But what ought to have been joyous occasions were muted at best, antagonistic at worst. For while Winterfell has been reclaimed, the stark truth about the Starks is that for most of them, there is no going home. Not really.

Jon (Kit Harington) had reclaimed the family spread at the end of season six, a victory that owed much to the political machinations of sister Sansa (Sophie Turner) behind the scenes (Jon and Sansa had earlier been reunited at the Wall).

Sansa asked for, and received, the support of Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen), himself the arch politician and manipulator of Westeros, and his Knights of the Vale helped snatch victory for Jon from the jaws of defeat at the Battle of the Bastards. Of course, that means Sansa now owes Lord Baelish, aka Littlefinger, at some level, and that's a cloak that hangs heavy on her shoulders.

This season, the other far-flung survivors of House Stark have been inching their way back together. Last week, Bran (Isaac Hempstead White) turned up at Winterfell, where he was welcomed by Sansa, who has been temporarily installed as Keeper of the North in Jon's absence.

This week, their sister Arya (Maisie Williams) turned up too. The guards at first refused to grant her entry, believing her dead. By the time they'd stopped squabbling and decided to take news of this upstart pretender to Lady Sansa, she had disappeared.

"I know where she'll be," Sansa said. In the crypt she found her sister, gazing at a statue of their dead father, Ned. "It doesn't look like him," Arya complained, noting that those who carved the statue had not known him. Only they did.

Sansa has gradually grown in stature, assuming the rights and responsibilities of ruling as if born to them (as, in the feudal world of Game of Thrones, she indeed was, give or take an elder brother). But her ease in the role is undermined by the fact it is hers only on loan, and the knowledge that Jon will soon enough return to claim his title casts a tinge of regret over her dominion.

Sansa and Arya in the crypt at Winterfell.

Arya, meanwhile, has become a single-minded wreaker of revenge, bent on working her way through a kill list comprising the names of anyone who ever did her or any of the Starks wrong. The only thing saving some of them (like Littlefinger) is the fact she doesn't know what they did.

But Bran no longer feels part of the family at all. The chap known as Brandon Stark is no more, he insists; in his place is the Three-Eyed Raven. He's a different being entirely now - all-knowing and emotionally vacant. He freaked Sansa out last week with his description of her wedding night - "it was so beautiful, the snow was falling ... and you were beautiful" - even though he was not physically there. If he's got the weather report down pat, she realises, he must know the unspeakable things that happened to her. He says "I'm sorry for what happened to you", but he can't really empathise; he has the emotional range of a lump of wood.

So much for the surviving legitimate Stark children. Over at Dragonstone, the other, not so legitimate, members of the house came together on the beach: Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), the one-time ward who helped Sansa escape the clutches of the evil Ramsay Bolton, and Jon Snow, the presumed bastard son of Ned Stark.

It was far from a happy meeting, as Jon angrily proclaimed the only reason he wasn't going to kill Theon - whose cowardice and jealousy has inspired him to moments of great treachery - was because he saved Sansa.

Jon Snow (Kit Harington) gives Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) a hearty welcome.

All of which leaves the future of House Stark looking rather murky. Jon has been acclaimed King of the North and Lord of Winterfell, but we know - thanks to Bran's visions - that he is not in fact Ned Stark's son, legitimate or otherwise. He is the child of Ned's sister Lyanna and Daenerys's brother Rhaegar. That may or may not give him a claim to the Iron Throne, but it won't make him lord of Winterfell.

That means Bran is the logical heir, given the inheritance laws at play in Westeros (which favour male heirs over female), but he has effectively ruled himself out. And that leaves Sansa seemingly destined to fulfil the role for which she has already shown such flair. Her subjects could certainly do worse (hello Ramsay Bolton).

Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) is bent on revenge.

And what of Arya? Upon her return she gazed upon Winterfell as a place at once familiar and foreign. Was it really home any more than any of the other places she has found herself since the fateful moment she witnessed her father's decapitation in King's Landing? Almost certainly not. She is No-One now, and she belongs nowhere.

They're (more or less) together now, but the reunion of the Stark clan seems likely to be short-lived. Winter is coming, as it always is in Game of Thrones. And for at least some of the inhabitants of Winterfell, it will soon be time to get going again.

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