Game of Thrones season 8 is out on home video next week and there are some intriguing revelations in the commentaries and features about the show’s controversial final episode, “The Iron Throne.”
The home video release has a making-of documentary on the finale titled “Duty is the Death of Love” along with an audio commentary track with showrunners David Benioff, Dan Weiss, and star Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen).
Among the many new details in the release:
— Jon Snow did not go into the throne room intending to kill his lover, it’s only Dany’s final statements that condemn her. Kit Harington explains what was going through his character’s mind: “He doesn’t know he’s going to betray her until right at the end,” he says. “In Jon’s head, it’s a number of [reasons: Dany] doesn’t factor in anyone else’s decisions and it also means [Dany] is going to kill my sisters, so it becomes [my] family vs. her.”
— No, Drogon did not eat Dany’s’ body after the dragon carried off its mother across the sea. The dragon was headed towards Volantis. Clarke notes fans told her dragons eat their masters, which the showrunners shot down. “Drogon’s not going to eat you,” Benioff assures. “He’s not a cat. Did you see how gently he was nudging you?”
— The reason Drogon torched the Iron Throne after Dany was killed isn’t specifically spelled out. But Benioff does note a potential insight into the dragon’s thoughts: “If [Dany is] not going to sit on it, no one’s going to sit on it.”
— This isn’t about a finale scene, but was revealed in the finale commentary: The scene where Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) leaves Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) in tears included a secret line that wasn’t in the script. To help provoke Brienne’s grief, the showrunners share that Coster-Waldau said to Brienne a brutal classically Jaime-ish line that wasn’t in the script or in the show: “I don’t love you. No one loves you.”
— The showrunners confirm Bran being named king of Westeros is author George R.R. Martin’s planned ending for his books. “Bran is the only probably pure person in there,” Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) notes. “And the fact he cannot father children is key because they’ve repeated the cycle in this Westerosi history of heirs being really bad.”
— Christie learned calligraphy for the scene where she fills out the heroics of Jaime Lannister in the White Book, so the writing is really hers. While this was a short, simple scene, the production spent three days getting it right.
— Arya, as is implied by the finale, is leaving Westeros to be an explorer.
— Clarke asks the showrunners which season was their favorite, either in terms of the end result or making the season. Benioff says seasons 4, 6, and 8, while Weiss singles out season 4 because “everybody was in a groove but we were so far from the end we didn’t have to worry about the ending…four was peak fun.”
Also, the showrunners tease Clarke about the infamous coffee cup mishap and the actress insists it wasn’t her who left it in camera view (“This bus is really heavy you just throw me under,” she jokes). They do clear up one widely misreported element of that story, however: The coffee was from a local Belfast coffee shop called Established Coffee, not Starbucks.
EW recently released a never-before-seen deleted scene from the final season that involves Tyrion and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) fighting for survival during “The Long Night,” which you can watch above.
The deleted scene and audio commentary details are from the Game of Thrones season 8 home video release (DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, etc.) that also includes The Last Watch documentary on the making of season 8, audio commentaries, making-of featurettes, and more deleted scenes.
In addition to the final season release, there’s also a Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection box set, which has all eight seasons and the not-yet-seen cast reunion special hosted by Conan O’Brien. Both will be released on Dec. 3.
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