10 Most Shocking Moments In Game Of Thrones Season Finales

It is common TV practice to leave the most dramatic scenes until a series finale, often tying up a season’s worth of storytelling and leaving the viewer already begging for the next episode.

But there is nothing common about Game of Thrones. Dan Weiss and David Benioff’s HBO fantasy phenomenon is rewriting the book on shocking series finales with an addictive combination of classic misdirection and jaw-dropping moments of destruction and betrayal. The ninth (or sixth in this season's case) episodes might be where the show traditionally lets off its chains, but the finales are no disappointment either.

Season seven concludes this week with the teasingly-titled The Dragon And The Wolf, and the new levels of epic reached during this current run, in which almost every episode has had instances of finale-worthy significance, have sent expectations soaring for this climax.

Whatever happens with the unholy alliance at King’s Landing, the squabbling Starks at Winterfell, or up at the Wall will do well to surpass the wow factor of the moments that have gone before them in previous seasons. But judging by what we've seen in this explosive season, there's a very good chance that's exactly what's going to happen.

Here's hoping, anyway.

Two heavyweights of Westeros met on the hills of the Vale in the season four conclusion as Brienne and Podrick stumbled across Arya and her unlikely companion, the Hound.

The execution of this first-time meeting between two beloved characters was paced perfectly. The slow build and look of realisation on Brienne’s face as she deduced Arya’s identity, followed by a vicious fight over the right to safeguard the youngest Stark girl.

The shock factor here was two-fold: that Brienne managed to outgun Sandor Clegane, not only in sword combat but with her fists, and Arya’s stillness as she watched her protector bleed to what she thought was his death, refusing to put him out of his misery.

That the Hound lives does not diminish Brienne’s courage or Arya’s dispassion. It only serves to set up two highly-anticipated reunions, if they all make it to series eight.