Months ago, before the 2018 Con of Thrones went down in Dallas, fansite Watchers on the Wall put out an extensive survey about Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire fandom, and then read the results at the event itself. Part of that survey asked fans to rate every episode of the series on a scale of 1-10. Around 1,000 of them followed through.
Now, Watchers has compiled their ratings and produced a ranking of all 67 episodes of the show. How do Game of Thrones fans rate every hour of their favorite show? Take a look below, starting with the 17 episodes on the bottom of the pile:
Unsurprisingly, season 5’s “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” is on the bottom rung; the double-whammy of the introduction of the Sand Snakes and Sansa’s wedding night to Ramsay seems to have doomed it. (My personal lowest-rated episode is “Beyond the Wall,” FYI; love you, HBO.) While I’m not shocked that season 5 is well-represented in the lowest tier, I didn’t expect to see half the season occupy the bottom five spots. Ouch. No points for the burning of Mance Rayder in “The Wars to Come” or Cersei and Margaery’s passive-aggressive battling in “High Sparrow”?
I’m also surprised to see “Kill the Boy,” “The Gift,” “What Is Dead May Never Die” and “Dragonstone” this low, but let’s not get bogged down in the details. On the flip side, there are no episodes from seasons 1 or 4 represented here.
We have a cross section of episodes here in the middle of the pack. I’d have thought stuff like “Breaker of Chains,” “The Queen’s Justice” and “Book of the Stranger” would be higher, but mileage will vary. Also, we have our first season 1 episode with “Lord Snow,” aka “The One Where Jon Snow Gets To The Wall.”
Hmm…people remember “The Pointy End” more fondly than I do.
Okay, we’re near the top of the ladder. The highest-rated season 7 episode is “The Spoils of War,” which clocks in at lucky number 13. Meanwhile, classics like “The Lion and the Rose” and “The Children” just barely miss the top 10.
Not many surprises on high, although I’d have thought “Blackwater,” “The Watchers on the Wall” and “Fire and Blood” would all be a bit lower. (Don’t tell anyone, but I think “Watchers” is a touch overrated. I don’t like the cliffhanger ending, and think it’s the least inspired of the show’s big battle spectaculars.) Still, hard to argue with any of this.
Not that differences of opinions don’t exist…Watchers also divided the data by what kind of fan took the survey. For example, there are people who read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels before watching the show (book-than-show), those who watched the show and then read the books (show-then-book), and fans who only watch the show (show-only). Interestingly, no matter how they came to Game of Thrones, everyone had the same 11 episodes at the top of their rankings; it’s just that the order was a bit different.
So if you’re a show-only or show-the-book fan, “The Winds of Winter” is tops for you. But among book-then-show fans, “The Rains of Castamere” reigns supreme.
Really, I’m still surprised that the same 11 episodes stayed constant for all three demographics. Joffrey’s death didn’t make it into anyone’s top 11?
Watchers also shows us how opinions different among the demographics over the seasons:
As you can see, opinions between the various groups were basically consistent for the first four seasons, but over the last three, the gap between the opinions of book-than-show fans and show-only fans widened, with show-then-book fans somewhere in the middle. That makes sense; the further the show strayed from the books, the less favorable the opinions of those familiar with the source material became, with the qualifier that no matter what season we’re talking about, it’s still well above a passing grade.
Take a look at the 10 episodes with the greatest variance in opinions, all of which are from the last three seasons:
Basically, what we’re seeing is that the more familiar you are with the Song of Ice and Fire books, the more critical you’re likely to be of the last three seasons. Or, to put a glass-half-full spin on it, the less familiar you are with the books, the more likely you are to enjoy the show. In other words: ignorance is bliss.
Head to Watchers on the Wall for even more data synthesis! We appreciate all the number-crunching.
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