00:00I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the big and
00:09small screen characters whose deaths came way too early in the story.
00:13Obviously there will be spoilers ahead.
00:15Well done!
00:18Number 10.
00:19Hoban Wash Washburn, Serenity.
00:21Fans will tell you that everything about this franchise ended too soon.
00:25Although he's not the only beloved Firefly character who dies in this movie,
00:28Wash's death is by far the most shocking.
00:35After some incredible piloting through a vicious space battle, he successfully crash-lands Serenity
00:40only to be immediately killed by a spear right in the middle of his moment of glory.
00:45It seems to come out of nowhere, and fans were left speechless and horrified.
00:52It's amazing how attached you can get to a character after just one short season of TV
00:56and three quarters of a movie.
00:58Number 9.
00:59Zoe Barnes, House of Cards.
01:01We understand that you want to open the second season of a TV show with a bang,
01:04but this character deserved better.
01:14Many viewers would argue that Zoe Barnes was what made the first season of House of Cards
01:18so compelling.
01:18That's why her sudden murder came as such a surprise.
01:21I want to believe you, Francis.
01:26It almost seemed as though the show's writers were sabotaging themselves,
01:29since Zoe's constant sparring with Frank was such a brilliant source of tension.
01:33I promise you absolute discretion.
01:35So we're talking about trust.
01:38Use whatever word you like.
01:39Some fans felt that the show started to go downhill from this point.
01:42It was just never able to recapture the spellbinding drama of season one.
01:46Number 8.
01:47Scott Summers slash Cyclops, X-Men The Last Stand.
01:50You could argue that the first two live-action movies in the X-Men franchise
01:53kicked off the golden age of the superhero genre.
01:56There's someone here.
01:57Where?
01:59I don't know. Keep your eye open.
02:01Logan.
02:02However, a lot of fans felt that Cyclops got short shrift,
02:06and it didn't help that he was unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the third film.
02:10Gene?
02:12Scott.
02:13The movie has to go to extremes to show us that Gene has lost control of her powers,
02:17but why not kill off a few innocent bystanders rather than the X-Men's beloved leader?
02:21At least we got a glimpse of his beautiful eyes before Gene sucked the life out of him.
02:30Number 7.
02:31Russell Stringer-Bell, The Wire.
02:33Idris Elba's criminal kingpin is one of the most compelling characters
02:36to appear on screen in a long time.
02:38Nah, man, we done worrying about territory, man.
02:41What corner we got, what project.
02:43Game ain't about that no more.
02:45It's about product.
02:46Brilliant, shrewd, and seemingly always three steps ahead,
02:49Stringer-Bell often appears invincible despite the dangerous business he's in.
02:53But in Season 3, he makes the mistake of pitting his adversaries against each other,
02:57and he pays the price.
02:58You still don't get it, do you?
03:01Huh?
03:02It ain't about your money, bro.
03:05Your boy gave you up.
03:06By this point in the series, Stringer was in his prime,
03:09building his business up into an empire through sheer force of will.
03:12The scene is oddly anticlimactic for the death of such a larger-than-life character.
03:16Well, get on with it, motha-
03:17Number 6.
03:18Joe Brody, Godzilla.
03:20We blame the trailers for this one.
03:22As the first American Godzilla movie since the critically panned 1998 version,
03:26there was a lot riding on this film.
03:27The future of the monsterverse was at stake.
03:36At the same time, Brian Cranston was at the height of his powers,
03:39having just finished his brilliant five-year run as Walter White.
03:42I am the one who knocks.
03:44It makes sense that the studios would want to play up his involvement in this movie.
03:47They evacuated us so quickly.
03:51I don't even have a picture of her.
03:54However, the marketing led viewers to believe that Cranston was the star,
03:57so it was quite a shock when his character was killed off less than halfway through.
04:01Worst of all, he dies off-screen in a totally underwhelming fashion.
04:04What a waste of a great actor.
04:07Whatever it takes.
04:10Whatever it takes.
04:12Number 5.
04:13Matthew Crawley, Downton Abbey.
04:15Dan Stevens put the series writers in a tough spot when he decided to move on from the show.
04:21However, they could have found a more satisfying,
04:23or at least less pointless way to write out his character.
04:26Just after the birth of his son, Matthew is in a random car accident and is killed.
04:30And I wonder what I've done to deserve it.
04:32The scene lingers on his joyful wife and newborn baby,
04:35while Matthew lies bleeding in the ditch.
04:37It feels not just emotionally manipulative,
04:39but inappropriate for a show that usually handled dramatic moments with a more skillful touch.
04:50Number 4.
04:51Newt and Hicks, Alien 3.
04:53Even James Cameron was mad about this one.
04:58The third installment in the Alien franchise picks up right after the second left off,
05:02with Ripley and company forced to flee the Sulaco in an escape pod.
05:09They crash land on a strange planet, and we later learn that only Ripley survived.
05:20Neither she nor the audience even get a chance to react properly to this news,
05:24which seems to come completely out of left field.
05:30After everything they went through to survive and escape the Xenomorph Queen and aliens,
05:34these unceremonious deaths feel like an insult.
05:40Number 3.
05:44Carl Grimes, The Walking Dead.
05:46It's extra jarring when a major character dies off-screen.
05:49In this case, not only does Carl die off-screen, he's bitten off-screen too.
06:00A few episodes earlier, he and Sadiq encounter a group of walkers
06:03and seemingly fight them off with no issue.
06:05It isn't until later that we learn that Carl was actually bitten,
06:08and his death is imminent.
06:15After all that this poor kid has gone through in his short life,
06:18he deserves a better ending.
06:20That said, at least his final few scenes are effective
06:22at showing his maturity and his growth as a character.
06:29Number 2.
06:30Supreme Leader Snoke, Star Wars Episode VIII, The Last Jedi.
06:33The first episode of the sequel trilogy led us to believe that Supreme Leader Snoke
06:37was like a new version of the Emperor.
06:47He's extremely powerful in the Force, and a master manipulator behind the scenes.
06:51Then in Episode II, he dies, and we never learn anything else about him.
06:58Setting up a character to seem super important and then killing him off is pretty unsatisfying.
07:03How did Snoke rise to power?
07:04Why did Palpatine create him in the first place?
07:06And what happened to his face?
07:08Apparently we'll never know.
07:25He's not the only cool character that we wanted to see more of.
07:28Captain Phasma only gets a few scenes before falling to her fiery and disappointing death.
07:37Rebel scum.
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07:54Number 1.
07:55Eddard Ned Stark, Game of Thrones.
07:58If you didn't already despise Joffrey, you definitely will after what he does to Ned.
08:06We get that his death is basically the catalyst for all the events that follow.
08:15It's also accurate to the source material, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.
08:19Ned is one of the few uncomplicated, honorable, and upstanding men in the series.
08:27He's not interested in politics or drama,
08:29and just wants to do what's right for his house and his family.
08:37When the little blonde creep forces him to make a false confession of treason,
08:41and then has him beheaded anyway, everyone is outraged.
08:44Then again, it's not like you can just let Sean Bean live.
08:46Which character's death caught you totally off guard?
08:49Let us know in the comments below.
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