SPOILER ALERT
The Winds of Winter, the finale of Game of Thrones proved many things.
Do not, for instance, trust cheery-cheeked servant women serving you slices of pie in an empty feasting hall.
Be wary of enjoying life as an austere god-bothering nun who gets her jollies from ringing a shaming bell.
Always protect a child's life, no matter what the gods say.
And remember that nothing, nothing at all, can match a woman called Cersei Lannister when her blood is up.
GoT's season six finale masterfully re-established the main players in this ever-tightening story, showing the nobility of honouring rightful rulers (Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen) and the heady prize for executing a merciless mass-murder of your own citizens (Cersei).
A hefty arsenal of characters was farewelled including Queen Margaery, her brother, Loras (fresh from pleading guilty and having his forehead carved in devout decoration), their befuddled father, Mace, the High Sparrow, and Brother Lancel, who, it is still amazing to recall, regularly bedded Cersei when he was the wine-and-long-hair-loving Ser Lancel Lannister.
But this was Cersei's episode. After watching her putrid son be poisoned at his wedding, enduring the death of her daughter, watching her son fall under the influence of the usurping Margaery and being made to walk naked through the streets while a rabidly religious nun intoned "Shame, shame" and incessantly rang a bell, King's Landing chalked one up for long-wronged lady avengers.
Even Cersei's wig, the tortured mop that has resembled a dehydrated hamster for so many weeks, could not keep her down.
She was, firstly, totally dressed for mass annihilation.
If you were going to ignite an arsenal of napalm-like wildfire, handily stationed beneath the very Great Sept of Baelor where the annoying gang of usurpers you so hated was gathered, you would also slip on a tight, dimpled-black leather floor-length gown and drink wine like Snow White's vindictive stepmother attending the Met Ball.
As she watched the stores of wildfire left by mad King Aerys Targaryen, before he was killed by her lover and brother, she became the very personification of a black-hearted medieval Joker.
She played a fairly sick joke on Septa Unella, the tormenter we all grew to love, who faced thankfully unseen torture at the hands of Ser Gregor Clegane. What he did after he removed his helmet doesn't bear thinking about, but it is worth revisiting Cersei's words as she glided her hands over Septa Unella's restrained body.
"Confess, it felt good," Cersei said. "Beating me, starving me, frightening me, humiliating me.
"You didn't do it because you cared about my atonement, you did it because it felt good. I understand.
"I do things because they feel good. I drink because it feels good. I killed my husband because it felt good to be rid of him. I f--- my brother, because it feels good to feel him inside of me. I lie about f---ing my brother, because it feels good to keep our son safe from hateful hypocrites."
And so forth. She killed the High Sparrow and all his "little sparrows, all his septons and all his septas, all his filthy soldiers", she said, because it "felt good to watch them burn".
"No thought has ever given me greater joy," she said, underlining just how hard it will be to buy her a birthday present in future.
But her super-annihilating powers could not control everything. Sending Ser Gregor to prevent her son, King Tommen, from attending Loras' trial, and therefore saving him from being blasted into tiny particles, backfired.
Poor Tommen, the ever-gullible and chin-wobbling boy king, left us, stepping up to the window ledge and leaning out to oblivion.
Was this due to the loss of his wife? Or was it the brain-raddling concept of his linking of the crown and the Faith being blown sky-high? No, it was the understanding of what his mother had become.
Is it corny to link this with that other Cersei-related damage done to a young boy (Bran Stark) falling out a window? Maybe, but, as we draw closer to the end of Game of Thrones, everything, and everyone, is linking up eventually.
Cersei, who has clearly crossed a line emotionally (ie. she has none left) as she viewed Tommen's body with nary a whimper, could not control the impression made on her love, Jaime.
He arrived as she was crowned Queen and it would not be an understatement to say he did not look impressed. Is this why she sent him away to faff about at Riverrun and affirm a slightly useless pact with the House of Frey?
Speaking of Frey, the most fertile 90-year-old in all of GoT was served his two sons baked in a pie by a kitchen staffer recently seen giving the eye to Jaime, much to Bronn's chagrin.
(Bronn's line of the week, to Jaime, "She doesn't want me. She wants your golden fingers up her c---." He really should release a quote of the day desk calendar)
But this lady chef's eyes were not her own. For it was Arya Stark, still somehow able to check-out sliced-off faces from the House of Black and White, while wielding a carving knife sharp enough to debone the sons of a hated enemy and serve them inside pastry to their father.
She sliced his neck gruesomely and really no-one will miss him, least of all his retinue of girl-brides.
Samwell Tarly and Gilly's arrival at the Citadel was heartening. Sure the guy at the front desk was a knob, and their no women, no children policy needs a ball-busting, girl-power visit from, say, Dany or Arya, but it was surely the greatest advertisement for going to the library ever made. Borrow a book tomorrow!
Jon Snow was crowned King of the North, thanks to the ever-marvellous Lady Lyanna Mormont, Bear Island Public School's plucky Library Monitor.
She was the only 10-year-old in the room able to amalgamate the bunch of whingeing Northerners prevaricating over Snow's right to lead. Littlefinger's smirk to Sansa, indicating she was not free of him yet, could do with some treatment from Lady Lyanna.
The other Lyanna, Ned Stark's sister, was revisited in her dying hours in the Tower of Joy as Bran re-warged to the past.
This Stark chapter confirmed for all the R+L=J theory (Rhaegar Targaryen + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow) proving his true parentage. This proves about 777,777 links with other characters and possible storylines for the future but the big one is Danaerys is his aunt. His AUNT.
Could Jon Snow marry his aunt? Maybe with Tyrion as best man and the dragons as footmen? And, goodness me, Dany and Jon on their wedding night, what a hoopla of inter-family sexual frission that would be.
Dany finally left Meereen (goodbye Meereen, you were mainly tedious) as the highly flotillaed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
She broke up with Daario, who is really very, very attractive, but not enough for someone who is dead keen on ruling the world.
She bestowed the Hand of the Queen on Tyrion and it was a fairly emotional moment for all. Lady Olenna established an alliance with Ellaria Sand, and an ability to shut those stroppy girls up with her quip-smart tongue in Dorne.
And Varys, always a masterful negotiator, also showed he could seemingly travel through time as he whooshed from Dorne to Dany's side in what seemed like minutes. Maybe those big flappy sleeves on his tunic double as super-sonic wings.
As Game of Thrones leaves us for 10months (sob) until season seven, many inviting questions remain.
Will Jaime still love Cersei after her mind-flip into Apocalyptic Power Tzar? She did rock that black leather frock though.
How will Sansa deal with Littlefinger's frankly creepy obsessive love?
Will Jon Snow's banishment of Melisandre to the south be enough for Ser Davos Seaworth after he discovered she was responsible for Shireen's death? I hope not.
Was that a skerrick of happiness on Theon Greyjoy's face as the flotilla took to the seas? After the 7000 hours of torture he, and we, endured, he deserves some joy. Maybe Gilly has a sister?
And, does whispering "Dracarys" into the cat's ear make it breathe fire around the kitchen? We have 10 months to practice and find out.
