The 60 Most Important Deaths on Game of Thrones

39. Polliver

The beauty of this list is that you don’t have to be protector of the realm for your death to matter. Take Polliver. This brigang is perhaps best known for taking Arya’s sword Needle and murdering her friend Lommy early in season 2. Much later, after a chance encounter at the Inn at the Crossroads (a brief pause here to honor some of the greatest dialogue ever spoken in Westeros), Polliver ends up dead courtesy of budding assassin Arya Stark. It’s what his death means for Arya that makes it important.

For someone so young, Arya has killed a lot of people. That includes people major players in the game of thrones like Littlefinger and Walder Frey, but she killed those two with the cold precision of a professional. Her murder of Polliver happened when she was far more raw. It was a vindictive kill of a wounded opponent, carried out with dark glee. It was a step towards what Arya would become, and the first time she crossed anyone off her list. It wasn’t an outburst, like when she killed that Frey soldier, or an accident, like when she killed the stableboy when trying to escape the Red Keep. This was Arya looking into someone’s eyes and choosing to end their life.

And let’s not forget that by killing Polliver, Arya probably saved the Hound’s life. At the time, he might not have seemed worth the effort, but given his later efforts north of the Wall, plus whatever he gets up to in season 8, saving the Hound’s life might prove very important indeed.

38. Oberyn Martell

Whoops! Blew that call there, Oberyn. Maybe if you weren’t trying to get your Inigo Montoya on, you might still have a head.

The death of the Red Viper of Dorne set many balls bouncing off into different directions. A beloved figure in his homeland, Oberyn’s death inflamed the people of Dorne, although apparently it didn’t much affect his brother Doran, Dorne’s ruler. Doran’s inaction led not only to his own death but the death of his son Tristan, the both of them killed by Oberyn’s lover Ellaria and his bastard daughters, the Sand Snakes. That group also killed Princess Myrcella, which led to their own deaths courtesy of Cersei and Euron. You could even lay the deaths of Tywin and Shae at Oberyn’s feet. Had Oberyn simply killed the Mountain when he had the chance, Tyrion would have walked free and a lot of awkwardness could have been avoided.

Finally, we’re gonna go out on a limb and say Oberyn’s death was important for Jon Snow. Had Oberyn lived, we think Daenerys falls for the smooth-talking Dornish love machine before the moody King in the North. Sorry, Jon.