Though not a perfect show, no one can accuse Game of Thrones of holding back with their difficult subject matter. The show was filled with shocking violence, acts of debauchery and a more than a little foul language. The raw nature of its world helped to make the show more compelling, but sometimes it was more than audiences could handle.

By the end of Season 1 of the series, it became pretty apparent that this was not always going to be a pleasant story. But some of the things shown throughout the eight seasons went a little too far. Here are some of the most disturbing storylines in Game of Thrones we wish we could forget.

10 Killing King Robert’s Bastards

Back in Season 1, Ned Stark found out the worst kept secret in Westeros – Joffrey and his siblings were not Robert Baratheon’s children, but rather the product of incest between Cersei and Jaime Lannister. The giveaway was their blonde hair while all of Robert’s many bastards had his dark brown hair.

In order to keep this secret from getting out, Joffrey orders his soldiers to murder all of Robert’s bastards. The montage of young children being murdered, including small babies, is a stomach-churning moment that cemented Joffrey’s status as the show’s most hated character.

9 Hardhome

From the very first scene of the series, the White Walkers were established as a deadly threat, but it was unclear just how big of a threat they posed. We finally witnessed the extent of their power when Jon Snow visited Hardhome.

The village beyond the Wall was the last stronghold for the Wildlings. As Jon tried to bring them back to safety with him, the army of the dead attacked. After killing most of the remaining Wildlings, the Night King appeared and raised all of the dead, adding even more to his massive army. It remains one of the most bone-chilling moments of the series.

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8 Stannis Sacrifices His Daughter

Stannis Baratheon was a hard man to root for. Though his intentions for winning the Iron Throne seemed to be noble, he was an unmoving and cold man capable of doing horrible things to achieve his perceived destiny.

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We finally saw how much he was willing to sacrifice when Melisandre convinced him to burn his daughter alive as a sacrifice to the Red God. Any party of us that was rooting for Stannis disappeared upon seeing sweet young Shireen plea for her father’s help and seeing him do nothing.

7 Craster’s Daughters

Though he had a relatively small role in the series overall, Craster is a contender for the vilest person on the show. Craster lives beyond the Wall apart from the Wildlings and serves as an uneasy ally to the Night’s Watch.

He lives in his small community with his many daughters who are also his wives. He mistreats his women, abuses them, and sacrifices any male babies to the White Walkers. As if that existence wasn’t bad enough for these women, after Craster is killed by the Night’s Watch mutineers, they are taken prisoner and subjected to even more brutality.

6 Jon And Daenerys

Though there are many memorable and important characters on the show, the entire series mainly came down to Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen in the end. They each appeared to be the heroes of the story and Westeros’ best chance for peace. So maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise when they got together.

In the show chose to cement this love story by intercutting their first sex scene with the confirmation that they are in fact related. Once this becomes common knowledge, no one seems to acknowledge how disgusting and wrong it is that Jon is having sex with his aunt.

5 Daenerys’ Marriage To Drogo

Daenerys has had some rotten relationships in the show. Long before she was hooking upon with her brooding nephew, Daenerys was forced into a marriage with Khal Drogo, the feared Dothraki warlord. Eventually, Daenerys would come to love Drogo and they would be happy together, but many people forget the very problematic way that marriage began.

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On their wedding night, Drogo consummates their marriage with a frightened, tearful Daenerys. His abuse of her continues for a while until she learns to communicate with him. However, seeing her staying married to her abuser made it very hard to see them as a happy couple.

4 The Red Wedding

The Red Wedding has become an iconic pop culture moment and one of the most shocking television moments of all time. During the wedding of Edmure Tully, Walder Frey turns against Robb Stark, massacring his entire army.

Robb was seen as the best chance for the Starks to finally have justice, and his defeat was heartbreaking. The show did not hold back in its cruelty, showing Robb’s pregnant wife stabbed to death, his mother’s throat cut open, and Robb’s own headless body was paraded around with his direwolf’s head sewn on top in a gruesome final insult.

3 Jaime Assaults Cersei

Jaime and Cersei Lannister had maybe the most repulsive relationship on the show, and yet it managed to be one of the longest ones as well. Despite being related, they do love each other. But there is still one scene between them that casts an even darker cloud over their relationship.

After Joffrey’s death, Jaime is alone with Cersei in the crypt and sexually assaults her. It’s a horrific moment and, like the relationship between Daenerys and Drogo, the show seems to expect us to forget it ever happened.

2 Theon Becomes Reek

By the end of Season 2, pretty much everyone hated Theon Greyjoy for betraying Robb Stark and taking Winterfell. However, Season 3 saw him go through so much torture, it was hard not to feel bad for the guy.

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Theon finds himself taken captive by the sadistic Ramsay Snow, who proceeds to subject him to unspeakable acts of cruelty, both physically and mentally. He breaks Theon down until he is barely human and goes by the name Reek. The prolonged torture storyline was hard to watch, especially since it didn’t feel like it was adding much to the overall story.

1 Sansa’s Marriage To Ramsay

Ramsay’s torture of Theon, a character we hated, was bad enough. But to see him inflict the same cruelty on Sansa Stark was almost too much to bear. Littlefinger arranges the marriage to bring stability to the North, yet even he seems unaware of how awful Ramsay is.

During their wedding night, Ramsay forces Theon to watch as he rapes Sansa. For many fans, this was the moment the show went too far. Sexual violence was always part of the show, but people began to question whether the show was just getting gratuitous to showing such horrific things.

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About The Author


Colin McCormick
(2030 Articles Published)

Colin McCormick is a Senior Writer with Screen Rant and has been a proud member of the team since 2019. In addition to his work as Screen Rant, Colin is also a writer of News, Feature and Review pieces at Game Rant. Colin has had a long passion and obsession with movies going back to the first time he saw The Lion King in theaters. Along with movies, Colin stays up-to-date on the latest must-see TV shows. While he loves to find interesting projects in any kind of genre, he has a special movie of crime stories that are infused with a little dark humor much like the work of his favorite author, Elmore Leonard.

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