The 60 Most Important Deaths on Game of Thrones

31. Ramsay Bolton

Seriously people, you have to stop taunting the gods. At least in Ramsay’s case, he had a long list of sins that were just begging for some divine retribution. In this case, Sansa had the delightfully ironic idea of feeding Ramsay to his own hounds, and not a tear was shed.

For Sansa, feeding Ramsay to his own dogs was the first time she had taken action to hurt someone who had harmed her. As she’d been harmed quite a lot by this point, she was making up for lost time. With her first kill came new confidence, which you can see in how she refused to be cowed or spoken over by anyone in season 7, even her brother Jon Snow, the new King in the North. Ramsay’s death marked the moment Sansa had truly entered the great game, as Tyrion likes to call it, and there was no going back.

As Sansa made clear, this was the end of House Bolton. The Boltons had long been thorns in the side of House Stark, as well as the rest of the North, and this most recent conflict was just another in a long line of battles waged between the two houses. Sure, Roose’s ruthless cunning would have come in handy with the undead on the march, but Ramsay had none of his father’s patience or guile, and removing him from the board ahead of the Nigh King’s arrival did everyone a favor.

30. Benjen Stark

Benjen Stark, the last of Lord Rickard’s children, technically died twice, which is something that can happen in Westeros. We’re here to talk about both deaths.

If it’s possible, Benjen Stark was even more taciturn than his brother Ned, but like his older brother, Benjen was a capable and respected leader, and one of Jon’s inspirations for joining the Night’s Watch.

Benjen went missing during a ranging beyond the Wall during the show’s first season. We know now that he died on that mission, but no one else did, and Jeor Mormont took the greatest part of the Night’s Watch power north of the Wall to find what had become of him. Without Benjen’s first death, Jon doesn’t travel beyond the Wall, doesn’t meet Ygritte, doesn’t come to the know the wildlings and doesn’t have them at his side when he retakes Winterfell. All that, plus Sam never meets Gilly or finds out that dragonglass can kill White Walkers.

Benjen’s second death was important for Jon, too, because it bought him time to escape the army of the dead in “Beyond The Wall.” It’s also important because we viewers finally got to see the end of his story. Now, the old ranger can finally get some peace.