Game of Thrones put a lot of pressure on the six episodes that rounded off the final season.
Season eight of the HBO show contained two of the largest battles ever seen in the show so far, one in King’s Landing, and one in Winterfell.
The battle for Winterfell saw all of the main cast members take on the Night King (played by Vladimir Furdik) and his seemingly endless forces of undead.
However some viewers were a little disappointed by the Night King’s inclusion in the episode, as he didn’t really have an epic one-on-one fight.
At one point in the episode Jon Snow (Kit Harington) touched down off his dragon to face the necromancer in combat – however the warlock simply raised some more undead and walked away.
Miguel Sapochnik, director of the episode, recently appeared on the Indiewire Toolkit podcast, where he spoke about the last few episodes at length.
On top of revealing some dark secrets about the final season, he also spoke about the battle for Winterfell, and what was left out of it.
Speaking to the host, Miguel explained the 90-minute episode originally had a “very long” fight sequence which involved the Night King.
However, this was obviously cut, and the Night King was left just to confront Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) in the Weirwood.
Miguel went on to discuss why this scene was cut, in which case he queried whether people would care whether the Night King had “fancy staff moves” – or whether they would rather he engage directly with Bran.
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Unfortunately, if anyone was interested in seeing the Night King use some fancy staff moves, they are out of luck.
Later in the podcast Miguel spoke about the beginning of the battle for Winterfell, in which he said a huge part was taken out.
He explained originally 50 direwolves were included in the battle.
This would have most likely been included in the first charge against the undead, alongside the Dothraki.
Although he didn’t mention where the direwolves would have supposedly come from, it seems likely they would have stemmed from the Nymeria’s pack.
Nymeria was last seen in season seven by Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) when she was almost attacked by the beasts.
However, even if the forces of good had 50 direwolves on their side, would they have mitigated any of their casualties?
Viewers saw the loss of a number of characters in the battle against the dead, but a number of attack dogs may not have helped.
Either way, fans would have loved to see the direwolves make a triumphant return to the show after being away for so long.
Game of Thrones is available on digital download now.
