Game Of Thrones: 12 Ups And 5 Downs From Season 7

4. A Lot Of The Winterfell Plot

Winterfell wasn't necessarily the worst part of the season, but it was the strangest. Arya returning home was well-handled at first, with a reunion in the crypts and then that awesome sparring with Brienne, but it all went downhill after that.

The show forced a lot of tension between Arya and Sansa, which reached its nadir in the odd showdown in Beyond The Wall. The sisters never really got on, but it was really weird to see death threats being made, and viewers left wondering if it was a game or not.

In the end Littlefinger got the knife, and his death scene was brilliantly executed, with the scene between the Stark sisters after perhaps even better - an example of what it should have been all along.

Petyr Baelish's death was always the end goal, but the journey to reach that destination was badly handled, feeling more like a cheap attempt to trick viewers and keep the plot at Winterfell ticking over so they could have Littlefinger's death in the finale.

Bran gets dragged into that as well, and even with the deleted scene between him and Sansa it wouldn't be much improved. His abilities were too ill-defined for the most part, the character feeling too bizarre (and a little creepy). Littlefinger's plot was more an act of desperation than a calculated scheme from the master manipulator, and most of the Winterfell storyline did a disservice to its characters, not least Arya Stark.