Liam Cunningham (Davos) explains why Ghost wasn’t in “Battle of the Bastards”

Liam Cunningham, who plays the ever-loyal Davos Seaworth on Game of Thrones, was one of the show’s biggest cheerleaders before Season 6 began. He kept that up with a new interview with Tech Insider where he praised the latest episode, “Battle of the Bastards,” up and down and sideways. “I defy anybody to say that they’ve seen these shots in other movies or other television,” Cunningham said. “You haven’t. It was new. It was pushing the borders and pushing the envelope of what you can do on television.” He singled out Kit Harington (Jon Snow) for special praise:

"I mean he’s fantastic. Once we hit the battle scene he had hardly anything to say – hardly a line – and yet he just does so much with his face. He’s just completely blossomed … he’s done a remarkable job and I have to applaud the man’s work on ‘Game of Thrones.’ He’s been fantastic."

The episode has been remarkably well-received, and HBO has put forward Kit Harington’s name for Emmy consideration. Will this finally be the year he gets nominated in the Outstanding Acting category?

(Via Reddit. This shot wasn’t CGI, by the way.)

Cunningham also praised Harington over at The Huffington Post. “If he doesn’t, at the very least, get nominated for his work throughout the whole season, there is no God,” he said. We’ll see how it shakes out.

Back at Tech Insider, Cunningham addressed something fans have been wondering about: why didn’t Ghost, Jon Snow’s faithful and deadly direwolf, participate in the battle? “Yeah that would have been cool, [but] obviously a big battle like that is no place for a direwolf,” he said. “They’re not gonna last very long – I mean look at what happened to Wun Wun, the last of the giants.” He does have a point: an animal without armor would have easy pray for all those arrows. Considering that the show has killed off two direwolves this season (RIP Shaggydog and Summer), maybe we should be happy that Ghost was kept out of harm’s way. He lives to fight another day.

Davos does too, and now that we know he survived the Battle of the Bastards, we can hopefully look forward to more scenes between him and Jon. “Davos is a fantastic counselor and there’s an inevitable pairing between a decent man like Davos and a decent man like Jon Snow,” Cunningham said. If those White Walkers start bearing down on the North, Jon will need all the counselors he can get.

Over on The Huffington Post, Cunningham answered another question that’s been on everybody’s mind: did Davos follow through on what he said to Tormund and shit outside camp the night before the battle?

"[Laugh] He may have taken a shit when he found the stag. I think it was best that that happened off camera. I know we push the edges of drama and jump over the line occasionally — the best drama does — but I don’t think we’ve yet sunk to the requirement of seeing me have to defecate. We haven’t reached that low point. Maybe that’s in Season 29."

As The Huffington Post says, “Season 29 confirmed.” More seriously, Cunningham commented on what finding that stag means for Davos’ relationship with Melisandre.

"It’s a game changer, him finding that. He’s put two and two together. He knows what Melisandre’s done. He knows she’s been burning people, most of it off screen, since Season 2 after The Battle of Blackwater. He knows that’s part of her M.O. But we have a little bit of unfinished business to take care of, and that will reveal itself."

Finally, he offered a nice long tease for “The Winds of Winter,” the Season 6 finale.

"Listen, we’re not going to top what we did in [Episode 9] in action and digital quality. I mean, a huge change is coming. We’ve seen what happened with Daenerys and Yara and Theon. We’ve watched that take shape. There’s so many stories going on in this. In a sense, the Winterfell story has now ceased to be as scary as it has been. I think what we’ve got coming up is a big story, perhaps with the Lannisters, for the end of this. Cersei is in a very difficult position. We’ve got all that to look forward to. We have to get around our world in Westeros and see what the other participants are getting up to, and that’s what’s going to come in Episode 10."

We’ll bring you more on that soon.