Top 10 Game of Thrones Episodes

Winter (if "winter" was slang for the tenth anniversary of Game of Thrones airing its first episode, that is) is coming.

Two days from now, it will be exactly ten years since HBO aired the pilot to the game-changing fantasy epic Game of Thrones. I'm a big fan of the series, and have even defended its negatively received final season on multiple occasions in this blog. I shall celebrate the ten-year anniversary of my second-favorite television drama of all time by sharing my ranking of its ten best episodes - I originally wanted to do a ranking of all 73 episodes, but some wise input from some of my most avid readers suggested that a solid 10 might be more accessible to the average reader.

SPOILER ALERT: The list is aimed at people who have seen the series, so spoilers will ensue - up to the largely misunderstood final season, as episodes from there have most definitely made the list. Haters, beware.

Here are my honorable mentions: Baelor (Season 1 Episode 9), The Watchers on the Wall  (Season 4 Episode 9), Mother's Mercy (Season 5 Episode 10), Home (Season 6 Episode 2), The Dragon and the Wolf (Season 7 Episode 7).

10. The Rains of Castamere (Season 3 Episode 9)

"The Lannisters send their regards"

One of the most infamous episodes in television history has sure earned its notoriety. In The Rains of Castamere (better-known as the "Red Wedding" episode), a major storyline is upended as Robb Stark (Richard Madden), Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) and many others are suddenly murdered during a wedding. It is one of the most classic examples of the show's tendency to subvert expectations: one doesn't see the twist coming beforehand, as the show is seemingly building towards a storyline of Robb's army reaching King's Landing and fighting the Lannisters. But upon closer inspection, the twist didn't come out of the blue, as the clues were there all along; we just didn't realize what the series was really building towards until it hit us and suddenly made perfect sense.

Also, the dramatic escalation of the Red Wedding scene is just done so well. Very little by little, it starts to feel like something is wrong - the doors are shut, the orchestra starts to play that ominous song, Catelyn notices that Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) is wearing chain mail underneath his festive garments, and so on - to the point that suddenly the crossbows and knives are out, and all hell breaks loose. Shocking, heartbreaking and masterfully built.

9. Blackwater (Season 2 Episode 9)

"Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!"

Up until Blackwater, every episode of Game of Thrones had followed multiple different storylines taking place in various locations. Up until Blackwater, the show's plot had felt like the first phase in a game of Risk, as there's no real warfare going on but everyone is picking sides, raising troops and slowly building up towards the eventual conflict. And in Blackwater, the penultimate episode of the second season, the war was finally there. The writers made the smart decision of the entire episode exceptionally focusing on just one storyline, as we spend all of our time in King's Landing, where Stannis Baratheon's (Stephen Dillane) army arrives for the first full-scale battle of the series.

And what a battle it is. We follow it from all sorts of perspectives - Stannis's fleet as it approaches and storms the city, the defensive side struggling to keep the city, and the high-ranking women such as Cersei (Lena Headey) and Sansa (Sophie Turner) waiting fearfully for the outcome of the battle inside the keep. Director Neil Marshall does a fantastic job with the atmosphere, scale and intensity of the battle, and here's the real kicker: I couldn't really decide which side I was rooting for. This was no black-and-white, good vs. evil battle as we often see in the fantasy genre, but a gritty depiction of a war where both sides have their points of sympathy as well as their flaws.

8. The Bells (Season 8 Episode 5)

"They say every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin and the world holds its breath"

The second-last episode of a Game of Thrones season is always a special one, as the biggest shocks are often reserved for that spot. Half of the Stark family had been killed off in various penultimate episodes throughout the season, which raised the question: what the hell was going to happen in the penultimate chapter of the whole series?

Well, it turns out that the biggest shocker in the show's eight-season run wasn't going to be a mere character death (although this episode does have plenty of those), but rather a brutal moment of character development: Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) going into full villain mode. This had been built towards throughout the entire series with more and more subtle clues of Dany inheriting worrying traits from her father, the Mad King, but we didn't want to believe it until the very last moment: after all, she had been one of the show's main heroes all along and we all wanted to root for her. But, in classic Game of Thrones fashion, The Bells showed what the series had really been working towards, instead of what viewers may have hoped for.

This is a major part of my ongoing defense for the negatively received final season: when it came to Ned Stark's death in season 1 or the Red Wedding in season 3, people loved the fact that the series twists viewer expectations and defies fan service by doing things no one would expect (but that make perfect sense afterwards). However, in the case of the final season that came after a two-year hiatus, fans had spent years fantasizing about how the series should end in their opinion, so they were unhappy that the series did what it has always done, and subverted their expectations and revealed that what they have really been working towards was different than what fans may have wanted or guessed. You may disagree, but I see The Bells as the series in its truest form, well-built shocking plot twists and subversion of expectations and all.

7. Winter Is Coming (Season 1 Episode 1)

"Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you"

Rarely has a series started off as well as Game of Thrones. I'm an emotional viewer, so when thinking of what the best episodes of this series have been, I thought about how powerful of a reaction I had to each one. And even more powerful than the absolute shock of The Rains of Castamere or the heartbreak from Daenerys's descent into villainy in The Bells is the sheer excitement that I felt from watching Winter is Coming for the first time. I was immediately certain that I was watching one of the best shows of all time (actually I was quite convinced that I was watching the best series I'd ever see, which turned out to be the case up until the point when I found Twin Peaks which ended up being even an inch better in my book).

If I think of the word "Intriguing" in the context of storytelling, my mind immediately goes to the pilot episode of Game of Thrones. The way we're introduced to the various players with their schemes, the various family hierarchies of Westeros and many exciting locations, is just so damn enthralling that it immediately has the viewer hooked. I've always enjoyed Thrones for managing to simultaneously be an "anti-fantasy" show that goes against the clichés of the genre by bringing the realistic brutality of medieval times into the mix, while still being a successful fantasy show with its moments of magical fascination and creative worldbuilding - and this was clear from the get-go. The pilot episode is dark enough to warn viewers what kind of series they were getting into, but magical enough to promise that viewers who stick with it will be rewarded as they become part of an amazing and compelling world.

6. Hardhome (Season 5 Episode 8)

"If they get through, everyone dies"

Out of all the 'Shit-hits-the-fan' episodes from plot-driven television shows I've ever seen, there is no other where the shit hits the fan quite as thoroughly, aggressively and powerfully as it does in Hardhome. This episode from season 5 was the moment when the world of television viewers collectively realized the big picture: that the Night King (Richard Brake) and his army of White Walkers were the big threat of the series, that this subtly built mystery storyline was suddenly front and center, that none of the power struggles in King's Landing were going to matter unless people united to fight this existential threat. Think of it as the global warming of the Game of Thrones world.

What went on as a normal episode for about two thirds of its runtime suddenly became a groundbreaking part of television's journey to being an art form equal to cinema. When a negotiation between Night's Watch rangers and Wildlings is taking place beyond the wall, they are suddenly interrupted as a freezing barrier of snowy mist blows their way, and something approaches. This quickly escalates into what is one of the best-directed sequences I've ever seen in movies or television, as director Miguel Sapochnik does an impeccable job with the long and harrowing sequence of the gigantic White Walker army storming the village.

The sheer amount of unprecedented production value and directorial skill is off the charts in this chaotic sequence. As the episode ended with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and others escaping the massacre on their boats, a few things became clear: Game of Thrones had once again raised the bar for how good TV can be, and the world of Westeros would never be the same. After five seasons of "Winter is coming", this was the moment when winter came, catching all of us off guard and leaving us speechless.

5. The Iron Throne (Season 8 Episode 6; Series Finale)

"There's nothing in the world more powerful than a good story"

Here's one of the more clever twists the series pulled: after Hardhome, we were all certain that the White Walkers were going to be the show's endgame and the whole fight for the Iron Throne didn't even matter. But that was just our interpretation, and not the show's ultimate intention; after all, the title is Game of Thrones. And so, to everyone's surprise, the White Walkers were dealt with halfway through the final season, thus making the titular power conflict front and center again for the very last episodes. I have a lot of love for the much-hated final episode, and I can't for the life of me understand why people loathed it so much, other than having made up their minds beforehand because the final season had been filled with things going differently than everyone had envisioned.

All of the major characters who are still left get just the poetic ending they deserve. Daenerys, as painful as it was to see her go full villain after caring about the character for so long, needed to die, as she was the final major villain after the Night King and Cersei Lannister had been killed off previously in the season. Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) always was a central character who relied on his words instead of other strengths, so it is absolutely perfect that he became the unlikely hero of the final episode by convincing Jon Snow to do the right thing, and later bringing the lords of Westeros together by proposing a new leadership, with himself as Hand of the King, a position he thoroughly deserves and fits. Sansa Stark, having endured so much pain and learned so much about leadership, finally caught a break and became Queen in the North. Arya (Maisie Williams), having accomplished her hero's journey by literally saving the world (more on that later), set out for an exciting new adventure that is left deliciously open.

And, most poetic of all, the story of Jon Snow. In a series full of backstabbing and betrayal, he always was one of the few truly good people - sure, he was somewhat flawed like any compelling hero, but he always strove to do what is right even when no one else did. And for him, the very hardest moral decision he ever had to make was reserved for the final episode: killing the woman he loved, for the good of the Seven Kingdoms. It is gripping to follow Jon struggling to accept the fact that Dany had gone off the deep end and would lead the world to ruin, and Kit Harington does a fantastic job acting the part. The climactic scene where he kills Daenerys feels nothing short of Shakespearean. And, for the character who never wanted to be king despite his heritage and who spent a majority of the series in the ranks of the Night's Watch where he truly felt at home, it was a wonderful full-circle decision to send him back to the Wall as a compromise between the people who wanted him crowned and the people who wanted him executed. Beautiful.

4. Beyond the Wall (Season 7 Episode 6)

"We'll meet again, Clegane"

"Fucking hope not"

This episode started to mark the point where some fans started to turn against the series, as they weren't happy with the fast pace and "action-movie" atmosphere. Once again, I disagree. I absolutely love the trademark slow pace of the earlier seasons, but it would've been anti-climactic as hell if the series had stayed that way till the very end - the way I see it, the season 6 finale started the show's endgame, and the two final seasons accelerated the speed because we were heading towards a climax, and in any good story (especially a fantasy epic), that part should be exciting. An episode like Beyond the Wall would've felt out of place in the earlier seasons, but as the second-last episode of the second-last season, it was exactly the ultra-thrilling adrenaline rush of insane events that we needed in order to realize that stuff was getting real.

The episode follows an unlikely band of warriors as they travel beyond the Wall in an attempt to capture a Wight. The first half of the episode has some of the show's best comedic moments, as having so many strong personalities from different storylines finally together makes for some top-tier banter - between Bronn (Jerome Flynn), The Hound (Rory McCann), Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) and Jon Snow, just to name a few, the character interactions are pure gold. But then the episode gets crazy, and very climactic as the titular "Song of Ice and Fire" of the show's source material finally unveils its meaning. Here is a rough translation of a WhatsApp conversation I had with a friend of mine, shortly after the episode aired:

"HAVE YOU SEEN THE GOT EPISODE"

"YES"

"I CAN'T"

"I'M SORRY BUT WHAT THE FUCK"

"GOD DAMMIT"

"SOMEHOW I GUESSED IT THOUGH"

"THE FUCKING ZOMBIE DRAGON THEORY BECAME TRUE. AND THAT FUCKING EPIC BATTLE SCENE"

"I KNOW RIGHT, IT WENT ON FOR SO LONG, AND STILL I WAS LIKE OH SHIT OH SHIT THE ENTIRE TIME"

"YEP IT JUST WENT CRAZIER! AT THE POINT WHEN BENJEN SHOWED UP I WAS LIKE THIS IS THE BEST TV EPISODE OF ALL TIME"

3. The Winds of Winter (Season 6 Episode 10)

"Jon, a raven came from the Citadel. A white raven. Winter is here"

"Well, father always promised, didn't he?"

As previously mentioned, the season six finale is where the series hits its endgame. Six seasons of build-up all leads to this episode, filled with game-changing moments, as everyone gets to the position where they are leading to the show's climax.

After six seasons of building up her army to take back the Seven Kingdoms, this is where Daenerys finally sets sail for home. After six seasons of power plays and political games, Cersei Lannister takes out her enemies in a sweeping blow and ends up on the Iron Throne. After six seasons of training her combat skills in order to avenge her family, this is where Arya Stark gloriously assassinates Walder Frey (David Bradley), the man responsible for the butchering of Arya's mother and brother in the Red Wedding. And, after six seasons of learning leadership skills and slowly becoming the central hero of the story, this is where Jon Snow is chosen as King in the North. This extremely eventful episode sets the stage for the two final seasons, and it couldn't have been done any better.

2. Battle of the Bastards (Season 6 Episode 9)

"You're going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well"

There are two major reasons for Battle of the Bastards being one of the greatest television episodes of all time. The first one is that the battle sequence is possibly the greatest battle sequence in the history of television and cinema, I kid you not. One wouldn't have imagined that anything, let alone a television series, would surpass the likes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in terms of well-directed, large-scale battle sequences, but this masterpiece achieved just that with its gargantuan HBO budget and Miguel Sapochnik's expert directing. For a fantasy series, the battle feels just so frighteningly real, as everything from the stunt coordination to the cinematography is absolutely stunning in its intensity.

But it is far from being just a well-directed battle with great production value. This brings us to the episode's other major selling point; the way the battle drives the show's plot to what is probably the greatest payoff in all of Game of Thrones. This was no Blackwater, with two morally gray sides fighting one another: this was good versus evil, heroes like Jon Snow and Sansa Stark going up against the twisted and horrid villain Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon). The good side winning the battle meant that after seasons of heartbreak and dismay for the likable Stark family, they finally had taken back their stronghold of Winterfell from their enemies. And, while violence might never be the right solution in real life, I think every television viewer felt a well-earned sense of delight when Sansa fed Ramsay to his own hounds after the battle - if any television character ever deserved a brutal death, it was him, and after spending such a long time as his victim, Sansa was the right one to do it.

1. The Long Night (Season 8 Episode 3)

"Everything you did brought you to where you are now. Where you belong. Home"

I'm a big fan of long story archs in television, and a long-built narrative coming to its culmination is often the best part of the series. And in The Long Night, the fourth-last episode of the entire series, many of the best narratives in Game of Thrones reach their point of climax while still leaving some of it for the final three episodes. The storyline of the White Walkers had been fantastically built throughout the series, as they slowly escalated from a mysterious and unexplored threat into a terrifying major antagonist of epic proportions - and it all leads to this episode. After seasons of build-up, the White Walkers clash against our main characters, fittingly in the emotionally important location of Winterfell.

As is fitting for such a climactic battle, the scale of it all is off the charts. Filming took 55 nights and an unknown number of days, with roughly 750 cast and crew members bringing it all to life. The directing by Miguel Sapochnik is impeccable, as the battle feels very large, incredibly intense and extremely real all at the same time. Major characters like Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) and Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) reach the poetic ends of their character archs, through some very emotional death scenes. And the final resolution is brilliant: while viewers had thought that Jon Snow would be the one to finally defeat the Night King (Vladimir Furdik), Arya Stark was the right choice. Her journey to defeat the villain had been sneakily built all along, without viewers ever seeing it coming beforehand. What a spectacle.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I celebrate Shakespeare Day by posting two simultaneous lists: the top 5 conventional Shakespeare adaptations on the big screen, and the top 5 unconventional ones!