As Game of Thrones progressed deeper into its eight season run on HBO, the series began to deviate more and more from its source material, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels. While season 1 of Game of Thrones closely matched the first A Song of Ice and Fire book, A Game of Thrones, the show veered further and further away from the original text with each passing season. By the time of season 6, Game of Thrones' story had actually gone further than A Song of Ice and Fire's, meaning that the show needed to forge its own path to the finale.
As Game of Thrones grew more comfortable making changes from A Song of Ice and Fire, many characters started dying earlier than their book counterparts. These five characters, all of whom are still alive as of the fifth and most recently published book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, all end up dead before the events of that book in Game of Thrones. Even if they eventually die in the books' future installments, their on-screen deaths came about much earlier.
1. Talisa Maegyr/Jeyne Westerling
Robb Stark (Richard Madden) first meets Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin) on the battlefield back in season 2. Robb quickly falls for the beautiful, kind hearted medic and the two wed by the end of the season, causing Robb to break his marriage contract with Walder Frey (David Bradley). This ultimately proves to be Robb's undoing, as the Freys enact their revenge by slaughtering the Stark forces, taking them by surprise during the now infamous Red Wedding. Both Robb and Talisa end up killed during the massacre.
However, Talisa's story plays out much differently in the books, partially because she (mostly) isn't in them. Instead, Robb marries a girl named Jeyne Westerling, who does not attend the Red Wedding and is therefore spared Talisa's grizzly fate. Martin has teased Jeyne's return in his forthcoming sixth book in the series, The Winds of Winter, and if she ends up dying, she will have long outlasted her on-screen counterpart.
2. Jojen Reed
Jojen Reed (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and his sister Meera (Ellie Kendrick) encounter Bran Stark's (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) party in season 3. Jojen, a greenseer himself, recognizes Bran's gift, and helps lead him beyond the Wall to find the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow) to hone his power. Just before reaching the Three-Eyed Raven's cave, however, Bran and his companions are attacked by wights, and Jojen suffers grievous injuries before Meera spares him from further pain with a quick mercy kill.
As of now, Jojen is still alive in the books, joining Bran and Meera in the cave of the Three-Eyed Crow. However, book Jojen grows more and more sickly with each passing page, so he likely isn't long for this world. If the infamous "Jojen Paste" fan theory is correct, then his show counterpart might have been spared from an incredibly gruesome demise.
3. Mance Rayder
Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds), the King Beyond the Wall, dies at the hands of Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane). After refusing to bend the knee and submit to Stannis, Mance is burned at the stake by Melisandre (Carice van Houten). However, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) sees Mance's suffering and shoots an arrow through his heart, killing him more mercifully than the flames would have.
While this scene plays out in both the books and the show, the books feature an additional plot twist some time later: The man burned at the stake was not, in fact, Mance Rayder, but a disguised wildling by the name of "Rattleshirt" (Ross O'Hennessy). The real Mance was spared, and Jon and Melisandre send him south to rescue Jon's sister Arya (Maisie Williams) from the clutches of Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon).
4. Barristan Selmy
After his premature departure from the Kingsguard at the hands of King Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleason), Ser Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney) makes his way across the Narrow Sea to join Daenerys Targaryen's (Emilia Clarke) entourage. Barriston soon becomes a valuable member of her inner circle, and one of her most trusted advisors. However, he dies abruptly during an ambush from the Sons of the Harpy.
In contrast, not only is book Barristan still alive to date, but he becomes more important than ever after his show counterpart dies. When Daenerys flies away from Meereen on dragonback, Martin still has more story to tell there, so he introduces Barristan as a point-of-view character. Barristan's chapters delve deeper into the character than ever before, so it feels like his on-screen story was cut short in comparison.
5. Hizdahr zo Loraq
Hizdahr zo Loraq (Joel Fry) represents the Meereenese traditions which Daenerys aims to change. His insistence on reopening the fighting pits proves to be a constant thorn in her side, and despite their adversarial relationship, she marries him to forge an alliance with a Meereenese noble family. Daenerys suspects that Hizdahr may be involved with the Sons of the Harpy, but her suspicions are proven false when he is killed during their attack on the Great Pit of Daznak.
Hizdahr's book counterpart survives the attack at the fighting pits, and rules Meereen after his wife's disappearance. However, Barristan manages to overthrow and imprison him, installing a council of loyalists to Daenerys' cause to oversee Meereen until she returns. His unceremonious on-screen death pales in comparison to his storyline in the later half of A Dance with Dragons.
For more from the world of Westeros, make sure to stream House of the Dragon season 3 on HBO Max.
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