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Asshole Victim / Game of Thrones

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Much like its source material, the show has plenty of these:


Backstory
  • King Aerys enjoyed burning people alive and his contingency plan in case King's Landing was ever sacked was to blow it sky-high. His last words were: "Burn them all!" He was then stabbed In the Back by his own Kingsguard. Many consider the betrayal itself dishonorable, but nobody mourned Aerys.

Season 1

Season 2

  • The first two names Arya gives to Jaqen H'ghar both belong to these sort of men.
    • The Tickler is a ruthless sadist who tortures people to death in a particularly horrible way. His death doesn't exactly incur sympathy.
    • Ser Amory Lorch is a loyal follower of The Mountain who engages in pointless peasant murder For the Evulz. He’s killed just as he’s about to sell out Arya to Tywin, who makes it very clear that even he doesn’t care that Lorch is dead.

Season 3

  • Kraznys mo Nakloz was an utter asshole the entire time he was dealing with Daenerys and her people. Drogon crisping the bastard is immensely satisfying.
  • It's hard to muster any sympathy for Rickard Karstark or said individual's accomplices as they're executed for murdering two unarmed boys.
  • Craster. While Karl Tanner ultimately proved to be no better, it is still satisfying to see him ram his knife through that daughter-raping, infant-murdering bastard's throat.
  • After the heinous Red Wedding, Arya and the Hound happen on four soldiers reveling about it, and their rude behavior when Arya approaches them with murder in her eyes doesn't help their case.
  • The Ironborn who betrayed Theon and mortally wounded Maester Luwin in season 2. We find out that Ramsay Snow had them flayed alive.

Season 4

  • Polliver and his men.
  • Joffrey Baratheon spends his final episode putting his Jerkassery on full display. His death was one of the extremely rare instances when it was actually celebrated by the fans. Even Jack Gleeson himself has stated that he was glad Joffrey was dead.
    • This becomes a plot point later. Anyone who knows anything about the show knows that Joffrey is easily the cruelest and rotten person there, and due to his penchant for ordering people to be killed, tortured and publicly humiliated simply because he could do that with no repercussions, the suspect list is pretty much everyone in King's Landing other than Cersei who had the opportunity: Jaime gives absolutely zero shits about Joffrey's death to the extent where he has sex with Cersei right next to his dead body, his own grandfather Tywin doesn't even pretend to feel bad for him and sums up his legacy to Tommen, Joffrey's younger brother and successor, with "he was not a good king or a wise king, if he had been then perhaps he would still be alive" with Joffrey's corpse between them, Tommen shows little emotion over his brother's death, showing more interest in Tywin's lecture on how to be a good king than paying any more respect to his brother (in the books Joffrey constantly tormented Tommen as a child. Though he was relieved that the torment has finally ended in the wake of Joffrey's assassination, he was still horrified by his gruesome death, and still affectionately refers to him as 'Joffy'), Tyrion is accused of killing him and while he pleads his innocence he also doesn't deny that he wishes he had and maintains that frankly, the world is better off without him anyway, Olenna Tyrell reminds Margaery, who feels bad about the way Joffrey died, that she would feel far worse had he had lived and they remained married, and that there was no way she would let such a harm be visited on Margaery, Margaery is more shaken up that he died so horrifically and pitiably rather than the fact that he died, and even Cersei, the only person to mourn his death, is not above tossing around the idea that her son may have deserved what happened to him. His killers — Olenna Tyrell and Littlefinger — admit to their confidants that they had Joffrey killed specifically because he was an asshole, and when Olenna confesses to Jaime that she was involved, her only regret is not being aware of how nasty the poison she used is. If he had been nicer and smarter, he'd still be alive.
  • Littlefinger tries to paint Ser Dontos as this to Sansa and the audience, saying that since Littlefinger had secured Dontos's cooperation with the promise of a reward, Dontos would eventually have betrayed them to Cersei for another reward. He does not completely succeed.
  • After all his crimes and in the midst of a plot to murder two children, Locke's death at the hands of a warged Hodor is rather gratifying.
  • Karl Tanner from Gin Alley was a psychopathic murderer and rapist. Everyone was happy to see Jon shove Longclaw through his mouth.
  • Rast was a Jerkass and responsible for the death of Jeor Mormont and abusing Ghost and Hodor. No tears would be shed when he is mauled by Ghost.
  • No tears were shed for Lysa Arryn fell to her death after being pushed through the Moon Door after her numerous instances of insanity, including threatening to kill her niece Sansa.
  • Rorge and Biter were definitely not good people.
  • We get to see the madam of the Mole's Town brothel mistreating Gilly, so we don't feel bad when she's murdered by Ygritte.
  • This was a common reaction to Tyrion's strangulation of Shae after she is found by Tyrion in Tywin's bed and tries to kill him, following her betrayal of Tyrion at the trial.
  • Tywin definitely had his murder at Tyrion's hands a long time coming.

Season 5

  • If there was ever a man who deserved to be executed for arrogant insubordination, it's the cowardly, two-faced Janos Slynt.
  • After trying to sell information on Jaime Lannister to the Sand Snakes, the Pentoshi captain is buried up to his neck in sand with scorpions crawling over his head, then gets speared in the face by Obara.
  • Arya's first target from the Faceless Men is a dishonest insurance broker who bankrupted a widow and her children.
  • Meryn Trant was an amoral goon from the start, but the show adds pedophilia and sexual sadism in his last two scenes to remove any doubt.
  • Myranda, who is as sadistic as Ramsay and a frequent, enthusiastic participant in his antics.

Season 6

  • Balon Greyjoy is an abusive father and Sore Loser who recklessly led his people on a pointless rebellion twice. He returns as callous, belligerent, and unreasonable as ever, and is immediately killed in the next scene. He will not be missed very much. Euron, his murderer, even got elected as King of the Salt Throne by playing up his 0% Approval Rating.
  • Roose Bolton, who helped orchestrate the Red Wedding and has been shown to be a cruel sociopath, gets no sympathy after Ramsay stabs him to death.
  • The Night's Watch mutineers led by Alliser Thorne, who murdered Jon over a petty grudge against the Wildlings. They more than deserved their hanging by a resurrected Jon Snow. It was satisfying to watch Jon get his revenge on these traitors.
  • It's highly unlikely anyone mourned the Khals of the Dothraki, particularly after they had just threatened to gang-rape Daenerys.
    • Moro's blood riders in particular also count, who are heard saying how they are going to rape a red-haired girl and drown her baby in a lake if he is redheaded too before they are killed by Daario.
  • Lem of the brigands, who murdered Sandor's newfound community, especially when he was finally finding peace in his life. He murdered them all, just for the bland reason of not having money and food. It's very hard to feel sorry for him when the Hound and Beric Dondarrion fought over who takes the kill, and even played In-Universe when The Hound takes his boot off, when you know he was... uh... hanging to death.
  • The Waif of the Faceless Men thoroughly deserved her fate after she murdered a pregnant Lady Crane in cold blood, just to torture Arya for a kill.
  • The two Masters who had the gall to attack Meereen, despite being offered a peace treaty and an alternate outcome and turned on the third Master as a sacrifice because he was of lower birth and "not one of them". It is hard to feel sorry for them.
  • Smalljon Umber's brutal death at Tormund Giantsbane's hands. This was the same traitor who sold out Rickon and watched him die without empathy, after all.
  • Ramsay Bolton being fed to his dogs provides quite possibly the most satisfying Karmic Death in the history of the show, because 1. they only turned on him because they were starved for a week by him, 2. it was Sansa, a victim of his Domestic Abuse and Marital Rape License, who loosed them on him in an extremely satisfying and literal example of The Dog Bites Back, 3. he is probably the worst villain in the history of the show (yes even worse than Joffrey), and 4. His death was nearly every bit as gruesome as he deserved, especially when you remember that he did the exact same thing to his stepmother and newborn brother. So much so, that when the dogs started to kill him Sansa initially started turning away, but then turned back toward him and watched in satisfaction.
  • Walder Frey, one of the perpetrators of Red Wedding right along with Tywin Lannister gets no sympathy when he is fed his own sons (both of whom were Asshole Victims in their own right), and finished off by Arya.
  • The High Sparrow and Lancel weren't exactly sympathetic this season, but in "The Winds of Winter", each takes actions to make sure the viewer is less inclined to consider their loss a bad thing:
    • The High Sparrow goes back on his deal with Margaery by marking Loras as a member of the Faith (essentially robbing House Tyrell of its heir).
    • Lancel threatens to hurt the little bird simply for running away from him.
  • Qyburn says that whatever Pycelle's faults, he didn't deserve the death that he receives. Considering that Pycelle was a shameless weasel who did everything in his power to stay in the good graces of whoever happened to be in charge, it's easy to disagree with him.

Season 7

  • The adult Frey men helped Walder carry out the Red Wedding. It's quite satisfying to watch their deaths caused by Arya.
  • Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes. Tyrion is quick to remind her — and the viewers — that despite her alliance with Dany, they murdered an innocent girl just to spite the Lannisters, not to mention their coup on Dorne just because Doran wanted peace. By the end of the second episode of Season 7, Euron has killed both Obara and Nymeria with their own weapons and hand-delivers Ellaria and Tyene to Cersei as war prisoners. Once in King's Landing, Tyene is killed by Cersei, who poisons her with the same poison that killed Myrcella, and Ellaria is forced to watch.
  • One death that overlaps with the Alas, Poor Villain treatment is Randyll Tarly’s death. In his last moments he takes the hand of his son Dickon who dies with him, showing that Even Evil Has Loved Ones. That said, he was still a horrible parent towards his other son Samwell - even outright threatening to kill him if he didn't drop all his titles and take The Black - and is burned to death when Daenerys has Drogon roast him alive.
  • Finally, Littlefinger, the man whose manipulations started the War of Five Kings, killed Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and many other people, and brought great ruin to the realm all for the sake of his own ambitions, is tried and executed by the Starks.

Season 8

  • Sandor Clegane pulls a Taking You with Me on his brother Gregor to take him down once and for all. While some might mourn for Sandor, no one will miss mass murdering Blood Knight The Mountain.
    • Just before that final battle between brothers, Gregor kills Qyburn by smashing his head. For all the pain and suffering his experiments caused, he deserved nothing less.
  • Anyone who supported Cersei and gave her an army only to not send them to help with the White Walker threat like Euron Greyjoy did, not to mention committed a laundry list of vulgar crimes (including kinslaying), does not invoke pity if they’re stabbed by Jaime Lannister.
  • While Cersei Lannister's death scene may have been presented as a tragedy, it's hard to feel bad for her overall when one remembers that she spent eight seasons being absolutely vile, slowly evolving into one of the most monstrous tyrants in modern fiction. And she brings her death on herself — she refused to offer help or a truce in the face of the White Walkers' invasion because she stupidly wanted to cling to power, executed an innocent woman because she wanted to spite Daenerys, and used her own citizens as human shields while pretending to protect them, which got most of them killed. Her downfall and death was a long time coming, and her despair as she felt everything crumble were deserved.

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