The series opens with a Night's Watch ranging party getting brutally slaughtered by the White Walkers. The colors beyond the Wall are wintry, with grays and blues taking up most of the screen.
Some green landscape provides a brief respite from the dreariness, but it's laced with gore when Eddard Stark executes a man who deserted the Night's Watch.
Warm desert tones dominate the color spectrum for scenes in Pentos, where Viserys Targaryen, son of the ousted Targaryen king, and his sister Daenerys live after fleeing Westeros.
Scenes at Winterfell may be dark and gray, but the insufferable Prince Joffrey Baratheon getting slapped by his uncle Tyrion Lannister at least provides some figurative brightness.
Eddard Stark reaches King's Landing and meets the small council, which he now heads as the new Hand of the King. Interior shots in King's Landing are warm but dark.
You can almost feel the cold at Castle Black, where Ned Stark's bastard son, Jon Snow, joins other recruits to take the black and become men of the Night's Watch.
You don't see much of Winterfell in this episode, which switches between King's Landing and the city of Vaes Dothrak. The gray areas on either side of this section of the spectrum are scenes from the Wall.
The colors belie the dark content at the tournament organized in honor of Eddard's appointment as Hand of the King. At this tournament, Ser Gregor Clegane, known as the Mountain, establishes his ruthlessness and savagery.
The colors from the joust in the last episode carry over as the Mountain clashes with his brother, Ser Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound. There's more going on between the brothers than mere sibling rivalry, and fans have long been predicting a face-off between these two.
You can barely tell the difference between the road to the Vale and Winterfell. The first half of this gray section is scenes of Catelyn Stark and her guards taking their prisoner Tyrion to the Vale. The second half is scenes of Bran and Maester Luwin at Winterfell.
Tyrion is held prisoner in a sky cell in the Eyrie. Scenes from the sky cell, which is open to the outside on one side, are well-lit in parts, but the dark shadow and lack of saturation keep it gray.
Jon and a fellow recruit, Sam Tarley, take their Night's Watch oath in front of a heart tree. The colors here call back to the opening scene of the series.
In contrast to the Lannister red, the Stark army lives in a gray world. But on the bright side, Robb Stark proves to be an excellent military tactician and ends up capturing Jaime Lannister.
In this episode, terrible things happen when the spectrum turns bright, like the scene where Joffrey makes Ned's daughter Sansa look at her father's severed head mounted on a spike.
Daenerys walks into Drogo's funeral pyre in this bright streak. But the story takes a turn when the colors go muted and dragons are born from the ashes.
This series premiere is a tour of where things stand after the first season, starting with King's Landing. There's a marked difference in brightness between scenes outdoors, where Joffrey's nameday celebration takes place, and the scenes indoors, where Tyrion presides over the small council in his new role as Hand of the King.
After visiting the grays of Winterfell, the episode moves to the desert tones of the Red Waste, where Daenerys and her khalasar are battling the heat and exhaustion.
Reds hold strong in scenes from Dragonstone, ruled by Stannis Baratheon, which provides nice contrast with the scenes from beyond the Wall that precede it.
Harrenhal, where Arya and her friends are kept prisoner, is rendered in dark blues and grays. The only splash of warmth comes from the occasional glimpse of Lannister red.
The snowy scenes from beyond the Wall stand out sandwiched between darker scenes from Harrenhal and scenes from King's Landing, where Tyrion discovers a huge cache of wildfire.
This is the darkest episode in the series so far. The Battle of Blackwater Bay, which pits Stannis's army against Lannister forces, is fought entirely at night. The only bright streak comes from the blaze of wildfire.
The dragons put their fire-spitting skills to the test inside the House of the Undying, and things get momentarily brighter. But it's nothing compared to the blazes these beasts will produce in the future.
The signature colors of beyond the wall are back at the Fist of the First Men, where Jon and the Free Folk come across horse carcasses arranged in a spiral pattern
The Hound takes Arya to the Vale with plans to ransom her to her aunt. As they pick their way through the Riverlands, they stop at a tavern that is almost as dark as Castle Black.
The Bolton castle Dreadfort is dark, much like the rest of the North. Roose Bolton tells off Ramsay for torturing Theon Greyjoy, whom Roose sees as a high-value captive he could trade with the Ironborn in exchange for passage through Moat Cailin.
Joffrey and Margaery's wedding scenes take up a large part of this episode. The colors are bright and cheerful, with orange and gold offset by bright greens. At the wedding, Joffrey dies after drinking poisoned wine poured by Tyrion.
In these red-hued scenes from Littlefinger's establishment, Tywin interrupts Oberyn to offer him a position on the small council in exchange for being a judge when Tyrion stands trial for killing Joffrey.
The third location is Craster's Keep under the control of the mutineers. The mutineers abandon Craster's newborn son in the woods, where the Night King turns the baby into a White Walker.
This episode is dedicated to the battle at the Wall where the men of the Night's Watch clash with the wildlings led by Mance Rayder. The battle is fought in the dark, with only a blaze of fire illuminating scenes briefly.
Meereen has also gone to muted colors as Dany realizes that Drogon, who has gone missing, has killed a girl. She chains her other two dragons in the dungeons.
In Braavos, there is extreme contrast between the outdoors and inside the House of Black and White. The outer bands of the spectrum are scenes indoors, and the bright center is when Arya is outside.
With Drogon out of the picture, Dany's other two dragons, Viserion and Rhaegal, get to show off some fire skills when Dany has a leader of Meereen burned.
A faint orange streak can be seen in the spectrum where Drogon comes to Dany's rescue when the Sons of the Harpy attack her in the fighting pits of Meereen.
The tone remains blue for both night and day on the Iron Islands. The darker section of spectrum is when Balon Greyjoy gets thrown off the bridge. His funeral follows in the morning, where the colors are brighter.
The blue-gray sections in the episode are scenes from the Battle of the Bastards, where the armies of Ramsay Bolton and Jon Snow fight. Jon's army defeats the Boltons with help from the Knights of the Vale.
After cold and dark Winterfell scenes, King's Landing scenes bring in warmer tones. Cersei, who is now the queen, is preparing to face enemies on all sides.
A Greyjoy fleet of ships set ablaze makes these warm tones. Euron intercepts Yara's fleet carrying the Dornish and takes them prisoner as Theon jumps ship to save himself.
After suffering multiple setbacks, Daenerys decides to ignore Tyrion's counsel and unleash Drogon on the Lannister army. Nothing like dragon pyrotechnics to send the color heat soaring.
The intensity of dragon fire is matched by the coldness of the scenes from beyond the Wall. Bran wargs into a raven and sees the Night King and his army of White Walkers marching toward the Wall.
The season seven finale, for nearly half its length, lingers in King's Landing, where many of the series' main characters gather. Scenes are dominated by warm browns and beiges, with Lannister red highlights.