Warning: contains spoilers for Game Of Thrones seasons one to seven
Ian McShane may think it’s just tits and dragons, but he’s wrong. Game Of Thrones is tits, redemption, mythology, violence, comedy, surprise, technical feats, magnificent design, acting prowess, smart writing, a story years in the telling, and dragons. Big, scaly, snorting, masterfully rendered dragons.
Did we mention the dragons?
Out of the 67 episodes that have aired so far, we’ve selected just 50 of this show’s greatest moments. By the time we reach the season eight finale, expect to see some changes below…
50. Syrio vs the Kingsguard
Season one, episode eight
‘The first sword of Braavos does not run’
It’s a martial arts classic – the skilled retired master drawn into battle one last time to protect the young protegee – and this is a classic season one moment. When Lannister goldcloaks, led by the despicable Meryn Trant, attempt to kidnap Arya, ‘dancing’ master Syrio allows her to escape. Fans loved the Braavosi sword so much that the theory he was actually Jaqen H’ghar in another borrowed face lived on for years. What do we say to the god of death? Not today.
49. Jaime and Brienne’s bath
Season three, episode five
‘You all despise me. Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, the man without honour’
This is the turning point for Jaime Lannister in Brienne’s eyes, and in those of the viewer. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gives a powerful performance in this monologue telling the true story of how Jaime came to be known as the Kingslayer. He didn’t break his oath to protect the Mad King out of greed for power, but fear of carnage. In destroying his reputation, Jaime saved the people of King’s Landing from being burned alive by wildfire, and nobody would ever thank him for it. He still pushed Bran out of that window though, so swings and roundabouts.
48. Tyrion slaps Joffrey
Season one, episode two
‘One word and I hit you again’
Aka the gif that keeps on giving. This short scene in which Tyrion hits his royal nephew for refusing to even feign sympathy for Bran Stark’s ‘accident’ was delicious at the time, but in hindsight, led to a great deal of woe. “The prince will remember that, little lord,” the Hound tells Tyrion, and the prince does remember, and exacts his revenge through humiliations that eventually put Tyrion (wrongly) in the frame for Joffrey’s murder.
47. Brienne vs the bear
Season three, episode seven
‘A wooden sword?’
Jaime going back to Harrenhal to save Brienne is another big tick in his redemption column. When his Lannister gold can’t ransom her, Jaime leaps into Locke’s bear pit with no weapon and no plan other than to stop a terrible wrong from happening. Brienne is saved and in turn, by pulling him out of the bear’s charging path, she saves Jaime right back.
46. Summer saves Bran’s life
Season one, episode two
‘It’s a mercy. It’s dead already’
Loyalty is hard to come by in the Seven Kingdoms, but the Stark direwolves, while they lived, were devoted to their masters, fighting alongside them in battle and savaging their foes (including Prince Joffrey – bonus points to Nymeria, even if it did end badly for Lady). Summer died in season six protecting Bran from attack by wights but this was the first time he saved the Stark boy’s life.
45. Ramsay’s sausage dinner
Season three, episode ten
‘No. Pork sausage. Do you think I’m some sort of savage?’
Ramsay Bolton torturing Theon made for some truly uncomfortable scenes in season three, not least the moments leading up to the Greyjoy’s castration. It was this gloating, horrific joke by the psychopath though, that really sticks in the mind. Spearing a pork sausage on the end of his fork and chomping down in front of his victim with glee proved that Ramsay was one dangerous bastard.
44. Jaime gives Oathkeeper to Brienne
Season four, episode four
‘I’ll find her, for Lady Catelyn, and for you’
Another entry in the Jaime and Brienne camp. Jaime presenting Brienne with a suit of custom-made armour and her own Valyrian steel was a moving tribute from an enemy-turned-friend. Naming the sword Oathkeeper, in reference both to Brienne’s oath to Lady Stark, and to Jaime’s nickname Oathbreaker, was stirring stuff.
43. Melisandre gives birth
Season two, episode five
‘Shadows cannot live in the dark, Ser Davos.’
Melisandre’s magic has provided more than a few WTF moments on Game Of Thrones. Her leech curse, her real age, the resurrection of Jon Snow… this one though, the birth of the shadow assassin with the face of Stannis Baratheon that drags itself out from her nether-regions and murders Renly, was the first, and the hardest to forget.
42. Sam leaves Horn Hill
Season six, episode six
‘We belong together. All of us’
Game Of Thrones’ timing is one of its greatest talents. After a heart-felt goodbye to Gilly and Little Sam at Horn Hill, this moment leaves just a long enough pause before Samwell stomps back in to the room with a new plan. He takes his due inheritance in the form of Valyrian steel sword Heartsbane, takes his woman and his adopted son, and takes back control.
41. Jon gives Needle to Arya
Season one, episode two
‘First lesson: stick ‘em with the pointy end’
Don’t let the fact that GRRM originally intended Jon and Arya to be a couple ruin this moment of sibling warmth. Just like Ned Stark with his gift of ‘dancing lessons’, in this scene Jon Snow proves himself Arya’s ally by supporting her rejection of traditional gender roles. This girl’s not for embroidery, and neither is her Needle.
40. Daario Naharis Vs the Champion of Meereen
Season four, episode three
‘Let me kill this man for you’
A combination of grand scale, action and well-timed humour make this moment one of the show’s greats. After refusing most of her entourage’s request to fight the Champion of Meereen for the reason they’re too important to lose, Dany speedily agrees to letting the cocky Daario chance his arm. His arm, as it happens, turns out to be very, very good. Champion defeated, Dany makes one of the speeches of her political career.
39. Jon and Ygritte’s cave
Season three, episode five
‘Is that what lords do to their ladies in the south?’
There’s not much happiness to be had in the Seven Kingdoms, but Ygritte and Jon temporarily find some in this hot spring cave where she convinces him to break his vows. (He doesn’t take much convincing, to be fair to her). It’s a brief romantic idyll, away from the Wildlings, the Night’s Watch and the constant threat of the White Walkers. Sadly, it wasn’t to last.
38. Olenna vs Cersei
Season six, episode seven
‘I wonder if you’re the worst person I ever met’
Given half a chance, Olenna’s scenes would fill up most of this list, such is the joy of Dame Diana Rigg serving up attitude in a chin-strap. She doesn’t suffer fools and refuses to be intimidated by the Lannisters (asking homophobe Tywin whether he’d ever “had a go” at another boy beneath the sheets and confronting him about his twins’ incest was a memorable exchange). This one though, in which she tells Cersei that her having lost is “the only joy she can find in all this misery” is a joy itself, even if it is premature.
37. Melisandre’s true form is revealed
Season one, episode six
‘You haven’t seen her do what I’ve seen her do’
Baths have proved unexpectedly pivotal to Game Of Thrones. Dany takes a boiling hot one in the first season and emerges unburnt, long before she hatches her dragon eggs on Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre. Jaime cleans not just his body but his reputation, in Brienne’s eyes, in one. And Melisandre’s true form is revealed in this one. The centuries-old witch takes off her magical ruby before a dip and with it goes her youth and glamorous beauty.
36. Dany retrieves her dragons
Season two, episode ten
‘They miss their mother’
Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying, with its depiction of snow falling on a King’s Landing throne room in ruins, is of symbolic importance, but the moment she first uses “Dracarys” to command her children to kill the warlock who took them and to break their chains is just as significant. Over the seasons, Dany will use that command many times, but this is the first and it is exhilaration itself.
35. The Hound fights five soldiers to get some chicken
Season four, episode one
‘Fuck the king’
A man built like The Hound needs protein, so best not come between him and his chicken. In this scene, he and Arya stumble upon a group of Kingsmen raping and pillaging their way through the Riverlands in a tavern, and teach them all a bloody lesson. Rory McGann’s menacingly assured delivery paired with a brutal fight and Arya retrieving Needle make this a classic.
34. Tyrion’s trial speech
Season four, episode six
‘I should have let Stannis kill you all’
Sometimes it doesn’t take literal explosions to blow the roof off the place; just one show-stopping performance. Peter Dinklage gives just that in Tyrion’s trial speech, which lets out the pain of a lifetime of hurt and unfair treatment by his father, his sister, and the world.
33. Dany burns down the Temple of the Dosh Khalen
Season six, episode four
‘You’re not going to serve. You’re going to die’
When will people learn not to underestimate the Mother of Dragons? While the Khals are busy laughing at Dany’s diminutive form and planning all the ways they’re going to abuse and control her, she’s enacting a plan that kills them all. “None of you are fit to lead the Dothraki. But I am,” she says, to the Khals’ amusement. And then she locks the doors and burns them all to death. Told you.
32. Uncle Benjen saves Jon
Season seven, episode six
‘Uncle Benjen. How?’
“I’ll do what I can as long as I can,” the not-quite-dead Benjen Stark told Bran and Meera in season six, and what he did here – sacrificing himself to save his nephew Jon – was major. Yes, Uncle Benjen turning up at precisely the right moment to save Jon’s life was convenient, but it was also the resolution to a seasons-long mystery. If Jon/Aegon defeats the Night King, he’ll have his uncle to thank.
31. Skeletons attack!
Season four, episode ten
‘He is lost. Come with me or die with him’
This tribute to stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen by the Game Of Thrones team was both visually memorable and an emotional end for Jojen Reed. As Bran, Hodor and the Reeds approach the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven, they’re fought by reanimated skeletons and only survive thanks to Hodor’s bulk and Leaf’s magic grenades.
30. The Night King’s origin
Season six, episode five
‘It was you. You made the White Walkers’
The Children of the Forest did it. They were the ones who, in an attempt to protect themselves from the First Men, made a weapon that would go on to threaten to extinguish all living people in the Seven Kingdoms. They created the Night King by inserting a dragonglass blade into a man’s heart. If that blade is removed, would it be the end of all the White Walkers and Wights he’s created in turn?
29. Daenerys commands the Unsullied
Season three, episode four
‘A dragon is not a slave’
Another ‘dracarys’ moment from Dany, in which the Queen of the Andals teaches slaver Kraznys a lesson. Two lessons: 1) slavery is wrong and 2) don’t mess with Daenerys Stormborn. It won’t end well. Pretending to trade a dragon for 8,000 Unsullied, Dany burns the slaver to death, commands her new army to kill their cruel masters, and gives her soldiers freedom.
28. Sam kills a White Walker
Season three, episode eight
‘It’s come for the baby!’
This was the moment Gilly really knew that Samwell Tarly was a good bet for her and her son. Despite not being much of a swordsman, and despite being terrified beyond belief, Sam stood up against a White Walker, saved the life of a baby, and discovered the magical, pivotal, secret of Dragonglass to boot.
27. Brienne Vs The Hound
Season four, episode ten
‘Safety? Where the fuck’s that?’
Another clash of the titans – the bout between Brienne and The Hound which leaves him dying on a hillside (spoiler: he survives) and Arya running away to Braavos, is a beautifully done thing. From Arya and Brienne’s instant bonding to The Hound’s suspicion over her Lannister gold, to the swordfight itself and Arya’s escape, you couldn’t look away.
26. The Viper vs The Mountain
Season four, episode eight
‘I am the brother of Elia Martell’
Acrobatic finesse met brute strength in a thrilling battle that ended with no victor. The Mountain, fighting as Cersei’s champion, crushed the skull of The Viper, fighting as Tyrion’s, but not before The Viper fatally poisoned him. Beautiful choreography and stomach-turning brutality – a Game Of Thrones speciality.
See entries 25 – 1 on the next page.
