“The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black.”

 – George R. R. Martin

There is a huge, seemingly unsolvable problem with ending Game of Thrones. 

Quite possibly, it’s why George R. R. Martin has spent the last eight years failing to finish the final two books in his Song of Ice and Fire series. And it’s also why, out of all the fan theories that have guessed at the conclusion, only one would truly hit the “bittersweet” note we’ve been promised.

Our desperation to see how Season 8 ends goes far beyond just needing to know what happens to our favorite characters. It also encompasses more than finally solving the mystery of the White Walkers.

The fanatical hype around the final act of Game of Thrones comes from a more fundamental tension: How do you end a story that’s gone out of its way to break all the rules, tropes, themes, and structures we’ve come to expect from stories?

Since the first scene in Season 1, we’ve been led to believe this will all culminate in an epic battle of good versus evil. But actually delivering on that promise would go against everything Game of Thrones is at its core. 

So the problem remains: How can Season 8’s finale stay true to the show’s themes, while still giving us a satisfying ending?

In Game of Thrones, there are no rules

Many times, Martin has said that his novels are a direct subversion of the Tolkien-esque tropes that have dominated the fantasy genre since Lord of the Rings. Pulling off a story that deconstructs fantasy tropes sounds hard enough in itself. But it’s even harder when you consider that the good versus evil theme he’s talking about isn’t just embedded into modern fantasy. 

How do you end a story that’s gone out of its way to break all the rules?

In more abstract ways, it’s embedded into the narrative structure of how we’ve been telling stories since the very beginning.

It’s the basis for Joseph Campbell’s seminal Hero’s Journey structure, which distilled all mythology and folklore from cultures around the world down to the same basic formula. And that basic formula came to dominate screenplay and fiction writing, directly influencing our most popular movies, TV shows, books, and video games, from Star Wars to Stranger Things to Harry Potter.

But subverting this culture-defining Hero’s Journey narrative is the reason why Game of Thrones continues to shock us like nothing else.

SEE ALSO: Everything to remember from ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 1

Season 1 tricked us into believing Ned Stark was our hero and moral compass in a corrupt world. So, we assumed, there was no real need to get worried when he was sentenced to death. He’s the hero! He couldn’t possibly di — welp, there goes his head. 

The creators even linger for a few graphic seconds too long on his severed head falling off his body, cutting away only after they’re sure viewers have moved past the grieving stage of denial and into acceptance.

So, okay. Ned wasn’t our hero. But it’s definitely still the Starks, right? They’re the good guys! This must be Robb’s story, then — the story of how justice and vengeance is always served to bad people… Nope! He’s dead, too. And to rob you of any sliver of hope, an unnamed Frey even stabs Little Unborn Baby Ned Stark Jr. repeatedly in the womb.

Every time you think you’ve figured out the rules of Game of Thrones, it pulls the rug out from under you. 

After the Red Wedding, we recalibrated our expectations. Okay, so this is a story where the bad guys always win, right? Well, not so fast, because just a few episodes after the Red Wedding, the villainous Joffrey is killed at his own wedding. 

The next logical conclusion, then, is that people who play the game of thrones well are safe — regardless of whether they’re morally good or bad. But that ain’t it either. 

Game of Thrones is essentially a series of set ups that dismantle our expectations.

Season 4 concludes with the best player, Tywin, dying on the shitter. Season 6 concludes with Margaery Tyrell, one of the savviest players on the board, getting herself and her entire family imploded by wildfire — bested by one of the least savvy players, Cersei Lannister.

Game of Thrones is essentially a series of setups that dismantle our expectations. That’s half the fun of all the predicting and theorizing. The one constant on Game of Thrones is that it consistently evades our attempts to figure it out.

But by subverting all our expectations, Game of Thrones has written itself into an extremely difficult narrative corner with no truly satisfying ending in sight.

An impossible ending

The ending of Game of Thrones is totally uncharted territory. After successfully upending all the tropes of good-versus-evil storytelling throughout the first, second, and third acts, it feels like Martin has come to a harsh realization while trying to write the final one: That the good versus evil narrative tropes were there for a reason. 

When the final act doesn’t end with a definite conclusion, it often leaves audiences dissatisfied and outraged. I mean, remember the cut to black after the last episode of Sopranos?

That’s a totally different genre, but a show that took the surprisingly similar narrative risks to Game of Thrones. Creators are still figuring out how to end stories where the heroes don’t win — but neither do the villains. 

And ironically, letting the White Walkers win is even too predictable for Game of Thrones at this point.

After several years of training fans to expect the unexpected and anticipate the worst, it feels like the most surprising (and worst) ending would be if everyone lived happily ever after: Jon and Daenerys both fulfill the Prince Who Was Promised prophecy, defeat the White Walkers, get married, have a baby, and ride off on their dragons into the sunset to rule over a peaceful Westeros!

But as Ramsey infamously said, “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Yet we can also guarantee that Game of Thrones won’t end with what Season 8 promos already showed us: A Westeros after the White Walkers win, everything we knew and loved buried beneath a wintry wasteland, devoid of all human life, leaving behind only vestiges of our heroes’ remains. Because, spoiler alert: HBO would not have revealed how Game of Thrones ends in a promo.

That only leaves us with one option for an ending that is surprising, unexpected, subversive, and still true to the themes of Game of Thrones.

Make compromise, not war

Despite what we’ve been led to believe, Game of Thrones won’t culminate in an epic Battle for the Dawn akin to Return of the King. It’ll end with diplomacy — a compromise with the White Walkers that will likely require the classic hero types (Jon and Daenerys) to sacrifice themselves.

I know what you’re thinking. First of all, we already know that there is for sure an epic battle going down in Winterfell. That footage has not only made up the entirety of the trailers and promos, but it was also the focal point of a pretty spoiler-y Entertainment Weekly cover story.

It would make no sense for the main conflict in Game of Thrones to be resolved with war.

Here’s my counter: Has Game of Thrones ever shown or even hinted at a season’s major surprises ahead of time? Whether it was Ned’s death, the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding, Hardhome, or the wildfire explosion at the Sept, the showrunners do their best to bury the major reveals of the season by averting our attention to a different, more predictable major event. 

The Battle at Winterfell is a red herring.

We’re willing to bet that everything we’ve seen of the battle will happen relatively early on in the season. And the conclusion from that battle will be that, well, there is no way in hell we’re going to win this war by fighting. They’ll need to look for other answers.

On a thematic level, it would make no sense for the main conflict in Game of Thrones to be resolved with war.

War has never solved a single problem on Game of Thrones before. The whole point of showing war, indeed, has been to prove how futile it is as a means of resolving issues.

For Robb, going to war didn’t bring Ned back home. It got his entire house killed. Tywin won the War of the Five Kings through treachery and marriage pacts, not on a battlefield. Both Renly and Stannis died because of their wars, despite their vast armies. Daenerys has discovered again and again that waging war may get her short-term gains, but never any closer to her ultimate goal of winning the Iron Throne or even breaking the wheel.

Trace the story back farther, and we find that although Robert’s Rebellion brought a brief period of peace, it ultimately destroyed the realms even worse than before after the king died. 

Even if you go as far back as Westerosi history goes, the war between the Children of the Forest and First Men lasted for 2,000 years. And all that fighting only led to the creation of the White Walkers, who led to even more war, death, and destruction.

War has never solved a single problem on Game of Thrones before.

You know what did finally solve the millennia of war between the First Men and Children of the Forest? A pact. 

This historic peace treaty not only let these warring races set aside their differences to coexist, but led them to become one. After the pact, the First Men eventually abandoned their own gods, and began worshipping the Children’s Old Gods and following their customs.

There is no way we’ll get our bittersweet ending through war. But the idea of trying to compromise with a pure, mindless, almost virus-like evil sounds laughable. Right?

The White Walkers are not the villains

Well, the White Walkers aren’t purely evil villains. Martin basically said as much in different words:

“A villain is a hero of the other side, as someone said once, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that, and that’s the interesting thing. In the case of war, that kind of situation, so I think some of that is definitely what I’m aiming at.”

Nobody — none of the characters and none of the show’s fans — know what the White Walkers want. Characters like Jon have made educated guesses, based on the mass destruction he witnessed at Hardhome and the legends of the first Long Night.

Because these old legends claim that thousands of years ago, the White Walkers brought death to all living things, that’s what the Westerosi believe is happening now. Many also believe in the legends and prophecies claiming one hero (known as the Last Hero, Azor Ahai, or the Prince who Was Promised) defeated them in single combat.

But if you question that old good-versus-evil narrative even a little, the logic falls apart.

For one thing, it’s hard to believe another claim from these legends that, after the Long Night, the wall was built by men (with help from the giants and the Children of the Forest). Doesn’t it make a lot more sense if the creatures who possess ice magic built the massive, magical ice wall instead of humans?

“Nobody is a villain in their own story.” 

Let’s also think about what could be motivating the White Walkers to return and mobilize against man again after all these years. Nobody knows for certain, so the characters project the motivation for why men usually start wars: to conquer and take over land.

But again, that doesn’t make any sense for the White Walkers. So fans have speculated on reasons for their return that would align more with Martin’s philosophy that, “Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.”

The most popular theories involve the White Walkers fighting to protect their species from going extinct. And that, during the first Long Night, the humans never really “defeated” the White Walkers. Rather, they made a pact with them like the one man made with the Children of the Forest. The Last Hero was a diplomat, not a warrior, who compromised and sacrificed himself for peace.

But over thousands of years, the truth of this pact was lost and distorted, rewritten by history to reflect the more glorifying narrative of a hero conquering over evil. And that’s why the White Walkers are back now. Unwittingly, humanity has violated the pact they let history forget.

That’s a lot to take in, I know. But bear with me. Because there’s a lot of evidence to support the many different ways human actions might’ve made the White Walkers feel threatened. 

Fans focus on Craster’s sons — we saw one being sacrificed then transformed into a White Walker in Season 4. This might be the White Walkers’ only form of reproduction, and a dwindling number of human sacrifices could be threatening the survival of their species (read more on that theory here and here). Either way, it’d be silly to assume the White Walkers’ overall goal is to kill all of humanity, since we know they need living human beings to make more White Walkers.

Others speculate that the White Walkers interpreted the return of the dragons as a violation of peace or declaration of war (read more here). Or it might have been the arrival of the Red Priests, who recently started burning down weirwood trees in Westeros, which are very likely tied to the White Walkers’ source of magic (read more here).

Those are just a few. But whatever the reason, the point is that there’s more to the White Walkers than we’ve been led to believe. Because every time we see more of them, we get a glimpse at how there’s two sides to this story. And right now, we’ve only ever seen the humans’ side.

Nothing captures this more than the Season 6 scene revealing the White Walkers’ origins. In that scene, we saw how the White Walkers never even asked for any of this. They were forcibly turned into monsters of darkness by the Children of the Forest. They were also once men. Even now, they are still living men (they never died, unlike the wights they resurrect) trapped in monsters’ bodies.

One of our personal favorite theories for how it all ends is that humanity doesn’t defeat the White Walkers by killing them. They “defeat” them by curing the White Walkers of this curse inflicted on them long ago by the Children of the Forest (read more here).

The sacrificial hero

You might still be clinging to the picture painted by the many prophecies that speak of a hero wielding some sort of special sword to end the darkness. But the most classic hero figure we’ve got — Jon Snow — has proven that his most heroic skill is not sword fighting, but diplomacy. And self sacrifice.

If you’re still doubtful that the humans could ever learn to set aside their differences and compromise with their mortal, monstrous enemy, then you’ve forgotten that we already saw that happen once before.

Jon Snow brokered peace between the Night’s Watch and the wildlings. Before they became buddies with the wildlings, legends about them were as barbaric as those about the White Walkers: They eat babies, mate with animals, etc.

Turns out they’re actually just people on the wrong side of a wall.

It will end with the a sad song of ice and fire — finally in harmony.

But for centuries, the Night’s Watch’s interactions with the wildlings supported this dehumanized view of the them. Then Jon realized that the wildlings, like the Night’s Watch, had just been fighting for their own survival. Jon subsequently did the unthinkable, reconciling with the wildlings — a concept that was not only laughable, but called treasonous.

Would it be so crazy for the same to thing to happen with the White Walkers?

That’s how we get our perfectly bittersweet ending to Game of Thrones. Because the last time Jon negotiated peace with an enemy, he was killed for it. Now he’s back. And it’s probably so that he can broker peace with yet another enemy, before dying for good this time.

As for Daenerys? Some believe Jon will have to sacrifice her in order to fulfill the Azor Ahai prophecy. Others speculate she’ll be the new Night’s Queen, a female White Walker from the legend of the Night King.

However it happens, Game of Thrones will not end with a game of thrones. It will end with a sad song of ice and fire — finally in harmony after millennia of death and war between the two.

On Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah reflected on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s “Arrested Embarrassment,” discussing everything from his beard and cat, to what this means for the future of press freedom.

Assange allegedly helped former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning hack into the U.S. Defense Department in 2010. He also spent years helping to reveal government secrets and documents, such as the Hillary Clinton’s hacked DNC emails before the 2016 election. On Thursday, UK police finally arrested him at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has spent the last seven years.

Now, in the words of Noah, policed “carried him out of the Embassy like he was an old couch.”

Tune in for a recap of Assange’s big day, and to learn about the close personal friend who Noah thinks betrayed him.

If you’re trying to spark a conversation with a fellow Game of Thrones fan, open with… the Red Wedding? It may sound strange, but it works. 

Ahead of the show’s final season, which premieres on April 14, the dating app Zoosk analyzed a whopping 375,454 of its users’ messages to find out how referencing Game of Thrones affected interactions. They’ve provided Mashable with the GOT-related icebreakers that got the most replies.

SEE ALSO: Jon and Arya finally reunite in tense teaser for ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8

It turns out mentioning the Red Wedding, the series’ devastating third season massacre, resulted in users getting 376 percent more replies than average. That was by far the most effective conversation starter, followed by mentions of fan favorite Tyrion Lannister, who garnered 165 percent more replies than the average. 

Singles who slid into the DMs with Hodor received 120 percent more replies than average. Icebreaker-friendly characters also include Jon Snow at 43 percent and Cersei Lannister at 14 percent. 

Referencing “Winter is coming” had a reply rate that was 79 percent higher than average, and the phrase “Game of Thrones” itself had a reply rate 19 percent higher than average. 

This proves that when you’re trying to shoot your shot, the most effective conversation starters center around what we all love: Drama.

Joe and Anthony Russo may be among the very few people who weren’t surprised by the ending of Avengers: Infinity War — since, you know, they directed the damn thing.

But they were caught off guard by the way all of us reacted to their film.

“We were shocked that people responded as dramatically as they did,” Joe told Mashable at a recent press day in Los Angeles. “We knew that it was going to be a risible ending. We just didn’t know that it was going to cause so much emotional trauma for people.”

Which may be hard to believe — what did they think was going to happen after they dusted Spider-Man, Black Panther, Groot, Bucky, etc. in one fell swoop?

But while the Russos knew the Infinity War ending was a sad one, they couldn’t have known exactly how the fans would take it.

“I think it’s hard to predict, when you make subversive choices, what kind of impact they’re going to have,” Joe mused. “Because they become part of the communal cultural conversation, and you never know what the drivers for that conversation are going to be.”  

SEE ALSO: Avengers cast reads a kid-friendly version of the brutal ‘Infinity War’ ending

All that said, the filmmakers, who are back to complete the saga with Avengers: Endgame, say they felt confident about that shocking Infinity War finale — because, Joe says, “What’s the point of making the movie if you’re not going to make strong choices with the narrative?”

Plus, he points out, Marvel has been trending this way since their first film for the studio, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

“I think every movie that we’ve made with Marvel has gotten increasingly subversive,” he said. “I think that elevator scene in Winter Soldier [which the Russos directed] can be looked at as a turning point for the Marvel universe. It’s when everything started turning to shades of gray, and where the good guys became the villains.”

Their next Marvel project, Captain America: Civil War, saw the heroes get “divorced,” and the one after that, Infinity War, killed off 50% of our faves.

“We’ve been making deconstructionist choices all along, and those are what excite us, and that’s why we continue to make the movies,” he said.

“The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform, like that at every rally […] He’s a clown, so what? […] So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at a political establishment that doesn’t seem able to solve anything.”

It would be easy to mistake that as an old quote about Donald Trump. Maybe a comment from a political analyst in the early stages of his campaign. Maybe a line from an interview with a member of the public discussing the ever-increasing popularity of his 2015 rallies.

It’s not, though.

Despite the similarities, that’s actually a line spoken by a character in the 1979 Stephen King novel The Dead Zone. 

SEE ALSO: 38 times Stephen King absolutely slammed Donald Trump on Twitter

The man being referred to is the fictitious Greg Stillson: a ruthless salesman-turned-politician whose eccentric stunts and anti-establishment rhetoric helps him amass a huge public following. 

Basically, a man who goes from businessman (and real-estate broker) to politician and takes Washington completely by surprise.

I first read The Dead Zone a few years ago, when Donald Trump was nothing more than a very minor blip on the political radar. Not long after summer 2015, though — once he’d announced his candidacy and footage from his rallies began creeping into the news almost daily — the novel floated back into my mind.

The story is about a man who gains precognitive powers after coming out of a four-year coma. He wakes up and finds he can predict the future.

Ironically, the novel itself seems to have a similar power. Greg Stillson’s rise to popularity — from an outsider who’s treated as something of a joke to a genuine political threat — is almost prescient in its evocation of Trump’s rise. Stephen King himself tweeted about the similarity last year, and many of his fans have been saying it for awhile now.

From the hectic rallies to the media and public perception, I’ve rounded up some of the similarities between The Dead Zone‘s narrative and Trump’s rise to power.

A shared obsession with greatness

When Greg Stillson is first introduced to us in The Dead Zone, he’s a young salesman obsessed by the idea of his own greatness.

The word “greatness” is repeated twice in the short chapter. There’s the sense that Stillson is “not content” with his current life, and is prepared to take on anyone who tries to get in the way of his ambitions.

This idea of greatness also pervaded Trump’s campaign. It was his main slogan. He tweeted it, he had it branded onto baseball caps, and he belted it repeatedly from the podium at rallies. Like Stillson, he seems obsessed with his own future achievements.

Admittedly the comparison between Stillson and Trump’s character traits only goes so far — the former is a borderline-murderous sociopath from a working class background, whose rage seems largely driven by his relationship with his father — but they’re undeniably alike in their ambition and self-assurance.

And when you come on to their political styles and public perception, that’s when the real similarities start to show.

The feverish rallies

The description of Stillson’s political rallies — the huge crowds; the chanting; the atmosphere — will be eerily familiar to anyone who watched Trump on TV during his campaign.

In The Dead Zone, Stillson generates interest and media attention by putting on a show. He works the crowd up into a frenzy, he bellows anti-Washington rhetoric, and he makes people laugh with his eccentricities.

Remind you of anyone?

Anti-establishment slogans

One of the reasons for Stillson’s political success is that he’s seen as a man of the people. He’s united with them in their anger over the existing political establishment. The first of his five main campaign points is “THROW THE BUMS OUT!” — something he promises to do as soon as he gets to Washington.

Once he’d sewn up his Republican candidacy, this was exactly the tactic Trump used. The slogan was different — instead of “THROW THE BUMS OUT” it was “DRAIN THE SWAMP” — but the strategy was identical.

The reaction from other politicians

When Stillson is campaigning for the House of Representatives as an independent and gaining in the polls, his rivals do their best to belittle and dismiss him.

One of the descriptions in particular — “a cynical carnival pitchman” — is almost creepily similar to the rhetoric the Democrats used against Trump back in November 2015.

The changing reaction Trump received from his rivals during the course of his campaign is almost perfectly predicted by what happens to Stillson in The Dead Zone. At first he’s dismissed as a joke, and then all-too-late his rivals realise they’ve underestimated him.

“They’re all gonna think I’m kiddin, see?” says Stillson earlier in the novel, when he’s planning his big political push. “But I’m not kiddin.”

The media portrayal

When reporting on Stillson’s rallies, the media treat him as a bit of comic relief. He’s described as “eccentric,” people laugh at him, and his whole campaign is seen as something of a joke.

Obviously the media has been highly critical of Trump over the last year, but back in the long-ago days of summer 2015 his media image wasn’t all that different to Stillson’s.

Like Stillson, Trump was described as “eccentric.” There were articles about him pulling a woman up on stage to touch his hair and prove it was real. Rather than being seen as a serious contender, he was treated by the press as an amusing sideshow. 

Ultimately, though — again, like Stillson — he reaped the rewards of this attention.

How the public reacts to him in the beginning

The way the public react to Stillson is perhaps The Dead Zone‘s most accurate premonition. Spoken by a Republican character to the novel’s protagonist Johnny Smith, the speech above is a hauntingly accurate portrayal of how a huge section of the American public would one day react to Trump.

There’s the amusement — “I’m a Republican myself, born and bred, but I must admit I get a kick out of that guy Stillson,” says Roger, the character speaking above — but there’s also a sense of extreme frustration with the status quo.

How his fans react to him further down the line

Without wanting to give away the story’s conclusion, Greg Stillson never reaches the White House in The Dead Zone. Towards the end of the novel, though — as his popularity is at its peak — we get a chilling insight into how his feverish public adoration has mutated into something violent.

The line highlighted in the passage above is spoken by a small-town pub owner. It’s delivered casually — almost in passing — but it brings back memories of the Trump supporter who attacked a protester at a rally, and the grim threats regularly made by pro-Trump trolls on social media.

Ultimately The Dead Zone is a long way from an exact foreshadowing. The comparisons only go so far. It’s just a story.

But for a story published way back in 1979 — a full 36 years before Trump stood on a podium in front of four U.S. flags to announce his candidacy — it’s chilling in its accuracy.

Even after the curtain falls on the final season of Game of Thrones, fans will continue to argue over which episodes were the best — and “definitive” rankings will continue to appear online ad infinitum. 

Few of those lists, however, accurately define “best episode.” Most hour-long chunks of Game of Thrones contain one unforgettable moment. But best episodes are not the same as best scenes, best character pairings or even best battles. The truly great episodes are at the top of their game — in writing, acting, lighting, music, and CGI quality, from the clockwork map to the fade to black. 

For example, a popular choice for lists is Season 6, Episode 5, “The Door.” That’s because we all recall the heartbreaking last 10 minutes, which revealed the full meaning of Hodor’s name. But rewatch the whole episode, and you’ll see the vast majority of it consists of subpar Arya and Daenerys scenes. 

After an obsessive study of the first 67 episodes (7 more than in the shorter 2017 version of this story), I have declared a new winner. And I can confirm one thing: Game of Thrones is at its best when it focuses on a handful of characters and settings. Time really is not kind to episodes that check in with everyone the length and breadth of Westeros. 

So let’s draw our flaming swords of storytelling and charge out beyond the Wall of conventional wisdom to slay the wights of episodic myth. 

15. “The Dragon and the Wolf” (Season 7, Episode 7)

It wasn’t a surprise that Game of Thrones started to run out of steam in its seventh season, which was truncated to a mere seven episodes. But the show found a new lease on life with this, the Season 7 finale, which contained a constant stream of scenes we’d been dying to see for years. Better yet, none of these scenes felt too much like fan service. 

The all-Westeros crisis summit in the Dragonpit set the tone here. It’s mostly a series of achingly simple, spare, sad reunions between characters who’ve spent seasons apart (Tyrion and Podrick, Brienne and the Hound, etc.), punctuated by short bursts of hair-raising drama (Dany arrives on dragonback, Cersei comes face-to-skull with a wight). 

Throw in Sansa and Arya finally disposing of Littlefinger, the full revelation of Jon’s lineage, Jon finally hooking up with Dany (whatever you think of how it was handled), and the Wall finally falling, and it’s hard to keep this episode off the list. Even if some of the in-between scenes feel like snippets, as disjointed as dialogue from dead-eyed Bran.   

14. “Fire and Blood” (Season 1, Episode 10)

Why has Game of Thrones succeeded for so long? Not because it gives us shocking plot twists, but because it takes the time to fully explore the ramifications of each one. “Fire and Blood” was the first example of this, and remains one of the best. Instead of moving swiftly on after the execution of Ned Stark (see “Baelor,” below), the showrunners took an episode to show all the ripple effects of Ned’s death, the surprising ups and downs it caused. Some of which still reverberate seven seasons later. 

Joffrey was revealed as an unbridled tyrant, forcing Sansa to see her father’s head on a spike. But Tywin Lannister was put in a weaker position, unable now to sue for peace with the North and the Baratheon brothers. Jon tried to desert and ended up being sent beyond the Wall to find White Walkers instead; Arya was sent on her way to becoming a badass. 

And speaking of badasses, there was that closing scene involving Dany, a fire, and three newly hatched dragons. What’s Valyrian for “mic drop”? 

13. “Home” (Season 6, Episode 2)

Working without the net of an original George R.R. Martin novel for the first time, as the showrunners did when they reached “Home,” could have been problematic. Largely because they were left to answer the burning question of whether Jon Snow would be brought back to life after his assassination. 

Spoiler: of course he would. But the show was smart enough to leave Jon on a slab for two full episodes, allowing us to think Melisandre had failed to bring him back. We linger on the corpse for a minute — its eyes open, big gasp, fade to black. 

By that point, more importantly, we were awash in satisfying new plot threads. “Home” not only gave us Max Von Sydow’s take on the Three-Eyed Raven, it plausibly introduced Bran Stark’s ability to time travel via tree, visiting both young Ned Stark and young Hodor. Given how much was riding on us buying that concept, this was no mean feat. 

Elsewhere we got Tyrion’s teary-eyed first encounter with dragons, as well as Ramsay Bolton’s most shocking and psychotic murders (his father, stepmother, and newborn brother). The episode  threw Balon Greyjoy off a rope bridge, and had the wildlings successfully invade Castle Black to overthrow Jon’s killers. How could it do all of this and not feel rushed? TV magic. 

12. “Valar Morghulis” (Season 2, Episode 10) 

Another vastly underrated season finale episode, this episode sealed more fates than we remember. Robb, in marrying Talisa, unknowingly put himself on the road to the Red Wedding. Bran, escaping north from Winterfell after Theon’s incursion, started on the path to becoming the Three-Eyed Raven. Arya, escaping Harrenhal with Jaqen H’ghar, made her eventual conversion to faceless assassin inevitable. Through Sam’s eyes, we finally saw the scale of the White Walker army heading to the wall, even if it would take another five full seasons to get there.  

And after a ponderous season stuck in Qarth, Dany had a vision at the House of the Undying that may be of the most vital importance to Season 8: the Iron Throne covered in snow in the ruins of King’s Landing. Will we look back and say that the show’s ending was planted in plain sight, right here?   

11. “The Laws of God and Men” (Season 4, Episode 6) 

Everyone remembers the shocking trial by combat that makes up the final 15 minutes of “The Mountain and the Viper.” Hardly anyone remembers the rest of the episode, with good reason — it’s mostly meh. 

More worthy overall is “The Laws of God and Men,” the episode with the trial that led to the Red Viper’s eye-gouging in the first place. Tyrion on the stand, falsely accused of murdering Joffrey, judged by his father, betrayed by his lover Shae, proved that Game of Thrones could do courtroom drama with the best of them. Peter Dinklage’s fiery speech damning his father and all King’s Landing for prejudice remains his finest hour. 

Elsewhere in the episode we get our first glimpse of the Iron Bank, where Stannis and Davos go to beg for mercenary funds. We get Varys and the Red Viper talking power in the Throne room, Theon/Reek’s heartbreaking refusal to go with his sister when she tries to rescue him, and Dany being forced to confront the unintended consequences of owning dragons and crucifying slave owners. 

All in all, very mature stuff for a fantasy world that is often dark — but rarely lives this deep in the grey area. 

10. “You Win or You Die” (Season 1, Episode 7)

No character ever had a better-acted introduction than Tywin Lannister — thanks to the mighty Charles Dance, who literally learned to field-dress a stag for this scene. And that was just the beginning for an episode that grows in stature with every rewatch and is unsurpassed when it comes to court intrigue.

The confrontation in the garden between Cersei and Ned that gives this episode its immortal title, where he reveals that he knows who Joffrey’s true father is, is also the crux point of the entire show. If Ned Stark the classic hero had only played the game for keeps, we’d be watching a very different and duller Westeros. Game of Thrones‘ genius is that it is defined by his heroics and their absence.  

Events accelerate at devilish speed once Robert Baratheon is speared by a boar and dies. A few breathtaking chess moves on both sides, and suddenly it’s checkmate: Littlefinger has a knife at Ned’s throat. It says a lot that this episode takes a breather by … cutting to an assassination attempt on Dany. 

9. “The Battle of the Bastards” (Season 6, Episode 9)

Not all big-budget battle episodes work. Just look at Season 4’s “The Watchers on the Wall,” a good but pretty unsurprising attack on Castle Black with action scenes that jostle together confusingly. The hour drags, and the fighting isn’t even over at the end of it. 

“Battle of the Bastards,” however, is a master class in how to keep raising the stakes, switch up the tone and the pacing, and generally keep us on the edges of our seats. 

SEE ALSO: ‘Game of Thrones’ just took us to school on history’s biggest battles

From the Cannae-like encirclement to the Agincourt-like arrows to the Waterloo-like last-minute rescue, the episode was also one of the most historic depictions of human warfare ever made. It’s bloody as hell, yes, but also a 55-minute history lesson. And it ends with Ramsay Bolton being  thrown to the dogs, literally. What’s not to love? 

Answer: Jon Snow’s stupidity. This episode would be much higher on the list if it didn’t make the man who is supposed to be the show’s stoic hero look like its most hot-headed buffoon. Not even turning the character into Lazarus affected his believability like this episode. (Sansa doesn’t come out of it well, either. She could have told Jon that the literal cavalry was on its way.)

8. “The Lion and the Rose” (Season 4, Episode 2)

The beginning of the Jaime-Bronn partnership, sealed with a bantering bout, is followed by the heavyweight acting championship. Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) squares off against Lady Olenna (Diana Rigg). These golden moments alone would earn “The Lion and the Rose” a place on any sensible list.

But wait, there’s more! The real meat of the episode is the surprise poisoning of King Joffrey at his awkward, garish, little person entertainment-filled wedding. The satisfaction score of the Purple Wedding’s conclusion was off the charts — if your last name wasn’t Lannister, that is.

All of this in an episode penned by George R.R. Martin himself? Two words: Replay, please. 

7. “Hardhome” (Season 5, Episode 8)

Everyone remembers “Hardhome” for its very end — the instantly iconic image of the Night’s King literally raising the dead with a gesture. But it’s just as memorable for its beginning: the first meeting of Daenerys and Tyrion, something fans have been waiting for since the Song of Ice and Fire book series began in 1991.

The pairing of the fiery young queen and the world-weary imp who drinks and knows things did not disappoint. Nor did Cersei’s first day in jail, courtesy of the Sparrows. Even Arya’s turn as an oyster seller was one of the better parts of her vacation in Braavos. 

The chilling battle in the Wildling village that gives the episode its name wasn’t so much a battle — more a rout and a lucky escape, a Westerosi Dunkirk. But it had a ferocity that no other moment of warfare in the entire series has matched. It also has room to breathe. With half the episode set in the village, we’re set up to truly care about it and fear its speedy annihilation. 

The show sometimes struggled to explain how much of an existential threat the White Walkers are to everyone in the Seven Kingdoms. Not this time. 

6. “Blackwater” (Season 2, Episode 9)

Again, the success of Blackwater wasn’t all about the big-budget battle — although it’s still amazing what the show could buy for its $8 million. (Then, it was the most expensive episode of anything on TV, ever. Now, it’s roughly the cost of three-quarters of an average GoT episode.) 

For all the full-sized ships and pretty green explosions, the battle of Blackwater Bay was most compelling because it focused on human stories. The pairings were irresistible: the preppy punk king everyone loved to loathe and the disrespected dwarf who was saving his king’s cowardly ass. Cersei talking (and drinking) the fear away with Shae. Sansa and the beastly Hound who tried to save her. 

The Hugo-winning Blackwater succeeded because it was so damn good at being a standalone. For the first time, Game of Thrones stayed in one place and told interlocking stories. Thrones episodes would now be compared to the year’s best movies and not be found wanting.   

5. “The Rains of Castamere” (Season 3, Episode 9)

Ah, the Red Wedding. What is there left to say about the episode that practically tattooed itself onto the culture, plunging deep into our memories and creating more memes than arguably any other piece of  entertainment this century? Only that the episode would have been even higher on this list if it didn’t spend more than half its time somewhere else. 

Bran’s still trundling towards the Wall with his gang, figuring out how to warg; Dany and Daario (the first, Fabio-like version, alas) are plotting their attack on Yunkai. Because of its grisly power, we think of the Red Wedding as a standalone episode in itself, like “Blackwater.” In truth, it’s more like “Hardhome,” a half-standalone. 

The main event hewed pretty close to its equally shocking source chapter in the book A Storm of Swords, except that it added Robb’s wife to the mix. Yep, the showrunners invented Talisa just so she could be stabbed to death in her pregnant belly. Which either makes them more horrifically imaginative or more problematic than George R.R. Martin, depending on your point of view. 

But here’s the other thing: We’re still not over it. The shock of murderous hosts at an event that’s supposed to be about love and safety has no peer in world history — even the most bloodthirsty Scottish kings didn’t massacre guests at weddings — and it tweaks something very deep in our mythical bones. You only have to think of Catelyn pulling up Roose Bolton’s sleeve to reveal the chainmail, or the musicians suddenly changing their tune, to get shivers. That’s peak TV, right there.

4. “Baelor” (Season 1, Episode 9)

You know it as the one where our hero Ned had his head cut off — the biggest WTF moment in TV history, at least up until that point. What’s less well-remembered about “Baelor” is just how taut, powerful, and good-looking the rest of the episode is. The lighting has never been more stark — pun intended for this Stark-heavy episode — and the scenery never more subtle. This was back when the showrunners had to do way more on way less money.

On a rewatch, it’s chilling to see Catelyn Stark entering The Twins to parlay with Walder Frey for the first time, knowing that her throat will be slit on that spot two seasons hence. Robb Stark’s inability to negotiate for himself is telling, as is his sacrifice of 2,000 men just to fool the Lannisters. 

And instead of focusing on that battle, “Baelor” focuses on the buildup, and a touching this-could-be-the-last-night conversation between Tyrion, Shae, and Bronn that makes you love each character. Which is also tragic in retrospect, considering how they’d be split asunder as permanently as Ned and his head.

3. “The Children” (Season 4, Episode 10)

There is so much plot satisfaction in this episode that a better title would have been “the one where everything happens.” Each of these nuggets just works, rewatch after rewatch, and they come together to create something more than the sum of their parts. 

The opening carries on from “Watchers on the Wall” and instantly supersedes it, as Jon parleys with Mance Rayder while Stannis surprises everyone by invading. Dany is forced to lock up two of her kid-burning dragons in the most affecting pet-related scene since Old Yeller. Bran and Jojen find the ethereal, beautiful Heart Tree that Jojen saw in his vision, only for Jojen to get stabbed by skeletons.

And we haven’t even got to the three biggest-deal moments. Brienne and Podrick finally meet Arya, and after a gruesome duel Brienne defeats the Hound, who begs in vain for Arya to kill him. Instead she sails off into the sunset for Braavos, and you think it’s all over. Only then does Tyrion escape from prison, strangle Shae while choking back sobs, kill his toilet-bound father with two well-deserved crossbow bolts, and depart for Essos in a crate. 

No wonder that no other season finale would top the epic that was “The Children.” Well, not until … 

2. “The Winds of Winter” (Season 6, Episode 10)

Like the Red Wedding, it starts with haunting music. The hypnotic “Light of the Seven” theme plays for a full 10 minutes as the camera lingers on Cersei, King Tommen, and assorted nobles of Westeros in turn, as they prepare for the trial of the century in the Sept. This episode has so much ground to cover, and yet it has the confidence to take its time, to set the stage in silence. 

The tension builds as the gears of Cersei’s most elaborate plot start to grind. We knew she was planning to use wildfire — it had been telegraphed for several episodes — but how? Would she, like the Mad King, try to blow up all of King’s Landing? No, she would simply destroy the Sept at just the right moment, and stand swilling wine in its green afterglow. The Sparrows, a threat for two seasons, were eradicated in an instant of literal brilliance. 

And then her son jumped out of a window — one of the most shocking events in a show that has had more than its fair share since it began with Cersei insisting a child be thrown out of a window. Cersei became actual Queen (a succession only Mashable had explained in advance), but with the taste of ashes in her mouth. 

The episode is full of highs and lows like that. We weep when Samwell Tarly finally sees the Citadel library, but we also weep for Sansa as she gets overlooked and Jon Snow is declared King in the North. And we cheer at Arya’s cold-served revenge on Walder Frey, even though it involved slicing and dicing his sons into pies. 

For an encore, “Winds of Winter” gave us three key events we’d been waiting an age to see: the official beginning of winter, the birth of Jon Snow, and Dany raising an armada to sail west with her dragons. She makes Tyrion her Hand — the honor overwhelms him — but also has to put Daario away.

Dany’s awe-inspiring dragon armada, off to Westeros after seven seasons of buildup, had to be the finest CGI-filled scene in the show — that is, until … 

1. “The Spoils of War” (Season 7, Episode 4) 

Hate on Season 7 all you want (I did). The reveals and reversals of “Spoils of War” proved Game of Thrones had the power to delight our eyes more than before, and send our pulses racing faster than ever. Our jaws hurtled further to the floor when we saw the show’s most unexpected moment of war. 

First a quick shout-out to the things you forget are in this surprisingly perfect episode. Arya returned to Winterfell, had her reunion with Sansa after seven whole seasons, and then fought Brienne effortlessly in the show’s most immortal duel. 

Bran got the drop on Littlefinger. Jon unearthed the ancient etchings of the First Men fighting the White Walkers and told Dany people follow her because they hope she’ll change the whole system, which may well be a spoiler for the end of Season 8.   

What sealed the creation of an instant classic was the sudden surprise of the loot train attack. Here, finally, was what all Westeros had feared: dragons and Dothtraki in action. The technical expertise did not disappoint. The dragonfire scenes provided what is probably the most stunning CGI in the whole show. With 73 stunt men on fire, an all-time record, it made Saving Private Ryan’s D-Day scenes look tame. 

And it all built to that one perfect scene at the end: Jaime on horseback, charging Dany and her dragon before being plunged to the bottom of an icy lake. It’s easily the most breathtaking cliffhanger in the whole show so far. Let’s see whether Season 8 can top it.