Game of Thrones has always been a pretty sprawling TV show, and plenty of material has ended
up on the cutting room floor.
But though these scenes were deleted, they're still fascinating to explore - especially
since these moments could have subtly changed the course of the story, or at least our perception
of events.
Let's explore some of the more substantial moments that never made the final cut.
The execution of Littlefinger was one of the most shocking moments in the season 7 finale,
but how did Sansa and Arya Stark come to learn about his whole lifetime of crimes?
In an interview with Variety, actor Isaac Hempstead Wright, who portrays Bran Stark,
revealed that he shot a deleted sequence with Sophie Turner, who portrays Sansa.
In the scene, Sansa reportedly consulted with Bran just ahead of Littlefinger's trial.
As you may recall, Sansa was convinced her sister Arya was out to assassinate her in
order to become the Lady of Winterfell.
Arya suspected the same of Sansa, and it was all thanks to that master manipulator, Littlefinger.
Viewers were sweating buckets watching the season 7 finale, since it looked like one
of the Stark sisters might kill the other.
But then, Sansa and Arya flipped the script, sentencing Littlefinger to death, revealing
their feud to be an elaborate ruse.
"Thank you for all your many lessons, Lord Baelish.
I will never forget them."
It was a big twist, but it seemed to leave a bit of a plot hole behind, too.
How were the Stark children suddenly so certain of Littlefinger’s history of manipulation
and betrayal?
According to Hempstead Wright, a deleted scene from the episode would have cleared up any
ambiguity.
It revealed exactly how the Stark sisters learned of Littlefinger's schemes.
And it would've let audiences see how Sansa and Arya arrived at the decision to execute
him.
In the deleted scene, Bran uses his newfound abilities as the Three-Eyed Raven to peer
into Littlefinger's past, unearthing every underhanded thing he'd ever done in his quest
for power.
Hempstead Wright told Variety:
"The story was that it suddenly occurred to Sansa that she had a huge CCTV department
at her discretion and it might be a good idea to check with [Bran] first before she guts
her own sister."
Though audiences can kind of still fill in the blanks without the scene, its inclusion
would have threaded the plot together with a little bit more clarity.
It also would have shed more light on Bran's immense powers, giving us a much stronger
impression of how extraordinary his gifts really are.
Bran's ability to access the history of man and the secrets of Westeros is an astonishing
skill and a potentially powerful weapon.
As was made clear in Season 8, Bran's knowledge that Jon is the rightful heir to the Seven
Kingdoms sparked an unfortunate chain of events, one that's played an important part in Daenerys
Targaryen's descent into madness.
Sansa has undergone a remarkable transformation since we first met the dreamy young girl looking
forward to marriage.
And one person who's had a major hand in her development is Sandor Clegane, otherwise known
as The Hound.
Throughout much of Game of Thrones, he's seemed alternately drawn to and repulsed by Sansa's
innocence, frequently calling her "little bird" with a mixture of sweetness and condescension.
"No, Little Bird, I won't hurt you."
Of course, The Hound uses that nickname again in the fourth episode of season eight, when
the dynamics between the two are remarkably different.
It’s a scene that highlights just how much Sansa has grown throughout the course of Game
of Thrones.
"You've changed, little bird."
Yet one deleted scene all the way back in season 2 depicts a Sansa who's already prepared
to stand up to The Hound.
"Sing."
"I don't know any songs.
Not anymore."
Instead of a quivering waif, we see a young woman who's perfectly willing to stand her
ground.
And perhaps that was the problem: the scene of her standing up for herself, even a little
bit, could have been seen as too much, too soon, as far as Sansa's development is concerned.
Sansa and The Hound's season eight reunion certainly wouldn't have been half as bittersweet
if she'd already demonstrated the potential for such strength way back in season 2.
Tormund has always been right at the center of the tension between the Night's Watch and
the Wildlings.
He's helpful to the Night's Watch, but he's not sentimental about their history.
He's committed to being part of the Free Folk, but he's also Jon Snow's friend.
When Jon was the Commander of the Night's Watch, he welcomed Tormund and other Wildlings
across the Wall.
That brought the tension to its boiling point, resulting in the slaying of Jon Snow.
In a deleted scene from season 5 that would've taken place before Jon's death and resurrection,
Ser Alliser Thorne - one of Snow's eventual killers - verbally spars with Tormund.
He lets Tormund know just how much he distrusts him, and how little he likes housing him.
Tormund gruffly replies:
"You must no longer be in charge, then."
It's a moment of intense foreshadowing.
But had the scene been included in the show, it might have made Tormund seem partially
responsible for Jon Snow's murder, however involuntarily.
Though he didn't wield a dagger, his aggressive needling of Alliser might have been perceived
as the straw that broke the camel's back.
Audiences might have blamed Tormund for Ser Alliser's subsequent actions.
Though the scene is appropriate for that era of the show, it may well have cast a pall
over an alliance that has since helped shape the future of Westeros.
Game of Thrones mines conflict from absolutely every angle.
Life against death, woman against man, religion against cynicism.
Another major clash?
The ongoing animosity between the nobility and common folk of Westeros.
The prostitute Shae had a pretty long run on Game of Thrones, but her luck eventually
ran out.
First there was her damning testimony against Tyrion Lannister, who then tragically killed
her when he encountered her in his father's bed.
It was tragic, and it was extreme.
But a deleted scene between Shae and Bronn reveals a far more tender side to the conflict,
and it might change how you view Shae's actions.
In the scene, Bronn commiserates with Shae as a fellow commoner:
"These people, even the good ones… they use us as they please, and when we're no longer
any use, they spit us out."
It's the kindest we've ever seen Bronn, and the moment emphasizes the difficult position
that Shae was in.
"We have to adapt to circumstances is what I'm saying.
Learn some new tricks."
With this scene in mind, what happens between Shae and Tyrion becomes even more complicated.
Yes, she did something awful, but this scene dares to ask: What choice did she have?
Grand Maester Pycelle was always a conniving man.
Even when acting like a doddering old fool, he delighted in playing passive-aggressive
games.
And he never missed an opportunity to dismiss and disrespect Tyrion.
But his detestable nature often went completely unnoticed by other characters on Game of Thrones.
It even went unnoticed by many people watching the show.
But a deleted scene between Pycelle and Tywin Lannister would've changed that dynamic enormously.
Pycelle interrupts Tywin while he's fishing, and as usual, he's playing the fool in order
to seem non-threatening and inept.
Unimpressed by this charade, Tywin cuts off Pycelle's babbling:
"Stop it.
Am I the only one to see through this performance?"
This certainly changes the dynamic between Pycelle and Tywin.
It also suggests that most of the other people in King's Landing are comparably daft.
The scene doesn't just make Tywin seem more formidable, it also changes how we see Pycelle.
Now he seems like a dangerous and devious man instead of a mild annoyance.
In the second season of Game of Thrones, Daenerys learns an important lesson in trust after
she's ferociously betrayed by her handmaiden Doreah.
"Khaleesi, please, he said you'd never leave Qarth alive..."
"Come."
Doreah meets a wholly unfortunate end, with Daenerys sealing her inside a vault to die
- which is inarguably kind of a harsh way to take somebody out.
As it turns out, we didn't even see the worst of Doreah's actions.
In a deleted scene from season 2, she gleefully strangles Daenerys' handmaiden Irri to death.
Of course, that scene effectively turns Doreah into a far more insidious character.
And it makes her betrayal seem so much worse than what we ever saw on screen.
The White Walkers were always a major threat in Game of Thrones.
But it was also a major challenge to get the people of Westeros to believe the threat was
real.
Jon Snow spent an enormous chunk of screen time arguing about the Walkers, though few
people were ever willing to take his warnings - or Bran's visions - to heart.
"A crippled boy claims to have seen dead men on a march beyond the wall."
"Thanks to the magical help of a raven with three eyes?"
"Yes it is a bit much."
But in a deleted season 2 scene that we never got to see, it's revealed that Tywin Lannister
took The White Walkers quite seriously from early on.
After hearing stories of corpses with blue eyes and their bone-white masters, Tywin discusses
sending an envoy to Mance Rayder, then the King Beyond the Wall.
This plot development would have seriously changed our perception of Tywin.
And it would've considerably raised the stakes for the Lannisters as a whole.
Had the scene aired, we would have seen the first major house start preparing for battle
with the White Walkers far ahead of time, while pretty much everyone else was too busy
being skeptical.
Renly's death was the lynchpin of several plot threads: Melisandre's dark and complex
magic, the Tyrells' insatiable thirst for power, and the War of the Five Kings.
Renly had the charm and charisma that Stannis lacked.
He had the backing of a large and fruitful house, and brilliant women like Margaery at
his side.
At this point, it's all-too easy to forget what a genuine threat he was.
But above and beyond that, Renly was Loras' over.
And a deleted scene from season 2 illustrates their love with a tenderness that's rather
unusual for the world of Game of Thrones.
In the scene, Loras laments his inability to stop Renly's murder, confiding in his sister
Margaery that he feels somewhat responsible for his lover's death.
Margaery urges Loras to turn his attention to their family.
"We have to think about our house now.
The whole country's at war."
The scene makes the Tyrells' emotional stakes all the more clear.
It's easy to see Margaery as conniving above all else, but this unusually touching moment
illustrates that she still very much loves her brother.
Olenna Tyrell was one of the most fearsome characters on Game of Thrones.
A brilliant strategist, a cynical plotter, and a devoted grandmother, she was a woman
who'd do anything to protect her family and their interests.
Case in point: Her murder of Joffrey Baratheon at his wedding.
In a deleted scene from season 6, she discusses the Lannisters with her son, Mace Tyrell.
After Mace is made Cersei's Master of Coin, he's evidently unable to see how he's being
manipulated.
But Olenna sees exactly what's going on, and she's determined to keep Loras and Margaery
as safe as possible.
"Cersei Lannister sent you to Braavos to get you out of her way, and she sent the bloody
Kingsguard to make sure you stayed there."
The scene brings to light exactly how close Cersei's plan came to ending in failure, and
how enormously the Tyrells would go on to lose - and, thus, how powerful Cersei truly
is by the last season of the series.
Though forces were arrayed on both the Tyrell and Lannister sides, it all came down to a
game of wits between the Queen of Westeros and the Queen of Thorns.
The direwolves have always been more than pets.
Their fates have foreshadowed and influenced the fates of the Stark children from the very
beginning - from Lady's death and Sansa's subsequent suffering, to Grey Wind's mutilation
and Robb's murder at The Red Wedding.
In a deleted scene from season 7, Jon gives Ghost an important task before he sets off
to meet Daenerys: Keep Sansa safe.
Ghost is essentially the only Stark direwolf left - yes, there's still Nymeria, but that's
a story for another day.
The fact that Jon entrusted this job to Ghost is a sign of just how deeply he cares for
Sansa.
It also emphasizes how important Sansa, Arya, Jon, and Bran are to each other.
Their strong alliance has survived that of the Lannisters, the Tyrells, and the Targaryens.
Ghost is a part of Jon, - or at least, he used to be, before the King in the North up
and ditched him in season 8.
You really do know nothing, Jon Snow.
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