‘Game of Thrones’ director wanted more deaths, direwolves in Battle of Winterfell

“Game of Thrones” director Miguel Sapochnik said he was stopped from killing more characters in the final season’s third episode “The Long Night.”

This image released by HBO shows Maisie Williams in a scene from “Game of Thrones,” which aired Sunday, April 28, 2019.  Image: Helen Sloan/HBO via AP

“Thrones” fans have grown accustomed to their favorite characters being felled, so it was a surprise—and for some, a disappointment—that majority of characters survived the Battle of Winterfell, which was supposed to be a high-stakes face-off with the undead.

Sapochnik went on an IndieWire podcast on June 13 to give some behind-the-scenes information on how he directs battle scenes, including the Battle of Winterfell.

He revealed that he butted heads with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss on killing characters. 

“I wanted to kill everyone. I wanted to kill Jorah in the horse charge at the beginning. I was up for killing absolutely everyone. I wanted it to be ruthless so that in the first 10 minutes you say, ‘All bets are off, anyone can die,’” he said.

Sapochnik said the showrunners wanted to save the deaths for the penultimate episode “The Bells,” which saw a whole city razed with dragon fire. He relented, explaining that the final cut belonged to the producers.

The director explained how he had planned to keep viewers invested in the characters without deaths: “There are 24 characters in that battle, I gave every single character a story, all the way through—a specific interaction, all a journey that was not in the script, and I did it specifically because I needed to make sure that we all knew where we were and those looks [between characters] were built on something, they weren’t just looks.”

He did plan on more action too, but it did not come to fruition. “There were many things that happened that people would’ve been so happy to happen—attacks of direwolves and crazy stuff,” he said.

“At a certain point you’re, like, ’50 direwolves attacking an undead dragon does not a good movie make.’ This was stuff we did not shoot; it’s part of the process.”

The last season of “Game of Thrones” may have underwhelmed many fans, but a direwolves’ scuffle against a dragon sounds at least entertaining.  Niña V. Guno /ra

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