‘Game of Thrones’: This Character Was Supposed to Live and Would’ve Hated Daenerys’ Fate

[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers from “Game of Thrones” Season 8, including the finale.]

The final season of “Game of Thrones” has caused controversy over its rushed storytelling that didn’t allow for enough character development, among other complaints. Case in point are Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and her dark turn into the pyromaniacal Mad Queen and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) undoing his story of redemption at the 11th hour to die with his sister, even after his eyes had been opened to her selfishness.

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Despite all of these perceived narrative failures, Entertainment Weekly reveals that the writers did indeed try to create stories that would stay true to the characters and not just feel contrived. In fact, they wanted desperately to keep one character alive through to the end, but eventually abandoned the idea because it made no logical sense.

“For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end,” writer Dave Hill said. “The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund. But the amount of logic we’d have to bend to get Jorah up to The Wall and get him to leave Dany’s side right before [the events in the finale] … there’s no way to do that blithely. And Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves.”

Of course, for fans of Jorah (Iain Glen), this is bittersweet to hear. The loyal knight is one of the many characters who had a hard-won redemption over the show’s many seasons and even survived a nasty case of greyscale. Having him die for his queen during the War of Winterfell, however, makes him true to his nature in the end.

Besides, had Jorah lived, he would have been faced with a major dilemma in supporting his queen after she burned down most of King’s Landing, including many innocent civilians.

“There’s a sweetness in that because Jorah will never know what she did,” Glen said. “That’s probably best. It’s a blessing for him that he never found out what happened to her. And from a pragmatic story point of view, his death served a greater purpose. Where could we have taken Jorah from there? Fuck if I know.”

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