Director Mark Mylod on why the Waif and the Blackfish died offscreen

As we pick through the fallout on “No One,” this past Sunday’s new episode of Game of Thrones, Mark Mylod is a valuable resource. The director has been making the interview rounds since Sunday, and talked to Tech Insider and The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog about one aspect of the episode that didn’t sit well with some fans: the fact that two characters, the Waif and Brynden “the Blackfish” Tully, died offscreen.

Let’s start with the Waif, beginning with the scene in “The Broken Man” where she gets the jump on Arya and stabs her in the gut. “We forget how young this kid is, and she makes a mistake,” Mylod said of Arya.

"Having booked passage with the captain, she has a moment of reverie where she’s looking over Braavos and particularly looking forward to making a move toward home to a new adventure. She’s not going to be this assassin, and she lets her guard down and nearly pays for it with her life."

After that, Mylod confirms that the point of Arya leading the Waif back to her hiding place was so that she could have the advantage in a fight, as Arya knew how to fight blind (or, as apparent Star Wars nerd Mylod puts it, “metaphorically using the ‘Force'”) and the Waif didn’t. “There’s a reason why she’s chosen that particular place to be,” Mylod said, “with only one door and no window and the single candle being the only light source.”

"And therefore, of course without night vision goggles [the scene was] actually quite impossible to see. And personally I love the edit cut of the candle snuffed out to the Hall of Faces and that slow reveal of whose face is actually up on the wall. So in that case it was part necessity [not to show her death] but more cleverly just great storytelling and great planning from the writers."

So Mylod seems to be saying that we didn’t see the Waif die onscreen for two reasons: 1) it would have been impossible to see anyway, and; 2) the setup was such that we knew what was going to happen, and the follow-up shot in the Hall of Faces confirmed it.

Personally, I agree with this—I thought the cut to black was all that was needed, but I was a little less happy with the Blackfish’s offscreen death. What reasons did Mylod have for killing Brynden Tully offscreen?

“In the case of the Blackfish, it was really a storytelling call,” he said. “What do we gain from [showing his death]? The most important tonal story would be – at least for me and I can probably speak for the writers here – to show the passing of this great old school warrior with a real warrior’s death, a kind of samurai death.”

"He’s a man who carries a lot of shame for not being in the right place at the right time at the Red Wedding. He’s carried that shame and here was a chance for at least a bit of personal redemption to give himself that moment of dignity. I didn’t want to see the moment of the sword going into him or whatever it may be. I didn’t want to see that, I didn’t gain anything from it. I wanted him to have that warrior’s death and I was happy to leave that offscreen. So it was really just a question of choice. I expect that one could make an equally compelling argument either way. That was the writer’s choice and I fully agreed with it."

Fair enough, although I still think that at least seeing the Blackfish swing his sword a few times before the Lannister soldier informs Jaime of his death would have been cathartic.

Over at Speakeasy, Mylod also talked about filming that chase scene between Arya and the Waif, which he called “a director’s dream.”

"The script says “a dazzling foot chase,” and so I went with the team to Girona in Spain, and we basically walked around the Old City saying, “That’s a good bit. That’s a good bit. And that’s a good bit. How can we stitch them together?” Through just walking the streets a shape started to evolve."

I note that Mylod doesn’t comment on what’s proven to be the most controversial element of the sequence—Arya’s ability to jump around the city with a barely healed gut wound—but that may be something we just have to deal with.

Finally, Mylod complimented the hell out of Rory McCann in the role of the Hound. “In terms of getting back into the character, probably the best direction I gave to Rory over the [two] episodes was, “Hey, Rory, remember you’ve got a limp!” And that was about it. The guy knows the character so damn well.” McCann certainly was in fine form over the past couple of episodes—it was like the Hound never left.