It's estimated that around 175,000 characters have been killed during the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones, but whereas some survived a few episodes, the very first victim lasted just five minutes.
Waymar Royce - played by actor Rob Ostlere - was in the opening scene of episode one but was quickly dispatched by a White Walker in the Haunted Forest, as you can see in the clip below:
It pretty much set the tone for thousands of grisly deaths to follow.
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No one is safe, a fact actor Ostlere knows all too well. Speaking to the I newspaper, he said: "One of the most interesting aspects of the show is how willing they are to kill off characters and catch you by surprise.
"After a while, I realised how it was significant that I was the first to die. The scene itself has its own beginning, middle and end and it almost comes across as a short horror film.
"Us three, other than Bronson who goes on to get his head chopped off, had our own storyline and it's really important for the rest of the show ongoing."
But with such little screen time, it will come as no surprise to most this was not the character Ostlere had originally auditioned for all those years ago.
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"I auditioned for Jon (Snow) and Theon (Greyjoy) and all sorts of main parts. They'd ask me if I'd like to audition for, say, Theon," he says.
"They'd say, 'Oh do you want to have a look at this part?' and you would come in the next day and have a look and study every reference of the given character in the original books, highlight it, make notes.
"With Jon, I just had to give it my best and sometimes you don't quite get the essence of them - some of them stick well with you, some of them don't."
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He added: "I always liked auditioning for the characters who were kind of arrogant, a little bit of attitude."
And though he was always destined to die early doors, Ostler revealed that extra scenes depicting his death were filmed but deemed a little too much for viewers.
"We filmed a couple of things that weren't used. I get sliced in half, for instance, but it was too graphic," the actor says.
"They get a bit of green tape which they put across your body and then there's that horror movie type scenario where one half of your body goes one way and one half goes the other.
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"You fall right first and then you fall the other way and then they put those two together in the studio. It was very fun filming it."
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Featured Image Credit: HBOTopics: TV and Film, HBO, Interesting, Game of Thrones