Game Of Thrones Season 5 Episode 2 Script

[Florene Pothoven]

Throughout the scripts for these final six episodes, the writers (Dave Hill, Bryan Cogman, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss) include small stage directions that indicate what characters are thinking. Many of the notes for Dany's character chart her season eight arc from heroic queen to slaughterer of innocents.

Dany's growing isolation was apparent throughout the early episode of "Game of Thrones" on the screen, but it's interesting to read more of how miffed she felt upon arriving to Winterfell and getting the cold shoulder from Sansa and the other Northerners.

There is extra tragedy layered into this moment given that Dany so quickly warmed to Sam when, just moments later, she had to tell him that she had executed his father and brother. She came very close to having an important friend and ally in Winterfell, but that was taken from her, too.

But in practice this moment played much more comically when actor Kit Harington's face dropped slightly in reaction to the statement. He definitely "clocks the oddness" in the final version of the episode.

There were many notable cameos throughout the final season of "Game of Thrones," including actors Rob McElhenney ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") and Martin Starr ("Silicon Valley") who played other guards killed in this very same scene.

After escaping from Euron's ship, the finished episode jumps to Theon and Yara discussing their strategy against their uncle. But in the script, Theon starts the scene by gingerly touching a bruise on his face left from Yara's headbutt.

Then Theon calls himself a coward, and Yara tells him he wasn't a coward the night before when he saved her. He tries to press the point of how he wasn't there when she needed him, but Yara says there's no point talking about it. Then they move onto the dialogue we hear in the final version.

Throughout their scripts, the writers often penned stage directions or descriptions of scenes and actors with nods to the people bringing those scenes to life. On the first episode of the season, the script introduces Cersei in a scene for the first time and gives a shout out to the lead costume designer Michele Claptoon.

As we explored back when the episode aired, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" did a lot of work to show just how alone Daenerys was in the North. The script makes this isolation and unease apparent when Theon says he wants to fight for Winterfell and then he and Sansa embrace.

In the script, Brienne's knighting scene is imbued with a lot of varying emotions from the characters in the room. After Brienne tries to tell Tormund she doesn't even want to be a knight, writer Bryan Cogman's script notes that "Pod looks askance at her, because he knows this is patently untrue."

That's when Jaime's dialogue kicks in, and he convinces Brienne to come and kneel before him so he can knight her. Afterwards, the script's stage directions say Brienne "sits down and looks at Jaime."

The final version of the episode just skips over Rast altogether, instead leaving the moment as a small tribute to Grenn and Pyp (who died during the Battle of Castle Black at the end of season four).

The night before the battle, on "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," Sandor Clegane and Beric sat together on the walls of Winterfell. There's a small scene in the script that never made it into the final episode.

Both Jon Snow and Beric were resurrected using magic from the Lord of Light. If Beric says he hasn't slept since he first died and was brought back to life, this would likely be true of Jon Snow, too.

While a very small thing to drop, this would have been an opportunity to highlight Bran as an important character during this tumultuous time in the kingdom, especially given that the series ends with him as the primary ruler of the country.

After Bran's eyes go white when he skinchanges in the godswood, the script says we were going to see "a massive flock of ravens, bigger than last time [episode 705], converge on Winterfell from all sides, all piloted by Bran."

Instead, the show's version goes from Bran skingchanging to the ravens flying by the Night King, and then never returned to other vantage points to indicate how Bran was tracking the ongoing battle in Winterfell.

There's also a man named "Fergus" in the script. He's the one who gets soup from Ser Davos on "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," lamenting about not being a soldier. In the script for "The Long Night," Fergus is mentioned a couple more times as we were supposed to see him next to Davos when the battle began, and then later on fighting.

Keeping this in mind, they noted in the script for "The Long Night" that she should be wearing the Valyrian blade at her waist before the battle begins, but director Miguel Sapochnik was meant to keep things subtle.

Here's what the description in the script says of this scene: "Brienne sleeps the sleep of the happily drunk and devirginized. Jaime can't sleep, however. He just helped save the world. So why does he feel like a traitor?"

On the fifth episode of the season, "The Bells," Tyrion and Jon talk briefly before the battle for King's Landing starts. The final version of the episode only shows Tyrion reminding Jon that the bells mean surrender. But the script's longer version of this scene has them discuss the innocent people in the city.

"But she sees the Red Keep," the script continues. "The castle that her family built, that belongs to her. Occupied by the False Queen. She has come so far and she will go further. Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained. Drogon takes to the sky."

Arya finding the horse was originally meant to be her "escape" from King's Landing, not a slow and poetic end to the episode. Instead, the script shows the episode ending with the ceiling collapsing on Jaime and Cersei.

The slow-motion scene between Arya and the horse sparked a lot of discussion about the animal's significance and potential symbolism. But it turns out it was only ever supposed to be a way Arya could quickly leave the city.

On "The Bells," Jaime and Cersei find themselves trapped in the lower dungeons beneath the Red Keep. The ceiling caves in, leading to their deaths. But when Tyrion found their bodies on "The Iron Throne" episode, there were clear patches of ground nearby.

The statue shows the Virgin Mary holding the body of Christ after his crucifixion. The choice of motif is an interesting one, since it places Daenerys in the role of Christ following her death. But earlier in the script, when Daenerys is addressing her soldiers, Benioff and Weiss refer to her as "Satanic Majesty."

All those other goodbye moments are good, but we already felt the loss of those characters in the last episode. Simply by focusing in on those two images, the part can represent the whole.

Rather than feeling the need to capture every single moment, we can feel the whole thing in a more visceral, dynamic and exciting way, and probably in less than a minute instead of 5 minutes. We can be launched into the action rather than sitting in the aftermath.

Now, there are also a million problems with this scene. How did this idiot, Euron Greyjoy, find this fleet at just the right time considering that, for all he knows, Daenerys and her army are still getting slaughtered by the dead?

Something has been brewing between these two for a very long time. We know Jaime is in love with his sister and has been since Season 1, and this is his first chance at a pure love with a good person, to become a different kind of person himself.

For eight seasons, we have watched Daenerys hold on to her morality in the face of much stronger ethical questions than this. We have watched her remain the good guy in the face of so many options to hold on to her power. We have seen her go to war for a bunch of slaves to become the breaker of chains. We have seen her hold on to her integrity no matter what.

But when writing movies or television, our job is to externalize the internal. We need to take the emotional thing happening on the inside and create scenes on the outside, between characters, events, plot, and structure, that push the character and force them to change.

What if we met a woman who was good? What if she were a woman trying to hold on to her integrity, her goodness, and her power at the same time, but things keep happening to chip away at that integrity?

What we really want to watch, what would make us connect to her, is seeing her try to hold on to her integrity in the face of all these people who hate her for no reason, even though she has come to save them, even though she has stepped away from her own war to try to defeat the undead, even though they need her dragons.

Eventually, perhaps, to wrestle with the question of what kind of decisions it takes to rule the 7 Kingdoms, all of whom want what you have. Can you really remain as humble as Jon, or do you have to stake your claim before they revolt against you like they once did to Jon at the wall?

In this episode we watch Varys, who we know to be manipulative and always thinking long term, never about the short-term human cost of his actions, make the argument that killing a bunch of people to take the Iron Throne is wrong and a terrible mistake.

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Set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, Game of Thrones has a large ensemble cast and follows several story arcs throughout the course of the show. The first major arc concerns the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros through a web of political conflicts among the noble families either vying to claim the throne or fighting for independence from whomever sits on it. The second major arc focuses on the last descendant of the realm's deposed ruling dynasty, who has been exiled to Essos and is plotting to return and reclaim the throne. The third follows the Night's Watch, a military order defending the realm against threats from beyond Westeros's northern border.

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