The 10 Game of Thrones Characters Who Endured the Cruelest Fates

If you've ever stuck it out through all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, you already know: this is a show that absolutely delights in misery. Strip out the sword fights and dragon pyrotechnics, and you're basically left with a marathon of pain and tragedy. That's actually a big part of what hooked so many of us—the deeper you get invested in a character, the higher the odds that the showrunners will off them or serve up some fresh, personalized hell for them to endure. The big question has always been: whose journey was the roughest?

Let's be honest: almost nobody survives Thrones unscarred. But some people—let's call them the Westerosi Elite of Suffering—were dealt hands so cruel it's almost comical in hindsight. Here's my definitive list of Thrones' most tormented. And yes—everyone's got a different list, but I'm willing to bet at least half of these picks are on yours too.

• Bran Stark: Remember when Bran was the happiest little climber in Winterfell? That didn't last. First, Jaime turns him into Westeros' first paraplegic by launching him out a tower window. Then it's years of war, exile, everyone he knows dying, and a cross-country trek where his one job is to see all suffering and never, ever be able to do a thing about it. Oh, and his ultimate fate? Emotionless memory stick.
• Daenerys Targaryen: It's easy to call her the "Mad Queen," but that ignores how much she went through even before roasting King's Landing. She's exiled as a kid, abused by her psycho brother, loses her unborn son to a witch, and has to watch her beloved Drogo die after one season. After clawing her way up from nothing, she's chewed up and spit out in a finale that did her zero favors. You can call her a tragic queen, but honestly, she deserved better from the writers.
• Cersei Lannister: Look, I get it—she's evil and absolutely one of the all-time great villainesses. But it's worth acknowledging just how much she suffers: married to a lazy, mean, philandering husband; loses all her kids (three for three!); shamed through the streets; watches her whole world literally come crashing down around her. Yes, it's hard to feel sympathy, but the pain was real—just parceled out to a character we all love to hate.
• Shireen Baratheon: Talk about the ultimate heartbreak. Shireen is about as innocent as it gets, cursed with greyscale and neglected by her cold, status-obsessed parents. Her friendship with Davos is enough to make you cry, and then her own dad lights her on fire to please a red witch because he thinks it might win him a war. If you didn't flinch at this, you clearly have less soul than Stannis.
• Arya Stark: Sansa gets a lot of (deserved) attention for how much she suffers, but Arya gets thrown into the wild at age nine, separated from her family, on the run, living disguised as a boy so she's not slaughtered by every passing soldier. Then it's years of violence, endless death, training to assassinate people, and a kill list the length of the Hound's arm. By the end, Arya is basically a PTSD-addled ninja, which, let's face it, seems earned.
• Sansa Stark: Poor Sansa: a teenager so out of her depth it's almost painful. She's stuck in red-hot Lannister territory, gets her wolf killed, watches her dad get beheaded, survives endless psychological torture, and just as she escapes, ends up married to Ramsay—the show's premiere sicko. If anyone thinks her turn as Queen of the North was too neat... well, she paid every step of that journey.
• Theon Greyjoy: Theon probably made more mistakes than most of these people, but it's not as though the universe didn't rain down punishment. Betrays the Starks (dumb), gets captured by Ramsay (worse), and then spends multiple seasons being mutilated, brainwashed, and utterly humiliated. Even after he reclaims his dignity, you get the sense he never really finds a home on either side of his divided lineage.
• Jon Snow: Jon is the poster boy for "no good deed goes unpunished." Born a Stark bastard (and made to feel it every. single. day.), shunted off to the Night's Watch, only to be murdered by his own men, revived, loves lost, sacrificed all over again, and ultimately forced into permanent exile. He saves Westeros, and for his trouble? Back to the Wall. Classic Thrones: no reward for the good guy.
• Catelyn Stark: It doesn't matter if you think Catelyn's decisions were smart or emotionally reckless—she's still a mother who practically loses every kid, plus her husband, and is forced to witness her own world burn to ashes. She blames herself, sure, but really, Westeros was out to get her no matter what she did.
• Hodor: This one caught a lot of people off guard. Turns out, all Hodor ever did was try to help, and he ends up brain-fried for life because of a time-travel paradox while saving Bran—the same Bran whose powers ultimately get Hodor killed as he tries to "hold the door." If you didn't tear up at that reveal, I'm not sure you've got tear ducts.

I have to admit—it's actually kind of impressive how Thrones managed to fit this amount of tragedy into so few seasons. So, who'd I leave out? Who suffered even worse than these ten? Drop your candidates (and your reasons) in the comments. I'm always ready to argue about who had the absolute worst time in Westeros.