History YMMV / GameOfThronesS6E10TheWindsOfWinter

** Did the High Sparrow really have no idea about what Cersei had been planning, or did he know and either was confident that the Seven would protect them or was he willing to die a martyr?

** Cersei's reaction to Tommen's death is rather subdued especially in comparison to Joffrey's. Is she in DespairEventHorizon? Does she simply not care due to how he's been undermining her the whole season and effectively sentenced her to death by abolishing trial by combat? Is she resigned to the fact that she would outlive her children and is now simply riding out the prophecy? Or has she JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope, not caring about his death at all?

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syYD3WVuszU "The Winds of Winter"]], the piece that plays in the final scene when Daenerys' fleet has finally set sail for Westeros.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF1BKd4fMU4 "The Tower"]], the piece that plays when finally young Ned reaches Lyanna in the Tower and finds out she's dying of childbirth. The awesome climactic moment plays when the camera focuses on Lyanna's son, and follows a WhamShot with Jon sitting in Winterfell's hall.

** Bronn griping about a server girl looking at Jaime and how easy it is for him to attract other women. Then we find out that server was really Arya. In the books and TV series, Jaime was never on Arya's kill list, apparently because word had spread enough when she was at Harrenhal that Robb had captured Jaime ''before'' her father died and he wasn't directly involved in the gravest atrocities against her family. (Well, he ''did'' throw Bran out a window, but Arya never found that part out.) In a post-episode interview, the showrunners mention that Arya was surprised to see Jaime at the Twins and was eyeing him because she was considering if she should kill him, too. She didn't because 1) it would have disrupted her already careful plans for how to take out the Freys and 2) the writers acknowledge that Jaime was never a name on Arya's kill list. She realized this, and decided he wasn't a high enough of a priority to risk her original plan to kill Walder Frey, whom she hated far more.
** Jon Snow, bastard-born, who once swore to own no lands and hold no titles, is now King of the North, and has a more effective rule (and claim) over more of Westeros than the actual monarch does.

** "This is irregular." "I suppose ''life'' is irregular." [[note]]As Sam arrives at the Citadel with Jon's letter, the clerk says that the last recorded Lord Commander of the Night's Watch is Jeor Mormont, and that there is an irregularity within their records. Sam, trying to charm him, says that life is irregular as it is, but he fails to make an impression on the maester.[[/note]]

* MoralEventHorizon: Cersei has committed some horrible atrocities throughout her life, but ''large-scale mass murder'' wasn't one of them. Blowing up the Sept of Baelor and the surrounding houses with all their inhabitants could make Emperor Nero blush, since undoubtedly hundreds if not thousands died in that attack. She then continues her streak of wickedness by leaving Septa Unella alone in a room with Gregor Clegane, implying that the undead Mountain has her leave to rape Unella to death. As if to hammer the point home, after [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes her love for her children was presented as one of her few redeeming traits]], she seems unconcerned -- and possibly even '''relieved''' -- that her last son is dead.

** Once again, Lady Lyanna Mormont proves that she is the most badass ten-year old girl ever by handily shutting down the Northern Lords who are criticizing Jon Snow despite having not fought alongside him at the Battle of the Bastards. Note that most of these men are ''decades'' older and more experienced than Lyanna and can only respond with looks of embarrassment.
** Her namesake Lyanna Stark in a flashback. Her time is short (both figuratively and [[DeathByOriginStory literally]]) but she confirms one of, if not the most notorious WMG's in the entire series.

* SacredCow: For many fans, this episode is the highest point the show reached before the controversial seasons of 7 and 8, where many major developments happened alongside some high and low points. Aside from Season 6 being the last ten-episode season, it wraps up numerous long-running subplots and/or sets things up for the next great conflict -- Cersei eliminates most of her rivals and is crowned Queen, seizing contested power; Winterfell is back under Stark control with Sansa as the Lady of Winterfell and Jon is declared the new King in the North; Daenerys sets sail to Westeros; Jon's parentage is revealed as the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen; and finally, the maesters announce that winter has arrived, hinted since the first episode. The result is that some fans have declared it as the last episode, [[FanonDiscontinuity thereby ignoring the final 2 seasons]].

** From start to finish, the actual explosion takes twenty seconds of screen time, and it kills more named characters than any other entire episode. Not even the Red Wedding or Mother's Mercy had such a high body count: ''twelve'' recurring speaking roles, several of them guest stars -- three Tyrells, Kevan and Lancel, the High Sparrow, Septa Unella, Tommen and Pycelle due to Cersei's actions, and three Freys due to Arya. By contrast, during "The Rains of Castamere", only three major recurring characters with speaking lines died at the Red Wedding (Robb, Catelyn, and Talisa -- albeit they were presumed by many to be the main characters), plus Walder Frey's non-speaking wife, Robb's direwolf Grey Wind, and Orell the warg in the other part of the episode (still, only ''six'' characters ''including'' the wolf). Even if you don't count the Freys as part of this specific event in King's Landing, Cersei's purge killed eight major speaking roles, compared to three at the Red Wedding (five if you count the non-speakers).

** It seems like ''every'' season finale after Season 1, some fans and critics would grumble about how "they keep saying 'winter is coming' but it hasn't come yet", and most of all, expressing disappointment that Daenerys hasn't set sail for Westeros. Now, winter has officially begun, and the closing shot is Daenerys sailing with a massive invasion fleet to Westeros, with three live dragons grown to battle-ready size.

* ShockingMoments:
** This episode sets the stage for one hell of a grand battle, and the White Walkers are still yet to come. Cersei has taken over the Iron Throne by killing literally everyone else in King's Landing with remotely any claim to it (Tommen killed himself upon witnessing what she had done). Jon Snow unexpectedly has sovereignty over the North plopped in his lap by the assembled Northern Lords. Lady Olenna, as the last known member of House Tyrell, throws in her lot with Dorne for revenge, and both turn to Daenerys to get it thanks to Varys. The closing shot is of Daenerys -- at long last -- setting sail for Westeros... with a massive fleet behind her, staffed with Dothraki and Ironborn and Unsullied, with Tyrion and Varys and Theon and Yara at her side, and her three dragons flying above. Winter is coming? '''Daenerys is coming''', and the fight is coming with her.
** From start to finish, the actual explosion takes twenty seconds of screen time, and it kills more named characters than any other entire episode. Not even the Red Wedding or Mother's Mercy had such a high body count: ''twelve'' recurring speaking roles, several of them guest stars -- three Tyrells, Kevan and Lancel, the High Sparrow, Septa Unella, Tommen and Pycelle due to Cersei's actions, and three Freys due to Arya. By contrast, during "The Rains of Castamere", only three major recurring characters with speaking lines died at the Red Wedding (Robb, Catelyn, and Talisa -- albeit they were presumed by many to be the main characters), plus Walder Frey's non-speaking wife, Robb's direwolf Grey Wind, and Orell the warg in the other part of the episode (still, only ''six'' characters ''including'' the wolf). Even if you don't count the Freys as part of this specific event in King's Landing, Cersei's purge killed eight major speaking roles, compared to three at the Red Wedding (five if you count the non-speakers).

* AuthorsSavingThrow: We get several versions of scenes the fans had been complaining about possibly never getting -- the Freys in pies scheme is given to Arya, Varys's murder of Kevan is replaced with Qyburn murdering Pycelle (with Kevan dying shortly thereafter), Jaime is finally starting to turn against Cersei despite the show dropping his and Tyrion's final conversation, and we got to hear the iconic quote "Vengeance. Justice. ''Fire and blood"'' (albeit split between Ellaria and Varys, rather than the late Doran).

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS-gbqbVd8c Light of the Seven]], the piano/organ suite that plays during the course of Loras's trial and Cersei's destruction of the Sept of Baelor was a fantastic mood setter for the entire scene. What makes the song stand out so much is that the composer went out of his way to use instruments that hadn't been used for music before in the series.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syYD3WVuszU The Winds of Winter]], the piece that plays in the final scene when Daenerys' Fleet has finally set sail for Westeros.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF1BKd4fMU4 The Tower]], the piece that plays when finally young Ned reaches Lyanna in the Tower and finds out she's dying of childbirth. The awesome climactic moment plays when the camera focuses on Lyanna's son, and follows a WhamShot with Jon sitting in Winterfell's hall.

* HarsherInHindsight: The Sept of Baelor goes up in what visually resembles the combination of a small nuclear fireball and the kind of dust cloud you'd see from the demolition of a building, flattening everything within several blocks and starting a series of raging fires. The whole things bears uncomfortable visual similarities to the August 2020 explosion that destroyed a good chunk of Beirut. Worse still, both explosions were caused when a large cache of a notoriously dangerous and volatile substance -- Wildfire here, ammonium nitrate in the Beirut explosion -- was ignited.

* RelationshipWritingFumble: While it has yet to be seen whether it was intentional on the writers' parts, Sansa and Jon have some definite sexual chemistry while on top of the ramparts together. Many reviewers have commented that they thought it was going to be a RelationshipUpgrade moment, but then he went to kiss her forehead, so it combines with LauncherOfAThousandShips.

* HarsherInHindsight:
** Last episode's {{Retcon}} that Tyrion knew about the wildfire makes him, along with Jaime, culpable for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people. All of that could have been avoided had Tyrion or Jaime taken steps to neutralize a threat they knew lay beneath the city all these years. Instead, the wildfire was left there, waiting for someone just crazy enough to use it.
*** It had previously been believed that all the wildfire caches were removed. They probably didn’t think it was still there, and was therefore not a problem.
** Jaime Lannister guilt-slinging Catelyn into freeing him in Season 2 by reminding her that Ned was unfaithful to her and didn't keep his vows becomes this trope once it becomes clear that Ned ''did'' remain faithful to Cat all along and only said he wasn't to save and protect Jon, his nephew and the only son of his deceased little sister.
** Jaime's [[Recap/GameOfThronesS6E7TheBrokenMan "Fuck everyone who's not us"]] proclamation to Cersei comes to a head here when he returns to King's Landing and sees all the destruction that Cersei is responsible for.
* HeartwarmingInHindsight:
** Ned's entire relationship with Jon is made all the more heartwarming now that it turns out Jon was actually Ned's nephew and that he let his honor and name be besmirched and even strained his own marriage to fulfill his sister's dying wish and protect Jon's life from Robert's potential wrath, raising Jon as his very own.
** Much like with Ned above, Jon's relationship with Maester Aemon after the reveal that the maester was Jon's great-granduncle.
** Similarly, Jon and Arya's especially close bond among the Starklings carries even more weight now that we know Jon is Lyanna's son. Arya is implied to be Generation Xerox of her aunt, meaning Jon had a particular attachment to his mother without even knowing it.
** With Jon and Sansa retaking Winterfell, they end up redeeming their late brother Robb, who is now viewed as an InspirationalMartyr by the rest of the Northern Lords.

* FridgeLogic: Even if the Faith Militant had allowed everyone inside the Sept of Baelor to leave, it's ''highly'' unlikely anyone present would have been able to get far enough from the sept to avoid the explosion by that point.

* TakeThatScrappy: The wildly unpopular Sand Snakes reappear for a single scene, in which fan favorite Olenna Tyrell shuts them down with her typical barbed snark before any of them can deliver a b-movie liner. Specifically, she tells Tyene -- considered the worst of all three by critics for her poorly written dialogue, particularly the infamous "bad pussy" line -- that no one wants to hear what she has to say. In fact, Olenna interrupts Tyene to ''prevent'' her from speaking -- ultimately Tyene didn't even have a ''single'' speaking line in Season 6. Apparently, this was the writers belatedly admitting how much they screwed up Dorne in Season 5.

* WTHCastingAgency: A mild example concerning not the actress' performance, but rather her appearance. Sabrina Bartlett, who plays Arya's waitress disguise, is obviously a lot taller than Creator/MaisieWilliams.
** The TV show is officially playing it more loose with the shapeshifter rules of the Faceless Men -- which are, after all, magic. In the TV show, we've already seen Jaqen disguise himself as the Waif, etc., so it's just that in the TV show, yes, the masks can magically change their appearance quite drastically. [[spoiler:It's also necessary for TheReveal in the following episode that Arya has impersonated Walder Frey as well.]]

* {{Anvilicious}}: Davos calling the Lord of Light "evil" struck some viewers of this, as the show has kept repeatedly harping on ReligionIsWrong sentiments time and time again (as that claim is wrong in and of itself since nearly every religion is right about at least a few things and some are right about more than others, it's not something the books promote and came at the expense of some details and scenes from the story and has been criticized by non-religious people just as much as religious people have, too). This was combined with giving Melisandre excessive AdaptationalVillainy on top of the AdaptationalVillainy the Faith of the Seven have been saddled with. Many also point out that Davos didn't bring up Stannis and Shireen's fate in any of the preceding episodes earlier this season and only latched on because Shireen's wooden stag miraculously survived the funeral pyre leading to his belated EurekaMoment. Some book viewers also note that calling any side "evil" is missing [[MoralityKitchenSink the point of the entire series]], especially Melisandre, who Creator/GeorgeRRMartin considered to be his "most misunderstood character" and Martin, while and atheist himself, approaches a WartsAndAll stance on religion.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Davos calling the Lord of Light "evil" struck some viewers of this, as the show has kept repeatedly harping on ReligionIsWrong sentiments time and time again ([[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment as that claim is wrong in and of itself since nearly every religion is right about at least a few things and some are right about more than others]], it's not something the books promote and came at the expense of some details and scenes from the story). This was combined with giving Melisandre excessive AdaptationalVillainy on top of the AdaptationalVillainy the Faith of the Seven have been saddled with. Many also point out that Davos didn't bring up Stannis and Shireen's fate in any of the preceding episodes earlier this season and only latched on because Shireen's wooden stag miraculously survived the funeral pyre leading to his belated EurekaMoment. Some book viewers also note that calling any side "evil" is missing [[MoralityKitchenSink the point of the entire series]], especially Melisandre, who Creator/GeorgeRRMartin considered to be his "most misunderstood character".

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIMc2t5EbTY Light of the Seven]], the piano/organ suite that plays during the course of Loras's trial and Cersei's destruction of the Sept of Baelor was a fantastic mood setter for the entire scene. What makes the song stand out so much is that the composer went out of his way to use instruments that hadn't been used for music before in the series.

** Jokes about Varys and Arya having/being teleporters thanks to their blatant TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot. [[note]]Varys is on Dorne in one scene then two scenes later he's back at Essos with Dany and company, while Arya is now on the Twins despite being on Braavos just two episodes ago. People have calculated that the sailing time between Dorne and Meereen is approximately two weeks, meaning the last scene is probably around a month after the Sept blew up, though Arya's journey is a lot shorter.[[/note]]

** Thanks to the "Frey Pie" scene, another joke in the internet is that "the Faceless Men taught Arya how to cook". Alternatively, another joke doing the rounds is how, while en route to the Twins, she picked up her old friend Hot Pie for that part of the job.

** Jon Snow and Davos cite Melisandre's burning of Shireen as grounds to dismiss her, but Melisandre argues that her actions secured victory at Winterfell. Melisandre believes that Shireen's sacrifice apparently thawed out the blizzard. When Davos calls the Lord of Light evil for being willing to burn a child, Melisandre reminds him and, possibly herself after a pause, that it was the same Lord that resurrected Jon Snow, which might mean the Lord of Light is [[BlueAndOrangeMorality different]]. Despite her pleas, she's banished for Shireen's murder.