In preparation for Season 8, we've fetched our Season 7 Power Rankings from the vault -- obviously, spoilers are below!
Greetings, fair Westerosi citizens! It’s time to take a look at who holds the real power in this godforsaken land. It’s bizarre to think about how important lineage and the hierarchy of the Major Houses mattered in the early seasons of Game of Thrones, and how many of those houses have since been eradicated. Essentially only four remain — The Greyjoys, Targaryens, Starks, and Lannisters — and they end up roughly in the same power positions as they did last season.
So this year, in addition to ranking the houses in terms of their power, I’m also going to look at who might actually win this crazy game of thrones — and who should. Afterwards, you can vote for who you think should sit upon the Iron Throne, assuming it still stands at the end of the series.
6. The Dead Houses
By R’hllor this list has grown immensely. At the end of last season we had lost the Boltons, Baratheons, Arryns, and the Freys … even though they weren’t fully finished off until the start of Season 7. I’m assuming, perhaps wrongly, that Edmure Tully has been eradicated along with the remaining Freys, which means goodbye to House Tully as well.
On a more major scale, House Tyrell is gone, as is House Martell, which was already kind of over but for awhile the Sand Snakes and Ellaria remained (they’re all dead now except for Ellaria who probably wishes she was). There hasn’t been much time given to what power looks like in Westeros now with all of those castles empty and those small folk without lords but, you know, ice dragons and such.
5. House Greyjoy
This is essentially a default position, because House Greyjoy is the last major house still around that doesn’t feel essential to the endgame of this story. But, they’re still making moves. Euron Greyjoy smartly killed off his brother and took control of the Greyjoy fleet, running off Yara (and Theon) and later capturing Yara while a useless Theon dove into the water. He’s allied himself with Cersei, and on the hope of a marriage alliance has brought her a revolving door of enemies while running nautical errands for her.
Currently, he has set sail to Essos to pick up The Golden Company, a group of sellswords Cersei has commissioned to fight on her behalf in Westeros. But the likelihood of House Greyjoy ascending the Iron Throne? As good as none. The best any Greyjoy can hope for at this point is to survive and be sent back to Pyke.
4. House Stark
Though I love what’s happening at Winterfell with the Stark sibling power structure that is forming, Winterfell is very much in the direct path of an ice dragon right now. And while we can thank Sansa and Arya for ridding us of the increasingly useless Littlefinger, that seems like small potatoes given what is coming from beyond the Wall.
However, there may be something important brewing with Bran and his Three-Eyed Raveness. Can he warg into a wight? An ice dragon? Can he do anything useful as the admin of weirwood.net? Or is he just sitting there helplessly watching terrible things unfold in front of him like most web admins do?
The Starks control the North, but Jon Snow as their leader has bent the knee to Daenerys as Queen. So, that pretty much ends their run at the Iron Throne, even though I don’t know that any of them — Jon included — really want it. At this point, surviving the Night King’s onslaught is a more pressing concern.
3. House Targaryen
Daenerys has always been a serious contender for the Iron Throne, not only because she has a rightful claim to it, but also because she had three dragons. Even with just two dragons now in her control, those are the kinds of things that win over the fickle denizens of Westeros as you fly around and fry their armies. Now that she is in Westeros and in command of three major forces — the dragons, the Dothraki, and the Unsullied — she seems to be the most equipped to assume power.
And yet! The Season 7 finale made Jon Snow’s parentage as clear as could possibly be, as well as the knowledge that he is in fact the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, which also means he has the best claim for the throne. Does he want it? Probably not, but if it would unite the kingdom and bring peace to Westeros then he might do it anyway.
The only real issue within the family is that they are family — he and Daenerys, that is — but they could unite through marriage or with a child, set aside their differences, and assume power together. Targaryens love incest, and it was one reason they eventually went super crazy with Wildfire.
As far as who would be the better ruler, well, Dany has more experience but is also more ruthless and unorthodox in her methods. Jon believes in compromise and loyalty and the same kinds of things that keep getting people killed in this story. They would probably work best together, though I think Dany is more suited to the job as a “wheelbreaker.”
Again, all of this is contingent on them surviving the Night King’s war. But I think there’s also a chance that Dany could die and leave Jon a clear path to the throne, one that he would not have been on without her assistance to begin with, but one that becomes fraught with her still alive. But the prophesy of the Prince that was Promised as being a “song of ice and fire” feels most applicable to Jon, for better or worse.
2. House Lannister
Like last year, I hesitate to put the Lannisters so high up, but the reality is that they currently rule Westeros. Cersei sits upon the Iron Throne, and has potentially made a bargain with Tyrion where her new child with Jamie could be the heir if Dany takes power (since Dany cannot — she believes — have children naturally after she was cursed). That’s pure speculation, but what we do know for sure is that the Lannisters are homegrown rulers, which the people of Westeros seem to prefer, and Cersei just paid up her debt with the Iron Bank in order to now commission The Golden Company. That could be a game-changer, especially since she has sent Dany and Jon north with a false promise to back them up (reasoning that if dragons can’t stop the Night King then nothing can and they’re all screwed anyway).
If Jon and Dany can defeat the Night King, per Cersei’s calculations, they’ll turn back south and meet a fresh army ready to attack them. So right now, Cersei’s bet to hold onto power is the most secure at the moment, thanks almost entirely to the distraction in the north.
Whether or not she would be a good ruler or not hasn’t been tested — her rule has, thus far, been mainly focused on revenge (like not hesitating to blow up her own capital). What she could do, or would want to do, for the people of Westeros is unclear, but her loyalty to her family seems like it would trump all other concerns.
1. The Night King
Season 5’s MVP returns to reign in the Power Rankings once again! The Night King has marched his zombie horde south, conspired to get himself a dragon corpse to ride around and utilize better than Dany ever has, and in doing so has brought down the Wall that has kept winter at bay.
The Army of the Dead move slowly, but they also don’t stop to eat, camp, or have to tend the wounded. They share some kind of magical bond where if one shrieks the others come to help it, but otherwise they’re essentially a hive-mind, reanimated faction who work at the behest of the White Walkers.
Be they wights or White Walkers, they were made by the Children of the Forest as war machines, and now they are fulfilling that destiny, as well as that of the First Men from whom they were turned. Plus, for a long time they’ve been sequestered north of the Wall, which has given them plenty of time to plot.
Right now, the Night King has an ice dragon and the ability to raise anything — man or animal or magical creature — from the dead for his use. His army is mindlessly loyal, it grows with every new person they slaughter, and seems to be making the most progress of any of the leaders currently in Westeros. He’s not bogged down with politics. He just kills, moves south, and kills some more. He rides an ice dragon, and brings down an 8,000 year old magical wall. Yeah, the Night King.