Game Of Thrones: Ranking EVERY Major Death Worst To Best

12. Robert Baratheon

Game Of Thrones Ned Stark
HBO

Death: Fatally wounded by a boar while hunting. It is later revealed that Cersei ordered her cousin Lancel to get him as drunk as possible, hoping that something like this would happen.

Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) was a wonderful character who most probably expected to last a lot longer than he did; it was very sad to see him go, but in fact this early demise works really well, which is another testament to George R.R. Martin's brilliance at killing characters off.

It kicks the story up a gear by paving the way for the War of the Five Kings and leading to the ascension of Joffrey Baratheon, as well as the execution of poor Ned Stark (Sean Bean), while Robert's final scene is also a brilliant one.

His conversation with Ned is wonderfully poignant, especially when he decides to call off the order he'd sent out to assassinate Daenerys Targaryen, and showed Mark Addy at his best.

Subsequently, Cersei's responsibility for his death was both a bit unclear and not really mentioned enough, but other than that Robert Baratheon's reign ended on a bittersweet, brilliantly-written note.

Contributor

Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.