As Ayra Stark once said, “Anyone can be killed”. Game of Thrones fans can testify that there couldn’t be a more apt way to describe the constant sense of doom and distrust that comes with watching the HBO fantasy epic. And as we’re approaching the final season, one thing is guaranteed – no one is safe.
Ever since the very first episode aired way back in 2011, the tone has been set that viewers shouldn’t get too attached to anyone, because neither George RR Martin nor the team tasked with adapting and growing his stories on the small screen take any prisoners.
We’re just weeks away from the highly anticipated eighth and final season of the show – which is based on the author’s popular A Song of Ice and Fire series – and anyone hoping for a happy ending could be very, very disappointed if the previous seven series are anything to go by. If you’re still thinking all your favourites are going to make it out alive, then… well, we’re sorry. We’ve got some really bad news. And here’s why.
Since ‘Winter Is Coming’ – the first ever episode – hit screens eight years ago, there have only been THREE episodes (‘Lord Snow’ (S1), ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’ (S3) and ‘The Laws of Gods and Men’ (S4) across Game of Throne’s entire run that didn’t see at least one named character meet their demise. Just let that sink in for a minute.
The show has run for 67 episodes so far, and just less than five percent of them have been death-free. It really doesn’t bode well for the final season, does it?
By now, fans should be used to this. We’ve been taught time and time again that we just can’t trust anyone, and we certainly can’t trust the team behind the show to keep our favourites alive. OK, sometimes – Jon Snow, we’re looking at you – they come back, and that’s all well and good.
But for everyone moment like that, there is someone like Ned Stark. Sean Bean being cast in the role should have been a hint for anyone who hadn’t already read the books that things wouldn’t work out too well for the lord of Winterfell. It’s no secret his dies in basically everything he appears in – he just can’t keep a character alive! He’s the acting equivalent of Game of Thrones itself.
It wasn’t an exception, but rather the beginning of an unregulated bloodbath. Ygritte’s death was similarly shocking and brutal, dying in former lover Jon Snow’s arms after he smiled, realising he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her with an arrow. Then Olly ruined it; a magical moment being ruined before the pair could have the heartfelt reunion we really craved.
To date, YouTuber Leon Andrew Razon Compilations has the total number of deaths shown on the programme at a staggering 174,373.
We’re sorry to do this now, but need we remind everyone of the Red Wedding? This was the blood/watershed moment that taught is that no one and nothing could be trusted anymore. It was an absolute slaughtering, with a pregnant Talisa stabbed in the stomach, Catelyn having her throat slit as she realised all too late that the celebration had been a trap. Robb murdered on his wedding day.
There’s a reason the scenes are held in such high regard and reviled in the same breath. It was perfect television, and absolutely befitting of Game of Thrones.
At least, in Martin and the showrunners’ defence, it’s not always our favourites who get ripped from us in the most surprising and cruel way. Joffrey, Littlefinger and Ramsay all died in ways that felt deserving of their crimes and satisfying as a viewer watching evildoers get their comeuppance.
It’s safe to say when Game of Thrones returns that some of our beloved characters won’t make it out alive, potentially all of them. But it’s a testament to the show’s quality that we care so passionately about them all right until the very end.
Martin once said that he was inspired by Gandalf’s death in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and how it ‘broke the rules’, making the reader aware that ‘now anybody could die’.
He quipped: ‘Of course, that’s had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters off at the drop of a hat.’
No one would argue that Martin hasn’t taken that idea and ran with it to an obscene degree. And it’s only a matter of time before the toll rises above 174,373 and we all curse ourselves all over again for getting too attached.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO and Sky Atlantic on April 14 while seasons one to seven are available to stream on NOW TV.
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