Well, that pretty much settles it. Fans watched in horror during the Sunday, June 14 Game of Thrones finale, as everyone’s favorite member of the Night’s Watch, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), took stab after stab before finally getting knifed in the heart.
The curly-haired hunk then fell to the ground as blood pooled around him. Basically, he wasn’t having the best of days. But devoted fans of both George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire book series and the hit HBO show weren’t entirely convinced that Snow was officially dead, especially considering the books left things a little more subjective.
But GoT director David Nutter set the record straight — as far as his HBO series goes — in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on June 15, saying point-blank, “Jon Snow is dead.” Nutter went on to praise British star Harington, describing his last day on set.
“He is a consummate professional,” the director told THR. “It wasn’t unlike the Red Wedding where everyone gets attached to people when you work with them for such a long time. You really grow quite fond of each other. You’re family. It was a lot of sadness on set… I took all of the extras aside prior to shooting the sequence and we read the Night’s Watch creed together, because I wanted them to feel like they are part of it. Without them being involved, it wouldn’t have worked as well. I wanted the scene to happen rather quickly, where it didn’t hang at all. That it would happen before you know it.”
And Snow’s death wasn’t the only thing that shocked fans in the Season 5 finale. The episode also marked Cersei Lannister’s brutal, naked walk of shame — a scene that required a body double and took three days to film. Nutter admitted he was most anxious about filming the queen regent’s painful penance.
“I was on pins and needles about wanting to get it right because Lena Headey and I are friends and I think she’s such a great talent,” he said of the British actress. “It wanted it to turn out wonderful. Wonderful probably isn’t the best word, but I wanted it to turn out right.”
Headey defended her character to Entertainment Weekly, noting, “Cersei has done wrong, but she doesn’t really deserve this.”
Tell Us: Are you surprised that Jon Snow is really dead?
