I don’t dislike those three characters, though the Third-Act Stupidity that fueled their actions this season sure made it difficult not to, I’ve mostly enjoyed their arcs and hadn’t considered the idea that any of their deaths (except Bran’s) would necessarily be positive for the show. But as the trial began I couldn’t help but to glimpse a fantastic opportunity for a classic GoT lesson to be relearned. Allowing for a slight pivot away from the pure “Monsters vs Men” corner the show has been heading toward, and back, if only momentarily, to the intrigues and struggles that made it so exciting in the first place.

Being good is hard, and heroes relying only on their goodness to prevail will fail

Our heroes won't triumph simply by virtue of being good. We learn this the hard way. Despite being constantly reminded by the show, through Sansa, by Jon, with Varys and Tyrion and so forth and so on, that Eddard and Robb Stark died because they were too honorable, compassionate and proud, Ned and Robb were no more handicapped by their goodness than any other protagonist. “You have to be smarter than them”, says Sansa to Jon, “they made stupid mistakes and lost their heads for it”. But the story would be a very cynical one if the lesson is that heroes die if they lack shrewdness, that if you want to be a hero and succeed you should first take the Littlefinger Master-Schemer course before you try. It would be more fitting and substantial if the lesson is that the good should not be guaranteed success and not be protected from fatal outcomes, be they unexpected or expected.

The disadvantage of being good, the difficulty of navigating a more complex moral and relational landscape makes it harder to be good, and that is what makes the hero virtuous; for trying to maintain decency despite traversing a thornier path. But we rarely genuinely feel that, because the good won’t fail anyway. No matter how much they suffer it's shallow in our eyes because the fear of it being for nothing is removed when they are sure to be rewarded for their trials in the end. Sure, Ned died, but we adapt quickly and rephrase his character as a decoy when Robb picks up the hero mantle. So it wasn’t the tale of “How does good old Ned stay honorable and true in a den of monsters?”, but a revenge saga, and the father was the first-act sacrifice to fuel the avenger with righteous fury in his quest to vanquish the guilty… or so we thought. After the red wedding you slowly pick up the pieces and don’t dare be as hasty as last time; this world is unforgiving and the whole show is one long dance macabre.

It’s easy to become cynical at this point and dismay over not having anyone left to root for, but there is no sacrifice if only extras pay the price. This becomes the first time you might truly feel that being good is hard. And so, the tragedies that befell the Starks were not only a means to surprise us and reveal to us our own predictable ways of thinking about what should happen next - by destroying those expectations - creating constant tension, they also make us connect more intimately with the survivors. We feel for them, and start to fear for them when the same, now vacant, cursed space of the hero opens up to them. For this, the Starks needed to die.

What’s the point of killing a protagonist if his death has no meaning?

Only in hindsight are their actions described as foolish, at the time both Eddard and Robb's downfall came as surprises, and in both cases they had cause to believe there were some assurances for their safety. I don’t think I need to explain that recently Jon has repeatedly been stupendously foolish in real-time and had no business surviving a number of events, and Sansa and Arya have barely been better. Not every mistake should be fatalistic, sometimes you do get lucky, but to have the current protagonists flimsily and easily achieve victories not despite, but because of foolish actions, the lessons of the dead become meaningless.

It was hard in the beginning but now you've suffered enough so go ahead and fight the army of the dead with a small fellowship of the Wight, go ahead and expect the villain to transform into a simpleton and play into your ill-advised plan without question. There's nothing to fear anymore.

What was that? The Starks and the good guys have suffered enough so it’s time for them to win a little? Isn’t that just swell; the prologue was simply extended beyond Ned to include Catelyn and Robb - Sansa, Jon and Arya picked up the mantle of the avenger instead. I’m not saying that more Starks need to die (except Bran, he needs to die), but they shouldn’t be protected from expected negative outcomes. If they act foolishly they must pay. If there is no price, the consequence is that their victories are dulled and their characters start rotting. They die the miserable death of many a heartland America TV show characters whose creed is to overcome forced challenges through token efforts.

Milady forgive me, I'm a bit confused

When the charges against Baelish were being laid, I thought to myself, “This is terribly unexciting!”. The unraveling of Baelish was at best clumsy, at worst insulting; after all of that time-wasting and pretend-fighting in the end they just rely on Bran to wall-hack together a prosecution?

Consider for a moment that no one but Sansa, Arya and Bran have reason to believe that Baelish is guilty, but they are also the prosecution and are expected to desire his incrimination, the trial is more than anything directed toward outside forces. Lord Royce, the commander of the Vale forces and subject of Baelish, is present and doesn't (shouldn't) already assume that the defendant is guilty before the trial has begun. The charges are:

• Killing of Lady Lysa - Sansa states that it was because Baelish wanted power, and leaves it at that, as if that statement was evidence itself.
• The next few charges; the killing of Lord Arryn, letter falsely blaming the Lannisters, betrayal of Ned, the lie about the dagger - are all presented without having any tangible evidence produced. It all rests on the testimony of the Three-Eyed Raven.

Does this sound like a trial that would end with the accused condemned and executed mere minutes after it began? It makes Tyrions trial appear downright just by comparison. Oh Baelish was guilty of all the things he was accused of to be sure, but unlike Tyrion’s trial there was no care or concern given to due process, not even an attempt made to have it seem legitimate. The prosecutors knew his guilt and we, the audience, can attest to Baelish's guilt but a prosecution in any fiction that banks its legitimacy on the audience knowing the truth, is a joke, and easy. An unearned victory against a primary antagonist.

Blindly heading toward a dead-end

The heroes have newfound powers. Rogue Assassin in Arya, Master Strategist in Sansa and otherworldly Seer through Bran; against the orchestrator of nearly all of the major events in the show, now declawed. How do you create tension when the heroes appear to have the upper hand in every way? Dumbing down everyone and have them appear temporarily blind is one (groan-inducing) way. When Sansa asked Arya where she got the letter to Robb from, why would Arya not say that she saw Baelish get it for Sansa on her behalf? It would make her point about Sansa positioning against Jon and trying to hide her past mistakes to the other lords much more poignant. But that would have ended the charade immediately. Similarly, Baelish would have to assume that Arya wouldn’t think to ever tell the obvious to Sansa. If she did at any point, even with Arya gone, he would have incriminated himself anyway. I don’t like to nitpick but the slow moving train wreck that was the Baelish plotline went on for the whole season.

Throughout the show, great power has been said to require great sacrifice. Blood must be paid for magic and power. You don’t get it because you train hard at the Ninja Academy for 6 months. Bran is said to have died and replaced by the Three-Eyed Raven, Arya was supposed to be replaced by “No One” in return for Faceless shenanigans, and Sansa? Well, she somehow became a master schemer and strategist because she was abused for a long time, and she saw Cersei and Littlefinger in action a few times... I guess. Bran’s transcendence, however, is half-assed; he’s still fighting Stark battles. Arya got to acquire faceless no-jutsu and retain her identity; is she anymore coldhearted now than the girl who was smiling when she stabbed Polliver through the neck back in season 4? Sansa appears even less damaged now than she was in earlier seasons, before she became Littlefinger 2.0.

Back to the trial, and back to GoT

So this was the moment! Surely this was the twist! Leave it to Baelish to get the wheels turning for this show and make things genuinely difficult for our heroes. The boring question we’ve been asked all season, "If Sansa is playing Baelish or is his ‘Days of Our Lives’ type scheming actually working?”, was a ruse. Through Bran, their advantage in knowledge was obvious, Sansa had revealed the murder of Lysa Arryn to everyone and with Arya and a hall full of guards surrounding him, Baelish could never hope to power his way through this situation. What a perfect moment to rip them all to shreds.

• First, question Sansa’s integrity and motives by asking her why she would have lied about the murder of Lysa back in the Vale. Lord Royce is present here; he held Baelish’s tribunal in the Vale after Lysa’s death, where Sansa, crying and pleading, defended Baleish’s innocence. What excuse could she muster for having sided with Lady Lysa’s usurper?
• Baelish, his family originating from Braavos and being who he is, should know plenty about the Faceless Men, worshippers of the god of death; enough to use against Arya to question her character and motives.
• Bran, dwelling deep beyond The Wall for years even as wildlings were fleeing south, with his constant lifeless expression, claiming to be a raven of some sorts - even if we assume that Lord Royce and the others believe Bran can see the past - how reliable is his power? Does he see the truth without fail? Should you trust everything he says? Baelish could easily cast his motives into doubt, Bran too is an unknown, aligned with a deceiver and an assassin.

Baelish doesn’t have to win here, but he could have made their victory a Phyrric one, using the cheap and easy way out the heroes were aiming for against them to at least incur a significant cost for their victory. The many complications that would arise by bringing Arya's bloodlust and connection to the god of death out in the light, using Sansa's past scheming against her and casting into doubt Bran's reliability as seer would give our protagonists new, real challenges, connected to the very tools they've acquired throughout their stories. Bran at least needs to be defanged in some form. He is sitting around waiting to reveal a single fact to Jon then become nothing more than a human satellite system, making sure to temporarily disappear whenever any new intrigue is introduced lest he spoil the plot prematurely.

Any new complications to our heroes journey arising from a Baelish victory here could go many different ways, and I think it’s best to refrain from going further into fan fiction territory, but unlike what we got, the twist I speak of would have been more effective, and foreshadowed by Baelish's speech about “being everywhere, all the time”. Baelish would have symbolically usurped Brans role as an all seeing seer; he might not be able to see the past and present and glimpse the future; his power would run far deeper because he can read the hearts of men, know their desires and from that predict their actions.

To me, the essence of Game of Thrones has been far less about Dragons and Magic and more about conflicts of the heart and the nature of what it means to be good and why we would still try to be good when it's more difficult to do so. For that to still ring true in proper GoT fashion, the villain needed to win one last time.