WARNING: The following contains spoilers from Game of Thrones “Winds of Winter.”
Game of Thrones has never been one to pull punches when it comes to killing off major or beloved characters, and this season has been no exception.
This season, previous to the finale, we’ve seen the deaths of the Three Eyed Raven, Hodor, Summer (Bran’s Dire Wolf), Rickon Stark, and Ramsay Bolton among others.
And the body count only increased after the season 6 finale of Game of Thrones. As usual, we can expect a lot of bloodshed in the last two episodes of any given season for Game of Thrones. And this season finale didn’t wait very long before several important characters met their end. Within the first 15 minutes we witnessed the first death of the finale.
The first to die was the Grand Maester Pycelle. He was looking for Tommen but found Qyburn and his “little birds” instead. He was led into in a room where several murderous children were waiting to stab him to death. And yes, it was as terrifying as it sounds. The first death in the GoT finale was bloody which only set the tone for what else was to come.
The next characters to go were actually a family, pretty much knocking another house out of the running for the Iron Throne. Margaery, Loras, and Mace Tyrell were all murdered in an explosion which took out the Sept of Baelor. The Tyrell family was gathered there for Loras’s trial and were waiting for Cersei’s to begin. Loras had just been set free, although he had lost his title and rights to marry and father children and Margaery was finally back in the game and looking like the cunning queen we couldn’t help but like. Just moments before the Sept of Baelor blows, she realizes that they are about to be the victims of Cersei’s latest Scheme. Unfortunately, however, Margaery doesn’t convince the High Sparrow in time. Just when it looked like Margaery was about to get back on her feet, she fell victim to the ever growing body count.
Joining the Tyrells in the list of dead characters is the High Sparrow. In the past couple of seasons, this character has become a bigger and bigger obstacle for the power-hungry houses. Since he was there to deal out Loras’s punishment and to lead Cersei’s trial, he was in the Sept of Baelor when it exploded in bright green flames. Even though Margaery warned him they were in danger, he refused to let anyone leave.
Without the High Sparrow, the Faith will most likely be eliminated as a political force in Westeros.
The next death wasn’t as shocking as it was sudden. Tommen Baratheon, after watching the place where is wife was and where he was supposed to be blow up, commits suicide by jumping out his window. Ever since Joffrey’s death, Tommen has been merely a pawn in the greater game being played. It’s up for interpretation whether he killed himself due to the loss of Margaery or because he just couldn’t live with what his mother had done. His death was inevitable, and the only reason why he has survived this long is because Cersei will go to any length to protect her children. But it looks like the only thing Cersei could not protect Tommen from was herself.
The last death was the most satisfying of the night. Walder Frey, who has been on everyone’s hit list since the Red Wedding finally met his end. There’s no ending fitting for a man who is responsible for the deaths of Rob and Catelyn Stark, but seeing him die at the hands of Arya Stark was pretty close to perfection (in a disturbing way). Arya fulfilled her promise to return to the North and seek revenge, and her first target was Frey. Taking a page out of Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare, Arya killed Walder Frey’s sons, baked them into a pie, and served them to their father. She then sliced Walder Frey’s throat and he joined the rest of the Game of Thrones body count.
The season finales for Game of Thrones tend to be notorious for the deaths of important characters. But this season’s finale seemed to hold the record for most shocking death scenes. And there isn’t a single doubt that the body count will only continue to climb in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones.
I mean, should we expect any less with Cersei now on the Iron Throne?
