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Post by Jordan on Mar 19, 2019 20:45:39 GMT 1
My three top favourite scenes/sequences are clear to me too, and I’m not expecting to see them on your list soon!
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Post by greendemon on Mar 20, 2019 1:34:15 GMT 1
Absolutely loving this thread - thank you greendemon for this inspired countdown and whetting my appetite for more GoT. Brienne is totally one of my favourite characters but get the feeling (and my apologies at this stage - I have not read the books) that it felt like there was a massive chunk missing from her journey, so your 51 is high on my list. I know for certain which are my top 3 moments - and one is enhanced by the excellent Ramin Jiwadi soundtrack that went with it - so really interested to see if they feature on your list. One is probably the most amazing pieces of TV I have ever watched! Glad you're enjoying it! Yeah, there's a somewhat huge storyline that Brienne gets given in the books that, for a number of reasons, the writers just didn't want to include in Game of Thrones. As much as I like her, there are moments in season 5 and 6 where it's hard not to feel that if only they had included that storyline, she would at least have had something meaningful to do. And without wanting to give anything away, it would have made for a truly jaw-dropping moment. Ah well! As for the top three - all will be revealed I would be surprised if the top of my list proved really controversial (but then that goes without saying, as naturally I think I've put the best bits at the top!) I'd be really interested to know if my favourite moments are the same as anyone else's!
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Post by greendemon on Mar 20, 2019 1:44:16 GMT 1
50. Podrick's visit to Littlefinger's brothel (S3E3 - Walk of Punishment)Tyrion decides to reward his loyal squire for saving his life in the Battle of the Blackwater in the way Tyrion knows best. Not much to say about this but it was too funny to leave out of the top 50. (the clip above is actually SFW - here is an alternate link in case you want the full, NSFW version complete with "copious details" www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oswGG834bk )
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Post by greendemon on Mar 22, 2019 1:54:03 GMT 1
49. Jaime loses his hand (S3E3 - Walk of Punishment)
Staying with the same episode as number 50, this final scene is one of the most memorable and significant in the show’s run to date. Jaime’s story up to this point - not just during the events of Game of Thrones, but for pretty much his entire life - has been dominated by his ability as a great swordsman. His reputation, together with his father’s wealth and status, have put him in a position where he never really fears for his life. We are reminded of this constantly during Seasons 1 and 2: he pushes Bran out of the window, attacks Ned in the streets of King’s Landing, gleefully goads Robb and Catelyn while he is their prisoner, even kills his own cousin in order to escape... all with impunity. All until he meets Locke, who first appears to be amenable to bribery when he agrees to spare Brienne, but who it rapidly turns out is just twisted enough to be willing to risk the wrath of Tywin Lannister for the pleasure of parting his beloved son from his sword hand. As Jaime tells Brienne in the next episode: “I was that hand”. His whole arc changes from this point on as he is forced to contend not just with the loss of a limb, but of his identity.
I love the decision to end the episode with this gruesome, shocking moment - and I know The Hold Steady version of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” isn’t everyone’s cup of tea at this juncture, but I think it works brilliantly.
(As an aside, I know I said I wasn’t ranking episodes, but if I were, “Walk of Punishment” is up there. There’s also a brilliant little scene with the Small Council in King’s Landing that I’d actually forgotten about before compiling this countdown and so couldn’t quite squeeze in. You know the one, with the chairs…)
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Post by greendemon on Mar 23, 2019 2:55:23 GMT 1
48. “Your sister” (S4E7 - Mockingbird)
You don’t see much of Lysa Arryn for two whole seasons after her first appearance, but her name comes up just often enough in seasons 2 and 3 that you don’t forget she exists - which is just as well, because it turns out that she and Littlefinger orchestrated the basis of the conflict at the heart of the story. Littlefinger’s cold execution of his dangerously unstable wife - telling her that he only ever loved her sister before pushing her out of the Moon Door with which she memorably threatened Tyrion in Season 1 - is camp and silly but very satisfying all the same.
I recently heard someone recently refer to this scene as “a very soap opera moment” and couldn’t believe this had never occurred to me before. Someone is caught kissing someone else’s husband, drama ensures, tears are shed, there’s a hilarious death: it’s all here. The scene attracted some controversy from book fans because Littlefinger’s original words are “only Cat”, not “your sister”, but I really think I like it better like this in the show: it’s just that little bit more cruel.
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Post by Jordan on Mar 23, 2019 10:37:42 GMT 1
Two more great entries - this is really demonstrating how many incredible scenes there are in the show. So many gagworthy moments!
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Post by greendemon on Mar 23, 2019 11:45:59 GMT 1
47. Robert and Cersei (S1E5 - The Lion and the Wolf)
Mark Addy’s performance as Robert Baratheon is one of the highlights of Season 1 for me, and I wish I’d been able to fit more scenes of his into this list. This wonderful dialogue with Cersei is my favourite. It’s a strangely heartwarming scene between two characters who have spent the better part of two decades hating each other, and it’s also quite revealing. There’s Cersei telling Robert that she used to care for him, “for quite a while, actually”, and there’s Robert’s confession that, after all these years of letting his grief and bitterness consume him, he can’t even remember what his beloved Lyanna Stark looked like. “She was the one thing I ever wanted. Someone took her away from me, and seven kingdoms couldn’t fill the hole she left behind”. I’ve always felt that Robert never really loved Lyanna as much as he loved the idea of her and what she represented to him - as far as we know, he hardly knew her, and he never tells you why he loved her so much. By his own admission in this scene, the years have reduced her to a faceless memory of “that thing I really wanted but never had”. He might have won the war, but he never wanted to be king - he only wanted Lyanna, and so he never really “won” at all.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 23, 2019 12:49:12 GMT 1
46. A gift for the gods (S4E4 - Oathkeeper)
Well, this is creepy and disturbing. The fate of Craster’s sons has been heavily signposted from Season 2 onwards, when Jon first sees Craster leaving his baby boy out in the snow and it being taken by a White Walker, but until this point the question of what the Walkers wanted with Craster’s children was left open. As a book-reader, this was one of the first shocking moments in Game of Thrones for me - this scene doesn’t happen in the books, and we still have almost no idea of who the White Walkers are. In the show at least, we now know where they come from, though we still have little idea of what they want beyond “kill everyone and turn them all into the biggest zombie army ever” *evil cackle*. It's also worth noting that this is the first time we actually see the Night King, not counting Bran's vision a couple of episodes before this.
When it wants to, GoT can do horror very well. The chorus of Craster’s wives chanting “a gift for the gods” in the scene that leads up to this, and seeing the crying baby left alone in the snow are both very chilling moments.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 23, 2019 14:50:31 GMT 1
45. “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention” (S3E6 - The Climb)
Oh boy. I really had to think about whether I wanted to put this scene in the list at all, as it’s undeniably one of the more difficult to watch. But I had to acknowledge Ramsay as the most terrible of people in a story filled with terrible people, so here we are. It’s testament to the show that after Theon’s despicable behaviour up to this point (in my opinion he is one of the least likeable characters even before he betrays Robb), I still end up feeling desperately sorry for him. I love the way the show establishes Ramsay’s character in Season 3 - the elaborate conceit with his freeing Theon and “rescuing” him only to bring him back to the same room he’s already been tortured in, and then this scene, in which he forces him to guess his identity and why he’s being tortured, before revealing that actually, he’s just in it for the giggles. Iwan Rheon was unknown to me before Game of Thrones but I really rate him now; he is terrifyingly good as Ramsay.
The quotation in the title is one of my favourites in the entire show, and is one I keep coming back to as we near the end of the story. In fact, “The Climb” is another one of my all-time favourite episodes. There’s one more big scene from this episode still to come.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 23, 2019 19:53:45 GMT 1
44. Tywin refuses to make Tyrion heir to Casterly Rock (S3E1 - Valar Dohaeris)
Continuing the theme of characters being absolutely horrible to each other, next we have Tywin Lannister’s utter savaging of his youngest son, who wants recognition for his role in saving the city by being named heir to Casterly Rock. I love this scene; it’s wonderfully played by both actors, and it’s also just devastating to watch, particularly since the last time Tyrion spoke to his father was at the end of Season 1, when Tywin seemed almost proud of his son and named him Hand in his stead. Tyrion’s status as “the lowest of the Lannisters”, despised by his entire family except Jaime, is well-known by this point, but the staggering contempt his father shows for him in this excoriating rant goes beyond anything else.
Charles Dance as Tywin is magnificent and I could easily have put every single one of his appearances in GoT in this list. He will appear several times further up the list, as, of course, will Tyrion.
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Post by o on Mar 23, 2019 23:37:56 GMT 1
I'm just watching season 1, and there was a great scene that I dont think you've picked, all I will say is No Gold, it was quite short, but it was so funny.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 24, 2019 0:08:26 GMT 1
I'm just watching season 1, and there was a great scene that I dont think you've picked, all I will say is No Gold, it was quite short, but it was so funny. "You're a smart... man..." It is a good one, but yes, sadly missing from the list. I could easily have done a top 100 if I had the time!
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Post by greendemon on Mar 24, 2019 11:57:42 GMT 1
43. Lyanna Mormont meets Jon Snow, Sansa and Davos (S6E7 - The Broken Man)
This scene isn’t going to win awards for its acting but it has made it onto my list of favourites as a nice little moment that breaks up the gloom dominating the North plotline during this season. And that said, Bella Ramsey is great for an actor of her age and puts in a really enjoyable performance. I love the way she is utterly unimpressed by both Jon and Sansa and it’s left to Davos to win her round - just as he did for Stannis with the Iron Bank. I’m not sure what the future holds for this character in Season 8, but she adds some much-needed charm and humour at a time when the story grows ever darker (and, presumably, more full of terrors).
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Post by greendemon on Mar 24, 2019 12:05:19 GMT 1
42. Daenerys burns the Khals (S6E4 - Book of the Stranger)I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Daenerys, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about her going into Season 8. But she is at her best when she’s being a total badass, and this scene is a case in point. They don't call her The Unburnt for nothing. It’s particularly satisfying as it feels like an epic comeback after several episodes of her having been imprisoned by the khals, isolated from her dragons and unable to do much about it. This is also the first time since Season 1 that Daenerys performs her not-getting-burnt-alive party trick - and also the first time since Drogo’s funeral that she burns people without using dragonfire. Which raises the question… what if she’s not actually immune to dragonfire? (Perhaps a little too out there, but definitely not the craziest tinfoil-hat theory I’ve heard…!)
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Post by greendemon on Mar 24, 2019 12:09:29 GMT 1
41. Winter comes for House Frey (S7E1 - Dragonstone)
Season 7 might be a little under-represented here: it is both shorter, and in my opinion weaker than the others. I’ll admit I’ve slowly gone off Arya a bit since the end of Season 5 (and the less said about the Winterfell plotline with Sansa in Season 7, the better) but oh my word, this was an epic start to the season. Of course Walder Frey is dead, so at first you think it’s a flashback. Then he uses the words “now that winter has come”... The more I watch this, the more I enjoy it, and it should probably be higher than it is.
Only one season-opening scene made it higher than this - it might be fairly obvious which one (although there have been some great ones I wasn’t able to fit in!)
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Post by Jordan on Mar 24, 2019 12:11:52 GMT 1
I'm really not a big fan of Dany or her arc, in book or show (so it's not just down to the fact that Clarke is such a chronic irritant). This scene was pretty cool though. It was great to see her actually do something on her own, without dragons, unsullied or other minions.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 24, 2019 12:15:46 GMT 1
Indeed - I think that's why I like it more than most of Daenerys' other big moments. There's one exception which we're still some distance from.
eta: actually two, now that I think about it...
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Post by greendemon on Mar 25, 2019 20:23:42 GMT 1
Into the top 40! We're getting there...
40. Brienne vs. the Hound (S4E10 - The Children)
Spoiler alert: this is not my favourite fight scene in the series, but it is hands down the best fight, and no, I don’t expect it to be surpassed in Season 8.* It’s glorious: savage and brutish and passionate in a way that you just don’t get from any of the other duels, trials by combat or punch-ups. What also makes it so interesting is - and this is something GoT often does very well - you’re not entirely sure who to root for. We are told so often by other characters (and often by himself) that the Hound is a Bad Guy, but by the end of Season 4, between his relationship with Arya and his kindness towards Sansa in Season 2, it’s pretty hard to view him in that light. Meanwhile, Brienne - who we know is a Good Guy - is still dealing with her failure to return the Stark girls to Catelyn before she was killed. Of course, Arya represents an opportunity for redemption for both characters and that is what makes this fight feel so important.
* Nope, not even by Cleganebowl…
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Post by greendemon on Mar 25, 2019 21:02:17 GMT 1
39. Sansa feeds Ramsay to his own dogs (S6E9 - Battle of the b*st*rds)
I make no apologies: this is here for the sheer poetic justice of it. After three seasons of Ramsay torturing, murdering and raping, his death is immensely satisfying to watch, not only because of the manner of his demise but because of Sansa’s involvement. I think I like or at least have sympathy for Sansa more than the average fan - out of all the Starks, she has probably suffered the most - but she can be incredibly frustrating at times. It’s great, then, to finally see her reclaim some control of her own destiny in Season 6, and her despatching of her evil husband is the ultimate icing on a very gory cake - even though it demonstrates that he was right that a part of him will always be in her.
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Post by greendemon on Mar 26, 2019 2:01:52 GMT 1
38. A golden crown (S1E6 - A Golden Crown)
Poor old Viserys. You’d be forgiven for having almost forgotten Daenerys’ creepy brother, but you probably remember the way he died. Viserys is both loathsome and singularly useless at everything except making empty threats, but he is also something of a tragic figure - and is a useful illustration of a point repeatedly made in Game of Thrones: that the right name and titles don’t make a man a king without the power to back them up. Viserys' inability to recognise this is ultimately what kills him.
Still, he asked for a crown and he got one. Can’t say fairer than that.
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