This event occurs in the first season after Casterly Rock learns of the Starks’ kidnapping of Tyrion Lannister. In retrospect, this attack was unprompted as for all their sins, the Lannisters were innocent of the murder attempt on Bran Stark’s life which Catelyn mistakenly accused Tyrion of, but there was nothing so guileless about Tywin’s reply. Sending a dead trout to Lord Eddard Stark in King’s Landing, Tywin publicly threatened Ned and his wife’s ancestral family in Riverrun while having smallfolk not just burned out of their homes in the riverlands, but tortured and mutilated by a sadist. Perhaps war was inescapable, and Tywin simply elected brutal effiency to expedite its end, but it was also an aggressively violent response that portended how Tywin would run the Lannister’s side throughout the rest of his life, right down to the Red Wedding. Less a starter than a finisher, this Machiavellian genius still has plenty of blood on his hands.

8. Renly Baratheon, The King of Storm’s End

Of course Catelyn and Robb could have had an easier time figuring out which Baratheon brother to entreat if the two had stood united. This is not to say that Renly was in the wrong for declaring himself king. Despite what Stannis’ rather vocal internet fan community will attest, the history of their family proves Varys’ season 2 words true: Power resides where men believe it resides. And Renly was a much more powerful man in the eyes of Westerosi lords, from Winterfell to the Reach. Stannis had the best claim on the throne since Joffrey and Tommen are incest-babies not of Robert’s seed, and Renly was his younger brother. However, Stannis is actually quite bad at the game of thrones that all these characters play. It’s why the only lords he could initially convince of his kinghood were either his wife’s family’s bannermen or upstart smugglers he had knighted.

Still, Renly did not anticipate that if Stannis couldn’t win the game, he’d knock the board over and declare himself victorious at his brother’s expense. Which is more or less what Stannis did when he cheated by bringing magic into the equation. Using Melisandre’s womb as his greatest weapon, a shadow baby was born that committed the ultimate sin of fratricide. Yet Stannis would not have had to damn himself in the eyes of the old gods and the new if Renly had not tried to jump the line of succession and declared himself king. Even more importantly, if Renly and Stannis had stood united, then Highgarden would have never strayed to the Lannister’s war encampment.

Without Highgarden, Tywin Lannister’s surprise attack on the Blackwater may not have been so surprising… or decisive. Beyond that, even if King’s Landing survived this first siege, it would still starve without grain shipments from the Reach, and the first mob attack on Joffrey in season 2 would become one of many. If Renly had stayed the course with his brother, the Lannisters would probably have not lasted much longer, even if they had somehow improbably survived the Battle of Blackwater Bay.

7. Balon Greyjoy, King of the Iron Islands

Nobody cares much for the Greyjoys or the Ironborn as a whole. That is probably because they’re the backwoods rednecks of Westeros. Oh sure, they fashion themselves as what we imagine Vikings were like, but they’d be more akin to if Belgium or Luxembourg decided tomorrow that they should conquer the entirety of continental Europe. Multiple times. Every generation, the Ironborn from a few sparse, under-populated islands think that they can call themselves kings, and every generation they have to earn another rude awakening.