SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES AHEAD!
YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!
Now that Game of Thrones is finally over (to the relief of many disappointed fans), we’ve been inundated with a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes stuff from the cast and crew, like Maisie Williams’ one regret about the finale.
However, the most intriguing tidbit to have come out so far is what the writers originally had planned for Ser Jorah Mormont, who died valiantly defending Daenerys from the Night King’s army.
In a new chat to Entertainment Weekly, Thrones writer Dave Hill revealed that the original plan was to keep Jorah alive and have him be banished alongside Jon Snow up North at The Wall.
Now this is a very interesting divergence from Jorah’s eventual fate but the writers ultimately scrapped it because that ending was rife with logistical and characterisation problems.
Not only would Jorah have had to do something incredibly crazy in order to be banished to the Wall in the first place, it would’ve been difficult to squeeze the end of Jorah’s story into three already-stuffed episodes as he would’ve had to believably go from fierce Daenerys supporter to Queen deserter following her destruction of King’s Landing.
And lastly, having Jorah and Jon in the same vicinity of each other after the latter had killed Daenerys will almost certainly end with at least one of them dead. Just think about it, there’s no way Jorah would pass up an opportunity to kill Jon and avenge Daenerys’ death given his loyalty and love for her.
Imagine this scene but with Jorah cutting down Jon with the sword instead.
The question of how Jorah would’ve reacted to Daenerys’ destruction of King’s Landing is a very interesting one as it throws up a bunch of intriguing “what ifs”, but Iain Glen had the best answer to it, telling EW:
“There’s a sweetness in that because Jorah will never know what she did. 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? F— if I know.”
Glen has a good point there and Jorah dying while defending the woman he loves is a far more fitting way for the character to go out than having him stick around.
And besides, if you thought the fans were mad with the ending then having Jorah going up North with Jon and murdering him out of revenge would’ve made everyone apoplectic.