The Battle of the Bastards is a battle late in the War of the Five Kings in which Jon Snow and Sansa Stark retake Winterfell from Lord Ramsay Bolton, the Warden of the North, and restore House Stark as the ruling house of the North, marking the end of House Bolton.
This battle marks the end of the northern theater of the War of the Five Kings.
The victory, while a decisive one for the Starks, was not without great cost, even if it marked the restoration of House Stark as the Great House of the North and the entry of House Arryn into the War of Five Kings on their side. Out of Jon's original force of 2,400 men, perhaps only 800 survived, and now no Northern house has a true force to stand against Littlefinger, the Night King, the Iron Throne, or even Daenerys Targaryen, should one of them decide to conquer the North, save for those who sat out of the conflict, such as the Manderlys, the Cerwyns, and the Glovers. What is worse, the heir apparent to Winterfell, Rickon, is now dead, leaving the newly restored Great House in the hands of an illegitimate son and an eldest daughter. Jon orders Rickon to be buried next to their father, while Sansa decides to visit Ramsay in the kennels, ironically the same place he kept Theon over the course of a year.
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, no such battle has taken place yet. The fifth and most recent novel, A Dance with Dragons, ends with Stannis still marching against Winterfell and Jon's death. Given that season six onward is based on an outline of what will happen in future novels, the battle, or a different version of it, rather, may serve as the climax of The Winds of Winter.
