8 Great TV Characters Who Die At The Beginning

Epic fantasy series Game Of Thrones swiftly came to define the nobody is safe ethos when it put paid to Ned Stark's (Sean Bean) reign as series protagonist at the conclusion of season one. But, given the footwork the show had done up until then, we really ought to have seen it coming.

Enter (or, exit) Benjen Stark (Joseph Mawle), Ned's brother and First Ranger of the Night's Watch – a military order who guard the wall dividing the fictional land of Westeros's Seven Kingdoms from the icy wilds beyond. A Stark by birth but a crow (Brother of the Night's Watch) by choice, Benjen is everything his nephew Jon Snow wishes to be: Tough, brave, steely, just and, above all else, quietly heroic.

In the third episode of season one, "Lord Snow", Benjen tells Jon 'We will speak when I return', and rides north from Castle Black, only to be killed offscreen by a White Walker and leave Jon hanging forevermore...

Until, that is, he reappears as a living corpse in the season six episode "Blood Of My Blood", raised from the dead by the White Walkers, but saved from their thrall by a piece of dragonglass inserted in his chest by the magical Children of the Forest. And, given it's Game Of Thrones, we don't need to tell you he dies again – for good this time.