This article contains spoilers for Game of ThronesGame of Thrones became known for many things: dragons, rich in world history, and surprisingly heartbreaking deaths that made us understand that in this world, nobody was safe, as the night was dark and full of terrors. Obviously, spoilers follow, as we remember the most heartbreaking deaths in the franchise, ranked.
9 Tommen Baratheon
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Tommen Baratheon (Dean-Charles Chapman) was collateral damage from the fight between his mother, Cersei (Lena Headey) and his wife, Margaery (Natalie Dormer). He was a sweet, young boy, who liked cats and had just fallen in love, and he was only in power because his two other siblings had already been killed. When his mother kills his wife (and many more), blowing up the Sept of Baelor, he understands what just happened and decides to, nonchalantly, jump out of a window. It’s a sad death for a sweet kid, that proved that in the Seven Kingdoms, nobody can be happy for long.
8 Khal Drogo
Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) started the show as a barbarian fighter, with old-fashioned ideas about women and marriage. His relationship with Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) changed that, and he became a loving husband and future father. That’s why it’s so sad when he died after a simple wound got infected, and a witch poisoned the wound while “cleaning it”. Daenerys did the merciful thing and smothered him with a pillow, as he had become a vegetative state person.
7 Jon Snow
Being betrayed by your men and getting stabbed multiple times is a horrible way to go. That’s what happened to Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) in one of the most surprising deaths on the show. After he had become the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon decided to change some of the organization’s ways, and those new ideas didn’t sit well with his underlings, so they betrayed him. Thankfully for Jon, he still had a big role to play in the upcoming seasons, so he was resurrected, making him the only death that didn’t stick on the show.
6 Oberyn Martell
There’s nothing sadder than a last-second death, when everything was going great for the hero. That’s what happened to Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) in his fight with the Mountain (Hafbór Júlíus Björnsson). Martell was as cocky as he was good with his spear, so he started celebrating even before his trial by combat with the Mountain was finished, asking for admittance of guilt concerning the sexual assault and murder of his sister by the Mountain, before killing him. It was his last act, and his biggest mistake, as Clegane not only killed him, but he did it with his bare hands, while crushing his skull. Martell was one of the best LGBTQ characters on the show, and Pascal’s performance was so magnetic and charismatic, that his career picked up enormously after the show, appearing in many movies and becoming the lead actor in The Mandalorian.
5 Daenerys Targaryen
What looked like the hero’s journey for Daenery to get the Iron Throne ended in tragedy, as she lost herself in the destruction and death of King’s Landing. Her arc is the most tragic in the whole show, and although Jon killing her was necessary, her death is still heartbreaking, as she was one of our heroes for most of Game of Thrones. We don’t believe the 8th season was that bad, but her Mad Queen arc felt a little rushed.
4 Shireen Baratheon
Shireen Baratheon (Kerry Ingram) was a sweet kid, who taught people how to read, was full of empathy, and had no evil in her heart. That’s why it was so sad that her father, Stannis (Stephan Dillane), let Melisandre (Carice van Houten) burn her at the stake, as Shireen’s sacrifice was supposed to confirm Stannis’ rise to the Iron Throne. This tragic death was the most avoidable of all, as it didn’t help Stannis get his objective. It was just a stupid, faith-following kill. One of the saddest of the whole show.
3 The Red Wedding Deaths
The Red Wedding was one of the most surprising, dramatic, and chill-inducing moments of the whole series, as the Freys killed Robb Stark (Richard Madden), his pregnant fiancée, Talisa (Oona Chaplin), his mother, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), and all his allies, decimating the Stark forces enormously. Although Robb might have brought this treason on himself for breaking a marriage pact for love, these killings changed the lives of all the characters on the show, and it reverberated till the very end, more than five seasons later, when the still-living Starks were protagonists with how the show ended. Richard Madden and the rest of the Stark family have kept working steadily since then.
2 Ned Stark
Ned Stark’s (Sean Bean) death was the first one we couldn’t believe. It was our lead character, and they decided to kill him. His beheading was as surprising as it was sad. Back then, the show still hadn’t killed any major players, so this death told its viewers that no one was safe. In a world where power triumphed over everything, his honor was what killed him, while leaving behind his whole family, especially his two young daughters, who saw how his father was killed.
About his acting during his death scene, Sean Bean told Entertainment Weekly: “It was horror and disbelief — that Joffrey changed his mind [about exiling Ned] — and then resignation and [realizing that he was] seeing his daughter for the last time, Arya.”
1 Hodor
Hodor’s (Kristian Nairn) death was the most heartbreaking in Game of Thrones, something that would’ve sounded crazy after the first handful of episodes. The gentile giant’s death was sad, but was also revealing, as we understood that Hodor, was an abbreviation of “Hold the door”, and that his whole existence was already decided by a moment in the future, where he would become a hero protecting his best friend, Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright). It’s as sad as it is poetic, making what looked like a one-note character into one of the most important heroes in the show, as he probably knew all along that this was his destiny, and still decided to go along to help his adopted family.
Kristian Nairn told DigitalSpy about the role that would change his life: “I was a first-time actor. I was glad I didn’t know anything about the show at the time because if I had I would’ve realized what a huge audition I was going for. I had no idea what Game of Thrones was.
