The death of Robb Stark (Richard Madden) was one of the most shocking events in the whole of Game of Thrones – and helped make the show a worldwide obsession.
Now, fans are convinced that – thanks to a helping dose of hindsight in the ending of season eight – Robb’s tragic death actually went some way to aiding his sister Sansa (Sophie Turner) on her path to victory against Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke).
To catch you all up, Robb was the eldest Stark son and started a rebellion after his father Ned (Sean Bean) was beheaded. He went some ways to uniting the North behind him, but after marrying Talisa (Oona Chaplin), Robb was slain at the infamous Red Wedding by Walder Frey (David Bradley), whose daughter he had been promised to.
Taking to Reddit, one user noted that the eldest Stark’s death had been foreshadowed by Lord Karstark, who commented ‘you lost this war the day you married [Talisa.]’
But it was another eagle-eyed fan that pointed that perhaps Robb’s choices did end in his untimely death – but they superseded a happy (ish) ending for House Stark in the show’s eighth and final season.
‘Robb may have personally lost, but the Starks ultimately won the war,’ they wrote. ‘A Stark rules independently in the North, a Stark rules the other southern kingdoms and all of the forces that opposed Robb have been decimated, scattered, or subsumed.’
They continued: ‘Without Robb’s death, Daenerys would have easily taken over King’s landing and a Stark would not rule in the North or the South.’
And, really, they’re right aren’t they? The show ended with not one but two of the three remaining Stark siblings sitting on a throne.
Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) took the biggest win as the King of the (now) Six Kingdoms, and Sansa was proclaimed Queen of the independent North.
It’s true that without Robb’s murder, none of this would have been possible, as it set a lot of characters (most notably Sansa) on new adventures.
So maybe the Red Wedding hurt fans at the time (and still hurts us now when we think about it, tbh) but it looked like it was all worth it in the end…right?
For those amongst us still needing their Thrones twist, we’d recommend tuning in to the most recent episode of Westworld – where a very familiar character had a blink-and-miss-it cameo.
George RR Martin – the author of the source novels that the series was adapted from – has also announced that he’s finally finishing the long-awaited Winds Of Winter during self-isolation.
Game of Thrones seasons 1-8 are available to stream via NOW TV.
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