2. Ned Stark
What?! Ned Stark isn't number one?! I have to say I've never found it more difficult to decide anything than between my top two deaths and where to place them on this list and there is still virtually nothing between them. If I could award them both number one I would, but sadly Ned takes a very close second. The archetypal, clean-cut good guy, Ned was always the one I (and probably everyone else) was rooting for. Possibly the most shocking and upsetting thing about killing him off was that in a world with so many characters, Ned was the one that most identified as being the main one. To have him killed off in the first season therefore left me completely aghast and almost feeling lost after my allegiance was so quickly severed. It also created a consuming hatred for Joffrey within me that I didn't know was possible for a fictional character, but has only gotten worse as the seasons have progressed. Like many of the other characters on this list, Ned's only crime was trying to do the right thing and he sadly paid the ultimately price for it, leaving me horrified and crestfallen. Even with all the deaths since his, and there have been a lot of them, Ned's is still the death that shocks the most.