HBO cut a lot from George R.R. Martin’s final Game of Thrones script

VARYS, MASTER OF DISGUISE

Before the breakup scene, there’s a brief scene where Varys tells Tyrion that Tywin and Cersei are on to Tyrion’s affair with Shae, and that she’s in danger. In Martin’s original script, the scene is — you guessed it — more elaborate. It takes place in the dungeons where the skulls of the dragons Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes are kept, and Varys has changed his usual look:

"It is Varys as we have never seen him before. Not the effete eunuch of the small council, he appears as a denizen of the dungeons; clad in leather and mail, an iron helm on his head, heavy boots on his feet, a whip coiled at his side. Even a BEARD."

The notion of Varys as someone who assumes different disguises comes up a few times in Martin’s novels — on one memorable occasion in A Storm of Swords, he even gets in drag — but all of them were cut from the show.

Why was it cut?

Because it’s silly. C’mon, this would have been weird, especially after Benioff and Weiss had already foregone a few other opportunities to have Varys demonstrate his chameleonic talents.