Helen Sloan / HBO
Without looking at any stats, I’d be willing to bet that Game of Thrones has already set a record for ‘most major cast member deaths’ of any popular TV show in the past 25 years. People get killed off when we hate them, when we love them, or when we think that the character holds the key to everything. By the way, there are some spoilers ahead about last night’s episode so if you haven’t watched it yet you might want to save this article and read it later.
Last night we were treated to the second Season 7 episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and towards the end of ‘Stormborn’ we saw Theon Greyjoy lost his balls again, as well as the ‘Sand Snakes’ from Dorne meet their maker at the hands of Euron Greyjoy. As far as the overall plot is concerned, the scene seems like it was meant to enforce how deadly Euron Greyjoy is, newly crowned King of the Iron Islands, as well as do away with the Sand Snakes. The three sisters from Dorne were never fan favorites, and it was only a matter of time until they lost their lives.
Actress Jessica Henwick played Nymeria Sand, one of the Sand Snakes, and in an interview with EW she discussed how Game of Thrones cast members know that they’ll soon be killed off, and it involves the show’s runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss:
Henwick told Entertainment Weekly that she was busy in New York filming Netflix’s “Iron Fist” when she got a call from both showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Both, it turns out, is the operative word for actors trying to parse whether their character will make it another week.
“As soon as you hear that more than one of them is on the call, you know what that means,” Henwick explained. “If it’s just one they’re probably talking about the story. But if it’s both of them then you know.” (via Business Insider)
Imagine if the same was true for everything else in life. If anytime you hopped on a conference call and 2 or more of your bosses were on the phone it meant you were about to be fired.
I say good riddance to the Sand Snakes. The acting was bad, they were caricatures of Dorne, and they didn’t hold any significance to the overall plot. It’s a shame that they waited until the rise of Euron Greyjoy to kill them off but I suppose it was a pretty badass scene overall. (h/t Business Insider)