Game Of Thrones: 10 Characters Killed At The PERFECT Time

It's fair to say Game Of Thrones is known for a fair amount of death.

From the moment Ned Stark was beheaded at the statue of Balor, fans across the world knew this show wasn't going to have a happy ending. And from then on, we were forced to witness some of our favourite claimants to the Iron Throne go out in some frankly horrific ways at times. As the show went on, many of these deaths started to become more expected, but few could predict exactly how they would happen.

Of course, what is important to remember in the world of Westeros is just how harsh and cruel it can be, and it was imperative both in the original source material and the show that not everyone made it through alive, in order to highlight the cruelness of the world George R. R. Martin built.

This is no childhood fantasy dreamland - Game Of Thrones features some of the most brutal landscapes in the genre and the deaths of our favourite characters only propelled the story forward through its eight-season run.

But while some of these decisions may have been questionable, other characters, no matter how much the fans may have disliked it, were killed off at the perfect time.

Whether their story arc had come to a natural conclusion, or their death was key to the journeys of other players, here's who went out at just the right moment.

So we start with the man who started a rebellion built on a lie, kicking off a chain of events which would lead to a war across continents for the Iron Throne.

Robert Baratheon's death is the catalyst for the main story moving forward, and effectively kicks off the aptly-named War Of The Five Kings. In some ways, the first season of the show (and even the book to some extent) works as a prologue to the main saga of Game Of Thrones, and the elder Baratheon's death is what starts the main story.

Robert's exit in the second half of season one is significant in other ways though. Acting effectively as the protector of the Starks in King's Landing, his passing is the first acknowledgment that no-one is safe in Westeros, not even the King, although sadly we wouldn't fully realise that until a couple of episodes later (more on that in a moment).

And of course, Mark Addy's tragic king needed to go in order to protect some of the great revelations of the show, which wouldn't be realised until much further down the line...