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

3. Sam's Storyline

Since leaving the Wall in Season 5, Samwell Tarly's storyline has taken a big nosedive. Someone who was a fairly important - or at least consistent - character for five seasons hardly appeared in Season 6, and this year was a continuation of that.

He was in most of the episodes, but his time at the Citadel - where we expected him to make a major discovery - was spent cleaning out bedpans, serving Jorah's story, discovering information we already knew and ignoring that which we didn't.

The whole subplot of Sam going to Oldtown is messy and poorly written, so it's probably good that we can now move on from there, but it still feels like a bit of a waste. Heartsbane, the sword he stole from his father in a defining moment, doesn't come into it, he apparently doesn't learn about his father and brother dying, and him revealing to Bran about Rhaegar's annulment seems like an attempt to shoe-horn him back into the plot, even though Bran could feasibly have just seen that on his own.

All that's without even mentioning Gilly, whose one important scene involves just being ignored, and is probably too good for this cruel world anyway.