Your return to Westeros awaits
A blow-by-blow “Game of Thrones” recap.
Have you studied up on your Westerosi history of late?
Remembering exactly what happened over seven long and dense seasons of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is hard, but trying to do it before April 14’s Season 8 premiere is nearly as overwhelming as facing an army of the frozen undead.
To make things easier, we’ve condensed (OK, abridged) the entire series into a few semi-short paragraphs.
Where we started
Westeros has been ruled by Robert Baratheon and his queen, Cersei Lannister after he rebelled and overthrew the Targaryen dynasty. The last surviving Targaryens, are in exile. After Robert’s Hand of the King dies, he makes Ned Stark take the job.
Season 1
Ned has to go south to the capital of King’s Landing, bringing his daughter.
Ned makes a mess of his job as Hand right away. Littlefinger, the Master of Coin helps Ned figure out that Prince Joffrey is the product of an incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime, and tells Ned and Catelyn that Tyrion (Cersei and Jaime’s dwarf younger brother) attacked Bran.
Catelyn captures Tyrion and starts a war between the families. Robb leads the Stark army and scores a major victory over the Lannisters, and captures Jaime. Ned is executed after he tries to install Robert’s brother Stannis on the throne when Robert dies.
In the North, Jon Snow leaves his family behind to join the Night’s Watch, a brotherhood that guards the “Wall” that protects Westeros from the north, populated by “wildlings,” wights (frozen zombies) and White Walkers (sentient frozen zombies).
Daenerys Targaryen marries Dothraki Khal Drogo. Drogo kills her brother Viserys because he’s annoying but eventually is murdered himself by a witch who also kills Dany’s unborn child. Dany burns the witch alive, walks into the flames and hatches three dragon eggs.
Season 2
Joffrey rules in King’s Landing, torturing Sansa, while Tyrion takes over the Hand of the King gig.
Robert’s brothers Renly and Stannis rise up against Joffrey, although Stannis quickly dispenses with Renly. Stannis nearly takes King’s Landing, but Tyrion fends him off with help from his dad Tywin and Littlefinger, who recruited Renly’s former allies the Tyrells.
Robb has been declared King in the North and is winning battles until his foster brother Theon turns against him, capturing the castle of Winterfell. Theon does it for his father Balon Greyjoy, lord of the Iron Islands, who also declares himself a king. Theon eventually loses the castle to Robb’sally Roose Bolton’s son Ramsay, and is captured.
Robb makes the mistake of marrying a random field nurse, even though he pledged to Lord Walder Frey that he’d marry one of Frey’s daughters. Catelyn releases Jaime, charging Brienne of Tarth to take him back to King’s Landing in exchange for Sansa and Arya.
Arya befriends Jaqen H’ghar, an assassin who can change his face. Beyond the Wall, Jon meets a hot wildling, Ygritte, and goes undercover in the wildling army. In the Essos city of Qarth, Dany’s storyline is completely pointless.
Season 3
Jon meets Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, and falls in love with Ygritte, but eventually has to betray her. Bran, who is following a magical destiny north. Arya is captured bythe Hound, who gets her close to her family.
Robb walks into the Red Wedding, when Walder Frey and Roose Bolton kill him, his wife, Catelyn, and most of the Stark army.
Tywin takes power in King’s Landing. He forces Tyrion to marry Sansa after Joffrey becomes engaged to Margaery Tyrell.
In Essos, Dany remembers she’s not boring, frees a bunch of slaves, conquers cities and lets her dragons loose.
Season 4
Weddings continue to be dangerous, as Littlefinger and Margaery’s granny poison Joffrey at his own. Tyrion takes the blame, and at his trial his former lover turns on him. He tries and fails to
win a trial by combat that features head-crushing. Jaime helps him escape execution, but not before Tyrion kills Tywin.
Littlefinger manages to smuggle Sansa out of King’s Landing, and brings her to his wife (and her weird aunt) Lysa. He murders Lysa and Sansa lies for him. Her sister Arya hangs out with the Hound until Brienne finds her, but Arya rejects them both and sails to find Jaqen’s Faceless Men.
In the north, Bran reaches the ThreeEyed Raven. Jon and the Night’s Watch defend the Wall from Mance’s army, with the help of Stannis. In Meereen Dany tries her hand at ruling but is not very good at it.
Season 5
Jon is elected Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but is then assassinated by his men.
Cersei tries to take power while her son, Tommen, rules. She elevates a religious fanatic known as the High Sparrow. She tries to use him to take out her enemies, but it backfires and she is arrested for her sins.
Dany still is struggling to rule Meereen, and Tyrion makes his way to Dany and starts to advise her. She rides off on one of her dragons during an attack.
Littlefinger, meanwhile, marries Sansa to Ramsay, who is in Winterfell, and he rapes and abuses her. Stannis marches on Winterfell but loses his support. While Ramsay is off defeating Stannis’s army, Sansa and Theon escape.
Arya starts training to be a Faceless Man.
Season 6
Jon Snow is resurrected by Melisandre. He’s feeling sad until Sansa shows up, dying to take back Winterfell from her husband. Jon beats Ramsay in battle, but only after Sansa asks Littlefinger for help, and the lords declare Jon King in the North.
Bran is back and now has vision powers. He learns that Jon is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Meanwhile, Arya realizes how annoying the Faceless Men were all along and ditches them.
Cersei exacts her revenge by blowing up the High Sparrow, Margaery and a few hundred other enemies. Tommen commits suicide, and Cersei crowns herself Queen.
Dany, meanwhile, sails for Westeros with Tyrion.
Season 7
Dany gets to Westeros, only to lose two battles to CerseiCersei and Jaime are confident until Dany brings a dragon onto the battlefield.
Jon is consumed with the White Walkers, and heads to get Walker-killing weapons and maybe support from Dany. She’ll only help him fight the Walkers if he can convince Cersei to pause the Southern war, and so Jon has the bright idea to go capture a wight from beyond the Wall and bring it to Cersei. He is trapped by the Army of the Dead, and Dany has to come save him. The Walkers kill one of her dragons in the process.
Most of our major characters meet up at a summit at King’s Landing and show Cersei the wight they captured, and Cersei lies and says she’ll help fight. Jaime abandons his sister (who says she’s pregnant with his kid, but like, come on).
Speaking of incest, Jon and Dany get it on in their ship on the way to Winterfell. And speaking of Winterfell, Arya, Sansa and Bran have been hanging out there, as Arya and Sansa fake-fight before executing Littlefinger. Bran and Sam figure out that Jon isn’t a bastard after all, and he’s technically the rightful heir to Westeros.
Oh and the White Walkers turned that dead dragon into an undead ice dragon, and used his blue fire to take down the Wall.