During its eight-season run on HBO, Game of Thrones became infamous for subverting audience expectations. Not every hero came out on top or even survived, not every villain received their comeuppance, and not every prophecy came true. Many in-universe predictions go awry, such as the Azor Ahai/Prince That Was Promised prophecy, Melisandre's (Carice van Houten) flaming visions of Stannis' (Stephen Dillane) victory, and the messiness of several different interpretations of the red comet that opens season 2, all for the purpose of keeping audience members on their toes and teaching them not to overly rely on prophecy.
However, a handful of characters actually do end up dying as predicted. Their prophecies actually come true on screen, as viewers realize that they've been following characters who have been marked for death for seasons. These characters' fates were spelled out on screen long before their demises actually came.
1. Myrcella and Tommen
Season 5 of Game of Thrones opens with a flashback, during which a young Cersei (Lena Headey, with Nell Williams playing the younger version of the character) meets with the woods witch known as Maggy the Frog (Jodhi May). Cersei asks Maggy to tell her her future, and Maggy reveals that Cersei will have three children, saying "gold will be their crowns, and gold their shrouds." This implies that Cersei's children will all end up dying before her.
By the time we see the flashback, Cersei's eldest son, Joffrey (Jack Gleason), had already died, but sure enough, Maggy's prediction comes true for her other two children. Cersei's daughter Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) is poisoned while leaving Dorne, and her younger son, Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman), leaps from the Red Keep's window after witnessing the death of his beloved wife, Margaery (Natalie Dormer) when the Sept of Baelor explodes. These deaths fulfill Maggy's prophecy, much to Cersei's dismay.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the show leaves out Maggy's line about Cersei's death at the hands of the Valonqar, the High Valyrian word for "little brother." Had this line remained in the show, then Cersei herself would count for this list, as she dies while being held by her younger twin brother, Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) during the assault on King's Landing by Daenerys, the youngest of Rhaegar Targaryen's (Wilf Scolding) children.
2. Robb, Joffrey, and Balon
After successfully killing his brother and rival for the throne, Renly Baratheon (Gethin Anthony), by means of blood magic, Stannis turns to Melisandre for further help during the War of the Five Kings. After acquiring King's Blood from Gendry (Joe Dempsie), a bastard son of King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), Stannis and Melisandre perform a ritual involving leeches, burning them while filled with Gendry's blood in hopes that this offering will result in the deaths of the remaining kings, Robb Stark (Richard Madden), Joffrey Baratheon, and Balon Greyjoy (Patrick Malahide).
Sure enough, shortly after this ritual, both Robb and Joffrey are killed off, leaving only Stannis and Balon alive of the five original kings who started the war. Balon eventually dies too, though his death is so delayed in the show as compared to the books that he actually manages to outlive Stannis. Still, all three names from Melisandre's ritual end up dead by the end of the series.
3. Melisandre and Varys
Melisandre meets Varys (Conleth Hill) in Game of Thrones season 7, and the two share a brief conversation on Dragonstone, connecting due to their shared heritage from Essos. Melisandre ominously ends their talk by predicting that both of them would end up dying in Westeros, startling the usually calm and collected Spider.
As Melisandre states, both characters end up dying in Westeros during Game of Thrones season 8. Melisandre allows herself to age to dust after the Battle of Winterfell once she felt her purpose had been completed, and Varys is burned to death by Drogon after Daenerys catches him scheming against her. While these two characters only share one scene together, that scene intertwines their fates, and once Melisandre dies, any fan who remembers their chat from season 7 shouldn't expect Varys to last much longer.
4. The Night King
The "Prince That Was Promised" prophecy never quite comes to fruition in the show in the way many fans expected. While Melisandre, among others, expects a great hero, the reincarnation of the legendary figure Azor Ahai, to defeat the darkness, no singular hero who fits the qualifications stated in the initial prophecy emerges, with several characters likely filling the role of Azor Ahai together.
However, this prophecy ultimately proved correct in one regard: that the Night King (VladimÃr FurdÃk) and his undead armies would eventually be defeated. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) ultimately kills the Night King by stabbing him with a Valyrian steel dagger, shattering him and all the wights he'd raised. While Arya meets none of the qualifications specified to be Azor Ahai reborn, her defeat of the Night King satisfies at least part of the infamously open ended prophecy.
5. Hodor
Unlike other entries on this list, Hodor's (Kristian Narin) demise wasn't predicted in some prophecy or vision. The gentle giant had been warning viewers of his death with every one of his lines of dialogue. As it turns out, the name "Hodor" itself represents his eventual fate.
Hodor dies helping Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and Meera Reed (Ellie Kendrick) escape the undead assault on the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow). Hodor holds the door of the cave shut, blocking the wights from following Bran and Meera as they tear him apart. As Meera shouts "hold the door," Bran accidentally causes a young Hodor in the past to repeat that phrase permanently while warging into him in the present, becoming a bridge between Meera's words and the incident which forever altered Hodor's mind. As it turns out, "Hodor" had been telling everyone how he'd die since his first appearance, making his name the grimmest death prediction of all.
For more from the world of Westeros, make sure to stream House of the Dragon season 3 on HBO Max.
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