Things could have been different
It’s been almost a week since Game of Thrones came to an end, and while the final six episodes of the HBO fantasy series had plenty of major casualties, it turns out that one of the characters was originally meant to survive.
Writer Dave Hill spoke to EW, where he said that there was originally another character meant to be joining Jon Snow beyond The Wall: Ser Jorah Mormont.
Instead, Jorah died protecting Daenerys from the Night King’s Army of the Dead as the tried to take Winterfell in episode three.
“For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end. The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund,” he said.
However, there was just a small issue with the idea, namely, how to get Ser Jorah to leave Dany’s side before she took King’s Landing and…well, that moment in the finale.
Hill added: “The amount to logic we’d have to bend to get Jorah up to The Wall and get him to leave Dany’s side right before [the events in the finale] … there’s no way to do that blithely.
“And Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves.”
Iain Glen, who played Ser Jorah, admitted there was a “sweetness” in Jorah’s death, because he would never find out about Daenerys torching King’s Landing and killing thousands of people.
He continued: “There’s a sweetness in that because Jorah will never know what she did.
“That’s probably best. It’s a blessing for him that he never found out what happened to her.
“And from a pragmatic story point of view, his death served a greater purpose. Where could we have taken Jorah from there? F— if I know.”
