11 ‘Game of Thrones’ Deaths We Still Haven’t Forgiven the Writers For (PHOTOS)
Ned Stark
Sean Bean dies in everything, but we didn’t expect Ned Stark to get killed off so early in the series, getting the chop (literally) at the end of Season 1. The noble Warden of the North and patriarch of the Stark family was beheaded on King Joffrey’s orders (which is one of the many reasons Joffrey does not appear on this list).
Rickon Stark
Rickon (Art Parkinson), we hardly knew ye. The youngest Stark child died in Season 6 in the minutes before the Battle of the Bastards. The vile Ramsay Bolton frees Rickon and instructs him to run to Jon Snow on the other side of the battlefield. Rickon does so, but Ramsay shoots him with an arrow. Poor Rickon. He shoulda zig-zagged.
Catelyn Stark
Only on a show as morally murky as Game of Thrones would we mourn a woman who slit the throat of an innocent bride of Walder Frey just before she, too, had her throat slit. But Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) was a compelling character, and we wished she could have survived Season 3’s Red Wedding.
Robb Stark
Robb (Richard Madden), the eldest child of the Starks, was another Red Wedding victim, shot by arrows and then stabbed in the chest by Roose Bolton. He was an early favorite in the War of the Five Kings and probably would have done well on the Iron Throne, but alas…
Talisa Stark
The first victim of the Red Wedding was also the most innocent: Talisa Stark (Oona Chaplin). Lothar Frey stabbed her in the belly, which meant that he also killed her unborn child. Seriously messed up.
Tommen Baratheon
The young King Tommen was doomed from the moment he inherited the Iron Throne from older brother Joffrey: He was just too kind to survive the cutthroat political world of Westeros. After mama Cersei blew up the Great Sept and killed his wife, Margaery, and hundreds of others, a distraught Tommen threw himself from his bedroom window.
Myrcella Baratheon
Another innocent child of Cersei, Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) died in Season 5 in front of Jaime Lannister — whom she’d recently figured out was her father — after she’d been poisoned by Ellaria Sand in revenge for Oberyn Martell’s death.
Hodor
Hodor hodor hodor (hodor hodor) hodor, hodor: Hodor hodor…. hodor. Translation: The heroic Stark servant Hodor (Kristian Nairn) died holding the door so that Bran Stark and Meera Reed could escape the wights that had invaded the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven in Season 6. Rest now, ye noble Hodor.
Shireen Baratheon
In case you’d forgotten why Ser Davos had such a grudge against Melisandre, it’s because Mel convinced Stannis Baratheon to burn his sweet, greyscale-afflicted daughter, Shireen (Kerry Ingram), at the stake in Season 5 as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light (who apparently missed the memo because Stannis’s army got wiped out).
Ygritte
You know nothing, Olly! Not only did that Night’s Watch twerp try to kill Jon Snow in Season 5, but he also killed his beloved Ygritte with an arrow a season earlier, clearly not seeing the romantic reunion that was taking place between the two! Don’t worry, though: Rose Leslie and Kit Harington are married in real life.
Lady
The Game of Thrones writers really did us dirty in Season 1 when they killed off Sansa’s direwolf. Ned Stark kills Lady to appease a vengeful Cersei after Arya’s direwolf bites Joffrey to defend Arya and then runs off. At least Ned was the one who swung the sword, which means Lady probably didn’t suffer, but still. Eight years later, this one still stings.
A few of Game of Thrones‘ most significant supporting characters met their maker in Season 8’s “The Long Night,” but none of those deaths rank as the most heartbreaking — not in our books, at least.
While we try to get our heart rate back to normal after that adrenaline-charged episode — and while we brace for more bloodshed in the last three episodes of the HBO hit — we’re listing the Game of Thrones deaths that hit us the hardest right here.
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