Game of Thrones had plenty of amazing plot twists during its run and its expanding universe made audiences guess how all these journeys would turn out. Ned Stark, the protagonist of Season 1, was executed in Episode 9, and audiences learned to expect the unexpected. By Season 7, the pacing had noticeably changed. While many plot twists still subverted expectations, they no longer adhered to George R. R. Martin’s clever narrative development from earlier seasons.
Instead, it seemed that the twists were primarily aimed at creating shock value rather than contributing to a coherent storyline. Throughout the latter half of the series, several characters undergo baffling personality shifts to force the story toward its intended conclusion. Among the many questionable plot twists, this list highlights the absolute worst.
10. Littlefinger’s Misguided Move to Offer Sansa Stark to the Boltons
Season 5, Episode 3
Like many characters in the later seasons, Littlefinger also suffered from a severe intelligence loss. For seasons, audiences watched this dangerously clever man rise in station while eliminating everyone in his way.
Once Baelish had left King’s Landing with Sansa, he had the key to the North firmly in his hands, yet, he decided to give away this prized possession to a family he knew little about, other than their betrayal of the Starks. The Littlefinger from earlier seasons would never have risked such a gamble with a girl who was the key to the North and someone he wanted for himself.
9. Arya Leaves Braavos and the Many-Faced God With No Consequences
Season 6, Episode 8
Arya’s journey takes a sharp turn when she travels to Braavos to train with the Faceless Men. Struggling to abandon her identity, she repeatedly defies their orders. After surviving the Waif’s attempt to kill her, Arya takes the Waif’s face, adds it to the Wall of Faces, and boldly declares, “A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell,” before returning home with Jaqen’s tacit approval.
Surprisingly, Arya rarely uses the skills she gained, apart from assassinating Walder Frey. Even more baffling is the complete lack of consequences for abandoning the Faceless Men, leaving this storyline feeling largely pointless in the grand scheme of the series.
8. Tyrion’s Outrageous Idea to Bring a Wight to King’s Landing
Season 7, Episode 5
When Daenerys fears Cersei might exploit her absence during the fight against the Night King, Tyrion suggests an absurd plan: capturing a wight and bringing it to King’s Landing. This wildly out-of-character idea marked the beginning of Tyrion’s sharp decline from the “smartest man in Westeros” to… whatever that was.
The execution of the plan was even more ridiculous. Uncle Benjen had explained that the magic in the Wall prevented the Undead from crossing it, leaving fans were baffled when the wight survived its journey south. It gets worse — when Jon kills a White Walker during the mission, all the wights it controls die, except for the one conveniently destined for King’s Landing. Apparently, Benioff and Weiss needed this nonsensical side quest as an excuse to kill off one of Daenerys’s dragons.
7. The Dreaded Long Night That Lasted Literally Just One Night
Season 8, Episode 3
For eight seasons, fans eagerly awaited the showdown between Westeros and the Night King’s army. When the Undead finally clashed with the living, everyone braced for heavy casualties, but the battle seemed doomed from the start. Despite the combined military expertise present, the strategy was baffling. Only an amateur would place the army in front of the trenches, practically serving them to the enemy, and then send the Dothraki charging into a pitch-black forest, where they’re immediately wiped out by a tidal wave of wights.
Meanwhile, the main characters face impossible odds and emerge unscathed—except for Jorah and Theon, who apparently drew the short straws in the writer’s room. When the Night King finally reaches Bran, Arya flies in like a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon extra, stabs him in just the right spot, and turns the Undead army into a pile of crushed ice, and the battle ends with more head-scratching than answers.
6. Cersei Hires Bronn to Kill Tyrion and Jaime
Season 8, Episode 4
The entire arc around Bronn’s mission to assassinate Tyrion and Jamie was bizarre. Cersei had many opportunities to kill both brothers on several occasions but chose not to. In Season 8, Episode 4, Tyrion and Jaime discuss Jaime’s involvement with Brienne, when suddenly Bronn shows up with the crossbow.
The North had just defeated the Night King, and there were thousands of Northerners at Winterfell. Bronn would have been caught immediately. Additionally, he carried a large crossbow, which would have raised suspicions. The entire scene was irrelevant and solely served the purpose of explaining how Bronn became Lord of Highgarden, which could have been accomplished in countless other ways.
5. Jaime’s Fumbled Redemption Arc That Shouldn’t Have Happened in the First Place
Season 8, Episode 4
After Jaime finds out that Cersei lied about sending her army north, he tells her that he intends to honor his promise to fight against the Night King instead of choosing to leave in secret. Cersei’s decision to let him go made no sense as he would most certainly tell everyone in Winterfell what Cersei was up to. Even if she didn’t want to kill him, she should have taken him prisoner.
After Jaime beats the Undead alongside Northerners in Winterfell, he hooks up with Brienne, until he finds out that Euron attacked Dany and her fleet and that’s all it took to make him go back to King’s Landing to be on Cersei’s side once again, willing to die with her. He also tells Tyrion that he never cared for the innocent, which makes his entire scene with Brienne in Season 3, Episode 5 a joke.
4. The Disastrous Plan to Demand Cersei’s Surrender
Season 8, Episode 4
After Missandei’s capture, Tyrion proposes a risky mission to King’s Landing with a small group of Unsullied to demand Cersei’s surrender and avoid further bloodshed. Dany, Tyrion, Varys, and the Unsullied stand at the gates while Drogon looms in the background. Above them, Cersei stands on a platform with Missandei near the edge, the walls lined with Scorpions aimed directly at Dany’s group.
This plan left Dany’s side absurdly vulnerable. Cersei could have easily ordered Drogon shot or wiped out the small delegation with minimal effort. The notion that Tyrion thought his sister might surrender defied logic, given her superior numbers, fresh army, and Dany’s recent losses of two dragons. Cersei had every reason to feel confident. However, the writers clearly orchestrated this setup to push Dany over the edge with Missandei’s dramatic execution.
3. Euron’s Ambush on Daenerys’s Fleet And Her Dragon Rhaegal
Season 8, Episode 4
In Episode 4 of Season 8, Daenerys and her forces head to Dragonstone to prepare for the siege of King’s Landing. Dany flies on Drogon while Rhaegal soars beside her. Out of nowhere, Rhaegal is hit by three arrows and plunges into the sea. Only then does Daenerys spot the culprit: Euron and his fleet.
This scene defies logic on several levels. Dany and her dragons should have seen the fleet as soon as it spotted her. Even more absurd is Euron’s ability to hit a fast-moving dragon with perfect accuracy — not once, but three times. Enraged, Dany flies straight at Euron, essentially painting a target on herself, before abruptly retreating to Dragonstone instead of attacking from behind. Euron then turns his attention to the ships, forcing everyone to dive into the water. And somehow, he manages to capture Missandei, wrapping up this implausible sequence with an even more baffling twist.
2. The Spider Loses Its Sting and Openly Plots Against Daenerys
Season 8, Episode 5
Varys, one of the sharpest minds in Westeros, acted for the realm’s good, unlike Littlefinger. Believing Daenerys to be the right ruler, he convinces Tyrion to travel to Mereen. He later solidifies his support by forging an alliance with Olenna in Dorne, declaring “Fire and Blood.” However, after Daenerys and her forces help to defeat the Night King, Varys’s loyalty wavered after he learns of Jon’s true parentage from Tyrion.
Suddenly, he deemed Daenerys unstable and plotted to poison her with a servant’s help while simultaneously informing the lords of Westeros. When his treachery is exposed, Grey Worm arrests him, and Daenerys executes him by dragonfire. This abrupt end undermined Varys’s intelligence and character, as the Master of Whisperers would never have conspired so openly.
1. Daenerys Targaryen’s Turn Into the Mad Queen Triggered by a Bell
Season 8, Episode 5
Daenerys made some questionable decisions on her journey to Westeros, but her sudden turn as the Mad Queen in Season 8, Episode 5, shocked everyone. The showrunners painted her in a harsher light after her arrival in Winterfell. Jon implied to the Northerners that he had to bend the knee for her support against the Night King, though she had already promised her help without demanding submission after the events beyond the wall took place. Sansa’s hostility toward Daenerys further fueled tensions.
After losing Rhaegal and Missandei, coupled with dwindling support from her advisors, Daenerys feels isolated and betrayed. During the battle for King’s Landing, she sat on Drogon as the city surrendered, but instead of heading for the Red Keep to kill Cersei, she unleashed her fury on the city after the bells rang, burning large parts of it and killing thousands of innocents—an action that defied any logic.
