SPOILER ALERT! ‘Game of Thrones’ sixth season reached a crashing finale in the US last night, leaving fans gasping with surprise at one shock twist after another.
SPOILERS - DO NOT READ ON UNTIL YOU'VE VIEWED TO YOUR SATISFACTION!
Below we rate the series' finale shock twists, counting down from 8 to 1, in level of surprise (or complete expectation, if you've been swotting up on the fan theories and selected the right ones).
8. Daenerys setting sail, FINALLY, for Westeros. Even though this was one of the last revelations of the show, it was arguably the most predictable. What was more pleasing was Daenerys trading in her lover Daario for the far more entertaining Tyrion as her companion.
7. Melisandre being tried for Shirred’s death, but let off by judge Jon. Her punishment? Mere banishment from the North, which seemed lenient in the circumstances.
6. Littlefinger’s belated confession that his big dream is to sit on the Iron Throne, with Sansa by his side.
5. Jon being proclaimed King of the North (something to which everyone agrees, with the slightly obvious exception of Littlefinger, who’s keeping his own counsel…)
4. Arya’s body count climbing ever higher, this time with Walder Frey and his sons, whom she has baked into a pie, like some medieval fairy tale.
3. Cersei… well, what didn’t she do? She caused the deaths of, at a stroke, Loras Tyrell, Kevan Lannister, High Sparrow, Lord Mace and… Queen Margaery!… before having herself crowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
2. But the two things she couldn’t control… 1) the fate of her one remaining child Tommen, who we saw slowly remove his crown and then fling himself from the window, Bran Stark-style, but without anyone’s help. 2) The look on her brother’s Jaime’s face on his return to witness the above. Contempt about covers it.
1. And… drum roll… definitely the most dramatic turn up for the books, if not altogether unexpected in the scheme of things, it transpires that Jon Snow is a Targaryen. Courtesy of his mother Lyanna Stark’s long-ago affair with Rhaegar, and his birth that we learnt about in flashback.
A secret Ned Stark promised to keep all that time, but one fans have been sniffing around for a while, but finally had confirmed. Which leaves the landscape wide open for the seventh and final season as Jon Snow prepares, like Daenerys and Cersei, AND Arya AND Jaime, to face his destiny. Bring it on.
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