The 60 Most Important Deaths on Game of Thrones
By Corey Smith
15. Robb Stark
We’ve reached the first of three deaths from the Red Wedding, so grab a box of tissues.
Robb Stark was the King in the North, and his death left a hole that took three seasons to fill. With his demise, the traitor Roose Bolton — the same man who delivered the killing blow — took over as the most powerful person in the North, while the traitor Walder Frey became the ruler of the Riverlands. The bad guys were now in charge of those parts of Westeros, which made it a dangerous time for all of our heroes.
It was painful to see Robb get murked at dinner like that, and it meant we never got to see the storylines we’d spent seasons imagining. Robb would never square off with Joffrey, nor seize Casterly Rock, all thanks to that damn Walder Frey.
The Red Wedding was a gut punch that left us wondering if the good guys would ever win, and cemented Game of Thrones as a proper cultural phenomenon. It remains one of the show’s most pivotal moments, known even to people who have never watched the show, and Robb is at the center of it.
14. Talisa Stark
We still haven’t recovered from the brutality of Talisa’s death. Robb may have been more important to the overall plot of the show, but the graphic nature of Talisa’s death pushes her a spot higher on the list. At this point, we’d seen babies killed, heads roll, people set on fire…it would have been easy to believe that we’d be desensitized to the show’s brand of violence. But watching the pregnant Talisa get stabbed repeatedly in the belly and bleed out on the floor…geez, Game of Thrones…
In the books, Robb marries a completely different woman, Jeyne Westerling. She does not attend the Red Wedding, and is much the better for it. Some fans even wonder if Jeyne is carrying Robb’s child, although based on what happens to her show counterpart, we doubt it. If she was, it could have changed the course of Jon Snow’s battle to take back Winterfell, since there would have been a proper heir waiting in the wings. The same can be said of Talisa, who definitely was pregnant, if she hadn’t gone to the Red Wedding. In Westeros, an heir makes all the difference, which is why the Frey assassin attacked Talisa the way he did.