Game Of Thrones: 10 Greatest Deaths (So Far)

10. Khal Drogo

Episode - 1x10, Fire and Blood

Khal Drogo’s decline from chiselled and thunderous barbarian warrior-king to vegetative shell fond of blankets happened lightning fast, courtesy of an apparent flesh wound and the mucky machinations of Mirri Maz Duur.

Drogo’s death at the end of the first season put a capper on a theme which would be hammered into the audience repeatedly over the course of the series; the subversion of traditional fantasy tropes would frequently put a brutal and quick end to dreams of heroic triumph, of conquest, and of justice and retribution.

Daenerys being forced to send her once-mighty sun and stars galloping through the night lands certainly qualifies on that score, his promised conquest of the Seven Kingdoms never coming to fruition.

Yet, his death is a great one precisely because it accelerates Dany’s transformation from subservient and conquered to a woman in control, initiating her step into the funeral pyre and her emergence as the Mother of Dragons. The intentional anticlimax of Drogo’s sudden downfall was a sucker punch for viewers, shattering the image of invincibility he’d established, with the poignant tone living long in the memory.