This Tiny Detail Makes That Littlefinger Twist On 'Game Of Thrones' So Much More Satisfying

An hour and a half of action gives fans a lot to pore through already, but one moment from the Game of Thrones Season 7 finale needs revisiting. Sunday's episode featured the death of Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, and eagle-eyed fans might have noticed a lot of similarities between his end and another death in the series: Catelyn Stark's. Four seasons apart, both characters had their throats slit in the midst of large gatherings, making Littlefinger's death a fitting punishment for his devious deeds against the Starks.

The Northern matriarch was murdered at Season 3's Red Wedding, the union between her brother Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey which so infamously devolved into violence. She was lured there by the promise of a happy occasion, and was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that she had been welcomed to the Twins as a guest. Similarly, Littlefinger also thought he was attending an event that would bring him great joy.

He's a different sort of character than Catelyn Stark, however, so it wasn't a wedding that tricked him into leaving himself open, but something a bit more sinister: the "trial" of Arya Stark. He believed that he was in that drafty Winterfell hall as a mere observer, and was stunned to discover that the charges of murder and treason were being leveled at him, not at the youngest Stark daughter. (Sorry dude, you should've brought your own Three-Eyed Raven to the party. It's kind of hard to argue with the testimony of the all-seeing.)

The Starks were betrayed by the Boltons and the Freys working in tandem, but the climber of the ladder of chaos was outmatched by the Stark sisters. And they met their ends in the same way. Both had their throats slit in front of a crowd impassive to their pleadings, and both bled out alone and far from home.

The similarities between their deaths are particularly interesting because of the connection between the two characters. Catelyn Stark and Petyr Baelish grew up together, and the latter had a deep, unrequited love for the former. Littlefinger's love for his childhood friend — and later her eldest daughter — was the one constant in his life. Even though he repeatedly betrayed them, as Sansa Stark pointed out, Littlefinger was fixated on both women.

That gives a certain poetic justice to the fact that they died the same way. Littlefinger's meddling went unpunished for a long time, but ultimately the consequences of his actions were bound to catch up with him. So how fitting that he died in the same manner as his lost love, sentenced to die by her eldest daughter and executed by her youngest.