You Win Or You Die: Ranking the 99 Game of Thrones Deaths

Image credit: HBO/Helen Sloan

Hizdahr zo Loraq

If only being pretty was enough to save you on Game of Thrones, Hizdahr zo Loraq would have made it to the end. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Despite his eventual death at the hands of the Sons of the Harpy, Hizdahr makes a mark upon Daenerys’ plot.

Along with his father, Hizdahr is present when Daenerys and her Unsullied lay siege to Meereen. Hizdahr himself is spared the masters’ cruel fate, but his father is not so lucky. The man is crucified alongside the other great masters of Meereen in retribution for the slave children’s own deaths. However, when Hizdahr confronts Daenerys with the information that his father had been a kind man who opposed such treatment, Daenerys is forced to come to terms with the fact that justice isn’t as black-and-white as she thought it to be.

This realization, like Hizdahr himself, isn’t meant to last. When the Sons of the Harpy rise, Daenerys is faced with a new threat. In Season 6, it is (rather obviously) revealed that the masters of Yunkai and Astapor are funding these vigilantes as part of their revenge. Although Hizdahr is initially suspected of treacherous activity, it is upon his own death that Daenerys realizes he had been faithful to her all along. In his attempts to protect her, HIzdahr is slain by the Harpys.

Hizdahr may not have lived long enough to see Daenerys rise. But his perspective posed barriers to her judgment that she would do well to consider from time to time. Generally speaking, it must be acknowledged that the justice Daenerys seeks isn’t so cut and dry. While there is good and evil, more often than not the two overlap. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, after all. Success is determined by the ability to consider all angles to a problem, and then to tackle that problem accordingly. Burning cities to the ground offers some solid cinematic visuals, but it’s really not the answer to any problems. Sure, it might have worked for Cersei, but I think we all know that’s not going to last, either.