It is known that in Game of Thrones "all men must die", but even on a show that's renowned
for some of the bloodiest, most shocking deaths on TV, from the Red Wedding to the massacre
at the Great Sept of Baelor, apparently some things are still just too terrible to be seen.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here and in this video I'll be revealing brutal
Game of Thrones deaths that ended up censored or cut from the epic fantasy series.
And my Game of Thrones Funko Pop giveaway is running on this video too, so for a chance
to win: be sure to subscribe to my channel and leave a comment with your thoughts about
the show.
Quick warning: spoilers ahead if you're not caught up with Game of Thrones.
Given Ramsay Bolton's penchant for hunting down humans with his hounds, his death at
the paws of his own pups in season 6 was a fitting end to his horrifically sadistic story.
But the Bolton boy's death by dog in episode 9, "Battle of the Bastards", was initially
going to be much gorier than it ended up.
In the actual episode, apart from the hounds' first bites to Ramsay's face and a shot of
his bloody hand, much of Ramsay's demise plays out off-screen with the camera focusing on
Sansa's face as we hear the grisly sound of her tormentor dying.
However, according to an interview in Variety with visual effects supervisor Mat Krentz,
a computer-generated jaw was also created for Ramsay, which was then animated to show
the flesh being ripped from his face.
In the end though, those effects were deemed too grisly and were cut.
But that change also had an interesting effect on the overall scene, because if Ramsay's
on-screen fate had been more graphic, I think we would have lost some of the emphasis on
Sansa and how her character has been changed by her traumatic experiences, which was a
crucial part of this scene that we see in how she reacts to her persecutor finally getting
his comeuppance.
In Game of Thrones, brutal deaths come to many men, both bad and good, and season 6
gave us a heart-breaking scene in the episode "The Door" where Hodor sacrificed himself
to save Bran and Meera.
In a time-looped scene, which also revealed the origin of Hodor's name, the gentle giant
held the door, helping Bran and Meera to escape the army of the dead that had invaded the
cave of The Three-Eyed Raven.
Hodor used all his strength to keep the wights in the cave, though we do see them begin to
break through and claw at him.
So, while we don't actually see Hodor's death on screen, it's highly unlikely he survived
unless he was turned into a wight himself.
Originally, however, the episode's director Jack Bender did want to show Hodor's brutal
death on screen.
In an interview with Observer.com, Bender explained that "what the dead would be doing
to Hodor would be ripping his clothes off once they got through that door.
They would be ripping his flesh off.
[And] if the dead can go through wood, they're going to be tearing Hodor apart."
Showrunners Benioff and Weiss though suggested that showing Hodor die in that way would be
"too horrific" and therefore the audience might not fully "feel the loss of" the character.
In the end, Bender toned down the horror of the scene, including just the right amount
of scary so that we see "Hodor surrounded and engulfed by [these] skeletal arms and
long fingers."
That seems like a good choice as the scene was already distressing enough as it took
away a fan favourite just as we discovered the truth about his origin.
Cersei Lannister is certainly not a character you want to cross if you'd like to continue
living, and Septa Unella found that out to her cost in the final episode of season 6.
And, boy, did Cersei relish the opportunity to turn the tables on the woman who led her
on her walk of shame.
Yes, Cersei really dragged out Unella's fate, starting off with a bit of wineboarding, followed
by a monologue to ram home the fact that she fully understood the power trip Unella had
enjoyed while mistreating her.
And, as the door closed on Unella's cell, we were left with the sound of the Septa's
screams as Gregor Clegane began Cersei's long and painful revenge.
But disturbing as the thought and sound of Septa Unella's fate was, Lena Headey told
EW that the scene we saw in the show was just the "tame version" and it was actually "meant
to be worse, but [in the end] they couldn't do it."
Game of Thrones loves to give us a good old kick in the gut by killing off in horrific
ways characters we've been rooting for, the Red Wedding being a classic example.
And it was another fan favourite, Oberyn Martell, who suffered perhaps one of the goriest deaths
on the show so far.
It was such a cruel moment when Oberyn, after almost getting revenge for the rape and murder
of his sister Elia and her children, was tripped up by The Mountain who proceeded to use his
thumbs to poke out Oberyn's eyes and crush his head.
As appalling as the final version we saw in the series was, the showrunners actually cut
a significant amount of gore from that scene.
According to actor Ben Crompton, who plays Dolorous Edd, there was an edit of the scene
that showed the Mountain basically pull apart all of Oberyn's face in full graphic detail.
In the scene we see in the show, the camera cuts to a shot of The Mountain just after
he says, "Then I smashed her head in like this", and we hear the sound of Oberyn's head
imploding.
I think many fans were probably relieved that we didn't get to see the even more shocking
edit as the combination of seeing Oberyn's eyes gouged out combined with the crunching
sound that follows was more than enough!
Ellaria Sand took revenge on the Lannisters for Oberyn's death a season later when she
poisoned Myrcella with a fatal kiss on the lips just before the young princess left Dorne
to travel back to King's Landing with Jaime.
In an interview at MCM Comic Con, Nell Tiger Free who was recast as Myrcella in Season
5, revealed that a much bloodier version of her death was initially planned.
Free explained that she was given "mashed-up bananas with [...] fake blood, and [her] brains
were supposed to be all over the ship."
It seems unlikely the poison would have directly caused Myrcella's brains to spill out, but
it's possible it would have caused her to fall and split open her head.
In the end though, the producers decided against that more gruesome death as they wanted Myrcella's
death to reflect her sweet character.
We've seen this season how crucial Dany's dragons are to her attempts at taking the
Iron Throne, but back in season 2 she almost lost them in the city of Qarth.
In the sixth episode of that season, she returned to her quarters in the city to find her guards
massacred, her handmaiden Irri dead, and her young dragons stolen.
We discover later that Dany's other handmaiden Doreah conspired to betray her, and there's
a deleted scene in the extras for Season 2 which shows that it was Doreah herself who
treacherously killed Irri.
In an interview with Winter Is Coming, actress Amrita Acharia, who played Irri, explained
that in order to make her death look realistic, she was actually strangled a bit during filming
which left her with huge bruises on her neck the following day.
I'm guessing what hurt even more than shooting her death scene though was finding out, after
all that, that it had actually been given the chop from the final show!
Another death we never got to see on screen was when Brienne of Tarth executed Stannis
Baratheon in the season 5 finale; however, originally there was an extended version of
this scene in the script.
The scene we did see was relatively short and simple with Brienne finding Stannis after
his army has been decimated by the Boltons.
After Brienne confronts Stannis about Renly and he confesses, she sentences him to die
but gives him a chance for some last words.
In the episode which aired, Stannis replies in typical Stannis fashion, "Go on.
Do your duty."
But it's just before this line that the original script included a small redemptive moment
for the man who believed he was the rightful king of Westeros.
In the extended scene, Stannis shares that he doesn't really believe in the afterlife,
even though he'd converted to the religion of the Lord of Light under the influence of
Melisandre.
He also confesses that he's sorry for what he did to his brother Renly and struggles
with emotion as he thinks of his daughter Shireen who he burned alive in the previous
episode.
This final moment would have been a very rare display of emotion and regret for Stannis
and, although there were hints in the show that he'd been shaken by his sacrifice of
Shireen, this could have been an interesting addition to Stannis' death scene, showing
another side of his character.
In the end, it's not clear why the showrunners cut the moment from the episode, but it's
likely they felt the final cut was more true to Stannis's stoic, unflinching character.
In fact, deleted death scenes go all the way back to the pilot where we would have seen
the death of Jon Arryn.
Remember, it was Jon Arryn's death by poison which kicked off the whole chain of events
in the series when Catelyn Stark received a letter from her sister Lysa, who was also
Jon's wife, saying that the Lannisters had murdered her husband, the then hand of the
King, and that they were now conspiring against King Robert Baratheon.
John Standing, the actor who played Arryn, revealed in an interview that he filmed a
scene which began with him on his death bed dying from poisoning and continued with him
crawling across the room to try to write a message, but when he reached for the ink,
it came crashing down on him.
Lena Headey's Cersei then entered the room and stamped on his fingers before he could
write anything, after which he finally succumbed to the poison.
Standing's other scene, where his corpse lay in state in the Red Keep, did however make
it into the first episode and, incredibly, the actor has said he actually receives fan
mail for that tiny motionless, non-speaking role!
I suspect this death scene was cut because it would have implied that Cersei definitely
knew about Jon Arryn's suspicions of her incestuous relationship with her brother, and so she
had him killed.
Instead, it's a much more interesting and mysterious set-up for the series to leave
the exact reasons for Jon Arryn's death uncertain.
The deleted scene would also have made Cersei into more of a stereotyped evil villain too
early in the show.
Game of Thrones loves to play with ambiguity and tease us over a long period, and, let's
not forget, the show didn't reveal until season four that it was Lysa who actually poisoned
her own husband.
OK, so what do you think about those censored and deleted death scenes?
And, of all the characters we've lost over the seasons, who do you think has had the
best death so far?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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