the wily Margaery will find a way out. “Margaery is a savvy chick and she’s trying to find an angle,” Dormer told Women’s Health. “She’s trying to find a way to get out of that cell, so it’s pretty amusing and ingenious, the route she decides to take.”