Love the final season of Game of Thrones or hate the final season of Game of Thrones – and we’re not going to relitigate that right now – we can all agree: Gwendoline Christie turned in one of the series’ best performances.

As Brienne of Tarth, who became Ser Brienne of Tarth and, later, head of the Kingsguard, Christie brought her character to life in a series of moving scenes. There were her tender love scenes with Jaime Lannister and, later, his brutal exit. There was her fearless expertise on the battlefield. There was her moment, in the season finale, to rewrite history and put pen to paper on the subject of the true heart of the man she loves.

But Christie’s best scene came early in the season in episode two. In ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’, Brienne kneels before Jaime in a truly moving moment before the Battle of Winterfell. There, in front of an assembled group of men – Game of Thrones gonna Game of Thrones, after all – Brienne is given the one thing that she has always wanted, and yet never voiced out loud for fear of rejection.

Gwendoline Christie just got that much closer to winning an Emmy for Game of Thrones