Game Of Thrones: How Every Main Character Dies In The Series

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If ever a show became notorious for its plethora of main cast deaths, it was HBO's "Game of Thrones." The massively popular, medium-redefining, and ultimately controversial blockbuster adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel series endeavored to tackle the epic high fantasy genre with the gritty rigor and unsparing realism of a real-life war story, and one of the ways it brought off that mission was by presenting a world in which no character — no matter how central, heroic, or seemingly indispensable — was truly safe.

On top of that rejection of plot armor (which some would argue the show struggled to maintain on its later seasons, as it moved beyond Martin's books and its protagonists became brand behemoths), "Game of Thrones" was also notable for the intensity of its kills, many of which have gone into the pantheon of the most brutal, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable character deaths in TV history. To put them all in perspective, here is a list of all the numerous primary characters who die on "Game of Thrones," along with summaries of the context and the way in which they bite the dust, in chronological order. Get ready for a lot of stabbings.

The entire plot of "Game of Thrones" hinges on the death of King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) in Season 1. While not strictly assassinated, Robert is certainly helped along to the finish line by the Lannisters: During a hunt in the Crownlands with his brother Renly (Gethin Anthony) and Ser Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney) on "A Golden Crown," Robert is continually supplied with more wine by his squire Lancel Lannister (Eugene Simon), way past the safe point for a hunt.

He is ultimately mauled by a boar, and spends the entire next episode, "You Win or You Die," agonizing in his deathbed. Shortly after naming Ned Stark (Sean Bean) regent and calling off the hit on Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), Robert finally succumbs to his wounds.

Poor, foolish Ned. After passing up multiple opportunities to defeat the Lannisters by cunning or force, the moral center and ostensible protagonist of "Game of Thrones" Season 1 seals his fate when he tries to get the City Watch of King's Landing to arrest Cersei (Lena Headey) and Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), naively believing that the piece of paper signed by Robert naming him Regent would be respected. Instead, the City Watch turns on Ned and arrests him.

During Episode 9, "Baelor," an imprisoned Ned is assured by Varys (Conleth Hill) that the Lannisters need him alive, and urged to confess to treason in order to be sentenced to exile in the Night's Watch. But, when Ned "confesses" at a public ceremony in the Great Sept of Baelor, Joffrey steps over his family's wishes and orders him executed; amid Cersei's protests, Sansa's (Sophie Turner) screams of terror, and the crowd's roars, Ned is beheaded with his own sword by Ser Ilyn Payne (Wilko Johnson).

The death of Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) begins on Season 1's eighth episode, "The Pointy End," when he sustains a mild shoulder wound during a duel with insubordinate rider Mago (Ivailo Dimitrov). Daenerys insists that the wound be tended to by enslaved maegi Mirri Maz Duur (Mia Soteriou), but it soon becomes badly infected, causing Drogo to collapse during a horse ride.

At Daenerys' urging, Maz Duur performs a blood ritual to save Drogo's life; the maegi sacrifices Drogo's horse and drains the lifeforce of Dany's unborn child, causing it to be born still with dragon skin and wings — and all it does is leave Drogo in a vegetative state. It becomes clear that Maz Duur sabotaged Drogo's healing in revenge for her village. In the season finale, "Fire and Blood," Daenerys herself smothers her husband with a pillow to end his suffering, and burns Maz Duur alive in his funeral pyre along with her dragon eggs.

A lot of suffering in Westeros might have been avoided if Renly Baratheon, the kindest, most levelheaded, and least bloodthirsty claimant to the throne in the War of the Five Kings, hadn't also been the first to kick it. Aided by his natural charisma, his strategic cunning, and his patience, Renly manages to snag himself the most comfortable position in the war. But, on "The Ghost of Harrenhal," the fifth episode of Season 2, the other shoe drops.

Pressured by Stannis (Stephen Dillane) to bend the knee, an overconfident Renly dismisses his brother's threats, unaware that Melisandre (Carice Van Houten, who was originally supposed to audition for another character) is about to give birth to a Shadow — a humanoid entity of darkness that can be entrusted with dangerous tasks. The Shadow infiltrates Renly's camp through underground caves, enters his tent in the form of a gust of wind, materializes behind him, and stabs Renly in the back before he's even had time to understand what's going on.

Jeor Mormont (James Cosmo), the 997th commander of the Night's Watch, dies during the brutal scuffle at Craster's Keep on "And Now His Watch Is Ended," Episode 4 of Season 3. With his men hungry, demoralized, and increasingly irritated at the meager rations offered by Craster (Robert Pugh), Mormont struggles to restore order; a fed-up Karl Tanner (Burn Gorman) finally kills Craster, and Mormont engages him in combat.

It is then that Rast (Luke Barnes) stabs Mormont in the back, sparking a skirmish between loyalists and rebels all around the keep. Even with a knife in his back, Mormont manages to overpower and nearly choke Rast, but the wound gets the better of him; he collapses to the floor, coughing up blood, and Rast seizes the opportunity to stab him multiple times.

The most notorious of the various massacres and double-crossings that occurred on "Game of Thrones" throughout its eight seasons was the Red Wedding, which took place in Season 3's penultimate episode, "The Rains of Castamere." 

Following a feast at the Twins to commemorate the wedding of Edmure Tully (Tobias Menzies) to Roslin Frey (Alexandra Dowling), with tensions still running high from Robb Stark's (Richard Madden) decision to marry Talisa (Oona Chaplin) instead of a Frey (a development that marked a significant change from Martin's books), the newlyweds are carried off to their nuptial ceremony. They leave behind Robb, Talisa, and Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) in the dining hall — where, just as Catelyn surmises that something is afoot, the Freys' forces begin to slaughter Robb's men.

It all happens in a flash: Lothar Frey (Tom Brooke) stabs the pregnant Talisa in the stomach, Robb and Catelyn are wounded by crossbows, Catelyn holds Joyeuse Frey (Kelly Long) at knifepoint, Lord Walder Frey (David Bradley) shrugs her off, Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) whispers that "the Lannisters send their regards" and stabs Robb in the heart, a near-catatonic Catelyn slits Joyeuse's throat, and Black Walder (Tim Plester) slits Catelyn's. Thus, with the utter decimation of guest right, the North's bid for independence ends.

In Season 4's second episode, "The Lion and the Rose," the most hated character on all of "Game of Thrones" finally meets his demise. After embarrassing guests at his wedding feast with crude behavior and petty, vicious bullying of his uncle Tyrion (Peter Dinklage, who almost turned down the role), King Joffrey Baratheon orders Tyrion to bring him more wine, which he does; the wine turns out to contain an aggressive poison that causes Joffrey to choke, bleed, and vomit to death.

Cersei immediately orders Tyrion arrested. While he is wrongfully found guilty by a kangaroo court near the end of the season, the audience eventually learns that Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) was the one who really had Joffrey killed. The poison was supplied by Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) and knight-turned-fool Dontos Hollard (Tony Way), in order to save Margaery (Natalie Dormer) from her new husband's sadistic ways.

Stationed in King's Landing with the goal of eventually getting revenge on Gregor Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) for the murder of his sister Elia and her children, Season 4 ensemble breakout Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) gets his chance when Gregor is enlisted as Cersei's champion in Tyrion's trial by combat. Swaggering into the ring with minimal armor on "The Mountain and the Viper," Oberyn manages to outwit and outpace the seemingly invincible Mountain with his lightning-quick spear-wielding abilities, and ultimately leaves Gregor flat on the floor, coughing up blood from a stab to the chest.

Then, Oberyn makes a fatal mistake: Instead of finishing off the duel, he proceeds to march around Gregor, taunting him and demanding that he admit to Elia's murder. To his surprise, the Mountain manages to pull him to the floor and pin him down, and then sadistically confirms Oberyn's claims while gouging his eyes out and crushing his skull to a pulp with his bare hands.

Due to her well-known feelings for Jon Snow (Kit Harington), wildling warrior Ygritte (Rose Leslie) faces doubts from her folk leading up to the Battle for the Wall, on which Mance Rayder's (Ciarán Hinds) forces intend to wrest control of Castle Black away from the Night's Watch. On "The Watchers on the Wall," one of the best "Game of Thrones" episodes, Ygritte dispels those doubts by vowing to kill Jon herself, and charging into the battle with unstoppable fury.

Even after killing Pyp (Josef Altin) and several other Night's Watch members, however, Ygritte can't bring herself to shoot her arrow at Jon when the moment comes, and Olly (Brenock O'Connor) seizes upon her hesitation to fire an arrow through her back. She dies in Jon's arms, while tenderly reminiscing about their time together.

One of the most powerful and intimidating characters on all of "Game of Thrones," Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) gets arguably the show's most ironically undignified death. At the end of Season 4, the pillars of his castle of fear are at their maximum brittleness following Tyrion's bogus conviction for Joffrey's murder, and, on the season finale "The Children," the castle finally comes crashing down: Tywin fails to predict that Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) would surreptitiously free his brother, and, as soon as Tyrion is out of his cell, he goes looking for his father.

He finds Tywin doing his business in the bathroom of his chamber, and, with a crossbow pointed at him, tearfully questions Tywin's knowingly unfair sentence and years of contempt for him. Tywin claims he intended to send Tyrion to the Night's Watch, but, until the very end, he refuses to believe that Tyrion would dare harm him; sure enough, Tyrion proves him wrong by firing an arrow through his stomach and another through his chest, and then promptly fleeing Westeros.

Over the course of Season 5, due to his foolhardy decision to march on Winterfell mid-winter, Stannis Baratheon's once-mighty army dwindles dramatically. First, his forces are caught in a snowstorm that kills horses and cuts off supply lines; then, an arson raid led by Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) all but decimates their resources; then, a desperate Stannis agrees with Melisandre's suggestion to burn his daughter Shireen (Kerry Ingram) at the stake as a sacrifice to the gods, causing the snow to clear but prompting half his remaining men to desert him.

When he finally reaches the battlefield outside Winterfell on the season finale "Mother's Mercy," it's a lost cause; the Boltons easily overwhelm Stannis' scant army, and leave him sitting wounded and helpless under a tree, where he is found by Brienne (Gwendoline Christie). After confirming that he used dark magic to murder Renly, she sentences a resigned Stannis to death, and promptly decapitates him with her sword.

A lingering tension hovers over the relationship between Roose Bolton and his legitimized out-of-wedlock son Ramsay, who knows that he's always at risk of being passed over as head of House Bolton in favor of a legitimate-born heir. On the Season 6 episode "Home," that tension finally explodes. Roose has been vocally displeased with his son's politically reckless psychopathy, and so, when Lady Walda Bolton (Elizabeth Webster) gives birth to a son, Ramsay opts to hedge his bets.

Although Roose assures him that Ramsay will always be treated as his firstborn, Ramsay stabs him in the chest — a callback to Roose's own killing of Robb Stark — and instructs Maester Wolkan (Richard Rycroft) to publicly declare that Roose was poisoned. Then, to cinch his position as the new Lord of the Dreadfort, Ramsay has both Walda and the baby killed by his hounds.

Loyal Winterfell stablehand Hodor (Kristian Nairn) dies on the very same episode that reveals the reason why he only ever says the word "Hodor." On Season 6's "The Door," while Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) is warging into Winterfell's past, thousands of wights descend upon the cave where he is hiding with Hodor, Meera (Ellie Kendrick), and the Children of the Forest. In the ensuing rush to escape the cave, Hodor is too frightened to help, and Meera shouts at Bran to warg into him; hearing Meera's pleas in his vision, he accidentally wargs into both the present-day Hodor and his still-articulate teenage self Wylis (Sam Coleman), linking their minds and causing Wylis to collapse into a seizure.

Hodor and Meera get Bran's unconscious body out of the cave, and Meera yells at Hodor to "hold the door" to trap the wargs inside — a command that the young Wylis also hears, and repeats uncontrollably until it slurs into the word "Hodor." Just as Meera and Bran escape into the night, wights break through the door and kill Hodor, and the trauma of experiencing his own future death renders young Wylis mentally impaired.

The battle between the Starks and the Boltons on the second-to-last episode of Season 6 concludes with the Boltons being overwhelmed by the arrival of reinforcements from House Arryn. Ramsay and his men attempt to retreat to Winterfell and sequester themselves, but the giant Wun Wun (Ian Whyte) breaks down the gates, allowing Jon's forces to enter and continue their rampage; Jon and Ramsay finally engage each other in direct combat, during which Jon deflects Ramsay's arrows with his shield, jumps at him, and beats him nearly to death.

Realizing that revenge on Ramsay belongs to Sansa, Jon steps away and orders Ramsay to be imprisoned in the kennel, where, at nightfall, Sansa meets him, scoffs at Ramsay's claims that he is now "part of" her, and reminds him that his House will end. In one of the "Game of Thrones" bosses' favorite deaths, Sansa then lets Ramsay's own hounds into his cell — and, though he initially believes that they wouldn't attack him, the hunger from seven days without food catches up to them, and they devour Ramsay alive while Sansa watches calmly.

True to her standing as one of the most intelligent characters on "Game of Thrones," Margaery Tyrell does her best to avert her own doom. After a whole season of feigning allegiance to the Faith of the Seven to save herself and her brother Loras (Finn Jones), she finds herself in the Great Sept of Baelor on season finale "The Winds of Winter," during what is to be Loras and Cersei's trial; realizing that both Cersei and Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) are conspicuously absent, Margaery drops her mask, warns the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) that Cersei is up to something, and urges him to postpone the trial and evacuate the sept.

Not only does he stubbornly refuse, but he also has the Sparrows stop Margaery, Loras, and their father Lord Mace (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) from leaving. All that's left for Margaery to do is hold on to her brother, as everyone in the Sept goes up in green flames together in the wildfire explosion orchestrated by Cersei.

Unlike his brother and predecessor Joffrey, King Tommen Baratheon has genuine love and affection for his wife Margaery — so much so, in fact, that he is swayed by her into aligning the crown with the Faith of the Seven over the course of Season 6. The decision to abolish trial by combat and force Cersei and Loras into a traditional trial by the Septons hails from Tommen, but it comes back to bite him when Cersei arranges for the wildfire detonation.

As he's attempting to leave for the trial, Tommen is blocked by the Mountain and forced to stay in his chambers, and watches from the window as his wife, his congregation, and hundreds of innocent people nearby are killed in the explosion. Without a second thought, Tommen takes off his crown, sets it aside, and leaps out of the window to his death.

Lady Olenna is the only member of House Tyrell who emerges unscathed from the attack at the Great Sept of Baelor. Left alone to run Highgarden, she aligns with Daenerys in the interest of revenge against Cersei, and pledges the Reach's forces to the Dragon Queen's army as they move to take Casterly Rock. This leaves Highgarden vulnerable to a takeover by the Lannisters, and, in Season 7's "The Queen's Justice," Olenna finds herself finally out of options as Jaime comes to meet her in her chamber.

Admitting she failed to foresee the depth of Cersei's monstrousness, she warns Jaime that his love for her will be his downfall, and then accepts Jaime's offer of a painless poison — a step-up from the gruesome death that Cersei wanted to give her. Olenna drinks the poison without protest, and only then reveals to Jaime that she was the one who had Joffrey assassinated; in her last moments, she asks him to tell Cersei it was her.

Westeros' most devilish schemer is defeated at long last on "The Dragon and the Wolf," the Season 7 finale. Petyr Baelish a.k.a. Littlefinger (seemingly) almost succeeds in turning Sansa and Arya (Maisie Williams) against each other, but what he didn't count on was that Bran would tell Sansa the entire extent of Littlefinger's machinations, revealed to him through the Sight, including his plot to frame Arya as an usurper.

Gathering lords and soldiers at the great hall of Winterfell, Sansa pretends to be bringing out Arya to try her for murder and treason, only to reveal at the last minute that it's Petyr who's about to be sentenced for his many crimes, which she proceeds to reveal to the court. Petyr futilely begs for his life to the indifferent crowd, but it's too late; Arya steps up to slit his throat with the Valyrian steel blade, and he's left to die in a pool of blood.

Former Stark ward and Winterfell usurper Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) has largely managed to redeem himself by Season 8, but his noblest self-sacrifice comes with his final act, when he resolves to stand guard over Bran during the Battle of Winterfell on "The Long Night." Alongside several Ironborn archers, Theon is able to take out multiple wights with his bow and arrow while Bran sits calmly by the weirwood tree.

By the time the Night King (Vladimír Furdík) arrives at the godswood to try to kill Bran, Theon is the last man standing in the defense party. Bran thanks him, and, though Theon knows he can't beat the Night King, he charges at him nonetheless with a dragonglass-pointed spear, which the Night King swiftly breaks in half, steals, and uses to stab him. Theon bleeds to death just as his sacrifice buys Arya time to sneak up on the Night King.

The second of three main cast deaths in "The Long Night" is that of Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). Wielding the ancestral House Tarly blade given to him by Sam (John Bradley), Jorah rides with the Dothraki cavalry in the charge against the undead, and then retreats with other scattered survivors when the Night King's numbers prove too daunting.

Inside Winterfell, he saves Sam from an onslaught and picks off numerous wights, then comes to Daenerys' aid when she is knocked off Drogon. Surrounded, the two fight off the horde of wights as best they can until Arya kills the Night King and obliterates his army — but, by that point, Jorah is gravely wounded. He dies in Daenerys' arms, having succeeded in defending her.

Melisandre appears out of the blue — or, rather, out of the dark — in "The Long Night," riding in on horseback from the pitch-black horizon just as the battle is about to commence. After setting the Dothraki's arakhs on fire with a High Valyrian chant, she retreats into Winterfell, where she mysteriously tells Davos (Liam Cunningham) not to bother killing her because she will be dead by morning.

She later turns up again to set the trenchworks around the castle on fire, and then is found by Arya and Sandor (Rory McCann) when they take shelter with a dying Beric (Richard Dormer) in the great hall. It's there that the Red Woman implies to Arya that her fate is to kill the Night King, inspiring her to go do just that and win the war. With her role thus fulfilled, Melisandre walks out of Winterfell at the break of dawn while Davos follows her; before he can kill her, she removes her cloak and her magic ruby necklace, and allows herself to age into her centuries-old true form, in which she crumbles to the floor and disintegrates into a pile of dust.

The death of Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) is arguably the main precipitating factor in the events of the final two "Game of Thrones" episodes. After making plans with Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) to travel the world and return to Naath once the war is over, Daenerys' interpreter and closest friend sails with her to Dragonstone in "The Last of the Starks." There, a scorpion ambush from the Iron Fleet claims the life of Rhaegal, destroys Daenerys' ships, and separates the members of her fleet, allowing Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) to capture Missandei.

Following a tense war council in which Daenerys insists on raining her full might on Cersei, the two queens face each other at the gates of King's Landing, where Cersei, standing atop the wall, presents Missandei as a hostage and dismisses Tyrion's pleas to surrender. Asked if she has any final words, Missandei simply shouts "Dracarys" before Ser Gregor decapitates her with his sword, to the horror of Grey Worm and the boiling rage of Daenerys.

One of the most controversial deaths in the homestretch of "Game of Thrones" belongs to Varys, who spends the bulk of Season 8 gradually losing confidence in Daenerys and coming around to the concept of Jon Snow as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. After a discussion with Tyrion in which he asserts his belief that Daenerys is spiraling into destructive anger and that Jon would make for a stabler, more temperate reign, Varys makes his move at the beginning of the penultimate episode, "The Bells."

Uncharacteristically, he sends out letters about Jon's parentage with little discretion, sloppily conspires with a kitchen worker to have Daenerys poisoned, and tries to convince Jon to claim the throne within earshot of Tyrion. Still loyal to Daenerys, Tyrion denounces Varys — who offers no resistance, merely telling Tyrion that he hopes he's wrong, as Daenerys has him dragged out to the shore and executed by Drogon.

Fans of "Game of Thrones" spent much of the show's back half speculating about a possible climactic battle between Sandor Clegane a.k.a. the Hound and his brother Gregor a.k.a. the Mountain. It finally happened on "The Bells." 

After Sandor and Arya infiltrate the Red Keep to take out Cersei, Sandor realizes that the destruction being wreaked by Daenerys will soon be inescapable, and convinces Arya to give up revenge and run for her life. Once left alone, he easily defeats the Queensguard, and then comes across Cersei, Gregor, and Qyburn (Anton Lesser). Upon laying eyes on his brother, Gregor breaks out of Cersei and Qyburn's control, kills the latter, and engages Sandor in combat while Cersei scutters off.

The brothers then have a brutal sword fight in the steps of the crumbling Keep, in which Sandor manages to hit Gregor multiple times and impale him clean through, yet Gregor remains seemingly impervious to damage. He pins Sandor to a wall and begins to gouge out his eyes, but Sandor stabs Gregor's own eye, and uses the rest of his strength to tackle the Mountain through a brick wall. The face-off ends with both men taking a massive fall into the pit of fire down below.

After dealing more pain and devastation to countless people across Westeros than virtually any other "Game of Thrones" character, Cersei dies a quiet death away from public view. Wandering desperately through the Red Keep after separating from Gregor in "The Bells," she ends up in the middle of the war room amid the falling debris.

There, she locks eyes with Jaime, who has just killed Euron in a bloody duel after coming all the way from Winterfell to be with Cersei again; they hug tearfully, and then rush to find a way out. As they make for the cellars in hopes of reaching the boat secured by Tyrion, they find the exit completely blocked by rubble, and realize that it's too late to escape the Red Keep. Whimpering in fear, Cersei is comforted by Jaime, and the twins embrace while the cellar collapses in on them.

The last major character death on "Game of Thrones" is that of Daenerys Targaryen in the series finale "The Iron Throne." After leveling King's Landing and killing much of its population with the combined slaughter of Drogon's fire and her armies, the Dragon Queen presides over a rally for her forces, in which she promises to continue "liberating" the rest of the world. A horrified Tyrion resigns as Hand of the Queen, prompting Dany to arrest him; while imprisoned, he is visited by Jon, and reasons with him that, regardless of their mutual love for Daenerys, she must die for the good of the people.

Jon meets Daenerys in the throne room, which is entirely destroyed save for the intact Iron Throne; he futilely tries to get his beloved to own up to her wrongdoings, but Daenerys remains adamant in her belief that the old world must burn to make the new one possible. Realizing that Daenerys won't back down from her mass-murdering ways, Jon tells her that she will always be his queen, kisses her, and then stabs her in the heart. In response, Drogon burns the Iron Throne to a crisp, and carries Daenerys' body away.