When HBO aired the official trailer for Game of Thrones season 8, fans were delighted to see that Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) had survived their harrowing ordeal in the season 7 finale, when the Night King brought down a chunk of the Wall near Eastwatch and let the army of the dead into Westeros proper.
Until we saw Tormund in that darkened hallway, no one really knew for sure if he was even alive. Hivju went out of his way during filming to not tip off fans regarding Tormund’s fate, which meant no selfies. “We didn’t see him die; season 8 could have started episode 1 with dead Tormund,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
Hivju wanted fans to be elated when they found out he was alive, and recalled a moment he had in a bar where fans of the show were watching an episode from season 6, “The Broken Man”:
"I sat in a bar when I was shooting The Fate of the Furious and I watched an episode of Thrones with diehard fans, and it was like seeing a sporting event. I didn’t understand the impact of the show until watching it with other people. It was the episode where [Rory McCann’s character, the Hound, who was presumed dead for a time] came back, and there was this roar. I’m going for that."
Now that the trailer gave the game away, we can’t have quite that level of excitement, but if you’re watching the new episodes in a bar and Hivju is there, be sure to act surprised.
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Hivju briefly talked about Tormund’s storyline in season 8. “He wants closure. All the Free Folk grew up with the horror stories of the White Walkers, like that story Nan told Bran in season 1 with the ice spiders — except having seen them. This has been the terror of their worst nightmare as long as they’ve existed. Tormund has confronted them many times. This is the nightmare moment where you have to face centuries of bad dreams.”
Let’s hope that means Tormund makes it back to Winterfell in time to help Jon Snow fight for the living.
Hivju also talked about saying goodbye to a show he’s been a part of life since its third season. “Every seventh year there isn’t a cell in your body that hasn’t changed,” he said. “Even your bones. Your new cells learned what your old cells knew. And you have your soul. This flesh is not the same as what was sitting here seven years ago.”
"Everything has an end. Everybody is exhausted and nobody is tired. It’s a long, intense journey, and extremely satisfying; it’s so seldom to have this positive drive through every season, from your first day to your last day. Everybody wants to up their game and make it even better. We feel like we’re always competing with ourselves. So it’s satisfying to end it and we’re ending it when everybody still loves being here."
That’s the kind of dedication that has made Game of Thrones the most popular television show in the world. Hopefully, Tormund will have a happy ending, whatever that means for him. We’ll find out starting on April 14.
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