Game of Thrones became justly famous over the years for its character deaths. From Ned Stark getting executed in season 1 all the way through Jon Snow killing Daenerys Targaryen in season 8, the show never seemed to run out of new ways to bump people off, much to our horror.
Most of the deaths on Game of Thrones involved one person killing another, but there were a couple exceptions. One of the most memorable came at the end of season 6, when Cersei Lannister blew up the Sept of Baelor and so horrified her son, King Tommen Baratheon, that he jumped out the Red Keep window to his death.
It was a stark moment that proved the show could still shock people even after brutally killing so many characters. But apparently, that wasn’t always the way Tommen was going to go.
Tommen Baratheon’s story was originally going to end differently on Game of Thrones
Reddit recently unearthed a clip from an episode of the podcast The Balance from 2020 where Chapman talked about his career. It’s well known that Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff and Dan Weiss called actors to let them know ahead of time that their character was going to die in the upcoming season, but Chapman wanted to get out ahead of things, so he “interrogated” the costume department, since they have to read the scripts ahead of time to start getting the outfits ready.
Using this strategy, Chapman learned ahead of time that Tommen was going to die, but intriguingly, it didn’t go the way he expected. “At first, the season before that, I heard that they were gonna have Tommen die off in a battle scene,” the actor revealed. “So I think they were planning on this big battle, and then they actually decided to just blow up the Sept instead and kill everyone in a big explosion, which I think is a bit better.”
Interesting…if you remember, Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor as a way to take out all of her enemies when they were gathered in one place to witness her trial of seven, which was brought against her after the sparrows assumed power in King’s Landing. I wonder if the writers originally thought to settle things in a battle between the sparrows and those loyal to Cersei in the streets of King’s Landing, but eventually went with the Sept plan instead. If so, I agree that they made the right choice, especially since it happened right in the wake of “Battle of the Bastards,” another big battle episode.
Since Game of Thrones, Chapman has gone on to appear in movies like The King and 1917. Expect more from him soon.
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