Night King Actor Wanted ‘Game Of Thrones’ To End With Way More Death

“Game of Thrones” said “all men must die,” and an actor who played the Night King wanted to take that literally.

Richard Brake held the role of the Night King in Season 4 and Season 5 of the HBO series, notably staring down Kit Harington’s Jon Snow at Hardhome, before later being recast with actor and stunt coordinator Vladimír Furdík. In a new interview with NME, Brake gave his thoughts about the controversial “Game of Thrones” ending, saying he initially wanted it to conclude with a bit more death.

“I wanted him to wipe everyone out, I was hoping for that,” Brake said. “But you can’t always get what you want!”

Not only did the Night King not “wipe everyone out,” but his final battle at Winterfell ended with a surprisingly small number of main character casualties. (The biggest was arguably Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), who was a real turd for most of the show.) The Night King is then abruptly defeated when Arya (Maisie Williams) comes leaping of nowhere and destroys him with one thrust of her dagger.

The moment sparked online backlash, because some felt it was just a surprise to throw people off. But Brake apparently wasn’t one of those angry tweeters. Though the Night King’s conquest was cut short, he was down for Arya having that moment.

“I love the fact that Arya killed him. That was to me one of the highlights of that season,” Brake said.

The actor praised Arya’s development into an assassin who “saves the world.”

“To me, that was the most genius thing of the whole series,” he said.

Furdík, who played the Night King when Arya dealt the death blow, seems to concur. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2019, the actor said it was a good decision to have Williams’ character be the one to end him.

“Who else can kill him and how? It was the best, I think,” Furdík said.

Despite wanting everyone to die, Brake told NME he was satisfied with the Night King’s demise, and said he always anticipated there would be backlash, especially with so many theories about how the series would end.

“I sensed there would be a portion of people who would be disappointed no matter what they did, but I honestly thought it was great,” he added.

Jason Momoa, aka Khal Drogo himself, who livestreamed his hilarious and expletive-filled reaction to the finale, may disagree.