Instances of Cruel and Unusual Death in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Includes the book series and HBO's adaptations.
open/close all folders
Literature
A Song of Ice and Fire
- Viserys is killed by having molten gold poured over his head.
- Quentyn Martell was burned alive by dragon fire and spent days dying.
- Vargo Hoat had part of his face bitten off, this wound festered making him delirious, then had his limbs chopped off and fed to him by Gregor Clegane.
- Gregor himself also meets a nasty death from being stabbed with a poisoned spear that ensured its victim would die slowly and painfully as the poison ate away at his insides. He lived in agony for days until Maester Qyburn decided to experiment on him to find out the nature of the poison — even this he survived for a while before finally dying.
- When the Great Masters of Meereen try to warn Daenerys off from her emancipating crusade by having 163 slave children crucified and disembowelled along the road to the city, she retaliates after taking the city by having the same fate visited on 163 of the nobles.
- The Boltons flay their prisoners alive.
- The historical Aerea Targaryen probably had the absolute worst of it. The poor girl tried to ride the dragon Balerion somewhere (most likely Old Valyria) and when she returned a year later, she died soon after. Septon Barth, who helped treat her, wrote a book about what happened, hid it, and never spoke of what happened ever again, because it was that horrific. She was burned alive from the inside-out by some kind of worms living inside her.Septon Barth: It has been three days since the princess perished, and I have not slept. I do not know that I shall ever sleep again. The Mother is merciful, I have always believed, and the Father Above judges each man justly... but there was no mercy and no justice in what befell our poor princess.
- Queen Rhaenyra, loser of the Dance of the Dragons, was roasted and eaten alive by Sunfyre. To make things worse, her young son had to watch.
Television
Game of Thrones
Tropes A | Tropes B | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to F | Tropes G to K | Tropes L to O | Tropes P to S | Tropes T to Z
"A crown for a king."
The series is infamous for the amount of Cruel and Unusual Deaths happening in it.
- Before the events of the series, Brandon Stark tried to win back Lyanna and his father Lord Rickard in a Trial by Combat. He chose himself as champion. The Mad King chose fire as his champion and had Lord Rickard roasted alive in his own armor.
- During Lord Rickard's death, Brandon was put in a noose with a sword just out of reach. Brandon strangled himself trying to reach the sword to free his father.
- Also before the events of the series, Robert smashed Rhaegar Targaryen's ribcage with his warhammer. It was enough to knock some of the rubies in his armor into the ford of the Trident, dubbing the place the "Ruby Ford."
- Gregor Clegane smashed Prince Aegon's skull. It should be noted that Aegon was only a baby. His mother Elia shared the same fate...after being raped by Gregor, whilst he was still covered in both her children's blood.
- Ser Hugh gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice through the throat with a jousting lance by Gregor Clegane and dies choking on his own blood.
- Khal Drogo is an expert at inflicting these, from dumping molten gold on your head ("A crown for a king" indeed) to ripping out your tongue for speaking ill of his wife. In the latter case, he actually cuts the man's throat open, reaches into the wound while he's still alive and tears his tongue out that way.
- The poisoner who tried to kill Daenerys is tied to her horse and forced to run behind it until he drops.
- Ned Stark get his head chopped off. Granted, in terms of gruesome deaths as it pertains to this show, getting your head chopped is fairly common and somewhat tame, but it's still pretty gruesome.
- Mirri Maz Duur is burned alive in order for Dany to hatch her dragons.
- The bastard children of Robert Baratheon are all murdered on the orders of Joffrey. One infant is killed in front of her horrified mother while she pleads for mercy and another young boy is shown being thrown to the ground and drowned.
- Renly is fatally stabbed by an unstoppable demonic shadow of his own brother that creepily snarls with hate before vanishing. It's truly the stuff of nightmares.
- During the battle of Blackwater, a lot of Stannis's soldiers are burned alive after Bronn detonates the cache of wildfire Tyrion placed in Blackwater Bay, and their screams are audible even from King's Landing, as everyone there watches in horror.
- Ser Rodrik ends up being beheaded by Theon, but Theon botches it, so it takes three swings and a kick to get his head off. Even a slasher like Cleftjaw is disturbed by the poor execution.
- The High Septon is torn apart by an angry mob. It's implied that his killers then ate him.
- Xaro and Doreah are sealed in an impenetrable vault and left to starve to death.
- Daenerys finds a slave in Astapor who has been crucified and is slowly dying. She tries to offer him water, but he refuses, saying he just wants to die sooner to end his suffering.
- Ros gets hung from her wrists to the end of a bed and used as target practice by Joffrey, who shoots her in the breasts and crotch, killing her.
- Talisa gets stabbed repeatedly in the stomach, while pregnant.
- Robb is repeatedly shot with arrows after seeing his pregnant wife stabbed and his men slaughtered. He only lives long enough to watch Talisa and their unborn child die in his arms before Roose Bolton finishes him off with a knife to the heart. And as if that weren't bad enough, after his death his body is desecrated: the Freys behead him, sew his Direwolf's head on his body and then parade it around mockingly chanting "The King in the North!"...all in front of his little sister.
- Tansy is torn apart by Ramsay's dogs, seemingly at Myranda's insistence. Thankfully, this happened off-screen.
- Instead of dying in a hopeless battle, Adrack Humble and the other Ironborn surrender, and get "rewarded" by being flayed alive by Ramsay. And what a cruel death it is -— we're treated to an image of Adrack with his eyes gouged out and his skin peeled away, exposing the ribcage and even the internal organs.
- Joffrey Baratheon is killed by a fittingly brutal poison that causes bleeding from the eyes, nose, and mouth. Being left choking on your own vomit and seizing up at your own wedding celebration is a pretty bad way to go.
- Karl Tanner is impaled through the head by a Valyrian steel longsword.
- The books' death for Oberyn is bad enough — having thought that he'd won the fight against Gregor Clegane, he gets caught off guard and has his face punched in and his brains, teeth, and eyes bashed out. The show actually manages to make this infinitely worse by actually showing Oberyn having his eyes slowly gouged out while his head is being crushed by Clegane's bare hands. He literally dies screaming in slow, horrific agony before it's interrupted by a sudden jerk from Clegane, a simultaneous eruption of blood from between his hands, and Ellaria shrieking at the sight.
- On her way to Meereen, Daenerys discovers that the Masters crucified 163 slave children (one for each road marker) as an intimidation tactic. She later returns the favour once she conquers Meereen.
- Subverted in one instance: it looks like Mance Rayder will be burned to death, before Jon puts him out of his misery with an arrow to the heart.
- Sandor viciously pushes a hapless mook's face onto a spike several times after he tries to attack Sandor and also implies he would like to rape Arya and said mook screams a lot each time.
- The Pentoshi captain who sells Jaime and Bronn out to the Sand Snakes gets buried up to his face in sand and tormented by scorpions before being speared in the face by Obara.
- In retaliation for the attack by the Sons of the Harpy in "Sons of the Harpy", Daenerys has a Master (who is the head of his family) roasted alive and then torn apart by her dragons.
- Karsi gets torn apart by a horde of child wights when she hesitates to attack them, and gets raised as a wight.
- Stannis has his daughter Shireen, one of the sweetest, most innocent characters in the series, burned alive as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light, while her parents watch and do nothing. It's so horrific that later even Selyse is left distraught and kills herself soon after from grief, while half of Stannis' army deserts out of disgust.
- Meryn Trant has his eyes stabbed out by Arya, before she finishes him by slashing his throat. For extra effect, we get a close-up on his ruined eyes.
- Trystane gets a huge spear right through his face. At least it was quick.
- Walda and her baby son get torn apart by Ramsay's hounds.
- Summer, Leaf, and Hodor all get torn apart by wights to help Bran and Meera escape.
- Lady Crane somehow gets stabbed into a stool in a particularly grisly (and anatomically inaccurate) death.
- Dany personally burns the khals alive, after they announce their intentions to rape her.
- We don't see the Waif's death, but when Arya removed her face, it is bloodied up and blood was leaking all the way from the entrance of the House of Black and White to the Hall of Faces, suggesting that Arya repaid the Waif's sadism to Lady Crane in kind.
- Defied by Beric, who refuses to allow Sandor to execute the Brotherhood members on his own terms, which forces Sandor to settle for a hanging that he gets to cause.
- Smalljon Umber first gets his throat ripped out, and is later stabbed multiple times in the face with a dirk while he's still alive.
- Poor Rickon Stark too. While the arrow killed him instantly, think of the psychological torture he had to go through while running to his brother.
- Ramsay Bolton is eaten alive by his own starving dogs while chained. The camera doesn't even shy away from the dogs devouring him, and we continue to hear his agonized screams as Sansa leaves the room. Granted, it's an incredibly Karmic Death since he had a habit of feeding other people to the same dogs, they only turned on him because he starved them, he is the show's biggest Asshole Victim by far, and his death occurs due to the actions of Sansa, one of the two living characters in the show who had suffered most as a result of his actions, but it's still an example.
- Someone was unlucky enough to be crushed to death by a giant bell when the Great Sept of Baelor was blown up by wildfire.
- Septa Unella was probably tortured and raped by a zombie Gregor Clegane until she died.
- Walder Frey has his throat slit by Arya and dies choking on his own blood, after having unwittingly eaten his own sons (who were made part of the pie by Arya).
- The adult Frey men die in a similar manner to Joffrey (due to being poisoned en masse by Arya), and quite a few of them are coughing up blood.
- Obara and Nymeria Sand are killed by their own weapons and then pinned to the prow of the ship by her spear and dangling from her whip, respectively.
- Ellaria Sand is chained up in the Red Keep, Forced to Watch as her daughter is poisoned with the same one she used to kill Myrcella, with Cersei specifically ordering the guards to change the torches every few hours so she doesn't miss a second of watching her favourite child succumb to poison and then slowly rot away as she decomposes. Presumably, Ellaria will also starve to death over a long period of time (at least once the rest of her punishment is over because Cersei tells her if she doesn't eat, she'll be force-fed).
- In "The Spoils of War", Drogon burns many, many Lannister soldiers alive, with quite a few of them struggling to reach a nearby body of water and some of them being cooked alive in their own armor.
- In "Beyond the Wall", Viserion is brutally impaled in the neck in mid-air by one of the Night King's icicle spears, creating a hole big enough that Viserion's flame leaks through it. Viserion flaps desperately to stay in the air but falls through the frozen lake with blood gushing everywhere, likely drowning in the process. To crush any hopes that he'll somehow recover, he is then shown closing his eyes and sinking lifelessly to the bottom of the lake. Then the knife is twisted further when his corpse is then dragged out by the undead army and raised as a wight by the Night King.
- In "The Dragon and the Wolf", several Night's Watch men and Wildlings are visible getting crushed to death as part of the Wall collapses around them.
- Many innocent civilians of King’s Landing (men, women, children) were either roasted alive by Drogon, watched as their city crushes them, were raped, etc.
House of the Dragon
- Queen Aemma's death by Traumatic C-Section. Her belly is opened against her will to take her baby out without any sort of anesthetic, and she bleeds to death as Westerosi medical science knows no better.
- The Crabfeeder owes his nickname to the fact that he crucifies prisoners of war on beaches to be slowly Eaten Alive by crabs.
- Rhea Royce's death. Daemon comes back at her to "end" their marriage once and for all. He makes her fall fall from her horse, the fall paralyzes her, and he takes a stone to finish her off as she can't move.
- Joffrey Lonmouth's death, by a brutal beatdown to the head from Ser Criston Cole (whose hands wear metal gauntlets). It's so gruesome that his face is essentially gone when Cole is finished.
- Laena Velaryon is burnt alive by her own dragon as a preferred alternative to Death by Childbirth. Somewhat downplayed by the fact that Vhagar completely incinerates her in one direct hit, making it a very quick death.
- Vaemond Velaryon's head gets cut off by Daemon Targaryen above the tongue and lower jaw (the latter two are still attached to his body afterwards).
- Lucerys and his dragon Arrax are swallowed whole by Aemond's dragon Vhagar (with Arrax's wings having been cut off by Vhagar's jaws).
