12 Backstabs In TV Shows We Didn't See Coming

Of all the betrayals in Game of Thrones, the “Red Wedding” likely looms the largest. This is due both to the scope of the betrayal and the importance of the betrayed characters.

It starts with a much smaller betrayal: Robb Stark breaking his promise of marrying one of Walder Frey's daughters. Throw in backdoor deals with the Lannisters and Boltons and a wedding to bring the houses together, and you have the unexpected massacre of several main characters only three seasons into the show.

After Stark reneges on the betrothal, his uncle, Edmure Tully, agrees to marry one of Frey's daughters to regain his support. The Starks gather for the wedding, falsely believing they are protected by guest right, a sacred tradition in Westeros that holds no host will harm any guest who dines beneath their roof.

The Lannister song “The Rains of Castamere” softly playing throughout the party alerts Catelyn Stark that something is wrong. Sure enough, she, Robb Stark, his wife Talisa, Robb and Talisa's unborn baby, Robb's direwolf Grey Wind, and hundreds of Robb's soldiers are brutally slain.

It's Game of Thrones, so of course all the culprits are eventually killed.

In Black Mirror's “Beyond the Sea,” David and Cliff are astronauts on a years-long space mission who can transfer their consciousness to identical robotic bodies on Earth. They live in their replicas like normal people, spending time off work with their respective families, until David's replica is destroyed and his family is murdered by a technophobic, Manson-esque cult. Stuck on a spaceship with a traumatized partner who's a danger to himself and the mission, Cliff offers David periodic use of his replica. 

Naturally, David gets attached to Cliff's body, home, and family, culminating in the attempted seduction of Cliff's wife Lana. Cliff confronts David and cuts him off from his replica. One day, David informs Cliff of an emergency on the ship. Cliff changes into a spacesuit to investigate. Finding nothing amiss outside the ship, he hurries back to the hatch to discover it locked and David missing. 

While it seems that perhaps David has left Cliff to die so he can take over his replica, a short time later he reappears and lets Cliff back in, handing him his replica-accessing key tag. Cliff takes it and quickly connects to Earth. He finds his family murdered just like David's - only this time, David was responsible.

Anguished, Cliff returns to the ship and an ominously calm David. The story ends there, leaving us wondering how the hell anyone can move on from that.

In a show that might as well have been called Game of Betrayals, a few moments stand out as being extra backstabby. One of these is Theon's betrayal of the Starks.

This occurs in season two when Theon, a Greyjoy turned hostage/adoptee of the Starks, sides with his original family by capturing the Starks' castle, Winterfell. During the siege, Theon kills his old mentor and forces Bran Stark to yield to him, but Bran and younger brother Rickon escape, prompting Theon to slay two farm boys to pass off as the Starks. 

Theon succeeds in taking the castle, but gains no respect from his family. They refuse to send adequate reinforcements, and Winterfell gets captured again - this time by the Boltons. Theon's own men hand him over to Ramsay Snow, the illegitimate son of Roose Bolton. Snow takes Theon prisoner, torturing him and sending his severed penis to Theon's father, who remains unmoved. Theon then becomes Ramsay's slave.

Although watching Theon viciously betray his adoptive family members is a tough pill to swallow, he subsequently endures some of the show's most horrifying events and gradually becomes honorable - giving him one of the biggest redemption arcs of all Game of Thrones characters.

Afraid that Lady Cora Crawley is about to fire her, Sarah O'Brien, her maid on Downton Abbey, places a bar of soap on the floor next to the bathtub, on which Crawley slips and falls. She miscarries what would have been the male heir to the Crawley/Grantham fortune. It turns out that she wasn't even going to fire O'Brien. Rather, she was looking for a maid for the elderly Violet Crawley.

Lady Crawley never did fire O'Brien because, unlike most other TV betrayals, the betrayed character never finds out about the treachery. O'Brien kept quiet, but was so wracked with guilt that she became a doting servant.

Faith Lehane begins Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a member of Buffy's Scooby Gang, but her unresolved trauma begets bad choices, which culminate in the accidental murder of Sunnydale's Deputy Mayor Allan Finch. 

Having bungled her way into villainy, Faith doubles down by allying with Buffy's nemesis, Mayor Richard Wilkins. Acting like the father she didn't have, Wilkins manipulates Faith into the attempted murder of Buffy's lover and a duel with Buffy that leaves Faith comatose.

It takes a while, but Faith makes her way back to the good side, vindicating viewers who had faith in her redemption.

The first season of True Detective concerns Martin “Marty” Hart and Rustin "Rust" Cohle, the titular true detectives investigating a string of murders. The complexity and danger of the investigation bring the partners closer - to the point that they sleep with the same woman. Unfortunately, only one - or, arguably, neither - of the detectives consented.

The female in question is Maggie Hart, Marty's wife, on whom he has been incessantly cheating. Cohle respects Maggie and resents Marty for his infidelity. Maggie discovers yet another affair and takes revenge in a diabolical way: she has sex with a drunk and vulnerable Cohle. This act destroys the marriage and partnership. But after a new lead revives the investigation a decade later, both are somewhat repaired.