The 60 Most Important Deaths on Game of Thrones

1. Ned Stark

This choice probably won’t shock anyone (although Ned’s death would also likely top a list of the most shocking deaths on Game of Thrones), but there’s a good reason Ned is up here. The importance of his death is hard to overstate. It a rock dropped into a still pond, making ripples that grew into tsunamis. And it announced to viewers that this isn’t the story they were expecting, the one where the good guy takes his lumps but makes it out alright in the end.

In many ways, Ned’s death kicked this whole story off. After Littlefinger betrayed him and Cersei trotted him out to publicly absolve the Lannisters of any wrongdoing, things could have gone very differently. Had Joffrey simply exiled Ned to the Night’s Watch as Cersei wanted, Robb and his followers wouldn’t have as much of a reason to march on the capitol. Stannis and Renly might still have rebelled, but without the North and Riverlands to deal with, they would have less of a problem for Tywin Lannister, particularly if they still squabbled amongst themselves, which seems likely.

Or, imagine if Ned had been a few shades smarter in King’s Landing and managed to seize power before handing the realm to Stannis or Renly. The Lannister threat, which defines so much of the series, is nullified right at the start, and the Baratheons, Starks, Tullys and others would be able to mount an effective defense against Tywin. Again, Stannis and Renly’s infighting might throw a wrench into things, but at minimum, we would have a very different kind of mess on our hands.

Taking less of a bird’s eye view, Ned’s death sent the Stark children and their allies in a hundred different directions. Without Ned’s death, Robb would have gone back to Winterfell, the Ironborn wouldn’t have raided the place, and Bran might never have left. And Arya and Sansa may have been spared years of painful transformation. Who knows what kind of people they might have grown into had their father been around to shield them from the worst of their experiences?

And of course, Ned’s death affected us viewers. We were surprised when Viserys, Robert and Drogo all died, but we didn’t consider any of them the main characters. Ned was different. Up until the moment Ice sliced through his neck, we somehow believed he would be spared. Sean Bean was the biggest name on the show at the time, and who kills the star? With Ned’s beheading, we learned a hard lesson: on Game of Thrones, no one is safe. That realization turned Game of Thrones into a cultural phenomenon, and it began with one swing of Ice. Poor dead Ned.

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