Game of Thrones had been hinting at major twists all season long — though one had been foreshadowed for decades — and finally came through.
The seventh season of Game of Thrones has been criticized for ignoring one of the show’s cardinal rules: When characters do something stupid, they die.
In the first season, Ned Stark (Sean Bean) trusted least-trustworthy-man-ever Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aiden Gillen) and lost his head for his stupidity. Robb Stark (Richard Madden) broke a promise to the lord of bitterness, Walder Frey (David Bradley), in the third season, and got stabbed in the heart. And in the fifth season, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) did the right thing and let Wildlings through the Wall, and he got stabbed repeatedly by his Night’s Watch brothers.
Littlefinger’s death has been coming, and his fatal mistake was underestimating the Stark sisters. Having outplayed Baelish at his own game of manipulation, Sansa (Sophie Turner) gave the command, and Arya (Maisie Williams) cut his throat with the same knife he had held to her father’s neck.
Two of the revelations revolve around relationships. There has been an undeniable sexual tension between Jon and Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) all season, and they finally did the dance with no pants (on a boat, no less).
Jon and Dany’s new love is complicated slightly by the final reveal. Sam Tarly (John Bradley-West) and Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) meet in Winterfell, the only two men with knowledge of Jon’s true parentage.
Bran uses his ability to see into the past to see the secret marriage of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, finally confirming that Jon is not Jon Snow but instead Aegon Targaryen, the true heir to the Iron Throne and the living embodiment of ice and fire.
Jon’s true royal parentage has been theorized about since the release of A Game of Thrones, the series’ first novel, in 1996.
Now, as Bran says to Sam, they need to tell Jon the truth. Even when he learns the truth, though, Jon has bigger problems — the army of the dead and its new ice dragon have broken though the Wall.
As snows fall on King’s Landing and ice shatters at the Wall, it’s clear that winter has finally arrived.
