There’s been some pretty horrendous deaths in Game Of Thrones. Rickon Stark being shot with an arrow. Oberyn Martell’s skull being crushed by the Mountain. The entire Red Wedding.
But this one really hurts.
It has been confirmed that King Tommen Baratheon’s beloved cat Ser Pounce was killed off off screen in a ‘diabolical’ execution.
This show really can’t let us have anything, can it?
We only met Ser Pounce once, in episode four of season four, when Margaery sneaked into Tommen’s chambers and she met the kitty, calling him a ‘proper fellow’.
Tommen told Margaery that his older brother Joffrey ‘seriously threatened’ to kill Ser Pounce – but it turns out it was his mother Cersei Lannister who eventually did the deed.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Game Of Thrones showrunner David Benioff said: ‘Cersei hated the name Ser Pounce so much she could not allow him to survive. So she came up with her most diabolical [execution].
‘Ser Pounce’s death was so horrible we couldn’t even put it on the air.’
Fellow showrunner Dan Weiss added: ‘If you buy the super-extended, super-charged Game of Thrones box set that comes out, the death of Ser Pounce will be in there. Just one whole episode devoted to the death of Ser Pounce.’
Now, while it would make sense that Cersei hated the cutesy name, and that she would not want to be reminded of the guilt of her son Tommen taking his own life after he lost Margaery in the destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor, Ser Pounce’s absence from the final season may just be because cats are absolute divas.
Benioff admitted: ‘That cat was really not fun to work with’, saying that while dogs can be trained, cats have their ‘own agenda’.
And in the past, both Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen) and Natalie Dormer (Margaery) have both commented on the cat who played Ser Pounce’s failure to cooperate.
Dean-Charles – who admitted he wanted Ser Pounce to survive the destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor – previously told Huffington Post: ‘That cat that day would have none of it. He was just loving life. He just really wasn’t on his game that day.’
And Natalie said in a 2014 Reddit AMA: ‘Ser Pounce was a bit of a diva that day, he didn’t want to stay on the bed, he was very difficult to work with.’
Rest in peace, Ser Pounce. We barely knew ye.
Game Of Thrones season eight premieres on 14 April.
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