And the best moment from Game of Thrones Season 6 is…

…the reunion between Jon Snow and Sansa Stark, according to everyone who voted in the poll.

Nataša summed up how a lot of fans felt about that scene:

"I just loved Jon and Sansa’s reunion – I watch that scene over and over and still cry. It was such a beautiful family reunion between two Stark kids, it was perfect."

And why did that reunion hit home so hard? I think Tim Stark gets at the hard of it:

"After 5 seasons of watching the Stark family get beat down and killed, it was so gratifying to see children become adults and return to Winterfell and take back their home and title of Warden’s of the North."

However, when revealing their choice for Best Moment, Risto characterized scenes like the Jon-Sansa reunion as wish fulfillment.

"Cersei’s victory in Episode 10. The music, the acting, the way it was brought on screen. Masterful.Everything else was just fans-wish fulfillment…"

I’ve heard that complaint before—that Season 6 had too much wish fulfillment. I don’t agree with it, though. I only think it’s wish fulfillment if the show hasn’t earned the development. I think it earned the Jon-Sansa reunion by showing us, over the course of five seasons, the trials these two characters had to undergo to get to the point where reuniting was a meaningful experience. The show didn’t shortcut their pain, so when they finally clawed their way to a moment of respite, it didn’t feel cheap. I thought it was emotional without being sentimental, a tricky thing to pull off.

For the record, Cersei’s pyromaniacal triumph was my pic for Best Moment, as well, and you’ll notice it trailed the Jon-Sansa reunion by only two points. So close, Cersei.

Naturally, Jon Snow received a lot of love on the poll. Davos 4 King cheered the visually stunning moment when he faced down the charging Bolton calvary…

"The scene with Jon facing down the charging Boston calvary was visually beautiful and frightening at the same time. The scene perfectly sums up what the unlikely hero Jon Snow has been doing since the show started, standing bravely against overwhelming odds with dignity and grace."

…and Bandit 77 was transported by the scene where Lyanna Mormont shamed the other Northern lords into making him King in the North.

"Lyanna Mormonts “I don’t care if he is a bastard” speech, and how she was able to shame the houses that didn’t support Jon, while proclaiming the loyalty of house Mormont, makes me want to cheer the She Bear every time I see it."

From corpse to king in a year…Jon definitely had an eventful season.

As usual, I feel compelled to point out that this shot involved NO SPECIAL EFFECTS.

Sticking with Jon, JL cheered the show revealed his true parentage, something many book-readers had been wondering about for over 20 years.

"We all knew the R+L=J theory, we all knew it to be 99% true. Yet the way that scene played out made me feel like I was finding out about it for the first time.Everything about it gave me goosebumps; “promise me Ned”…hearing the cry of the baby right before he’s brought into view…Ned holding baby Jon while he opens his eyes….the brilliant music gradually building throughout the scene for the huge emotional payoff….all of it was fantastic, probably my favorite scene of the entire series"

I think one of the great strengths of Game of Thrones is to make even predictable plot developments seem enthralling. For example, there probably weren’t many people in the audience who thought Ramsay would defeat Jon Snow in the Battle of the Bastards, but the show committed so passionately to depicting the chaos of the fight that we (or I, anyway) got swept up in the thrill of it anyway.

Leaving the North, Tyrion didn’t have an especially strong showing in the poll, but No One wrote passionately about the merits of the scene where Daenerys makes him Hand of the Queen:

"This is a man, who beyond all his wit, and charm and humour, has been underestimated and under appreciated by almost everybody he encountered his entire life (save Varys). I stress, plenty of people could have utilized his position and abilities, possibly even the Old Bear tried, but nobody fully appreciated it. Even when he offered himself as “the gift” to Dany in s5, we were all 99% sure how it would go. Because we knew what he was worth. We knew what he could do if he was given the chance. And deep down, we knew this was basically his last chance to be perceived as worthy of anything in the world. But please, if you haven’t already, watch that few second clip where he’s named Tyrion Lannister, “hand of the queen”, and imagine it as if it was real, and you were in Tyrions shoes. My long winded waffle cannot do it justice."

Not to be outdone, AWS wrote a treatise on the scene where Tyrion unchains Rhaegal and Viserion in “Home.”

"It pretty much goes without saying that Peter Dinklage’s performance is amazing, but come on… this scene is just downright transcendent when you consider that he was acting with a ball on a stick. He COMPLETELY convinces you that he’s seeing dragons up close and personal for the first time in his life, after having been fascinated with dragons his whole life. The story he tells is touching, him laying his hand on the dragons in pure fascination, showing a sweet gentleness with them… just perfect.The personalities of the dragons is shown in a way that was only reserved for Drogon up until this scene. The way they respond to Tyrion, the way the second dragon (I don’t know which one is Rhaegal and which one is Viserion unfortunately…) gets kinda jealous and motions for Tyrion to unchain him (or her? Don’t know that either….) as well is both funny and fascinating. The tone was struck perfectly in this scene. “Don’t eat the help!” is one of the funnier lines of the season as well.But beyond all this… this scene resonates in a thematic way for me that feels totally pitch-perfect (yes, I’m using the word “perfect” a lot in reference to this scene!). I believe that Tyrion’s ultimate role is the story is that of the “dragon tamer”. He’ll serve as the one who holds Dany back from madness (as we see him do in episode 9, and we also see him do with Jon in episode 3 of season 1, when he calms Jon’s anger about the other Night’s Watch recruits), and will probably serve as diplomat between her and Jon when she comes for the North, holding them back from fighting with each other. When you view Tyrion in that role, this scene becomes super symbolic. Tyrion seems to just have an innate talent for calming the dragons and making them trust him… something that pretty much only Dany has been able to do up until now, and even she has had difficulty with that. But Tyrion gains their trust in just a couple short minutes, surprising even himself. As though this is what he was destined for all along, he just didn’t know it.But aside from all that, the scene is just pure cinematic joy. Great atmosphere and visuals, the visual effects for the dragons would be impressive in a movie, let alone a tv show…"

I loved the way that scene filled in the personalities of Viserion and Rhaegal. It was a gem of a sequence.

Meanwhile, Monz praised a scene that, surprisingly enough, didn’t get a single vote on the poll: Bran going back in time and witnessing how the White Walkers were created.

"Learning about the origins of the WWalkers via The Children of The Forest was pretty cool. Maybe I’m naive, but truly didn’t see that coming. Bittersweet all the way! The poor Children."

The poor Children, indeed. Although they did technically start this whole mess in the first place. But then again, they only created the White Walkers because the First Men were invading their lands. A shame we probably won’t get to hear more of their side of the story.

And finally, Priscilla looked toward the future:

"Daenerys and Tyrion leaving DAARIO behind was my favorite moment simply because it signals that the story is finally heading towards its conclusion. I am curious to see how the producers and writers will shape the two seasons and if they will manage to answer all our burning questions with about 15 hours to go."

Between Priscilla’s comment and Katie talking about him in the roundtable post about the worst moments from the season, there was more discussion about Daario Naharis than I expected when assessing the highs and lows of the year.