Whilst some Game of Thrones deaths have been upsetting or shocking, these deaths in particular forever changed the fate of Westeros.
Highlights
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The death of Jon Arryn sets off a chain of events that leads to the chaos and mistrust between major houses in
Game of Thrones
, with major consequences for the political landscape. - The Red Wedding, a brutal massacre of the Starks and Tullys, severely damages the noble house and scatters the surviving Stark siblings.
- Daenerys Targaryen’s transformation from a breaker of chains to a ruthless ruler culminates in her slaughter of innocent citizens in King’s Landing, evoking her family’s history of Targaryen Madness.
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With HBO’s House of the Dragon detailing the Dance of the Dragons that led to the eventual decline of House Targaryen, fans of the Seven Kingdoms may want to give Game of Thrones a rewatch to see just how the HBO prequel’s events affected the franchise’s main storyline. As Daenerys and her brother Viserys become the last known Targaryens at the beginning of Game of Thrones, their story becomes just one of many lives whose interactions become drastically altered as the people around them play the eponymous political game. Unfortunately for these characters, Cersei Lannister’s infamous quote will hold true for a majority of the Games of Thrones cast: “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.“
Related Game of Thrones: Sothoryos, Explained Fans may know everything about Westeros and a few things about Essos, but the Known World hides a third continent of untamed jungles and monsters.
In the eight seasons of Game of Thrones, many of its main characters experience drastic evolutions as the horrors of war force them into maturity. However, while the deaths of their many friends and relatives become tragic encounters, perhaps more crucial are the specific deaths that changed the very nature of the political landscape around them. Across the Game of Thrones franchise, whose deaths have affected the story the most?
10 Jon Arryn
The Death That Started It All
As Seen In | “Winter is Coming” (Season 1, Episode 1) |
|---|---|
Cause | Poisoned by Lysa Arryn and Littlefinger, and blamed the Lannisters for it |
It’s the sudden death of Jon Arryn that spirals Westeros into its eventual state of chaos, with his absence as the Hand of the King leaving Westeros with a wide enough power vacuum for many players to act. As Jon’s wife Lysa warns the Starks of the Lannisters being the cause of the Hand’s death, Game of Thrones begins with these two major houses already mistrusting each other. When Ned Stark discovers Robert’s son Joffrey Baratheon is a product of Lannister incest, he is executed for treason before he can even speak the truth.
The series eventually reveals the death of Jon Arryn as an assassination by Lord Petyr Baelish to further his political agenda. By then, much of the series’ more horrific events have taken place: major houses are fighting in the War of the Five Kings, a madman is on the throne in the form of King Joffrey, and the Red Wedding has killed a majority of the Starks.
9 Khal Drogo
A Dragon Rises From His Ashes
As Seen In | “Fire and Blood” (Season 1, Episode 10) |
|---|---|
Cause | Daenerys smothers him with a pillow after a blade wound festers and leaves him in a vegetative state |
After Kingslayer Jamie Lannister kills the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen during Robert’s Rebellion, Game of Thrones begins with sibling survivors Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen old enough to reclaim their rightful throne. Their plans begin when Viserys weds Daenerys to Khal Drogo in the hopes that his powerful Dothraki army will cross the Narrow Sea and wage war with the Seven Kingdoms. Unfortunately for the siblings, a chain of events will change their destinies forever: Khal Drogo kills Viserys for insulting Daenerys, Khal Drogo is poisoned in combat, Daenerys gives birth to a stillborn, and she smothers a vegetative Drogo to end his suffering.
However, when Daenerys asks to be burnt with her dragon egg stones alongside Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre, she resurfaces unscathed with newly-hatched dragons with her. This upends the trope of a returning heir with their own army, as the loss of Drogo and a foreign wife made many of the Khal’s former retainers leave. Whereas Westeros had much of its existing powers bickering, Daenerys spent much of the seasons building her own powerbase in Essos before her eventual arrival in Westeros as a viable threat.
8 The Red Wedding
The Starks Downfall Is A Travesty To Sacred Laws
As Seen In | “The Rains of Castamere” (Season 3, Episode 9) |
|---|---|
Cause | Massacred by House Frey and House Bolton after welcoming the unknowing Starks and Tullys in the Twins |
When King Robb Stark reneges on his promise to marry Lord Walder Frey’s daughter after marrying Talisa Stark, the Frey patriarch demands his uncle Edmure Tully to marry one of Frey’s daughters instead. Although Robb Stark and his mother Catelyn are hesitant to attend the ceremony, Walder Frey assures them of their safety under guest rights. It’s only when the Rains of Castamere plays and Catelyn notices the Freys and Boltons are in full armor that she realizes the trap they were put in. Known infamously as the Red Wedding, this event was a full massacre of the Starks and the Tullys.
Related Game of Thrones: The Shadow Lands, Explained This far-east region of Essos is home to some of the most mysterious, magical, and macabre secrets of the Known World.
None thought Walder Frey would stoop so low as to violate the sacred guest right in The Red Wedding. This Stark absence leads to the Boltons taking over the North, and the remainder of the Stark siblings scattered in different circumstances. While survivors Jon Snow, Arya Stark, and Sansa Stark would get different avenues of revenge, this act single-handedly decimated the otherwise-noble house simply out of the politicking of other houses.
7 The Purple Wedding
An Assassinated King Leads To A Domino Effect Of Bad News
As Seen In | “The Lion and the Rose” (Season 4, Episode 2) |
|---|---|
Cause | Poisoned wine, courtesy of Ollena Tyrell |
Among the Game of Thrones weddings that took place during the War of Five Kings that shaped the future of Westeros politics, none was as satisfying as the Purple Wedding. Occurring during the wedding feast of Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister, a drunken King Joffrey’s tirades in an attempt to shame his uncle only resulted in more displays of his erratic behavior. Tension rises when Joffrey experiences difficulty breathing after asking Tyrion to pour wine into his cup. In the next minutes, Joffrey exhibits suffocation, convulsions, and blood loss to the point that his face becomes purple. Joffrey points an accusatory finger at his uncle Tyrion before he dies.
While satisfying to watch for fans, Joffrey’s death resulted in a domino effect on the families inside King’s Landing. After Tyrion’s arrest, he and Sansa are aided in separate escape attempts. The former goes to Essos and eventually becomes the Hand of the growing Targaryen power. Meanwhile, the latter heads to the Vale with Littlefinger. The remaining Lannisters conduct a secret war with the Tyrells, with Joffrey’s weaker-willed successor King Tommen central to their tug of war.
6 Hodor
Revealed The Dangerous Extent Of A Greenseer’s Powers
As Seen In | “The Door” (Season 5, Episode 6) |
|---|---|
Cause | Bran orders Hodor to “hold the door,” mentally breaking him in the past as his present self is torn down by White Walkers |
Originally a part of the servants in the Stark household, the gentle Hodor becomes one of the trusted protectors of Bran Stark when he is taken out of a besieged Winterfell and brought to the Three-Eyed Raven. When an unexpected encounter with the Night King had revealed their location, a sudden attack from the Three-Eyed Raven’s cursed nemesis sent Bran’s group into panic mode, with their deaths potentially apparent had it not been for Hodor who bravely held the door and sacrificed his life while Bran and the others made their escape.
It’s in this scene that fans are shocked at the extent of Bran’s warging abilities. When Hodor heroically holds the back exit to help Bran and Meera escape, Bran accidentally wargs into Wylis in the past. The shock of Bran witnessing Hodor’s death while being warged had shattered the mind of his past self, prompting Wylis to simply say “Hodor.” Not only did this death retroactively break Hodor’s mind in the past, but this had fully begun Bran’s ascension from a mere mortal into… whatever being the greenseer Three-Eyed Raven was.
5 Tommen Baratheon
Celebration Of Claiming Kings Landing Has Cercei Lose Her Last Child
As Seen In | “The Winds of Winter” (Season 6, Episode 10) |
|---|---|
Cause | Jumps out the window of the Red Keep |
When Cersei witnesses the seething greens of wildfire roar as it engulfs the Great Sept of Baelor, she drinks to a satisfying finish of the Tyrells and their supposed influential allies in the Faith Militant. Their power to sway public opinion no longer held any relevance if they were dead, and the fact that her son’s snake of a wife Margaery Tyrell was there became the icing on the cake. Seeing the same view of the destroyed Sept was King Tommen who, when he realized what his mother had just done to his beloved wife, decided to join her from a few dozen stories high.
Up until this point, Cersei has had the time of her life to enact her revenge. On top of destroying the Great Sept, she forces Elliara Sand to watch her daughter Tyene die of the same poison she used on Myrcella. After killing Pycelle, no one can question her reign through Tommen. Unfortunately, Tommen’s suicide was never in her plans. At the end of the day, Cersei has proven her father Tywin wrong: she can rule. But she would rule only after a brother had killed their father, his twin lover witnessed the death of their daughter, his eldest son poisoned, and now his youngest had taken his own life.
4 Daenerys Targaryen
The Last Targaryen Evokes Madness Upon Westeros
As Seen In | “The Iron Throne” (Season 8, Episode 6) |
|---|---|
Cause | Stabbed by Jon Snow |
Fans of Daenerys Targaryen would find delight in how her successes in Essos allowed her to go to Westeros on her own terms, with her harsh experiences serving as lessons to facilitate a firm but just rule as the Breaker of Chains. As such, to see her relatively peaceful victory in King’s Landing end up in her slaughtering its citizens in a fit of Targaryen Madness was a contested feat among many fans. In turn, the series finale featuring her lover and nephew Jon Snow eventually killing her felt anticlimactic to her character development.
Related Game of Thrones: Trial by Seven, Explained Game of Thrones’ reckless indifference to human life is demonstrated once more through the knightly combat known as trial by seven.
After her death, Jon is exiled Beyond the Wall as punishment for the assassination, while Bran the Broken becomes the victor of the Game of Thrones. Of particular note is his new Small Council, which fans think may have been poorly assigned. While Tyrion Lannister remains the Hand, some think Master of Ships Davos Seaworth may be a more competent Hand of the King. Assigning Bronn of the Blackwater as Master of Coin may be a bad idea due to his lack of experience, and Samwell Tarly as Grand Maester has yet to fully complete his studies.
3 Eddard Stark
The Death Of Honor In The Red Keep
As Seen In | “Baelor” (Season 1, Episode 9) |
|---|---|
Cause | Beheading by Ser Ilyn Payne |
Among the political masterminds in Game of Thrones, Lord Eddard Stark remained a figure of honor that unfortunately for him was not enough to save his life. After his appointment as the new Hand to King Robert Baratheon, events would lead to the discovery that Robert’s children and heirs were in fact products of Queen Cersei Lannister’s incest with her brother Jamie. In his attempt to reveal this, the Lannisters imprison and eventually execute the Stark patriarch for treason.
Such a major character death was one of the series’ earliest shockers that initially added fuel to the fire that were memes of Sean Bean’s characters always dying. In the series, the loss of the Stark patriarch was a reality check that virtues such as honor and integrity held no sway in the war for power. Not only that, Ned’s death catapulted the further separation of his children, and the Starks eventually lost the North due to the presence of functioning heirs.
2 The Massacre Of King’s Landing
Innocent Lives Lost In King’s Landing
As Seen In | “The Bells” (Season 8, Episode 5) |
|---|---|
Cause | Daenerys succumbs to Targaryen Madness, ordering Drogon to rampage in a surrendering city |
After King’s Landing makes a quick surrender to Daenerys’ forces, the Dragon Queen looks at the Red Keep with rage building in her eyes. As though implying that the easy victory came at an unfair cost of years of betrayal and hurt in her family, the Targaryen Madness took over and Daenerys Targaryen rampaged atop Drogon, resulting in the Massacre of King’s Landing. In Tyrion’s words during the aftermath, combining the death count of both murderous Tywin and Cersei Lannister wouldn’t reach half of Daenerys’s slaughter.
This act in the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones became a highly-contested action among fans. While Daenerys succumbing to Targaryen Madness was already hinted at, the lack of a more visible build-up made it such an abrupt change of character – even bordering character assassination. Moreover, the rather quick deaths of some notorious characters during King’s Landing’s collapse were considered letdowns by fans.
1 The Night King
The White Walker Threat Extinguishes In Anti-Climactic Fashion
As Seen In | “The Long Night” (Season 8, Episode 3) |
|---|---|
Cause | Stabbed in the stomach with Littlefinger’s Dragonglass knife, courtesy of Arya Stark |
The Night King has become a recurring figure in Bran Stark’s visions throughout the series, revealed as not just the leader of the horrific White Walkers but also the first of their kind. Cursed by the Children of the Forest, the White Walkers were created as protectors of the sacred trees until the Night King and his forces defected to the Land of Always Winter. Things came ahead in Season 8 when the House Stark’s words “Winter is coming” came true, and the Night King’s forces attacked Winterfell.
In a display of heroism, a subdued Arya Stark outmaneuvered the Night King and stabbed him with Littlefinger’s Dragonglass dagger, destroying him and his army. Despite this display of cool, some felt Arya destroying the Night King was a letdown in the already-underwhelming one-episode event that was teased for the previous seven seasons. Some believe this also destroyed Jon Snow’s story arc, whose symbolic revival of fire implied he may be built to destroy the ice of the Night King. The death of the Night King also allowed for the Starks to march onward to claim King’s Landing.
Game of Thrones
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