Fans are currently lashing out at the executive producers of Game of Thrones for what is happening in the final season. People have been undeniably disappointed with how Season 8 is turning out that several signatures have already been added to the petition calling for the entire season being rewritten by "competent writers."
Sure, Game of Thrones Season 8 certainly has a lot of unexpected story arcs. However, one fan has pointed out that one of the real reasons why David Benioff and D.B. Weiss deserve all the hatred they are getting for what they did to Ser Barristan Selmy and the actor who played the legendary knight.
A post shared on Reddit reveals Ian McElhinney's story. The veteran actor was reportedly a huge fan of George R.R. Martin's books and gladly took the role of Barristan the Bold in the show. However, things changed when Benioff and Weiss decided that Ser Barristan would be killed off in the fifth season.
Not surprisingly, McElhinney resisted the decision to kill off his character and penned a lengthy letter explaining why it would be a bad idea. Nevertheless, he was ultimately ignored and Ser Barristan suffered one of the most despicable deaths on the series: The greatest knight in all of Westeros was stabbed in an alley by several masked men.
Surely, there was an explanation for why Ser Barristan had to go in such a way? As it turns out, the EPs may have decided to do this simply because McElhinney defied them. In an Oxford Union interview, Benioff blatantly revealed why Ser Barristan had to go.
"We make phone calls every year when a character is going to perish, and this year, for the first time, we got some push back where the actor said 'Are you sure about that?' and we said 'Yeah we're quite sure you're going to die this year' and then there's a long conversation and we get a long letter explaining why this was a bad idea, which just made us want to kill that person that much more," Benioff said. You can hear it at the 1:13:10 mark in the video below.
Of course, this may have been just a joke but it's still an obvious dig at anyone who tries to question the way the EPs handle the show. Perhaps if anything needs to be remade about the series, it should be Ser Barristan's death.
Game of Thrones concludes on May 19.
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