The results are in. The people have spoken. After last week’s poll, I have gathered your results and pulled some of my favorite quotes from you, the very readers and commenters we love. One of my promises was that I would “scaveng[e] the comments like a raccoon in the night, selecting my favorite defenses and sharing them in a soon-to-be follow up to this post.” And I’m nothing if not a man of my word. As mentioned, if you followed my cold, hard directions on how to post, this gave you your likeliest chance of being showcased in this, here post. Most of you followed directions pretty well, so thank you! The rest of you? Well, let’s just say it’s been a while since Ser Ilyn has seen any action, and his blade is getting rusty…So! What did the people have to say about their favorite GoT season finales? Who won the coveted Iron Throne? Read on and find out!
Well, voters. You have made your decision crystal clear. If the featured picture wasn’t your first indication, let it be said that Season 6’s ‘The Winds of Winter’ is the far and away the overwhelming favorite, winning a whopping 61.77% of the 3,633 total voters.
What did the voters think? A myriad of things! Some really liked the ‘reveal’ that R+L = J. I say ‘reveal’ in quotes because at this time we only really confirmed that Lyanna was Jon’s mom:
Maddison: “Almost all of the big characters had big moments in that episode…Daenerys sailing to Westeros to claim the Iron Throne, Cersei blowing up the Sept of Baelor, Tommen, Jon becoming King in the North with that look between Sansa & Littlefinger, & of course Arya gets her revenge on the Freys, & finally R+L=J is confirmed.”
The voters absolutely loved the opening sequence, with the introduction of composer Ramin Djwadi’s magnum opus, Light of the Seven:
weirwoodtreehugger: “…perhaps the best episode of the entire series. Everything about Cersei’s revenge was perfect. It was the most suspenseful sequence in the whole series, the acting was great, the pacing was spot on and the score beautiful.”
nefromaway: “IMO there was so much movement forward in that episode and as a viewer it was a rich delight of music, acting, editing, cinematography, and more.”
Really though, people just…liked it. A lot:
Roast: “…as a book reader I knew most of the huge plot points of seasons 1-5. Those seasons I was watching and enjoying, but half the enjoyment was watching my unsullied wife and friends and seeing what they thought. Season 6 however, was a far different experience for me. Just about everything was beyond the books at that point. The finale episode had the hard task of following the battle of the bastards, and it did it amazingly. I was on the edge of my seat that whole season, and for the first time really felt the rush of being an unsullied, and that final episode was in my opinion the best of the season.”
Jon Snowed: “For me this is the most perfect hour of television I have ever seen”
Rika: “I like it because it was perfect. Perfect score. Perfect plot. Perfect twists. Perfect death (Walder Frey’s). Confirmed R+L=J. And was a perfect contrast from where that season started.”
tmoe: “I didn’t anticipate what Cersei was up to, so she blew up my mind alongside her enemies. Plus Jon’s parentage being revealed was a moment we’ve all been waiting for for years. Both scenes matched with their musical scores just made that episode one of the greatest ever and left me in awe and suspension while waiting for season 7.”
In a very distant second place with 13.07% of the vote, ranked season 4’s ‘The Children.’ Some people thought it was emotional and unpredictable:
Cazaril: “Probably because I haven’t read the books by that time and what happened totally took me off guard”
Arkash: “The culmination and apotheosis of Act I. A non stop succession of powerfwul dialogues, intense emotional moments and stunning set-pieces tying up a lot of things while opening so much more for the road to come.”
The common thread that people seemed to really like here is that several chapters of GoT appeared to come to a close (the Hound, Tywin, etc.) while others perfectly segued into the next chapters of their stories (Arya, Tyrion, Bran, etc.):
Dorian: “From Stannis’ arrival at the Wall (a wonderful sequence), Bran meeting the Three-Eyed Raven, Tyrion’s escape and attack on Shae and Tywin (some of the best acting he’s ever done is with Charles Dance on that toilet) and the brutal Hound vs Brienne fight, it was just perfect for me.”
Lorie: “Arya on the ship to Braavos was thrilling! And the epic “Brienne vs the Hound” fight scene was awesome and probably my second-fav scene in the whole series thus far.”
Voter Legolas captured it best: “A Finale has to capture the “finally” moments, and yet with a multi-season opus like GoT it has to build expectation towards the next season. Season 4 did that for me like none other. Arya’s final scene was a refreshing change to Danaerys or the Whitewalkers closing out the season. She finally moves on to potentially exciting unforeseen prospects. And her final scene with the Hound after the brilliant fight scene is a jewel. Tyrion makes a similar move escaping Westeros to set up an exciting storyline for the next season, while leaving the chess board open in King’s Landing. Bran finally reached the Three-Eyed-Raven. It was all starting to look very exciting indeed for the future. The elements added by the surprising sweep of Stannis’ forces to help Jon and the beautiful farewell to Ygritte were great.”
Not too far behind season 4 was the recent season 7’s ‘The Dragon and the Wolf,’ with 11.62% of the vote. Could it be recency bias that has pushed season 6 and 7 to occupy two of the top three spots? We’ll never know without a Bran Three-Eyed Raven to send us through space and time and find out! Here are some of my favorite quotes about the season 7 finale:
Syrio 2: “The Wall came down in a fittingly climatic sequence. After seven seasons of impenetrability and in a way that was not foreseen. The wight attacking Cersei and then the subsequent dialogue between Cersei and Tyrion back in her chambers was intense and edge of the seat stuff. Then the demise of Littlefinger. Hoist by his own petard when his schemes over reached and rebounded on him. And did I mention the Wall came down. Epic!”
While he didn’t exactly stick to the one paragraph rule I put in place, voter Thronetender practically heeled my calling, dubbing me the legendary Raccoon Boy:
“I started to write this way earlier on Thursday, then had other pressing business, and was almost going to skip writing anything, until I reread what David wrote: “I will be scavenging the comments like a raccoon in the night, selecting my favorite defenses and sharing them in a soon-to-be follow up to this post.” Ok, Racoon Boy, I offer the following as fare for you to scavenge.
We got definitive answers! We got characters finally doing what we, for years, hoped they would do. The Wall fell! We got unprecedented occurances, yet there is still enough suspense that the wait until we next see Game of Thrones seems particularly cruel.
Without a doubt, even the most casual viewer now knows that Jon Snow is really Aegon Targaryen, the true-born, legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark Targaryen, with even greater right to the Iron Throne than his beloved (Aunt) Daenerys. Jon (he shall remain Jon to me until such time that he, himself, knows his true name and parentage.) found the courage to love again, and with a very worthy partner…”
He had quite a bit more to say, and it’s all very worthwhile, so I’ll recommend you head over to the original post and check it out. Meanwhile, the famed Raccoon Boy has more comments to scavenge.
Next up was season 1’s ‘Fire and Blood,’ commanding 8.06% of the vote. Being the culmination to the first season of TV’s (at the time) burgeoning phenomenon, it had a lot of expectations, and many were happy to share why they thought it delivered. For those Unsullied at the time, some shared their memories of watching the season 1 conclusion:
fdr: “…the birth of the dragons (and the false narrative of the King in the North revenging his family). It’s obvious in hindsight, but I didn’t know anything about Thrones then and I hadn’t completely expected that the dragons would hatch after all, especially because the previous episodes already changed my expectations (Viserys dead, Robert dead, Ned dead, Drogo dead). At this point, Jon was just a side character and Daenerys took the lead.”
m3shwerks: “After Ned’s beheading I wasn’t sure what to expect from this show (I was unsullied). Rob being declared the King in the North gave us hope for the Starks and we feared for Arya and her new path. The birth of the dragons was a game changer and I love the music as Dany emerges from the pyre. Finally, Mormont’s speech as Jon ventures beyond the wall set the tone for the looming Others. It was a great set-up for the next season and confirmed that a larger story was still unfolding. It also reaffirmed that this was not your typical fantasy show.”
LadyGoodman: “I liked it because I was a sweet summer child then, unsullied in the ways of ASOIAF and completely enthralled by the plot juggernaut that blew past Ned’s execution so fearlessly. I knew that it was a show I could trust to entertain me without pandering, obvious plot devices and maudlin romance.”
Still though – Sullied or not, people just seemed to really love them dragons:
Boromir: “…ends the “prologue” and sets up the main story in an incredibly powerful way, with the one-two-three punch of Robb declared King in the North, Jon heading beyond the wall, and the birth of the dragons.”
Stormborn: “…Dany rising from the ashes with 3 baby dragons. It was potent, majestic and completely mesmerising; rounding off one of the better seasons of GoT.”
Sam: “I liked this because… of the last scene, Dany shows everyone she is a true force to be reckoned with and gives life to dragons after being extinct for years. It gives me goosebumps the same I had when reading the book. It ties a knot in my chest seeing her rise and everyone bow down as “for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.” Granted it was dawn in the show, and it looked beautiful too.
moonpeas: “Season 1 is my favorite finale because when the Daenerys and baby dragons scene (and Jorah, don’t forget him), when that went to black my husband and I, on the edge of the sofa, turned to each other. And you know our expressions, I’m sure.”
With 3.94% of the vote, one brave voter stood tall for season 5’s ‘Mother’s Mercy’:
Pat: “I am surprised there is not more love for season 5. To me it was the most heartbreaking and terrifying episode of entire series. I still remember how scared i felt the first time watching it. The fact that a tv show is capable of making me feel such a way is why i love this show so much. Stannis final moments… Just wow.”
No one vocally made the case for season 2’s ‘Valar Morghulis’ or season 3’s ‘Mhysa,’ although each contributed 1.07% and .047% of the vote, respectively. For good measure, I’ll throw in my two cents:
As far as overall television season finales go, I think season 2 is exceptional, and I love the decision to tack on the ‘Sam meets The Walking Dead’ to the end of the episode. It’s a great hour of TV, and this scene capped off the season fittingly. However, compared to the other GoT seasons, I’d agree with the voters that this finale doesn’t remotely compare.
Season 3 is just a lackluster finale. By choosing to cut the novels’ Lady Stoneheart storyline, there was clearly a struggle over what would be the most impactful way to end the season. While David and Dan ultimately chose to end with Daenerys’ freeing of Yunkai, I do not believe this choice was wise. Colonialist implications aside, this scene does not have a strong narrative tug because we already saw this done earlier in the season when Daenerys Dracarys’d her way to victory in Astapor. Many will disagree with me, but I have always said that season 3 should have ended with Jaime arriving home in King’s Landing. I still remember Cersei’s and Jaime’s shared glances as he opens her door. Is it ‘The Wall falls’ or ‘Dragons are born’ capital E Epic? No, of course not. But this is a show about people, and this was a season largely built around Jaime’s redemption. Ending it there would have been far more narratively satisfying from a character perspective rather than watching Daenerys’ liberation of a second city.
As for my personal favorite finale? It’s season 4 hand’s down, with ne’er a second place in sight. I firmly believe Season 4 of GoT is one of the strongest seasons any television show has ever had, which was solidified with its exceptional finale, The Children. Over the course of an hour, Shae and Tywin meet their deaths at their hands of a bloodlusting, at-wit’s-end Tyrion, Tyrion (with a reluctant Varys in tow) sets off for a new start, Bran finally reaches the Three-Eyed Raven (give or take a few undead bomb-throwing skeletons) and is told he would fly, and Arya sails off towards Braavos along to the gorgeous and haunting children’s chorus of the main theme. Yes, all this and more happens in one episode – it was a finale that had it all…but it didn’t stop there. My favorite scene in all of GoT is the entirety of Brienne vs. The Hound, including the incredibly tense dialogue leading up to the fight, which also includes Arya and Podrick. As a longtime Sullied book reader, when I first saw this scene, I was on edge with every single line of dialogue, every facial expression, every hand on every sword. I believe that TV/film adaptations should be as different from the books as the writers feel they need to be. In the books, the Hound was left terribly wounded in a scuffle with minor characters. In the show, a terrifically exciting fight breaks out between two characters we care about, resulting in the Hound being terribly wounded all the same. This is drama. This is perfection. This is Game of Thrones. I agree with one of our voters:
Rygritte: “Season 4 no contest”
Ooh, I wasn’t able to vote but I agree with the results! My top 2 finales so far are S6 and S4. I’m reserving a spot in the top 3 for S8 (fingers crossed). 😀
Oh, David, I so agree and also chose Season 4, despite the stand-alone perfection of “Winds of Winter” from Season 6. “The Children” was the finale most thematically integrated externally with the other season episodes and internally within itself. My original response mentioned all the variations of ‘the children’ reflected inthe segments, yet I forgot one of the most important: the introduction of the Children of the Forest. We book readers had been waiting for that. Along with Tyrion and Arya, Bran too was embarking on an eye-opening (!) adventure into his future talents and role. To this day, the episode’s exhilarating music, which includes an optimistic bridge of the HoB&W chords, is one of the most played tracks on my phone’s GoT playlist
Yaay, love you words The Children ! Thanks for them !
No surprise it doesnt beat Winds in the poll but you said it all for me ! Best finale ! And I’d say the Mance – Jon dialogue is as tense as the Hound – Brienne one !
I liked each and every episode, but for me nothing beats season 6. The awe. The terror. The music. Best scene, Tommen giving up.
Then the King in the North. And the Dragon fleet. The feeling that all starts now.
My second choice would be season 2. Because Sam is us. And he gets that glimpse of death. The most frightening scene in the whole series.
Hey, nice to see the results! I must say they align pretty well with my own opinions. Season 6 finale is my absolute favorite, the best episode of the entire show, a roller coaster of plot movement and character revelation nothing else can compare with. Season 4 finale The Children is right behind it with a hugely satisfying closure to Act I and promising bold new things to come. Tyrion and Arya leave Westeros, Hound and Brienne duel it out, while Stannis saves the day, the episode’s perfection only retroactively diminished by Winds of Winter’s unparalleled greatness. Next comes 1×10 Fire and Blood, also a truly exceptional closing episode with so many outstanding moments to enjoy and remember. Valar Morghulis, Season 2 final installment, is not far behind: Shae and Tyrion’s scene in the aftermath of the Battle of Blackwater remains one of my all-time favorite character moments, and there’s plenty more to like here. Mother’s Mercy follows, a dark and emotional episode, and a worthy ending to a very underrated and unfairly maligned season. Mhysa comes last and deservedly so. It’s the only finale so far that I wouldn’t rate as excellent or very good. It’s a solid episode and undoubtedly satisfying to watch, but it lacks the oomph that we’ve come to expect from GoT.
I deliberately didn’t mention Season 7 finale because I haven’t yet rewatched these last 7 episodes. I’ll have to do that before I can settle on a definitive opinion. That said, it’s up there with the best of them. Not better than S6, sure, but other than that… I don’t know yet.
Totally agree with the results and the sentiments surrounding the season finale of season six. The Winds of Winter was the perfect episode.
Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s bible.
But Rocky had come equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival.
Woo! Glad I could help represent Season 1! The first and the best! 😄
It was cool to read this and be reminded of the excellent finales I’ve basically forgotten about! Season 4’s finale really was great fun. I like how they “made us all unsullied” by having The Hound vs Brienne fight! That was so unexpected and incredibly well-done. If you’d told me ahead of time that would happen I would have said “That’s a horrible idea, what? why?!!” but they pulled it off perfectly. Brilliant move by the writers.
The birth of the dragons being the culmination of Dany’s unmatched best Season… really took my breath away, it was simply perfect, from the nighttime pyre with Jorah desperate for Dany not to die… to her emerging and everyone realizing they’ve seen something completely special and unique.
S7 finale would really be second if we were able to rank all if them and not to choose only one episode.
Season 4 was absolutely the best finale. It is the characters that drive this show’s excellence, and 4 was all about the character arcs.
Looks very accurate to me.
2 and 3 the worst
5 the most depressing
4 and 6 standout.
Not surprised ‘The Winds of Winter” won the vote. Cersei blowing up the Sept of Baelor for me was even more spectacular than the NK bringing down the Wall with Viserion’s help!
I have to agree also, the finale to S4 – “The Children” was pretty epic as well and a well deserved 2nd place. That fight between between Brienne and the Hound especially 🙂
This was explicitly a season finale poll, not a season poll.
David Rosenblatt,
Not sure what that means.-
Brienne’s grunting ruined all of the Season 4 finale for me. Season 6 for the win.
This was a cool feature. David, I loved how you incorporated people’s comments into the article when discussing each of the finales. Hope we have more polls like this later.
The list lines up with my own personal one pretty well. Winds of Winter and the Children are at the top of mine (the Children would maybe beat Winds if it wasn’t for the underwhelming death of Jojen). Fire and Blood I would place just one notch higher. Does a great job of ending the first season’s story while setting up future material in an exciting way.
Wolf and the Dragon is a really good episode but I would put it in the middle of the pack. The Dragonpit scene was awesome but I do think leaving the Stark reconciliation offscreen left that storyline feeling a little incomplete by the end.
Mother’s Mercy has some frustrating cliffhangers (I still roll my eyes when Arya gets struck blind), but has enough excellent scenes (everything with Stannis, the Walk of Shame, and “For the Watch”) to beat out Valar Morghulis, which is mostly a solid finale outside the death of Qhorin Halfhand.
Mhysa is, I think, one of the weaker episodes of the whole series, honestly. David is right, I think, about the writers struggled with exactly how to end the final season, since so many characters are still kind of in transition. I also feel like it really mismanaged the time spent with the characters. Both the Jaime/Cersei reunion and Sansa’s reaction to the Red Wedding were too brief, while we spent a relatively long time at Dragonstone, and had a somewhat redundant and unmemorable scene with Tyrion and Cersei (usually their scenes are great but nothing was said here that hadn’t been said several times before between them. Glad that isn’t their last scene together anymore). Unlike most of the other finales, it doesn’t really conclude anything or setup something new and exciting for the next season.
Very interesting poll, with great selection of comments. While I picked 4 first, 6 wasn’t far behind for me.
Which leads me to a question – many people said they chose 6 with 4 as a close second. Wonder what second place looked like.
Thanks for doing this!
David Rosenblatt,
I was perplexed by his comment too, but I think what he meant was that if everyone had been asked to rank the seven season finales in order from favorite (#1) to least compelling (#7), then S7’s finale would’ve come in second (at #2). *
I suspect this would’ve made your tallying tasks much more time-consuming. I assume you’d have to use a “weighting” system, e.g., assigning 5 points for a first place vote, 3 points for a second place vote, etc.
Personally, I don’t think requesting us to sibmit 1-7 rankings would have changed the ultimate result: S4’s finale, “The Children”, would have come in second anyway.
* Your tabulated results and pie chart showed that S6’s finale “Winds of Winter” was the winner by a landslide: 2,244 votes = 61.77 % of the total.
I think mau’s comment was prompted by the closeness of voting for runner-up and third-place. S4’s “The Children” with 475 votes (13.07 %) edged out S7’s “The Dragon and the Wolf”
(422 votes = 11.62 %): a 53-vote differential.
David Rosenblatt,
Out of curiosity… Any plans on conducting a similar poll for favorite season premier? I wonder if S4e1, “Every F*cking Chicken in this Room” – I mean, “Two Swords”, would be the runaway winner, or if the pilot episode, S1e1 “Winter is Coming” would take the top prize because so many of our favorite characters are in it– and still alive. 😕
Every time I do a full re-watch I am amazed by how unbelievably good 4×10 is…somehow I always forget how much is packed in there.
…but 6×10 and the light of the seven segment was just so flawless to me…I always want to re-watch that and actively think of re-watching it.
Season Six’s Finale was certainly one of the best episodes of GOT from a TV/directing perspective. The Light of The Seven prologue was brilliant, barring the jarring use of the piano and a modern organ in the score, which gave what is a Medieval Fantasy a Brothers Grimm feel and a nineteenth century Romantic mood. For me, the use of those musical anachronisms proved really annoying. GOT proper does not begin in this episode until we hear Walder Frey’s voice. However, in spite of this, I agree that 6X10 was the best finale.
I hold up Season Seven, Episode Four and Season Six’s Finale as the two best episodes in the show’s entire cannon, in that order.
4 & 6 are pretty even for me. I slightly give the edge to 4 simply because I got to rewatch it in IMAX. It’s too bad they haven’t gone back to that, 6.9 & 6.10 would’ve been a hell of a double feature.
Jack Hamm,
Well, as for the piano and organ in the soundtrack, I should point out that an orchestral soundtrack like we normally get on GoT is also anachronistic in a medieval setting. Orchestras weren’t really a thing until the 17th century at the earliest, and not in their modern form until the 19th century. Really, practically the entire soundtrack for this series is stylistically based on the Romantic period. A more true-to-period soundtrack would sound very different, and not at all epic in the way we’ve come to expect of this genre. Picture the music from Bilbo’s birthday party, but as the entire score.
He had quite a bit more to say, and it’s all very worthwhile, so I’ll recommend you head over to the original post and check it out.
Well, drat, you did say one paragraph, I missed that. Sorry. But your remark about becoming a scavenging raccoon gave me such a chuckle, I couldn’t not write, and once I got started, I couldn’t stop. Thank you for your appreciation of what I did say, though. It means a lot. I didn’t realize how much I liked the episode until I starting listing all the reasons.
For me, Season 6 finale would be my second choice – the epic score as Cersei made her totally unanticipated revenge play, is seared into my memory. I see how so many people loved it. I did, too.
Season 4 finale would probably be 4th or 5th for me, though. I am still annoyed with Tyrion for killing Shae. Three years later, and I still find myself muttering “She loved you, Tyrion, you fool. She turned down a sack of diamonds to stay with you. She put up with you making her a g__damned servant to stay with you, and this is what you do?” I know there are a lot of Shae haters still out there. Pfffft. I could write whole articles about why Tyrion shouldn’t have killed her. But the time for that has passed.
In the meantime, Raccoon Boy, I like what you did with all the material you had to scavenge. I hope there will be other polls and articles from you, this was fun. Articles like yours have so far prevented the Game of Thrones end-of-the-season withdrawal funk I usually have by this time.
Ten Bears,
Good idea for a new poll.
Two Swords is a great one! I really liked this season’s premier with the Arya cold open and Dany finally arriving to Westeros with that five minute scene.
House Monty,
I agree that more polls would help ease the offseason shakes.
I would definitely submit my vote on best premiere episode for Two Swords as well. There’s no season opener that even comes close to it, in my opinion.
I think my order for premieres would be:
4 > 1 > 7 > 2 > 3 > 6 > 5
Mike Heywood,
The modern orchestra as we know it is relatively new and a 17th century invention thanks to Monteverdi, but people have been playing instruments in groups for thousands of years. My point was that the piano and modern organ were jarring as used in The Light of The Seven. The music was successful in my view, and to the casual listener, I am sure, but the the use of these instruments was unsettling to my ears in the way I’d find The Brandenburg Concerti unsettling, if played with Saxophones and Steel Guitars, that is all.
Most instruments of the modern orchestra are merely improvements, developments and versions of ancient instruments. Strings, winds/reeds, drums, cymbals, brass, harps and so forth have been around forever. I do not, and would not, object to their use at all in whatever style the composer finds useful.
Jack Hamm,
I meant to say that Season Seven, Episode THREE and Season Six Episode Ten I hold to be the best episodes in the show’s entire cannon in that order respectively.
House Monty,
“Leave one wolf alive, and the sheep are never safe.”
And my go-to line whenever I leave a mess on someone’s desk or kitchen table:
“If people ask you what happened here, tell them: The North remembers. Tell them: Winter came for House [____]”
Or Epic 9s? Have they already been done? I was thinking of the Mountain and the Viper (so freaking awesome!) just now as I discovered that the Burt-Reynolds-looking-cowboy in Kingsman 2 (I’m a huge Kingman fan, too) is the Viper!!! I would never have guessed, I fear. He looks and sounds so different, and I’ve seen the trailer a dozen times.
Maybe – If people enjoyed it, I’d always be up for more! Thanks 🙂
I think I understand now. Yes, that sounds hella complicated. A lot of people ranked their orders in the original post. Mine is 4, 6, 1, 7, 5, 2, 3!
If enough people want it, maybe we could do that! Good idea, thanks!
Yes!!! My comments have summoned the legendary Thronetender! I’m glad to provide you with entertainment in the meantime between seasons. Happy to see you reading and enjoying.
Raccoon Boy OUT
Y’know since so much of the series is filmed and produced in Northern Ireland the only acceptable polling system should be the Single Transferable Vote 😉
I loled.