Tormund Giantsbane has rapidly become one of Game of Throne's most beloved characters. Ever since a sympathetic Jon Snow freed him in season five, he has been a champion of the wildling characters in the show. From busting open a guy's head at Hardhome, to fighting in the ensuing PTSD-inducing invasion, saving Jon Snow's ass at the battle of the bastards, and now holding off an entire army of undead alongside the best fighters in Westeros, he's been at the front lines of the show for quite some time now.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/_InSomeone/status/887357950842503168]]

And, of course, he has a crush on Brienne of Tarth that fans are shipping heavy. A comedic exchange with The Hound in the icy world beyond the wall has only reinforced it: "The Hound: "Brienne of Tarth?" "Tormund: "You know her?" "The Hound: "You're with Brienne of fucking Tarth?" "Tormund: "Well, not with her yet, but I see the way she looks at me" "The Hound: "How does she look at you? Like she wants to carve you up and eat your liver?" "Tormund: "You do know her!" The best line comes soon after: "Tormund: "I want to make babies with her. Think of them, great big monsters. They'd conquer the world."" Indeed they would. Brienne and Tormund together would be unstoppable, especially now that Tormund is protected by the grace of plot armor. I mean, come on, he's got it. He was held down by a mob of zombies for like ten seconds and didn't get his neck ripped open by wight teeth. It was goofy. But we're glad he's alive. Particularly now that these photos are leaked, we want to see as much of Tormund as possible - perhaps a post-beard Tormund. If he retires in the south with Brienne, maybe in Dorne or somewhere hot, and he has to cut his beard, he would look like this forever. It's a shame he's lived in the frigid wastes all his life, or that beard would be long-gone by now. He looks like Fabio, or an Icelandic ice-skater. Maybe a guitar player in a Norwegian boy band? Well, now that I have you here reading about Tormund's beard, we can talk a bit about the direction of the show. Of course, the brilliant episode The Spoils of War showed the hell wrought by dragons on a medieval battlefield. My favorite shot of the whole season is Jamie Lannister's face staring down Drogon in the flames. He just looks disgusted, appalled and awed that such a monstrosity could possibly exist. Everything he ever knew is gone, and every one of his trained muscles is irrelevant in the face of a beast that could melt every bone in his body with a half-second glance. However, it seems that carefully-maintained realism has left the show. It's not a matter of plot holes, but the show is going full fantasy, abandoning the strategy and character interactions of previous seasons. I can't be the only one disappointed that Tyrion's reunion with his brother, after almost three long seasons, barely took 2 minutes? Plus, shoving Jorah and Gendry into the same episode just felt like a stressed weaver desperately stitching threads. Then, this episode, we got Jon and his squad holding off an entire army of undead, the same one that was apocalyptically strong back at Hardhome. We won't even get into the details of a raven and Dany flying all the way across Westeros in one episode, a journey that used to span entire seasons. The show is eager to end, and its palpable in the way things are paced. After all, the last five episodes have presumably spanned months. Time is getting screwy. Maybe it's all Bran's fault?

Film and TV have given us some of our all-time favorite romances. Jack and Rose from Titanic, Rachel and Ross from Friends, and, most recently, Tormund and Brienne from Game of Thrones.

Okay, I know, they aren't a thing. But 99.9999% of Game of Thrones fans desperately want them to be a thing.

Brienne of Tarth is one of the most formidable and genuinely badass characters in Westeros. She's not scared to fight what she believes in and doesn't give a damn that, as an unusually tall and muscular woman, she's far from what's classed as a beauty in the highly patriarchal world of Westeros.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: HBO]]

And that hasn't stopped her from catching the eye of at least one admirer either: Tormund Giantsbane (Jamie Lannister is up for debate).

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the HBO preview for the next episode: 

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/gP52gCeT-Q0L14jDU.mp4||gP52gCeT]]

Like Brienne, Tormund is a fierce warrior, and presumably, that's why he's infatuated with her. Unfortunately, the feeling isn't mutual, which is why Twitter freaks out every time Tormund tries and fails to get across his feelings for her:

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/imyash19/status/1120138175052173312]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iamlaurenp/status/1120138552224944129]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/__Colb__/status/1120138110195634177]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/therealkj4/status/1120138606029488129]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Kris_10_San/status/1120138937597603841]]

Even in the face of almost certain death, Tormund still can't help but shoot his shot at Brienne (who - spoiler alert - is finally a knight!). "We are all going to die, but at least we die together," he said in last night's episode, before firing her his best flirtatious glance.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/ErickFernandez/status/1120138455688863744]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Unaamorcita/status/1120138555290996736]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Luvvie/status/1120138421589159936]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/BlogXilla/status/1120138564061335554]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/PhillyViniJimmy/status/1120138545061158912]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/kiteruns/status/1120147557466955776]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/talkhoops/status/1120152052301062144]]

And let's not forget when he tried to win her over by telling her why he's called Giantsbane...

(Don't worry, I'm keeping the spoilers in this article to a minimum. If you know, you know!)

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/themockingjess/status/1120140499803885569]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/PhantasmsFX/status/1120140460486426625]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/roundhoward/status/1120140512596582400]]

I will ship these two until I die. Or, as is usually the case in Game of Thrones, until one of them dies.

As the days draw ever nearer to the final season of Game of Thrones, fans of the series are practically biting their fingernails down to the bone in anticipation. This is it. The last hurrah. Eight years of pretty much the best TV show of all time is about to be over - and the trailer for it has just dropped.

Check it out:

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlR4PJn8b8I]]

There's obviously a lot to unpack here: Daenerys and Jon have gone full power couple and are leading an army together, Arya seems to be taking a very important role in taking down a particular bad guy, and Cersei - for once - looks like she might be feeling a little afraid.

But fans of the show weren't just looking out for hints about where the plot might lead in the upcoming season; they were also keeping their eyes peeled for characters we perhaps weren't expecting to see. And there was one figure who stood out more than any other: Tormund Giantsbane.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: HBO]]

If you cast your minds back to the end of the seventh season, you'll remember that the last we saw of our red-bearded buddy was him running away from a giant undead dragon. Needless to say, his odds of survival didn't seem all that high. However, now that we know he made it out of that situation, at least, there are hopes that he'll go on to fight some more throughout the season - and perhaps even woo the fair lady Brienne of Tarth at the end of it.

Oh, and Twitter seems pretty excited about it.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Henny_Gawd/status/1102968793276604416]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iHateYouAllxox/status/1102967610797408256]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/JohnDalyFTW/status/1102969522313666560]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/jodibwithoutane/status/1102970511087321094]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/fanirubiani/status/1102970092097294338]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/willnpegme/status/1102970712887885825]]

Unfortunately, the millisecond of footage we have of him doesn't really give away any clues about how long he'll be sticking around for series eight. If anyone can pull through and survive the endless battles, though, it has to be Tormund. Who knows, at this rate, he might even end up on the throne.

Throughout the Game of Thrones series, we've seen literally hundreds of characters come and go - and hundreds more die.

There were the major players such as - spoiler alert! - Joffrey Baratheon and Eddard Stark, the medium hitters such as Marjorie Tyrell and Oberyn Martell, and the little guys, like Dickon Tarly and Lancel Lannister (and if you're saying "who?" right now, don't worry - we feel the same).

With all that going on, then, it's pretty easy to forget which characters are still alive and kicking but laying low off-screen, and which ones are actually dead and gone.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: HBO]]

But cast your minds back to season one, when the Stark family were still all together and everything seemed fairly ok in Westeros. In the very first episode, Eddard Stark finds six direwolf pups that have just been orphaned, and - as chance would have it - he also has six children who all seem keen on adopting a dog.

After a little convincing, Ned agrees to let his children keep the pups - and that turns out to be a very good decision later on.

Unfortunately, the direwolves have thus far fared even worse than the Stark kids themselves, with only two of the original six still alive.

But hold on a second, we haven't seen a direwolf on the show for ages - so whose pup is still part of the story?

Lady was obviously the first wolf to meet her end in season one, quickly followed by Grey Wind at the red wedding. Shaggydog bit the dust a little later on, and Summer went to the great doggy heaven in the sky after accompanying Bran beyond the wall.

This leaves just two wolves: Nymeria, Arya's wolf, who did show up recently (albeit briefly), and Ghost, who was strangely absent for all of the last series.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: HBO]]

According to Game of Thrones' VFX supervisor, Joe Bauer, Ghost is set to make a return in the final season - and it sounds like he might have a fairly important role to play.

"Oh, you’ll see him again. He has a fair amount of screen time in season eight," Bauer said in an interview with Huffington Post. "He does show up."

It turns out the pure white direwolf was actually meant to be in season seven, but the scene never made it to the final cut. Plus, as the wolves are difficult to create realistically onscreen, they require quite a lot of effort in filming.

"The direwolves are tough because you don’t want to get them wrong, so we end up always shooting real wolves and doing a scaling trick with them, but the real wolves only behave in certain ways," Bauer explained.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: HBO]]

Nevertheless, we can now rest assured that John's four-legged companion is coming back next year - and that he might be instrumental in the show's plot

"Ghost does show up, and he does some ... he’s very present and does some pretty cool things in Season 8," Bauer teased.

Only seven more months to wait!

With such an enormous cast amassed over seven seasons, Game of Thrones has given us an insane number of memorable faces. But who has truly stood out amongst the pack, and defined the show through their witty dialogue, genius schemes, and deep personalities, time and time again? That's what we're here to decide. With no further ado, the ten best characters in the show, ranked.

10.  Ned Stark

The strong-hearted 'good man' drawn into the blood and deceit of the southern capital, Ned Stark was a hero who was never afraid to give up his own life. He valued honor and truth above power, and though it led him to his death, it created a legacy so powerful that the entire North seceded from the Seven Kingdoms and followed his son into war over his untimely death. Other leaders may have been more effective, but Ned was the most authentic of them all. "The North Remembers".

9. The Hound

The scarred, ugly, curing monster of a man demonstrated his soft side with Sansa and Arya Stark. A man who admitted that he lived a miserable life, Sandor Clegane went on a four-season path to redemption, before dying against Brienne of Tarth in the series' best sword fight, and coming back to life to fight with the Lord of Light. Still, in the first four seasons alone, he established himself as a complex character who hated his brother, hated himself and his life, and still managed to save Sansa Stark and train Arya Stark to surpass him. He was a mentor and a hero despite his miserable beginnings as a tool of the crown.

8. Jamie Lannister

Going from an incestuous pretty boy who crippled children to a pitiful one-armed man in contemplation of a past he can't forgive himself for, Jamie Lannister has undergone a feat of storytelling to become sympathetic character. Defying his sister and setting his aim on saving Westeros from the White Walkers, this Lannister went from a one-dimensional scumbag to a front-line fighter in the war the Starks always saw coming.

7. Robb Stark

The story arc of the short-lived boy king was an exercise in Game of Thrones' most subtle and detailed writing. Making error after error due to his youth, lust and unwillingness to hear out his allies, a great strategist ends up slaughtered, the hero of the show following in his father's footsteps in the most tragic outcome possible. But he did it all to himself. And that makes his story one of the most well-written in all of Thrones.

6. Stannis Baratheon

Though his story was a bit butchered in the show, "the king who cared" was a severe example of a man who keeps his word at any cost. He had some of the most memorable lines, correcting Davos's grammar, declaring that "hard truths cut both ways" and declaring that he will only move forward, never backward. Stannis was sheer force of will, and his tragic background combined with his ruthless attitude make him a compelling stone-cold military leader, who still remembers the Starks and seeks to set Westeros right from the treachery of the Lannisters and the Boltons alike.

5. Cersei Lannister

She's been pure evil from start to finish, but she's outlived her father and surpassed all other characters to seize the Iron Throne. What can be said of Cersei? She is the villain Westeros deserves, a true sociopath, someone who cannot be reasoned with, and who always gets her way.

4. Joffrey Baratheon

As despicable as he was, for a span of time, Joffrey made the show what it was. His spats with his uncle Tyrion rank among the greatest moments of the show, and the miserable injustice of this evil inbred brat killing Ned Stark, then gleefully parading over the death of Robb and Catelyn Stark, makes him a symbol of the show's essence - that the world is not just, and that all men must die, even the monsters.

3. Tywin Lannister

Tywin Lannister was an incredibly compelling case study into the mind of a grandmaster, somebody who saw the whole world and its politics and made himself a master of it all. He was a manipulative, cruel monster, but he always felt believable. He was the modern statesmen in all his immorality, decisiveness, and chilling efficiency. Charles Dance was also one of the finest actors on the whole show.

2. Davos Seaworth

Oh, yes. I know what you're thinking - how could Davos rank so high? Well, Davos Seaworth, one of the only lowborn on the entire show, is an honest broker who gets along well with children, advises the best leaders in the world, can talk himself out of any situation, has a sense of humor, a sense of loyalty, the inner strength to always summon a brilliant speech, and is a ride-or-die badass who wants what's best for the Seven Kingdoms. The scene where Davos stands up for Stannis at the Iron Bank is one of the best in the series. The man is passionate, smart, and can make a damn good case. He's an honest genius in a world of connivers. Ned Stark would like him very, very well.

1. Tyrion Lannister

Who else could occupy the top spot on this list? Whether he's arguing with his sister, hanging out with Bronn, plotting in King's Landing, defending his life at his trial, being tortured by Joffrey or drinking and roasting the small council, when it came to Thrones' best character scenes, best witty dialogue, best humor and its most emotional plotlines, Tyrion Lannister was always to be found. He is an icon. "I drink and I know things." That, in essence, is the spirit of the schemer in the great Game of Thrones.

So there you have it, the ten best characters on Game of Thrones, according to this one writer, at least. For more Game of Thrones, check out this piece about some faulty writing in the last season of the show.