Bloodshed, gore, and death are major themes in the television series Game of Thrones. Fans of the program are accustomed to characters dying on it rather regularly. Yet all of the Game of Thrones fans worldwide were devastated after Season 6 Episode 5, “The Door,” which revealed the meaning behind Hodor’s name and his very tragic ending. And it seems like a recent poll agrees with them too, it is indeed one of the saddest deaths of all time.
Hodor’s death is the second most devastating character death of all time
As the year 2023 comes to an end, fans are busy with festive celebrations and contemplating the absolute best of everything. The entertainment website Ranker took the opportunity to compile several lists, from the best of TV to the worst, ranking shows and their characters according to an internet-wide poll. The most recent one listed the saddest deaths in the history of television, and of course, Game of Thrones had quite a few.
According to the readers’ votes, Game of Thrones’ Hodor’s death, played by DJ Kristian Nairn, was the second most heart-breaking death ever seen on TV, securing 57,108 votes at the time of writing this article. He was only surpassed by The Walking Dead’s Glenn, who secured a little over 69k votes.
Other Game of Thrones deaths on the list
Quite unsurprisingly, a number of deaths from the HBO epic were also listed in the poll. Besides Hodor, we have Sansa Stark’s direwolf Lady at number 4 and Ned Stark at number 9 in the top 10 of the voting list. Shireen Baratheon, Lyanna Mormont, and Robb Stark take 14, 19, and 24th place respectively, reminding how hauntingly beautiful the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones were.
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