Game of Thrones fans are freaking out over Sunday night’s episode

SPOILERS AHEAD

On Sunday night, the third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones aired and, as expected, it was a memorable one.

In the episode, titled The Long Night, the Night King and his army of white walkers storm Winterfell for a dusk-till-dawn battle against the Starks, the Targaryens and their allies. And as many fans speculated, the clash ended with several casualties.

One more time – if you haven’t seen the episode and you’re still reading, you want to stop here because there are serious spoilers ahead.

It’s a well-known fact that the writers of the HBO series aren’t afraid to kill off important characters, so there was absolutely no reason to believe that they wouldn’t do it halfway through the final season.

Last night the long-awaited Battle of Winterfell took the lives of seven characters – including the Night King himself and two originals that have been around since season one – so it’s safe to say fans had a lot to discuss.

Theon Greyjoy, who returned to Winterfell this season to fight for the Starks, died guarding Bran as the Night Knight ran a spike through him. Meanwhile, fan favourite Jorah Mormont spent the entire episode fighting by Daenerys' side, but succumbed to his wounds at the end of the battle.

'Ok but Drogon mourning Jorah’s death with Daenerys was probably one of the most heartbreaking scenes,' one fan wrote in response.

Somewhere in between these fatalities, a giant crushed Lyanna Mormont to death (so now the House of Mormont is officially extinct), and Melisandre made a reappearance to light the Dothraki’s swords, but later took her own life by removing her necklace.

'Shoutout to this boss ass bitch Melisandre who increased this episode's lighting so we could see some shit too and gave Arya the pep talk before she slayed the night king,' another fan joked. The lighting is an issue many other viewers seem to agree on (making for some hilarious memes).

While we're still mourning the death of some of our favourite characters and bracing ourselves for the final three episodes, thank god there's Twitter to help us see the light in this darkness (pun intended) and prepare for episode four.

Game of Thrones continues on Sunday.