Dead ‘Game Of Thrones’ Characters: Where Are They Now?

George RR Martin’s boundless creativity and insatiable God Complex have been responsible for the deaths of a paltry two-hundred and eighty-four (284) characters throughout the Song of Ice and Fire books on which popular romantic comedy Game of Thrones is based so far. 

A great deal of those characters and their deaths were minor, largely unaccounted for in a landscape strewn with the foetid corpses of a thousand extras each competing for maximum screen time. Conversely, seldom few deaths have landed as heavy a blow as the wanton massacre of House Stark, or have been as unjustly gut-wrenching as the pointed end dealt Ros the erstwhile pros. To appropriate a phrase, “when you play the Game of Thrones, you die or you die.”

In anticipation of the show’s fourth season, premiering on HBO April 7th, we thought it fitting to revisit the lives, deaths and – in a few occasions – the career rebirths of Game of Thrones’ most notably departed with the following GIF Guide To Dead Game of Thrones Characters: Where Are They Now? 

Severed Head and Hand of the King, Sean Bean – or, as I like to think of him, Alec Trevelyan, and to a lesser extent, Boromir – has been swinging his sword every which way since his unceremonious beheading at the behest of serial sadist and human haemorrhoid (can’t believe I spelled that correctly on the first go :/) Joffrey Baratheon. For example, Seen Been appeared on TV in 2013 in both an episode of Family Guy and opposite Tina Majorino and Amber Valetta in a mini-series I’ve never heard of (contrary to its name) called Legends. Diverse!

The one-time Warden of the North is also leading a few film projects due out this year, including Wicked Blood, the premise of which involves Abigail Breslin using chess tactics to bring down a meth syndicate lead by her antagonist uncle (Bean). The little girl from Spy Kids also stars! Sounds promising, and also terrible. 

You can also catch Sin Bin in the next sprawling sci-fi offering from The Wachowskis, Jupiter Ascending, opposite sex idiots Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. Miss you forever, Ned.

Are you still plagued by nightmarish visitations of Richard Madden’s more-perforated-than-a-sieve-torso keeling over in a pool of his unborn child’s blood almost a year since his character’s demise? Of course you are, you’re only almost human and The Red Wedding was the single most fucked up television event of 2013, tied only with everything that happened in Breaking Bad, followed by Hannah Horvath puncturing her inner eardrum with a Q-Tip on Girls. 

For non-readers, the gangland-style slaughter of three major GOT players was the cause for a great outpouring of primal, guttural grief – thanks in no small part to the loss of Madden’s Scottish Border Collie steez. Viewers with a thirsty penchant for Madden’s personal brand of ginger beardedness will take solace in knowing that aside from his role as the voice of Golden Paladin Alucard in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (a video game!), Madden has signed on to play Prince Charming in a live action remake of Cinderella opposite titular ingenue, Lily James, and regal vibe life empress Cate Blanchett. 

I still hear Rob whimper “Müther” like it was yesterday.

Aside from her breakthrough role as Perla de las Dunas Receptionist in Quantum of Solace, Oona Chaplin’s sweet albeit brief turn as Talisa Stark has sparked a few future film projects and television roles, plot and production details of which are mostly scarce. 

The most promising exposure-wise appears to be a supporting role in Aloft, in which Chaplin was cast in a dramatic ensemble (the prerequisites for which must’ve been piercing eyes and exquisite cheekbones) alongside Jennifer Connolly, Mélanie Laurent and Cillian Murphy. Aloft premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last week and has been described as “arrestingly pretentious” and “bleakly bonkers”. 

Like the opening bars of ‘The Rains of Castamere’, this does not bode well for young Oona. 

Michelle Fairley, a stalwart of British drama and Hermione Granger’s mum alike, has gone from strength to strength since having her jugular slit in a blaze of glory. It was announced last week that Fairley – whose masterclass performance in spurning, passive aggression has apparently put her in good stead with casting directors – would be replacing Australian thespian Judy Davis as the (fabulously) evil villain in the 24: Live Another Day reboot. 

She’s also booked a recurring role as the duplicitous, rich-sounding Ava Hessington in Suits, played a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated Philomena, and is contractually-obligated to appear in six million crime thrillers from here until eternity. 

There’s a bizarre section on Tumblr solely reserved for homoerotic Robert Baratheon devianart; another for people who envisage Robert’s backstory with (Ned’s murdered sister) Lyanna Stark in poorly-written fan fiction illustrated with screen-grabs of Charlie and Marnie from Girls. People who make Devianart and write erotic fan fiction are très creepy sex pests of the highest order.

Prolific TV actor Mark Addy – also of Full Monty and Knights Tale fame – did such a great job playing a man whose poor impulse control leads directly to his death and the War of the Five Kings that I actually didn’t mind when he died because I knew his career would live on in the realms of middling BBC programming should I ever want to check in on him. You can catch Addy as a middle-aged Hercules in British fantasy series Atlantis or in the second series of The Syndicate, a serial about joint lottery winners, which aired last year.

His death GIF, like the content of his character, is fittingly inert.   

Lovely people have asked what I’m up to so I thought I’d share…

— Gethin Anthony (@Gethin_Anthony) January 30, 2014

First, COPENHAGEN a film I shot a while back screened @Slamdance last week. Here’s a review we got: http://t.co/Tjp0PRjNcK

— Gethin Anthony (@Gethin_Anthony) January 30, 2014

2nd: I just shot a pilot with the incomparable @CraigRoberts10 that will air later this year … http://t.co/karmz12ubP

— Gethin Anthony (@Gethin_Anthony) January 30, 2014

3rd: right now I’m rehearsing a site specific production of 3 Tennessee Williams plays in London. http://t.co/uKqBWj5Y5o Big love, gA

— Gethin Anthony (@Gethin_Anthony) January 30, 2014

The snivelling alabaster ferret Viserys Targaryan, played with aplomb by Harry Lloyd, was also offed in a befittingly viscous fashion. The crowning glory of Lloyd’s post-Viserys filmography – which ranges from roles in small British shorts, to a Great Expectations remake, to playing a young Denis Thatcher in The Iron Lady – may well be his supporting role opposite Thinking Man’s British Hotties Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in Theory of Everything, a Stephen Hawking biopic due out this year.

He’s also currently playing the lead in “a dark road trip comedy about a guy who wants to be in a light road trip comedy” that’s scheduled to premiere at SXSW later this year. That film, Big Significant Things, is trying to raise money for post-production with a Kickstarter initiative, on whose page you can watch Lloyd make a plea for your Benjis in a video filmed on his Macbook Photo Booth in his bedroom. 

Started in exile in Pentos, now we’re here.     

Cosplay fan favourite and noted Baywatch alum Jason Momoa has had a relatively quiet cooling off period since being mercifully euthanised by Dany in season one, appearing only in a Sylvester Stallone movie (presumably with the threat of a) Bullet To The Head. 

Not to worry – Momoa has a sculpted buttload of projects on the back burner, most to do with roads. The most promising include The Red Road opposite the talented Julianne Nicholson (Masters of Sex, August: Osage County) as well as his directorial feature debut Road To Paloma, a search for redemption on a Native American reservation, with motorcycles. 

Road To Paloma also stars his wife, Lisa Bonet, with whom he has two adorable children, the youngest of which is named Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa. ~The more you know!~

 

Poor Ros. Few other characters were screwed over to the extent that Ros was. Screwed because she was a prostitute, ICYMI. A working gal who exemplified the sad principle behind Littlefinger’s chaos monologue (“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them.”) Ros’s ability to ride the tides of influence at King’s Landing resulted in her being palmed off as a living target for that asshat Joffrey’s news crossbow. 

Her gruesome end (which you can watch again in this lengthy but small GIF should you wish) by no means equals the end of her career, because she’s an actress and that wasn’t real. Esmé Bianco, a neo-burlesque performer, Agent Provocateur model and natural redhead, has also been cast in Living Among Us, “a found footage film about a documentary crew sent in to interview a family of vampires whose existence has been made known to the world. But soon, the crew realises their very lives are in danger as they uncover a deadly secret and must fight for survival.” 

Bianco also made a cameo in Funny or Die’s ‘Gay Of Thrones’ season three finale recap as herself, has a really basic website, an active social media presence (will Tweet back at you, or help you with your thesis) and recently completed a raw vegan cleanse. Things are looking up!

 

I only just truly realised Jeor Mormont is Jorah Mormont’s father, which would make more sense than the coincidence that I’d initially accounted for. Per the JoJo classic, “you know it’s just too little, too late” because Jeor was gruesomely shanked in a mutinous rebellion at Craster’s Keep, which looked like this:

James Cosmo however, the truly seasoned veteran actor of Braveheart and Trainspotting fame, has since signed on for roughly a dozen projects since his run in Westeros came to an end, none of which really warrant mention because they’re all small and incredibly vague. What does is his sporadically active, always insightful Twitter feed, which is peppered with endearing insights like, “The haggis was lovely,” frequent updates on the weather (“Snow now too. Winter is…JC”), the strength of his phone signal (“Dreadful”) and well wishes for his fans. 

He’s currently fielding “suggestions for conventions in Europe” if you have any.

Like her handmaiden character, Roxanne McKee has done well to parlay her proximity to the centre of action into a number of top billings, including the frankly woeful-sounding “unrated” cannibal horror flick Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines and the imminent Hercules origin story opposite stoic titular beefcake Kellan Lutz. She plays his mother. It has a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It looks truly abysmal. 

Back to the vault with you, Roxanne.

Playing certified ladykiller and asexual warlock Pyat Pree doesn’t appear to have exactly done wonders for Ian Hanmore’s filmography. He seems to have only appeared in a single feature (Mary Queen of Scots) since getting burned by dragon fire in the House of the Undying. He has, however, done wonders for the bleached brows and statement lip trend. Chic.

It appears people on Tumblr genuinely mourned the loss of Maester Luwin, the paternal surrogate of the Stark children who was played with benevolent warmth by silver screen maestro Donald Sumpter. 

Sumpter has kept busy not only with a number of TV mini-series projects (including Atlantis, alongside Mark Addy/Robert Baratheon) but has also signed on for Ron Howard’s adaptation of Nathaniel Philbreck’s In The Heart Of The Sea, an historical fiction novel that tracks the real events which inspired Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Ben Whishaw plays Melville opposite a cast that includes Cillian Murphy and Chris Hemsworth. After being stalked by a sperm whale, the crew are left stranded for 90 days and forced to turn to cannibalism. Can you spell ‘Oscar bait’? 

Anyway. You go, Maester Luwin. Milk of the poppy for you, Maester Luwin.

Stalwart creep Mackenzie Crook was so convincingly awful as the wildling warg Orell; his death at the sword of Jon Snow a bittersweet victory for his character’s spirit not actually being 100% dead.

In addition to a recurring role in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Crook, who will never not be Gareth from the original incarnation of The Office, also stars alongside poor man’s Leighton Meester (Minka Kelly) and Karl Urban in a future-cop series Almost Human; he also signed on for a supernatural adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser, Caeser; and recently had his six-part archaeology comedy Detectorists picked up by the BBC. 

Fun facts: Crook is a real-life avid metal detectors enthusiast and writes children’s books. His latest, The Lost Journals of Benjamin Tooth, is out now. 

Did you know Dan Hildebrand, the classically trained actor who played misogynist slave trader Master Kraznys, also played a Hari Krishna in My Girl 2? Now you do. 

You’ll also remember his death as being one of the most spectacular in a series that has served up endlessly creative ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. You’ll next hear from Hildebrand, no doubt, in POSTMAN PAT: THE MOVIE (also starring David Tennant, Rupert Grint and Jim Broadbent). Dracarys. 

Wren Ros Elliot-Sloan has done absolutely nothing since his pithy stint in the season two finale as Rhaego Targaryen. Pfft. So lazy. What a hack. Check yourself, hater.

Wrapping things up on an uncharacteristically high note, this, from The Coventry Telegraph: “In between her hectic filming schedule, [17-year-old actress Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, obvs] likes nothing more than to relax at home with her family and pet dog Zunni, who the family adopted from the series. 

She adds: ‘Growing up I always wanted a dog, but my parents never wanted one. We kind of fell in love with my character’s dire wolf, Lady, on set. We knew Lady died and they wanted to re home her. My mum persuaded them to let us adopt her.’”