Game of Thrones: The 17 Sickest Burns in the Seven Kingdoms
Grab that salve
There are burns, and then there are buuuurns. And the great thing about Game of Thrones is that it has no shortage of both! On HBO's sprawling fantasy series, if someone isn't being literally set on fire by a misguided priestess, a hungry dragon, or a conquering inflammable queen, then they're being colloquially burned by a well-chosen insult that nails them right in the feelings.
With so many incredible burns both figurative and actual peppered throughout Game of Thrones' history -- and also in honor of Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg), the sharp-tongued Queen of Thorns whose death marks the end of an era of hot sass the likes of which may never be seen again in Westeros -- it's only right that we run down a retrospective of the show's sickest burns. Grab some aloe and gird your loins! It's about to be downright scalding in here.
1. The one apparent benefit to all of Sansa's suffering: it's made her extraordinarily skilled at a well-timed verbal smackdown. Take a seat, Littlefinger.
2. Tyrion's tongue is so famously sharp that he could rule this list all by himself, but his best comeback came when sassing his sister over her relationship with Jaime.
"You've never taken [ruling] seriously. You haven't, and Jaime hasn't. It's all fallen on me," Cersei yelled. Tyrion's fiery response: "As has Jaime, repeatedly, according to Stannis Baratheon!" OOOOOOH.
3. Ser Rodrik Cassel didn't last long, but his best burn lives on; we'll always remember how he called out Theon Greyjoy for being a special breed of traitor.
4. And of course, Theon then basically proved his point by literally incinerating two innocent peasant children and passing off their charred remains as the corpses of Bran and Rickon Stark.
Makes it kind of hard to feel bad for him, really.
5. In which Renly points out that Melisandre's description of Stannis makes him sound like a delicious cured meat.
Well, of course it sounds dumb when you put it that way.
6. Meanwhile Stannis, who is not just a ham but a monster, sends his own daughter up in actual flames.
7. Margaery Tyrell made the hottest of sutble digs at Cersei over her little day drinking problem.
I wish we had some wine for you! It's a bit early in the day for us. Not that I'm trying to insinuate anything, *cough*lush*cough*.
8. But Cersei burned back, by blowing up Margaery and everyone else with a wildfire bomb.
She who burns last, burns best.
9. Cersei is also just as gifted at smack-talk as she is at pyrotechnics.
Ya burnt, Maester Luwin.
10. Joffrey: Also burnt.
11. Jon Snow? So burnt... and so sad.
12. And of course, we've gotta talk about Daenerys. First, she burned Viserys (figuratively).
13. Then, she burned the slavers. (Literally.)
14. And the Khals.
15. Oh, and this guy.
16. And these guys!
17. But when it comes to the best hot sass in Westeros, let's be real: nobody delivered like Olenna Tyrell as she burned her way into the afterlife.
"Tell her it was me," she said, of Joffrey's murder. Even delivered secondhand by Jaime, that one's gonna sting when it lands.
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.