Trivia / Game of Thrones

For House of the Dragon, see here.

---

• Ability over Appearance:
  • Natalia Tena is younger and prettier than her character Osha in the books but landed the part anyway. George R. R. Martin loved her performance so much, he said he'd rewrite Osha in later books to bring her more in line with the show.
  • Oona Chaplin's partial Chilean ancestry is evident in her olive complexion and was considered too incongruous with the strictly Anglo-looking Westerosi characters. She still landed the part of Robb's love interest, but her character's background was changed to hailing from Volantis to explain her features.
  • In the books Shae is just a camp follower of the Lannister army - hailing from somewhere in Westeros. Producers enjoyed Sibel Kekilli's audition so much, they added in a backstory about Shae being from Lorath to explain her German accent.
• The Abridged Series: In the form of captions by Chrys Reviews.
• Acting for Two:
  • In "High Sparrow", Samantha Bentley/McEwan first plays a prostitute in King's Landing cosplaying as The Stranger (a God of Death), then later in the episode plays a prostitute in Volantis cosplaying as Daenerys Targaryen. As The Stranger, her face is completely hidden by her hair, allowing her to appear twice in the episode without it seeming strange.
  • Happens a lot in the Japanese dub:
    • Risa Shimizu voices both Daenerys Targaryen and Rickon Stark.
    • Toshiyuki Morikawa voices both Tyrion Lannister and a minor character named Ed in the first season.
    • Yūichi Nakamura voices both Euron Greyjoy and young Eddard Stark.
    • Yukiyo Fujii voices both Missandei and Shireen Baratheon.
    • Lynn voices Lyanna Stark, Tyene Sand, and Alys Karstark.
    • Hikari Yono voices both Melisandre of Asshai and Anya Waynwood.
    • Tasuku Hatanaka voices both Robyn Arryn and Trystane Martell.
• Acting in the Dark:
  • Regarding the Red Wedding, Richard Madden and Michelle Fairley knew well in advance that their characters would be killed off. However Oona Chaplin didn't know, as her counterpart survives in the books and isn't even at the wedding.
  • Prior to the Season 6 production, Kit Harington had to lie to the cast about Jon Snow’s fate in the Season 5 finale just to make them believe he’s leaving the show. Liam Cunningham was very skeptical about it while Sophie Turner seemed to be the only cast member who believed it and she wrote a very emotional farewell letter to him. When the cast received the Season 6 scripts, everyone knew that Harington was not really leaving the show while Turner still believed it, and Harington teased her about it when he told her the truth, "I don’t know why I chose Sophie, of all people, to deceive the most [...] She genuinely feels like a little sister to me. So I guess I kind of played tricks on her like an older brother would."
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Julian Glover is remarkably spry for his age. This led to the producers amending the role of Pycelle to make it clear that he is not as weak and feeble as he appears.
  • The Northerners having actual Oop North accents came from Sean Bean. When rehearsing for the pilot, creators suggested he keep his natural accent and then told the rest of the actors playing the Starks to match him. This pretty much influenced many casting decisions in the future. Rose Leslie was in fact cast as Ygritte because the showrunners had heard her do a northern accent on Downton Abbey.
  • The small unheard prayer that Ned mutters upon his death was an actual prayer of Sean Bean's choice.
  • When Pedro Pascal auditioned for the role of Oberyn Martell, he emphasized the Dornish prince's cultural and behavioral differences with the people of King's Landing by speaking in an accent reminiscent of his Chilean father, which carried over into the final show.
• Actor-Inspired Heroism:
  • Tyrion's nastier qualities were dropped thanks to Peter Dinklage's charisma and the character's popularity. He becomes more ruthless in the books but the show never adapted that part after Season 4. Additionally, Dinklage has always been an outspoken critic of stereotypical portrayals of small people in fiction, giving another reason to tone down Tyrion's Depraved Dwarf tendencies.
  • Shae likewise was changed from a scheming whore who was Only in It for the Money to someone who genuinely loved Tyrion and became protective of Sansa — because Sibel Kekilli had a much more sympathetic edge to her. George R. R. Martin even commented that he wouldn't have killed Shae off if he had met Sibel first.
• Actor-Shared Background: Much like Tywin, Charles Dance was previously married to a woman named Joanna. However, unlike Tywin, Dance's marriage ended in divorce, not the death of his wife.
• Approval of God: George R. R. Martin himself thinks that the show's versions of Osha and Shae are better. He also called Jack Gleeson following Joffrey's death and congratulated him for a job well done.
• Ascended Fancast: Alexander Siddig and Indira Varma were frequent fancasts for Doran Martell and Ellaria Sand, and satisfied fans' expectations when they were cast in the roles in Season 4.
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Pedro Pascal first learned of Oberyn Martell while helping a younger actor audition for the role, but his fascination with the description — and the other actor's failure to meet the age requirement — convinced him to audition as well. With help from his friend Sarah Paulson, he sent two videos to Benioff^note whose wife, Amanda Peet, is also friends with Sarah Paulson and Weiss, who ultimately agreed to cast Pascal as Oberyn. Years after his tenure on the show, he still speaks fondly of the production.
  • Jessica Henwick is aware of the Troubled Production in the Dornish arc and understands the negative reception of the Sand Snakes. Nevertheless, she still enjoys being on the show and working with her castmates. She even said she owes the show for boosting her career.
• Baby Name Trend Killer: The popularity of the series led to an explosion of children named after people from the show, particularly Daenerys ("də-NAIR-iss"). Her title, "Khaleesi" ("kah-LEE-see"), which she gets from being the wife of Mongolian Khal, also got taken up as a name (and in fact there's significantly more little girls named "Khaleesi" than "Daenerys"). When the show's last-minute Plot Twist involved Dany Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and changing from Big Good to Big Bad, the furor was newsworthy.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: While memes commonly quote Ned as saying, "Brace yourselves, [...] is coming," he never actually says, "Brace yourselves".
• Billing Displacement: Even for an Ensemble Cast, the series was pretty crazy about who got into the opening titles. Peter Dinklage, the star of the show, got "And Starring" for the first season so that Sean Bean's character could lead, better setting up his character's role as the Decoy Protagonist; after that, Dinklage took top billing, typically followed by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Lena Headey. But in the show's final season, and round of Emmy nominations, all three showed up in the "Outstanding Supporting Acting" categories... while the people whose names came next, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, took the "Oustanding Lead Acting" nominations, further underlining the divide between "being The Protagonist" and "being the star". Despite playing very prominent characters, Maisie Williams (Arya), Sophie Turner (Sansa), Alfie Allen (Theon), Jack Gleeson (Joffrey) and John Bradley (Sam) were listed in the secondary cast for much or all of their time on the show, while Liam Cunningham (Davos), Stephen Dillane (Stannis), Carice Van Houten (Melisandre) and Natalie Dormer (Margaery), who play supporting roles that often don't even appear for half of a given season, are billed among the main cast. Finally, Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo, one of the more major characters of the first season, was billed in the closing credits, after the guest stars, as "also starring". (This at least has a Doylist justification: Momoa wanted to share the "And Starring" credit with Dinklage, which — in the days before Aquaman — he did not have the star power to justify.)
• Bilingual Bonus: With the confirmation that Lyanna Stark is Jon Snow's mother, the Chinese transliteration of the surname Snow, the name given to illegitimate children with noble blood, exhibits this. It is rendered as 雪诺 (pronounced "xue nuo") in all Chinese translations. The phrase itself means "snow promise". Jon was named as a Snow due to a promise between two members of his family from the snowy North.
• …But I Play One on TV:
  • Lena Headey would like fans to remember that Cersei is a fictional character and that she is nowhere near as nasty as she is. Hating Cersei and wanting her to die is fine, hating Headey and wanting her to die is not.
  • Natalie Dormer also fought back against claims that she condones sex with minors after Margaery's sex scene with Tommen - reminding everyone that she plays a fictional character.
  • In episode commentaries and interviews, multiple cast members have gone out of their way to make clear that Jack Gleeson is nothing like Joffrey in real life.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Game of Thrones is a merchandising juggernaut and possibly the biggest cash cow among HBO's shows, with copious amounts of toys (for adult collectors), apparel, accessories, cosplay/replicas and other collectibles available for purchase. The show's case is notable in that it's one of the few franchises to achieve this status while exclusively catering to mature audiences, aside from video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Most cash-cow franchises rely at least partially on toy and merchandise sales, and usually skew PG-13 or lower so that children can get invested in the franchise and its merchandise; however, GoT is fantastical enough to spur copious toy and merchandise sales in its own right, as adult collectors (particularly millennials) became more of a mainstream demographic over time.
• Cast Incest: Dean Charles-Chapman and Nell Tiger Free began dating in 2015. Their characters, Tommen and Myrcella, are siblings who are the children conceived from an incestuous affair between siblings.
• The Cast Showoff: There are plenty of skilled vocalists in the cast.
  • Shireen is introduced singing. Kerry Ingram is a musical theater star.
  • Jerome Flynn enjoyed a bit of chart success back in The '90s as part of acting/singing double-act Robson and Jerome, so he got several chances to display his singing abilities, such as in the Season 5 episode "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" where he gets to sing the start of "The Dornishman's Wife" (before Jaime tells him to shut up). Many fans are actually hoping for a full version of "The Dornishman's Wife".
  • Roger Ashton-Griffiths showed his impressive baritone as Mace Tyrell in "A Dance with Dragons". The audience enjoyed it much more than Tycho Nestoris.
  • Daniel Portman shows off his beautiful voice when Podrick sings a bit of the song "Jenny of Oldstones" in "A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms".
• Cast the Expert:
  • Ros, the most prominent whore in the series, is played by neo-burlesque performer Esmé Bianco.
  • Gary Lightbody from Snowpatrol cameos as a Bolton soldier singing the Bear and the Maiden Fair.
  • Coldplay drummer Will Champion cameos as a drummer in the Red Wedding.
  • Sigur Rós plays a band performing The Rains of Castamere at Joffrey's wedding.
  • Of Monsters and Men play the musicians in the Braavosi theater group in season 6.
  • Neil Fingleton, the tallest man in the United Kingdom (7 ft 7.56 in, or 232.6 cm) plays Mag the Mighty, King of the Giants. Fingleton also auditioned to play Gregor Clegane in Season 1, but was not chosen.
  • After going through two other actors, the role of Gregor Clegane was finally taken over by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, a top contender for the strongest man on Earth.
  • Several of Littlefinger's whores, specifically those who provide the most explicit nudity, are played by actual porn actresses. The famously flexible Kayla on the other hand is portrayed by one of the most prolific contortionists of the UK.
  • Ed Sheeran cameos as a singing Lannister soldier that Arya encountered in the Riverlands in Season 7.
  • Swordfighting stuntman Vladimír Furdík^note Previously under one of the helmets in the Tower of Joy scene as the 2nd actor to play the Night's King, both pre- and post-transformation.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Carice Van Houten was unable to take the role of Cersei Lannister due to commitments to another series at the time. When Season 2 came along, she was able to come on board as Melisandre.
  • Conleth Hill auditioned for Robert Baratheon, but got cast as Varys. This worked out well, and he stayed on for eight seasons, way beyond Robert's rather limited story arc.
  • Natalie Dormer said she auditioned for another character (but didn't say which one) before she was cast as Margaery Tyrell.
  • Alfie Allen (Theon), Joseph Maxwell Dempsie (Gendry), and Iwan Rheon (Ramsay) originally all auditioned for the role of Jon Snow.
  • Finn Jones (Loras) auditioned for both Jon Snow and Robb Stark.
  • Eugene Simon (Lancel Lannister) originally auditioned to play Joffrey Baratheon.
  • Anton Lesser auditioned for the role of Maester Luwin. He later played Qyburn.
  • Jonathan Pryce was offered a role during Season 1 but turned it down. He was later cast as the High Sparrow in Season 5.
  • Roy Dotrice, a frequent collaborator with George R. R. Martin and narrator of the A Song of Ice and Fire audio books, was cast as Grand Maester Pycelle but had to withdraw from the role due to health reasons. He would later appear in the show as Hallyne.
• The Character Died with Him: Old Nan has not been recast following the death of Margaret John... although in a case of Time-Shifted Actor, a different actress did portray a younger Nan in several Season 6 flashbacks.
• Character Outlives Actor: Denys Mallister never appeared again following J.J. Murphy's death, but it's implied that he's still alive and commanding the Shadow Tower.
• Content Leak:
  • The main plot points of season 7 were leaked on Reddit in 2016.
  • One of HBO's smaller affiliates had an internet break-in in the midst of season 7, in which all of the remaining episodes of the season, as well as scripts and some other information, were posted online for everyone to view well before the episodes were supposed to air. This led to several spoiler-spreading troll campaigns on social media sites and caused HBO to film fake ending scenes for Season 8 so that no one could spoil it.
  • Germany's HBO branch accidentally uploaded the second episode of season 8 to their Amazon service early. The error was quickly corrected, but not fast enough to prevent trolls from watching it and spreading spoilers.
  • While the actual episodes remained under wraps, detailed spoilers for the three final episodes leaked online a few weeks before these episodes aired. Many fans dismissed them as being too outrageous to be real, only for the leaks to prove true as the episodes aired.
• Costume Backlash:
  • Gwendoline Christie was traumatised by having to cut her hair short to play Brienne and she grew it out long again once the series was wrapped. However, she does say the experience was worth it for helping her “change notions of femininity”.
  • Kit Harington got fed up of having to maintain his famous long curls, not least because obsessive fans and interviewers wouldn't stop bringing them up. Once the series wrapped, he cut it short and later got a buzz cut.
  • Richard Madden disliked the heavy armour and fur that would take a long time to put on, and the smell of it made him suspect that the costume department hadn't even cleaned it.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Sibel Kekilli didn't like that Shae testified against Tyrion at his trial, feeling it was out of character for her to betray him and Sansa that way.^note This is actually taken straight from the book, but with the significant difference that the show's version of Shae was developed far more than the simplistic prostitute in the book who you could easily believe only ever cared about money.
  • Ian McElhinney, who has read the books, expressed disappointment that his character (Ser Barristan Selmy) was getting killed off halfway through a storyline his book counterpart plays a major role in; he even wrote the showrunners a letter explaining why he thought it was a bad idea. Benioff and Weiss rather ungraciously mocked him in an interview for this, much to the fans' annoyance.
  • Stephen Dillane, who played Stannis, summed his time on the series up as a "disheartening" experience, criticizing the show's direction and writing for often being vague, and at times even non-existent, to a degree where he frequently had to rely on co-star Liam Cunningham to have any idea what his scenes were about. He also admitted without any constraint that he only agreed to participate in the project for the money.
  • Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry, described season 7 as "Character Development? What's that?" And after a brief pause: "I should shut up". Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm) was present with him in the interview and simply chuckled while replying, "You're brave!"
  • Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has openly stated that he wasn't happy with Jaime's story line in the seventh season; he regards the relationship between Jaime and Cersei as toxic and he'd naturally assumed that Jaime would reject Cersei and leave her right away when he realised that she'd blown up the Sept of Baelor, and all their children were dead. He was flabbergasted when he learned that this wouldn't happen until the end of Season 7, and had many arguments with the writers about how it didn't make sense for his character to still be hanging around King's Landing at this point; their response (albeit exagerrated via Nikolaj's retelling) was 'We hear you and we respect you, but we don't care'.
  • When talking about Tyrion's role during the Battle of Winterfell, Peter Dinklage made several jokes about how no one in the show's universe seemed to think about how putting the non-combatant characters in a well-used crypt could prove disastrous if the Night King decided to bring all of the dead people in it back to life.
    Dinklage: And they put the women and children in the crypt with all the dead people, so, *argh*. Tyrion's smart but I guess he's not that smart.
  • Conleth Hill admits that the last two seasons were not his favorite as he is very disappointed with how Varys was treated in the latter half of the show since he knows that Varys is supposed to be intelligent but he's very dismayed about "losing his knowledge".
  • Charles Dance has kind words about the show and the showrunners, but admitted that he was disappointed by the final season, more specifically with Bran having been elected king by a committee. He believes that Tyrion would have been a better choice.
  • Pilou Asbæk, who plays Euron, expressed disappointment at stripping the character of his more mystical book elements, which he felt made the character feel more one-dimensional. Also, when asked about why Euron could nail Rhaegal with a perfect shot through the neck above cloud clover using a single ballista in one episode, and then fail to hit the larger and closer Drogon with dozens in the next, he just quipped "maybe they needed it for the storyline."
  • Lena Headey said she was disappointed in Cersei’s death scene after dreaming for years about how grand it could be. Both she and Maisie Williams agree Arya should have been the one to do it. Headey also revealed shortly after the show ended that she was crushed to lose a scene in Season 7 in which Cersei has a miscarriage.
  • Natalia Tena, who played Osha in seasons 1, 2, 3, and 6, admitted that she didn't like the last three episodes of the series and that it didn't seem to have been written by the same people who wrote the rest of the series. Despite this, she thinks the online petitions to remake the season are stupid.
  • Emilia Clarke admitted she felt "annoyed" that Jon Snow didn't really experience any consequences for assassinating Daenerys. She also thought that the ending was a bit abrupt and the showrunners "could have spun it out for a little longer." Earlier in the series, she was uncomfortable with the amount of nudity required; having been young and with few previous credits, she reluctantly did the numerous nude scenes in Season 1. She credited Jason Mamoa for encouraging her to speak up about what she was and wasn't comfortable doing.
    "I've had fights on set before where I'm like, 'No, the sheet stays up'. They're like, 'You don't want to disappoint your Game of Thrones fans.' And I'm like, 'F*** you."'
  • Michael McElhatton admitted that he was disappointed with his character's death, as he hoped that Roose Bolton's downfall would be more "spectacular". However, he still admired the dramatic irony of his character dying in the same way as Robb Stark, the man Roose betrayed.
  • Screenwriter Bryan Cogman admitted on Twitter that he only watched the episode "The Last of the Starks" once. When asked if he felt uncomfortable about the circumstances surrounding Missandei's fate in this episode, he admitted that he did.
  • Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel) thinks Daenerys becoming a tyrant and Bran Stark being crowned king made sense, but agrees that the last three episodes of the series were rushed. However, he still praised episodes two and three of the final season.
  • In a Twitch stream with her brother, Maisie Williams admitted that after a rewatch of the show, she believed the show did indeed "fall off at the end," although she states she still has positive feelings about the show overall.
  • In a 2023 Oxford Union Q&A, Natalie Dormer acknowledged the show’s decline in quality, quipping that she "wasn’t responsible" for the seasons following her character’s death and that she no longer had to defend the showrunners’ creative decisions since "they aren’t paying me anymore". While she was quite candid about her disappointment with the ending, she also expressed sympathy with the "impossible job" of adapting an unfinished work, and also suggested that Executive Meddling may have played a part in the show’s decline.
    Dormer: I empathise. I was disappointed. I was! But I also fully appreciate what they must have been up against.
  • While this is likely a case of trolling creator, the one regret that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had about the series was that they never revisited Mord, the jailor who imprisoned Tyrion in the Vale. Apparently, he was supposed to have used the bribery money Tyrion gave him to have opened his own inn that the characters would have visited at some point in future seasons, but this never happened.
  • Kit Harington is so ashamed of his performance in the unaired pilot that the creators have joked that they'll release it if he complains too much.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • Apparently when filming "The Rains of Castamare", everyone on set was in tears - including the crew. Richard Madden had to leave to get on a plane as soon as they wrapped, and describes suddenly breaking down crying on the way. Michelle Fairley apparently turned off her phone and didn't reply to any emails for a whole week after they wrapped. Amusingly Oona Chaplin had to be told to stop crying since her character Dies Wide Open.
  • Sophie Turner admits to struggling with depression and body image issues after being unable to cope with the sheer amount of fame the show gave her.
  • Maisie Williams admitted to suffering from self-loathing due to the fame she gained from the show.
  • Emilia Clarke has said that some of Daenerys's early scenes in Season 1 - particularly the marital rape in the first episode - took their toll on her. Her Face–Heel Turn and death in Season 8 also hit her very hard. She described herself as wandering around London for hours in a daze and calling her family asking "hypothetical" questions of if they thought Daenerys was a good person and if there is anything that could make people hate her.
    "There were a number of moments where I was like, 'I'm gonna go and cry in the loo for a second. I'll be right back.'" In addition, she said that she especially felt lost and disconnected from Daenerys's character in Season 2 due to a near-fatal brain aneurysm she suffered from shortly after the first season ended.
  • Kit Harington checked into a wellness centre for a month after the show's ending aired. An anonymous, unconfirmed source told news outlets that "the end of Game of Thrones really hit Kit hard."
  • Lena Headey was also struggling with postpartum depression during the first season.
• Creator's Favorite: The showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss has already admitted in interviews that their favorite characters are Tyrion, Theon, Sansa, Arya and Davos. This explains the increase in screentime that Theon has compared to the books.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Or, in this case, season. Benioff and Weiss have admitted in the audio commentary track of the series finale that they consider seasons 4, 6, and 8 their favorites.
  • Of the four episodes George R.R. Martin wrote for the series, his favorites are "Blackwater" and "The Lion and the Rose."
• Creator's Pest: Stannis' considerable Adaptational Villainy is often attributed to the showrunners having a very dim, unflattering interpretation of his book counterpart, which influenced his more negative portrayal in the show. Behind the scenes, Benioff & Weiss wrote him off as early as season 2 as an "unquestionably terrible king" who doesn't understand the needs of the people, to the annoyance of many fans who feel that a complex character was done a disservice by preconceived bias.
• Darkhorse Casting: The majority of the cast, when the show premiered, were unknown actors and actresses with minor roles, if that, in their filmography; of the Stark children, for instance, only Richard Madden (who appropriately plays the firstborn Robb) had been seen onscreen before. Many other cast members were character actors who might have been recognizable to genre fans, but not to a wider audience. The only truly mainstream actors in the cast were Sean Bean (Decoy Protagonist Eddard Stark), Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, and Charles Dance. Of course, go check out how many of the actors are now in our "Creators" section to see how well the casting turned out.
• The Danza: By sheer borderline coincidence, in the Japanese dub Lynn voices Lyanna Stark.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Tyrion is supposed to be the youngest Lannister sibling but Peter Dinklage is actually older than Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who play Tyrion's older brother and sister. This is even after in-story dialogue places him at roughly 36 in Season 4 (his twin siblings are stated to be 40 by Tywin's offhand comment, and Cersei earlier stated she was 4 when her mother died); Dinklage was 45 while filming said season. Given the low number of well-regarded actors with dwarfism out there (and that GRRM felt that Dinklage was the one person he would accept as Tyrion), there was honestly little choice in the matter anyway. It also helps tone down his Adaptational Attractiveness, with Tyrion looking older than Jaime and Cersei.
  • Daenerys was thirteen (later, fourteen-going-on-fifteen) for the duration of the first book, while Emilia Clarke was twenty-three during filming of Season 1 (she's seventeen in the show, making Clarke six years older). When you account for the beginning of her relationship with Drogo, this is somewhat understandable. Also, Clarke definitely was able to pass as a teenage girl in season one.
  • Dean-Charles Chapman was 15-16 when he filmed his role as Tommen Baratheon, 12, in Season 4. It manages to not be too jarring, as Chapman is Older Than He Looks and his features can help pass as entering teenhood despite being fairly tall — especially since the absence from Season 3 allows for the argument that he had a growth spurt over the year (transitioning from Callum Wharry to DCC believably enough, helped by the latter's resemblance to his onscreen brother Jack Gleeson). The only true, potential issue is his voice — it doesn't sound too old, it's just that not all boys' voices break before they're 12 years old.
  • Robert is supposed to be the oldest Baratheon brother, but Stephen Dillane (who plays Stannis) is 8 years older than Mark Addy (who plays Robert). Zigzagged both on the show and in the books, where Stannis is mistaken for being the eldest Baratheon brother by a few characters because his dour demeanour and receding hairline have put unnecessary years on him. Helped by the fact that they never appear together.
  • While Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner were 13 and 14 when they started playing 11 year old Arya and 13 year old Sansa respectively (Arya was aged up from her age of 9 in the books while Sansa was aged up from 11 in the books), eventually they outstripped their character's growth; Arya is confirmed to be 18 in Season 8, while Maisie Williams was 21 at the time of filming.
  • Gwendoline Christie is about 15 years older than Brienne. Part of it is an Age Lift of some characters. And that, as with Peter Dinklage playing Tyrion Lannister, there are few actors fitting the character's unusual physique.
  • Jojen Reed is supposed to be 13, but Thomas Brodie-Sangster was 22 when he first played the character.
  • Lyanna Mormont is around 10-11 during during her introduction in Season 6. Bella Ramsey was a year older than their character during production of said season.
  • All of the characters who were supposed to be 16-17 in Season 1 (Robb, Jon, Daenerys, Gendry, etc.) were played by actors in their early- to mid-twenties. Strangely, this actually became more of a problem as the show went on, as they passed decently as teens early on but are clearly in their thirties by the later seasons even as their characters are only supposed to be 23-24.
  • French voice actress Lisa Caruso was well over 20 when she voiced Shireen Baratheon, who's about 11 when she dies.
• Dear Negative Reader:
  • In response to the petition to remake Season 8 without David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, several cast members spoke out in their defense:
    • Sophie Turner told the New York Times it was "disrespectful" of the fans to dismiss the crew's hard work.
    • Isaac Hempstead-Wright called it "ridiculous" for the fans to demand a different ending just because they didn't like it.
    • Jacob Anderson called it "rude" because it "trivialise[s] [the crew's] work".
    • Nathalie Emmanuel stated that the fans have their rights to like or dislike the final season, but she also believes that a petition is ridiculous.
  • Kit Harington stated in an interview published around the time the eighth season premiered: "Whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their [negative] judgement on it... they can go fuck themselves. 'Cause I know how much work was put into this."
  • Gemma Whelan stated in a interview that the final season was brilliant and that she was disappointed by the reaction of the fans.
  • Aidan Gillen highly praised the final season and stated that he was horrified to see the fans insulting the same writers they praised for seven years.
  • Peter Dinklage claimed that fans weren't happy with the ending because they wanted "a happy ending for the white people".
• Defictionalization:
  • You could buy the Iron Throne at one point, though you needed to be rich as a Lannister. Also, plenty of the swords and armor have great official prop replicas as well, and a few other things such as the Hand of the King badge.
  • Ben Hawkey, actor for Hot Pie, opened up a Game of Thrones-themed bakery where you can buy your own direwolf bread. However, it's only available by delivery and for a limited time.
• Deleted Role:
  • Liam Burke filmed scenes as the Mad King for flashbacks that were eventually deleted. When the character finally appeared in flashback in Season 6, David Rintoul played him.
  • George R. R. Martin had a cameo in the original pilot as a nobleman at Danaerys's wedding to Khal Drogo. The scene was reshot and he doesn't appear in the finished pilot.
• Development Gag:
  • In one episode, Tyrion claims that one of Littlefinger's whores knows a fabled sex position known as the Meereenese Knot. The term is actually George R. R. Martin's nickname for the cluster of logistical issues involved in getting several characters to Meereen in a satisfying manner; the Meereenese Knot was largely the reason for A Dance with Dragons' infamous delays.
  • The Sand Snakes' big fight scene in "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" was meant to be a tense close-quarters brawl late at night, but issues with the filming location forced it to take place in a wide-open area in daylight on very short notice, resulting in an infamous Fight Scene Failure. Their fight with Euron in Season 7's "Stormborn" gives a look at how things were intended to go.
• Died During Production:
  • Margaret John, who played Old Nan, died a couple months before the show began airing. "Lord Snow," where she first appears, was dedicated to her memory.
  • Veteran actor J.J. Murphy — who had been cast to portray Ser Denys Mallister of the Night's Watch, commander of the forces of the Shadow Tower — died only four days after filming his first scenes for Season 5. The creators decided not to recast the character.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor:
  • The blind Maester Aemon was played by the partially blind Peter Vaughan.
  • The soldier whom Tyrion maims during the Battle of the Blackwater was played by a one-legged World War II veteran. Peter Dinklage muses in a later interview that he didn't feel good ambushing a real-life crippled old man.
  • Shireen Baratheon suffered previously from greyscale and is played by Kerry Ingram, who suffers from brittle bone disease.
• Dueling Shows: With The Walking Dead. Both shows are among the most popular and notable from The New '10s, both are adaptations of then-niche works, both deal with the Humans Are Bastards trope, and most importantly, both shows establish that Anyone Can Die. Interestingly, despite both shows airing on Sundays but on separate channels, they've never had to literally duel for ratings; Walking Dead airs in late fall and (ironically) winter, while Game of Thrones airs in the spring. Frequently, the former's season finale airs just a handful of days from the latter's season premiere.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Michelle Fairley dyed her hair red to play Catelyn and grew it out long. Following Catelyn's death at the Red Wedding, she got a haircut to allow her natural colour to grow back.
  • Sophie Turner went from blonde to redhead for Sansa; she wore a wig in some seasons. In season 6, when Sansa is constantly travelling, she wasn't allowed to wash her hair so that it would look frumpy and greasy.
  • Joe Dempsie went from blond to brown because dark hair is a Baratheon trait.
  • Alfie Allen dyed his hair from blond to brown. In the original pilot, he kept his blond hair.
  • Peter Dinklage has dark blond hair and dyed it to lighter shade of blond to better portray a member of the golden-haired Lannister family. They eventually let it revert to brown because it was too much hassle to keep bleaching it.
  • Jack Gleeson went from brown to blond to better portray the golden-haired prince/young king.
  • Emilia Clarke wears a wig to portray silver-haired Danaerys. Clarke even complains that an already hot wig is hellish given she mostly films in a hot desert! But before the final season, she bleached the hair herself (and had to cut it short the moment filming was done).
  • Maisie Williams cut her hair to convincingly portray Arya trying to pass as a boy in Season 2. Arya's a southpaw. Maisie Williams is not. Nonetheless, she learned to swordfight left-handed. Judging by the pictures she posted on social media, the blinding contact lenses Maisie Williams wears seem to took their toll on her eyes' health.
  • Daniel Portman is a sportsman in real life, but let himself go in order to be more believable as chubby and a bit clumsy Podrick Payne.
  • Gwendoline Christie apparently really got into the role, putting on lots of muscle with the aid of protein shakes and going up a clothes size, according to Sophie Turner. She also cut her long hair to play Brienne, admitting she sobbed for hours after doing so.
  • Conleth Hill shaves his full head of hair to play Varys, a thing he welcomes as it brings him street anonymity because he's hardly recognizable with hair.
  • Kit Harington was contractually obligated to keep his hair long and couldn't cut it while cast on the show. After Jon Snow's untimely demise, this made his hairstyle a Walking Spoiler to many fans.
  • Nikolaj Coster-Waldau grew his hair out and bleached it for the first three seasons, as well as growing Jaime's Beard of Sorrow in the second and third. He also cut it short for the fourth season - dismissing fan claims that he'd just been wearing a wig. He however stopped bleaching the hair around this time.
  • Finn Jones did indeed get sheared for when Ser Loras is right before the trial in "The Winds of Winter".
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • That horse's heart Daenerys ate? It was essentially a giant gummy, which tasted disgusting and a tiny girl like Emilia Clarke struggled to keep it down.
  • Sean Bean was sick with the flu when he recorded the scenes where Ned Stark lays abed in "A Golden Crown", so Ned's unwell demeanor is genuine.
  • Alfie Allen really was tied up like that for his torture scenes in Season 3, a process that Iwan Rheon mentioned as being extremely painful.
  • The horrible awkwardness of Stannis giving his daughter a hug is part acting, and partly that Kerry Ingram suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease) and Stephen Dillane had to be very careful not to injure her.
  • The scene of Jon Snow facing down a cavalry charge all alone in "Battle of the Bastards" was dangerous to shoot because the horses were real.
  • Bran's Kubrick Stare once he becomes the Three-Eyed Raven is a result of Isaac Hempstead-Wright removing his glasses for filming and struggling to clearly see his surroundings.
  • As a rather infuriating example, the scene of Septa Unella's torture involved actress Hannah Waddingham actually getting waterboarded for 10 hours, without any professional supervision. She later described the shoot to be the second-worst agony of her life since giving birth.
• Executive Meddling: Neil Marshall, who directed Blackwater, told of his surprise when an unnamed producer who claimed to represent "the perverted side of the audience" demanded the inclusion of a scene featuring full female frontal nudity... in an episode entirely about a battle.
• Fake Nationality:
  • American Peter Dinklage fakes an English accent, while Irishmen Aidan Gillen and Liam Cunningham both fake RP and Geordie accents respectively (decreasingly, with interesting results...) to blend in with the rest of the King's Landing folks.
  • Some actors from the non-English speaking world, like Carice Van Houten (Dutch) or Sibel Kekilli and Tom Wlaschiha (both German), use their natural accents for an exotic touch, others, like Michiel Huisman (Dutch) or Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Danish) suppress theirs.
  • Dorne, the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Spain, has very few actors from Latin countries. Pedro Pascal and Rosabell Laurenti Sellers are the only exceptions, with the former being from Chile and the latter from Italy. Indira Varma and Jessica Henwick have English accents naturally, and Keisha Castle-Hughes with a New Zealand one, and they put on accents to play their Dornish characters.
• Fake Shemp:
  • Kit Harington broke his ankle around Season 3, so the crew had to use a lot of stand-ins wearing wigs to get around it.
  • The only time Bronn and Cersei are in a scene together is when Bronn leaves just as she walks in, and is only seen from behind. The reasons for this are explained below.
  • Due to Lena Headey's pregnancy in Season 5, this was required for a scene where she walks around fully naked. Rebecca Van Cleave acted as a double, doing the on-set nudity, with Lena's face CGI'd on top afterwards.
• Fan Community Nickname: "Sweet Summer Child" or "Unsullied" for those who have not read the books, and "Bookwalkers" for those who have. Amusingly enough, this meant the Unsullied themselves had no idea what their name was referring to until Season 3.
• Fandom Life Cycle: In spite of being on cable instead of network TV, Game of Thrones reached the heights of Lost in becoming a work widely recognized and ingrained in contemporary culture, with references to it everywhere and fans even naming their children after characters of the show. Just like Lost, it all came to a halt with the controversial final season, with negative reception from critics and fans. However, it is still the second most-watched show on HBO Max, and the most pirated series during the pandemic, an impressive feat for a TV series that was finished more than a year prior. House of the Dragon has seen consistently high viewership since its premiere, and HBO is developing several more spin-offs, including Tales of Dunk and Egg, Robert's Rebellion and an animation, showing that interest in the greater A Song of Ice and Fire franchise is still strong in spite of the parent shows divisive ending.
• Fandom Nod:
  • In the Season 2 episode "Garden of Bones":
    • The "who would beat who" conversation at the beginning of the episode is a common discussion topic amongst fans.
    • The discussion of how to pronounce Qarth is something that has been discussed by fans, amongst other pronunciation questions. It is kind of questionable how the characters managed to have this problem, since they've only heard it out loud.
  • Both of the pit fights in Mereen in the Season 5 episode "The Dance of Dragons" are essentially another nod to the fandom's endless "Who would win in a fight?" debates. Hizdahr and Daario's discussion of Mighty Glacier vs. Fragile Speedster in the episode essentially parallels arguments about the fight between Oberyn and the Mountain from Season 4. Similarly, a fandom argument that has been running for over a decade gets some kindling when we see Westerosi knight Jorah fight a Bravoosi water dancer in the pit — mirroring the offscreen fight between Syrio Forel and Meryn Trant (in the same episode he returns, no less).
  • Season 6's "The Winds of Winter" finally solves one of, if not the most popular, theory of both the books and the series. The "Frey Pie" scene is also adapted in said episode.
• Flip-Flop of God:
  • Ask three different creators (director, actor, writer) whether Jaime and Cersei having sex in the Great Sept in the fourth season episode "Breaker of Chains" was meant to be rape, consensual, or some murky and disturbing gray area in between, and you'll get three different answers. Ask the same creator twice and you might get two.
  • The director of "The Spoils of War" stated that the group of Lannister soldiers Arya met to facilitate a cameo from Ed Sheeran weren't at the battle against Drogon and were still alive. Shortly afterward, Sheeran himself said he wasn't coming back to the show and his character was probably killed in that battle. The Season 8 premiere goes a bit out of its way to mention a red-haired Lannister soldier who survived the battle, but suffered severe injuries.
• Follow the Leader: The runaway success of the show ushered in an era of gritty medieval-ish/sexualized/political dramas, notably Vikings, Camelot, Britannia, The Bastard Executioner, Atlantis, Marco Polo, The Shannara Chronicles, See (which even has Jason Momoa showing off more Barbarian Hero badassery than he ever could in GoT), and even internationally (El Cid, Barbarians). Fantasy-wise, there's Netflix's The Witcher and a massive TV series adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power by Amazon.
• Friendship on the Set:
  • Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams developed a deep and abiding friendship which has lasted long after the end of the series. Williams describes Turner as her "favorite person" on the show and says that because they played sisters, they became like sisters.
  • Jason Momoa and Emilia Clarke - who played onscreen love interests Drogo and Daenerys - became friends after meeting on the show. Clarke mentioned that the more experienced Momoa looked out for her on-set and supported her during nude scenes, including demanding she be treated better and encouraging her to speak up if she was uncomfortable. Although the last time they appeared together on the show was in Season 2, they stayed in contact and remained friends long after the show ended.
  • Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Hannah Waddingham (Septa Unella) became fast friends during filming and are still friends today — something which is ironically delicious given the... significantly more antagonistic relationship their characters had on the show!
• God Never Said That: After Ian McElhinney claimed that The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring had been completed but delayed until the conclusion of the series in an agreement George R. R. Martin made with David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, Martin made a blog post stating that he had not even started working on A Dream of Spring, and that "HBO and David & Dan would both have been thrilled and delighted if The Winds of Winter had been delivered and published four or five years ago… and NO ONE would have been more delighted than me."
• God Does Not Own This World: Signs would indicate George R. R. Martin's contributions to and control over the series has dwindled at least somewhat after Season 4. He has notably not written any episode screenplays for Season 5-6 and he has all but openly stated his current involvement as a consultant on the series holds no actual deciding power at all and is purely advisory, noting that HBO could decide to include an Alien Invasion and he wouldn't be able to stop them if they wanted to go through with it.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: In the script, Tormund merely gave Brienne "a look," resulting in Tormund's hilarious memetic leer and Brienne's disgusted reaction.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Lena Headey was pregnant while filming part of the first season which might explain Cersei's habit of standing with her hands clasped before her so her wide sleeves obscure her belly. Her second pregnancy mostly fell during the break between seasons 5 and 6 but is often cited as part of the reason a body double was used for the wide shots of Cersei's Walk of Atonement in "Mother's Mercy" (the other reason being that Headey has several large tattoos that are hard to cover up).
• Hollywood Hype Machine:
  • Emilia Clarke obviously got the most of it, what with Daenerys becoming the show's Breakout Character. This has mostly been a series of hits and misses - notable bombs she was in included Terminator Genisys (in which critics agreed she was miscast) and Solo (the first Star Wars film to ever lose money at the box office). But she did win acclaim for Me Before You, earning respect for Playing Against Type and starring in a smaller indie project that wasn't a guaranteed hit. Her first film after the show wrapped Last Christmas was lukewarmly received by critics but a financial success - and her performance was praised. After the incredibly hostile reception to the final season, most critics agreed she was a redeeming factor - so the future does look promising. Furthermore, she's been cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Secret Invasion (2023) as G'iah.
  • Sophie Turner got a bit of hype from the show as well, parlaying it into being a face for Louis Vuitton and being chosen to play Jean Grey in the X-Men film series. X-Men: Apocalypse was a domestic flop but successful worldwide, but Dark Phoenix (in which she was arguably presented as the headlining talent) was a massive bomb. Most of her other films have been smaller indie projects. She also got cast in a Quibi exclusive series, Survive. The Quibi app then ended up a massive bust and got shut down. When the series officially ended however, she opted to take some time off to get married and have two children.
  • Richard Madden got a lot of hype too, which paid off quite well when he was cast as the prince in Disney's Cinderella. While his next film Bastille Day was a flop that saw limited release, he solidified the hype with series such as Medici and Bodyguard UK - also appearing in critically acclaimed (and commercially successful) films Rocketman and 1917. Madden then appeared as Ikaris in Eternals.
• Hostility on the Set: According to rumors, Jerome Flynn (Bronn) and Lena Headey (Queen Cersei) were in a relationship that did not end well. At all. The result is that the two are never on the set at the same time in order to prevent any hostility from occurring. Jerome Flynn has denied these rumors however (see below).
• I Am Not Spock: As you might expect from a hit TV show with a gigantic cast, few roles are filled with actors with a more high-profile role under their belt. Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey and Charles Dance were perhaps the most recognizable actors before the show.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Tyrion and Cersei despise each other and are mortal enemies. Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey are good friends and incredibly close. Peter Dinklage even recommended Lena for the part of Cersei when he first read the pilot script. Whenever their shooting schedules lined up, the two shared an apartment and drove to set together.
  • Singer Wilko Johnson plays The Voiceless Illyn Payne.
  • Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Alfie Allen, and Joe Dempsie were in their early-mid twenties when the series began. By the time the series ends, their respective characters are of that age.
• Killer App:
  • The show was the sole reason many people subscribed to HBO Go and HBO Now.
  • It's the second most-watched TV show on HBO Max, surpassed only by Rick and Morty.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • The relationship between the Game of Thrones and the Freefolk subreddit is very similar to the one between the South and the Freefolk in the show. The GoT sub is heavily moderated and has a more relaxed content of mainly fan arts and cosplays, which draws comparison to the strict feudal structure and proper etiquette of the South. Meanwhile, the Freefolk sub has no moderation beyond sitewide rules and the only rules in the sub are self-enforced rules made by the redditors, and their content is mainly memes, which draw parallels to the anarchic nature of the Freefolk and their chaotic culture.
  • Hot Pie is a baker, and his actor Ben Hawkey opened his own bakery called "You Know Nothing, John Dough." He even serves direwolf bread just like the one from the show!
• Lying Creator:
  • In one of the featurettes aired prior to the start of Season 1 to introduce the world of Westeros to viewers, George R. R. Martin said that "Ned Stark is the main character whom the books revolves around." In reality, he's only the main character in the first book. He dies at the end of this book, and the rest of the books have an ensemble of primary characters instead of one main character. Though, since the rest of the books revolve around the fallout from his death, Martin was being Metaphorically True.
  • Before Season 6, everyone involved guaranteed that Jon Snow was dead. That was true. They just didn't reveal that the character would be resurrected.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: The showrunners named the much-despised final season among their favourites.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • It's probably no small coincidence that the Season 6 episode "Battle of the Bastards," an episode about bastard sons, gets released on Father's Day.
  • The Season 4 finale "The Children" also aired on Father's Day...and features Tyrion killing his abusive father, Tywin.
• Money, Dear Boy:
  • Stephen Dillane confessed that he only took the role as Stannis Baratheon as a means to an end and admitted that CGI and dragons are not his cup of tea.
  • Jonathan Pryce likewise admitted he's not a fan of the genre. He had turned down an earlier offer because of this, and only took the High Sparrow role when they offered him more money.^note He's one of the few cast members, along with Dillane and Jack Gleeson, to regret having taken the role. In particular he was chagrined when people took his character as a villain since he had played the character as a man who, while harsh in his methods, nevertheless felt he was doing what his society sorely needed
  • Ian McShane's initial reason for being in the show was to work with his old friends, Dillane and Charles Dance. But he was surprised that they're not on the show anymore after their characters are killed off by the time he joined the show. So, this trope became his reason for being on the show, despite having only one episode, and he expressed no regrets for casually spoiling what his role was.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: The black fur mantles worn by the Northerners and the Night's Watch were made from faux fur IKEA throwrugs (it was a cheap solution that also avoided using animal fur).
• On-Set Injury:
  • Rory McCann sustained a knee injury while filming the Season 7 episode, "Beyond the Wall" where he's carrying the actor who played the wight on his shoulders. According to him, a dummy wouldn't work so they have to use a real person.
  • Kristian Nairn got back problems due to carrying his co-star, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, for six seasons. After leaving the show, he had to undergo six months of physical therapy.
  • On the mental health side, Hannah Waddingham developed mild claustrophobia after filming the waterboarding scene, which she had treated with hypnotherapy.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Conan Stevens only had one appearance as Gregor Clegane in the first season before leaving the series to appear as Bolg the Orc in The Hobbit. He was replaced by former basketball player Ian Whyte in the second season. Apart from their height, the two actors look nothing alike. Whyte was himself replaced in Season 4 by Icelandic strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who is the most muscular out of the three actors, but also the shortest.
  • Beric Dondarrion is played by David Scott in first-season episode "A Golden Crown" and by Richard Dormer for his reappearance in the third-season episode "And Now His Watch Has Ended" and onward. This was somewhat less jarring, as the previous actor had such a minor appearance and was so inconspicuous in looks that fewer people remembered him; furthermore, the character has been through a severe Mutilation Conga in the interim.
  • Tara Fitzgerald replaces Sarah MacKeever as Selyse Baratheon in Season 3.
  • Tommen Baratheon was played by Callum Wharry in Seasons 1-3, but beginning Season 4, he is played by Dean-Charles Chapman, who previously played Martyn Lannister in Season 3.
  • Michiel Huisman replaced Ed Skrein as Daario Naharis in Season 4, starting in the season premiere "Two Swords". The two look almost nothing alike (Huisman's Daario is brunette, thick-bearded, and short-haired, while Skrein's Daario sports a clean-shaven face and has long blond hair).
  • Keeping with Tommen's recast, the role of his older sister Myrcella goes from Aimee Richardson to Nell Free in the fifth season. Bizarrely, Free is two years younger than Dean-Charles Chapman.
  • In Season 6, Max von Sydow replaces Struan Rodger as the Three-Eyed Raven, with no real attempt to match the character's original look.
  • Richard Brake played the Night King in seasons 4 and 5. Vladimír Furdík replaced him from Season 6 onwards.
  • Dickon Tarly is played by Freddie Stroma in an episode of Season 6. He's replaced by Tom Hopper in Season 7, who's about a foot taller.
  • Brazilian fans were very upset that beginning in season 6, the Portuguese dub would move from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo. The only returning cast member was Jorge Vasconcellos as Roose Bolton, as he visits Sao Paulo every weekend.
  • In the European French dub, Jorah Mormont's voice actor Patrick Béthune passed away in 2017 after completing work on Season 7. Loïc Houdré replaced him for Season 8.
• The Other Marty: Even before it began airing, it happened for a lot of characters between the original pilot and the series proper (most of the pilot was then reshot with the new cast).
  • Daenerys went from Tamzin Merchant to Emilia Clarke.
  • Catelyn went from Jennifer Ehle to Michelle Fairley.
  • Magister Illyrio went from Ian McNeice to Roger Allam.
  • Gared went from Richard Ridings to Dermot Keaney.
  • Ser Waymar went from Jamie Campbell Bower to Rob Ostlere.
  • Aerys II Targaryen went from Liam Burke to David Rintoul.
  • Derek Halligan was cast as Alliser Thorne but left the show before production began. He was replaced by Owen Teale.
  • Perdita Weeks was originally cast as Roslin Frey but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
  • The show's 2013 April Fool's joke was a fake announcement that Peter Dinklage would be replaced by Warwick Davis to make Tyrion a more "comedic" character and that Davis' face would be digitally transferred over Dinklage's in reruns and subsequent DVD releases.
• Overtook the Manga: Happened in the middle of Season 5:
  • The possibility was looming ever since Season 1, when George R. R. Martin still hoped to finish Book 6 before the show got to it, but made it clear that Book 7 would fall behind no matter what. The decision by the showrunners to take a Compressed Adaptation route with Season 5 (after faithfully adapting Books 1-3 in the first four seasons, which the author expected them to take the same approach for Books 4 and 5 as well) made this unfeasible and Martin later noted that this was "pie-in-the-sky" wishful thinking. He stopped contributing episode scripts after season 4 to focus more on the books. The show's producers ruled out putting the show on hiatus to wait for the novels to finish (citing the ages of the young actors and the overall logistics of keeping the cast on standby) so they later met GRRM in person, who divulged to them some of the important plot points he had already planned out.
  • A much bigger issue which became apparent as early as Season 4's episode "Oathkeeper" and recurred again during Season 5 is that the show diverges from the book by making many small changes that were considered good examples of Pragmatic Adaptation and Adaptation Distillation early on, but caused a Butterfly Effect leading to radical plot deviations years down the line and in some cases introducing characters and situations that are essentially Canon Foreigner (the show's version of the "Night's King"^note To quote the author himself, "As for the Night's King (the form I prefer), in the books he is a legendary figure, akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have."). Books 4 and 5 introduced a large number of new POV characters, Season 5 treated many of them with cases of Adapted Out, Composite Character and Death by Adaptation, preferring to focus on already established characters. According to Martin, these are all very important in the later books, which means that any events in which they were involved have become drastically different as well, changing the entire political board coming into the story's endgame.
  • From Season 6 onwards, there was no more guarantee that any of the events in the show would happen the same way in the books, if at all. So far the showrunners have confirmed only Shireen Baratheon's Human Sacrifice and Hodor's name being Hold the Door to come from Word of God directly. GRRM himself has been known to write multiple versions of the events and deviate from his own early notes. This led to the finale of the series being a Gecko Ending.
  • After the final episode, GRRM, while commending the series, had this to say, being coy about whether the show's ending is remotely like the one he has planned.
    George R. R. Martin: "How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? Well...yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget. They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m don...and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them. And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well...There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books...a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet. And yes, there will be unicorns...of a sort...Book or show, which will be the “real” ending? It’s a silly question. How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have?"^note The latter is a non-sequitur that GRRM brings up often citing the fact that Gone with the Wind changed the number of children Scarlett had for better convenience
• The Pete Best:
  • In spite of being the third actor to play the role, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is known as the definitive version of the Mountain by the fandom. He's appeared in far more episodes than the others and receives quite a bit of promotion as a record-breaking strongman purely separate from the show.
  • Many roles are played by a bit performer or glorified extra in a single episode before being replaced by a legitimate actor. Beric Dondarrion, the Three-Eyed Raven, and Selyse Baratheon are all examples.
  • The above was inverted with Vladimír Furdík replacing Richard Brake as the Night King. Brake is more experienced as an actor, whereas Furdík is more of a stuntman and stunt choregrapher. Outside "Hardhome", all of the most memorable scenes of the Night King happened when he was played by Furdík.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Many actors in the cast are more known for their comedic works such as Mark Addy (Robert Baratheon), David Bradley (Walder Frey) and Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy).
  • Prior to the show, Iain Glen was known internationally for playing villainous characters, most notably against female heroines. Here, he is the Nice Guy Knight in Shining Armor to the main female protagonist.
  • Julian Glover, known in the past for playing badass characters, plays Dirty Coward Pycelle.
  • In contrast to Glover, the actors who play Pycelle's Good Counterparts Luwin and Aemon, Donald Sumpter and Peter Vaughan respectively, were known in the past for playing villainous characters.
  • In the Japanese dub, Nobunaga Shimazaki normally voices heroic characters or the Nice Guy. In this show, he voices Joffrey Baratheon.
  • The same goes with the aforementioned character in the European Spanish dub, as Joffrey is voiced by Javier Balas, whose one of his most well-known roles is... Naruto.
• Pet Fad Starter: The popularity of the direwolves led to an increased demand for wolf-like dog breeds such as the Siberian Husky. Unfortunately people tend to highly underestimate the amount of time and experience these kinds of dogs need, not to mention the space (a big kennel/garden is absolutely mandatory!) and the expenses for food, bills, etc., which is why many of them ended up in shelters eventually.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: When the leaks for Season 8 were released, there was supposedly a scene at the very end of the last episode that was designed to be a Sequel Hook of sorts; while heading north of the Wall, Jon and Tormund would find a set of bodies put in the same shape as the bodies in the very first episode, directly implying that the White Walkers were not truly dead. This alongside Bran's desire to find Drogon, and his seeming comments implying he wanted to be king, would suggest he was planning something to counter the White Walkers. Said leak never appeared nor was discussed. Strangely enough though, everything else in the leak was correct, making it a strange cause of a possible What Could Have Been, or simply something made up.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • An indirect example: In season 3 Gilly's son was portrayed by an infant called Arya Hasson. Unsurprisingly, both her parents are huge fans.
  • Several actors were fans of the books before being cast on the show, such as Kristian Nairn (Hodor). Keisha Castle-Hughes was also a fan before being cast as Obara Sand.
  • Nathalie Emmanuel said she was the kind of fan who would avoid appointments in episode days prior to becoming Missandei.
  • Pedro Pascal auditioned for Oberyn out of love for the show.
  • The metal band Mastodon recorded a track called "White Walker" for a GOT-themed mixtape. Members of the band later appeared as wildling extras in the episode "Hardhome" during a battle against the White Walkers. They showed up again in the Season 7 finale as the same wildings except they're wights.
  • BGFX, the firm hired to do the prosthetic make-up on the series, is a small British company founded by husband and wife Sarah and Barrie Gower. Their daughter has a cameo in the series' final scene.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Meryn Trant died sobbing. His actor, Ian Beattie, was teary-eyed while filming because he was genuinely heartbroken that he was leaving the production.
  • Youtuber Steve Love, known for his Game of Thrones impressions, got a small role in episode 6x08.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne) is the son of Ron Donachie (Rodrik Cassel).
  • In the Brazilian Dub, Arya and Sansa are voiced (until season five) by Luisa and Helena Palomanes, respectively, who are sisters in real life.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle:
  • Tyrion and Jaime's hair darkens over the course of the series, starting at golden blond and becoming brown by Season 8. This is because their two actors are naturally brunet, and the constant dyeing took its toll. It also added a nice visual for them to have an Expository Hairstyle Change as their characters developed.
  • Sophie Turner had to wear wigs in the last few seasons after the constant switching between red and her natural blonde damaged her hair.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • The Greatjon only appears in Season 1 due to schedule conflicts with actor Clive Mantle.
  • The direwolves are featured less and less after Season 2 because the special effects to composite the wolves into scenes with the actors are too expensive.
  • The executioner Ser Ilyn Payne disappears after Season 2 due to actor Wilko Johnson's serious cancer (the cancer actually was completely removed in an extraordinarily impressive medical feat, but he was still left in a weakened condition that made it impossible to come back).
  • A relatively minor Season 5 character has not been recast following the death of actor J.J. Murphy.
  • Although Bronn, at least in the TV adaptation, would have likely had a couple (though not many) of interactions with Cersei, the two are never shown on screen together.^note A Season 3 episode shows Bronn and Cersei at the same time, but Bronn is only seen from behind once Cersei enters the scene, indicating it's a Fake Shemp. To date, this was the only scene where the two characters are together. According to rumours, this is apparently because the two actors (Lena Headey and Jerome Flynn) dated at one point, and the relationship ended in very ugly fashion—so ugly that the showrunners have made it a point to keep the two away from each other on set. However, after season 8 finished up, Flynn denied this in an interview.
  • Jessica Henwick, who played Nymeria Sand, was too busy shooting for her part as Colleen Wing in Iron Fist (2017) and The Defenders (2017), that her schedule conflicted with the Season 7 production until Marvel gave her the heads up. Because she was given two weekends by Marvel, Nym's fate was changed where she would be killed off by Euron Greyjoy in one episode.
  • Brienne's reduced screentime in Seasons 6 and 7 is due Gwendoline Christie's commitments to the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
• The Red Stapler:
  • The show played a large role in making braided hairstyles fashionable again.
  • Despite leaving the Food Porn largely in the books, the show apparently boosted the sales of medieval-themed meat dishes and beverages, especially mead.
  • "Arya", "Khaleesi", "Tyrion" and "Theon" have become popular baby names and even made the Top 100 lists in some countries.
  • The show also heavily boosted tourism in all shooting locations, particularly Spain and Northern Ireland. And like New Zealand with The Lord of the Rings, the local tourism boards fully embrace this.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Rose Leslie (Ygritte) got married in June 2018.
  • Rosie Mac and Ignacio Blanco, the body doubles for Daenerys Targaryen and Daario Naharis, are heavily rumored to be dating.
  • Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon) and Nell Tiger Free (Myrcella Baratheon) have also developed a romantic relationship.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: George R. R. Martin was asked in an interview about the porn parody "Game of Bones". He was rather amused that the porn version was actually less dirty than the books he wrote, given that it eliminated the twincest for being too shocking.
• Same Language Dub: The Comically Serious maester in the citadel, played by Frank Hvam, had his lines dubbed over due to his heavy Danish accent.
• Schedule Slip: The filming of Season 7 was delayed until August 31, 2016 in order to get the necessary weather conditions since winter has already come at the end of Season 6. Unlike the previous season, Season 7 was released in July 2017 making it ineligible to join the 2017 Emmy Awards. This also happens to the eighth and final season where filming starts in late 2017 and its premiere would be out in April 2019.
• Self-Adaptation: George R. R. Martin has consistently maintained that the Game of Thrones series is a separate beast from his A Song of Ice and Fire books, but he did write at least one episode per season until his schedule filled up too much after season 4.^note At that point the series began to diverge even more from the books than it had before, and Martin also realized he had to get down to actually finishing the books
• Separated-at-Birth Casting:
  • A lot of celebrity news sites have noted how Kit Harington (Jon) and Richard Madden (Robb) have a strong physical resemblance to each other, to the point that a common criticism of the first few episodes is that it's hard to tell which is which when the half-brothers (actually cousins) are in the same scene.
  • Michelle Fairley (Catelyn) and Kate Dickie (Lysa) do look convincing as sisters◊. Likewise with Sophie Turner's Sansa bearing a strong likeness to her onscreen mother Fairley.
  • Emilia Clarke and Harry Lloyd, who portray the Targaryen siblings, possess an uncanny similarity◊. Likewise for Wilf Scolding, who plays their late oldest brother Rhaegar Targaryen in flashbacks, which caused some initial confusion from viewers who thought that Lloyd was Acting for Two as Rhaegar (although it probably didn't help that they used the same wig).
  • Finn Jones and Natalie Dormer, who play the Tyrell siblings, could pass for brother and sister◊ in real life. In the novels, Cersei observes that Margaery and Loras look more alike than she and her twin Jaime, and this also applies to the show.
  • Dormer also bears a striking resemblance◊ to a young Diana Rigg (Olenna), so it's fitting that they play granddaughter and grandmother on the series. There are even images of Rigg as Emma Peel giving a similar off-kilter smile to the one that's become Dormer's trademark.
  • Both Michael McElhatton and his onscreen son Iwan Rheon have the same icy blue Bolton eyes.
  • Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy) essentially looks like his onscreen nephew Alfie Allen with fuller cheeks.
  • Robert Aramayo makes for a very convincing younger Sean Bean as Eddard Stark.
  • When she finally appears in flashbacks portrayed by Aisling Franciosi, Lyanna Stark bears a striking resemblance to her son Jon Snow. She also bears a resemblance to◊ Maisie Williams (her niece Arya); Arya is described in the books as being like a dead-ringer for a young Lyanna.
  • On a similar note, onscreen siblings Maisie Williams and Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran) have similar face shapes, noses, and eyebrows.
  • When Cersei sports her short hair in the later seasons, the likeness between Lena Headey and her onscreen son Jack Gleeson (Joffrey) is very apparent.
  • Gethin Anthony (Renly Baratheon) and his onscreen nephew Joe Dempsie (Gendry) also bear more than a passing resemblance to one another, with their characters having inherited the trademark Baratheon Tall, Dark, and Handsome look. In fact, in the books, Brienne at one point mistook Gendry for Renly.
• Spin-Off Cookbook: Game of Scones: All Men Must Dine is a parody cookbook with baking recipes. It's full of Game of Thrones memes like 'Arya Hungry?' or 'Dinner is Coming'. There are recipes with for stuff like Red (Velvet) Wedding Cake or Oberyn's Smashing Head Surprise and other Pun Based Titles.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Loads, but most notably Emilia Clarke, Michelle Fairley, Maisie Williams, Kit Harington, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sophie Turner, Richard Madden, Gwendoline Christie, Alfie Allen, Gethin Anthony, Pedro Pascal, Oona Chaplin, Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Art Parkinson, Esmé Bianco, Pilou Asbæk, Bella Ramsey, and Iwan Rheon. And although not completely unknown prior to the show, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Aidan Gillen, Charles Dance, Carice Van Houten, Natalie Dormer, Stephen Dillane, Iain Glen, Liam Cunningham, Mark Addy, Michael McElhatton, David Bradley, and Jason Momoa definitely got a significant boost for being in this show.
  • In the Japanese dub, the same goes for Risa Shimizu and Eiji Hanawa, who voiced Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow respectively, with the latter also being known for voicing Jiren in Dragon Ball Super.
• Streisand Effect: Thanks to the show's status as a cultural phenomenon, all the increasingly strict secrecy measures while shooting have only made the internet users more curious and the leaks more frequent and drastic.
  • Since season 5 caught up with all the published books, the production of season 6 suffered from this big time. As a result, many major plot points were leaked weeks or months before the episodes aired. And then there's poor Kit Harington, who, thanks to Jon Snow being officially dead at that point, couldn't get anywhere near the shooting locations without being hunted by paparazzi.
  • With season 7, essentially the whole season's plot outline got published months before it aired. In addition, several full episodes leaked before their official airing.
  • Season 8 became so paranoid about it that it would seem absurd, if it wasn't also probably completely justified by everything else that had happened. The sets were all surrounded by high metal walls, and the actors were fed their lines one by one through earpieces rather than actually given scripts. They even had the actors for Jaqen H'ghar, the Waif, and the Night King come to the set in Spain and walk around in costume just to throw any potential leakers off. Irish actress Michele McNally, who was working as an extra on set at the time, describes meeting another extra who'd previously worked at the FBI and being told the Game of Thrones set had even tighter security measures.
• Suppressed Mammaries: When the first season began filming in July 2010, Maisie Williams had just turned 13 but looked considerably younger, which fit her role as 11 or 12 year old Arya Stark. By the time they started shooting season 2 in July 2011, however, Williams was now 14 years old and puberty had started to kick in big time. While it helped that Maisie is fairly short (5'1"), she quickly became considerably more well developed than Arya could realistically have been given that only a few weeks had passed in the show's timeline, and thus she was almost always costumed in thick, padded shirts or tunics until she got a new, more dress-like outfit in Season 5.
• Throw It In!:
  • The sword flip where Syrio Forel balances a weapon on the back of his hand in his first scene with Arya was improvised. "Just so." Even the actor was surprised when he managed to do it, because the wooden sword was considerably heavier than a normal one.
  • When Oberyn approaches some Lannister guards, Pedro Pascal casually brushed a candle's flame with his hand. This unflinching motion made it into the finished episode.
  • According to the showrunners, the part where Tormund stares and smiles at Brienne who looks away from him uncomfortably before leaving Castle Black was unscripted.
  • The kiss between Yara Greyjoy and Ellaria Sand in "Stormborn" was actually improvised according the characters' actresses.
  • There wasn't meant to be a Cold Open for the Season 7 premiere "Dragonstone," but the strength of David Bradley's performance as Arya!Walder inspired the showrunners to give the Twins scene this special spot. This may be why it feels like a few other scenes don't happen in their original order: Samwell's montage cleaning out chamber pots kind of feels like it was meant to go with his other scenes, after the Sandor scenes, as comic relief for the dark and somber moment of Sandor burying a girl who died because of him.
  • Jorah wears a specific yellow shirt for much of his screentime. The shirt was originally supposed to have a limited use, but Iain Glen grew very fond it and insisted that he continue to wear it. The crew eventually made him part with it after Jorrah contracted greyscale in it, which Glen suspects to have been a setup.
• Tourist Bump: The series heavily boosted tourism in all shooting locations, particularly Spain, Croatia and Northern Ireland.
• Trolling Creator:
  • In a commentary for Season 1, the producers talk about the difficulty of adapting certain things from the books, and specifically tell us not to get our hopes up that white ravens will be included. In episode one of Season 2 (filmed before the commentaries were made), we do get a white raven.
  • Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) is fond of obliquely spoiling future plot developments on Instagram. She also messed with people's expectations when she posted a heart-shape made of stones, which teased that Lady Stoneheart would appear in Season 4. She didn't.
  • In the "Previously on…" for "Mother's Mercy", Benjen Stark appears. Late in the episode, Olly tells Jon that Benjen had been found. It was a lie to lure Jon into his execution.
  • As if to add insult to injury to those expecting Lady Stoneheart after the Season 6 episode "No One" seemed to have disproved it for good, in the episode the Hound also takes a piss into the river where Catelyn's body would have been found.
  • Even though the Season 6 finale is well-known for revealing (or just confirming what was already assumed) that Lyanna Stark is Jon's mother, it still didn't reveal one detail: Whatever Lyanna said Jon's birth name was, it was muted, and the subtitles didn't caption that line, meaning that an entire new forest of Epileptic Trees is about to be planted.
  • Nikolaj Coster-Waldau joins in the trolling shenanigans where he holds a duck and tells the book readers to think about it. This led to many speculations that Ser Rolly Duckfield and Aegon "Young Griff" Targaryen might appear. But it turns out that they were never in the show at all and Nikolaj was just fooling around.
  • During the filming of the dragonpit scene in Spain for the series finale, several actors who weren't in the scene were sent to Spain to walk around on set to prevent the media from finding out which characters would be in that scene. This including having Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H'ghar) and Faye Marsay (The Waif) walking around in costume despite both of their characters exiting the series in Season 6, just to mess with fans who believed that the Waif had killed and impersonated Arya.
• Troubled Production:
  • The Dorne storyline in Season 5 suffered badly from it. Just like many fans suspected, it was added very late in pre-production with the crew vastly overestimating how much screen time they'd be able to give it, resulting in a horribly rushed writing job. They also ran into trouble with the filming location where they were only allowed to shoot in a very limited area and also weren't allowed to go there at night. The result of this can be seen especially in the much-maligned big fight scene from "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken," which was intended to be a tense close-quarters brawl at night but was forced to happen in a wide-open area in broad daylight, despite that not making any sense in context.
  • Several actors have recounted the hellish ordeal of filming the climactic final battle against the White Walkers: nearly three months of all-night shoots in freezing temperatures where they were often wading through mud that could get knee-deep, and all while trying to do some very complicated and precise choreography. And at least the actors got occasional breaks to huddle around space heaters, unlike the filming crew who were working around the clock.
• Typecasting: Littlefinger in the show is more outwardly menacing, matching Aidan Gillen's typecasting as slimy villains.
• Underage Casting:
  • James Cosmo is only thirteen years older than Iain Glen, who plays his son. It is possible that Jeor fathered Jorah really young, though.
  • Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson was only 25 when he joined the cast as Gregor Clegane. The character is supposed to be the same age as Ned Stark and King Robert, given he played an integral role in Robert's Rebellion and was a fearsome warrior before Daenerys and Jon were even born (who are both played by actors older than Bjornsson). Rory McCann, who is 19 years Bjornsson's senior, plays his younger brother Sandor Clegane. It helps that they don't share any scenes until Gregor's transformation, where his face isn't very visible. To be fair, body type was much more of a priority than age when it came to casting.
  • Hodor is supposed to be older than Ned, yet Kristian Nairn is sixteen years younger than Sean Bean.
  • Arya mentions in Season 7 that Sansa is younger than Lyanna Mormont during the events of the first season. Sansa was 13, matching Sophie Turner's age during production of Season 1, while Bella Ramsey entered the series during Season 6 at 11-12, and Stannis' dialogue in Season 5 explicitly states that Lyanna is the same age as her actor.
  • The season 6 flashbacks with younger Ned are supposed to take place about 18 years before the events of season 1 (since they feature the birth of Jon). However, Robert Aramayo, the actor who played Ned in the flashbacks was 23 when those scenes were shot, while Sean Bean was 51 during the production of season 1.
  • Pilou Asbæk, the actor who plays Euron Greyjoy, is a year younger than Gemma Whelan, his onscreen niece, and 37 years younger than Patrick Malahide, his onscreen brother. This can be justified as an artifact of Euron's book counterpart being supernaturally young.
  • Understandably, David Bradley was 20 years younger than Walder Frey during filming.
• Wag the Director: For the final season, the showrunners wanted a minor subplot around Davos hitting on Missandei, but Liam Cunningham flatly refused. Already uncomfortable about the age difference (he was 56, Nathalie Emmanuel was 28), he was concerned it would cast his interactions with Shireen and Lyanna Mormont in a totally different light, and told them "You're not undoing my hard work engendering the sympathy of the audience to have him be a perv." Cunningham later wondered if Benioff had thrown in that idea purely to troll him.
• What Could Have Been: See here.
• Working Title: The Season 3 episode "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" went through a lot. Martin's original title was "Autumn Storms" as many scenes were written with drenching downpours like in the novels, which is sort of invoked in the book title A Storm of Swords. When this turned out to be beyond the budget, he switched to "Chains" as both a metaphor for several characters' situations as well as the literal gold chain Tyrion gives Shae. Finally, when some scenes were switched around and the one with the bear ended up in this episode, "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" became the obvious choice.
• Word of Dante:
  • The show has greatly influenced the perceptions people have about A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • GRRRM noted that the show's rendition of the Iron Throne was so iconic that many readers project it in their minds when reading his books, but as he points out, everything in his books is bigger and larger than life. He went out of his way to promote a more accurate rendition of the throne which he notes it was impractical on the scale of the show. Likewise, many fans accept Littlefinger noting that the throne made of 1000 swords is a political myth spread by the Targaryens, when in fact in the books, the throne really does have 1000 swords.
  • One direct example is when the showrunners in promos for Season 5 and Season 6, specifically mention that certain drastic scenes which had nothing remotely similar in the published books Shireen dying by Human Sacrifice and Hodor's origin were spoilers from the upcoming books that the author shared with them.^note Readers of the books note that the former event is impossible in the context of the end of A Dance with Dragons since Stannis is miles away from Shireen and both of them are in the middle of chaotic events at the Wall and Winterfell respectively, and Stannis' is reported as being either missing or dead. So that implies that the event would happen much later in the final books and as a result of the showrunners' spoilers, proves that Stannis in the books would triumph at Winterfell, in sharp contrast to the Death by Adaptation in the show
  • In general, both the author and the showrunners note that the show has drastically diverged from the books from Season 5 onwards, submitting Books 4 and 5 to a Compressed Adaptation and removing and changing vast chunks of character and plot, which means that the show's connection to the books as an indicator of later events is not very reliable.
• Word of God:
  • Because of the, seemingly, vague nature of their deaths, the director and showrunners later came out to clarify that both Stannis and Myrcella Baratheon did indeed get killed in the Season 5 episode "Mother's Mercy."
  • With quite a few fans taking Arya saying, "That's not you" in Season 7's "Stormborn" literally and thinking she'd simply mistaken another direwolf for Nymeria, the producers clarified that it was a Call-Back to Arya saying, "That's not me," about herself not being meant for a domesticated life in Season 1.
  • In the book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, by James Hibberd, George R.R. Martin confirmed, without any ambiguity, that three elements of the final seasons of the TV show will also occur in the last two books: Stannis sacrificing Shireen, the origin of Hodor's name and his tragic death caused by Bran, and Bran becoming king at the end of the story.
• Word of Saint Paul:
  • Kristian Nairn clarified that Hodor was not being warged in his final moments in "The Door" and made his Heroic Sacrifice of his own free will, describing his last thoughts as being happy that Bran and Meera would survive.
  • According to Kit Harington, Jon's pummeling Ramsay into the ground in "Battle of the Bastards" was supposed to make the audience fear for his sanity, and worry that their hero was becoming a monster. However, Ramsay was such a vile character that the actual audience reaction was not so much "Don't become that which you hate!" and more "Don't stop! He's still breathing!"'
  • Peter Dinklage revealed in interviews that Tyrion is in love with Daenerys, something corroborated by the script of the season 6 episode "The Winds of Winter", the leaked scripts of season 7, and a brief dialogue of the character with Jon in the series finale. This is only subtly suggested in the TV series, but it helps to explain many of the actions the character takes as her advisor in the final seasons.
  • Toby Osmond, who played the new Prince of Dorne in the final episode, stated he belived his character was a younger brother of Doran and Oberyn, feeling his character was too old to be one of Doran's other sons from the books.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Ian Whyte portrays Gregor Clegane in Season 2, a White Walker in Seasons 1 and 2, and a giant in Seasons 3 to 8.
  • Dean Charles Chapman plays Martyn Lannister in Season 3, and then (permanently) Tommen Baratheon in Season 4 onwards. It helps that said characters are cousins.
  • Kevin Eldon plays Camello, the actor playing Ned Stark in Season 6, then as a Gold Cloak whom a returning Gendry murders in Season 7.

---