Game Of Thrones: 20 Most Shocking Moments Ever

8. The Night King Raises The Dead

The entirety of Hardhome - the actual events there, not the eponymous episode - could be considered one big shocking moment. We knew about the Army of the Dead before then, we'd even seen them. But we'd never quite experienced as we would here. This wasn't a battle, it was a massacre. Game of Thrones became a zombie movie, and it was all-too-terrifying.

After all the chaos and carnage, though, came the real kicker. When the wights had killed so many of the Wildlings and Night's Watch, and Jon Snow et al only just managed to escape to the boats, the Night King himself came down. Staring directly at Jon Snow, he lifted his arms and raised the dead.

It's a masterstroke: we're so used to being shocked by death on this show, but here it's the inverse. Instead of death as a shock, it's life, and that's even scarier.