How ‘Game of Thrones’ Mastered the Art of the Death Scene
There is only one god, and his name is Death.” So said Syrio Forel, the late great swordsman who taught Arya Stark how to “dance” before meeting that many-faced god himself. If there’s one thing that can be said about Game of Thrones, it’s that the show is out to make you a believer in this fatalistic faith. The dog-eat-dog demise of Ramsay Bolton in this week’s “Battle of the Bastards” is just the latest in a seemingly endless chain of killings, one that’s earned the show a reputation for sanguine shock tactics. But there’s a method to the macabre madness of how the show kills, who it kills, and who does the killing. The variety of violence is both surprising and revealing, communicating much about the way of the world of Westeros.
The ur-death, of course, is Ned Stark’s. Some surprising passings had already taken place before the end of the first season — Viserys Targaryen, King Robert Baratheon, Sansa’s pet direwolf Lady. But when the executioner’s blade fell on Eddard’s noble neck, it decapitated our expectations as to what Game of Thrones was capable of doing. Slaughtering the star of the show, the actor with the most name recognition, the face on all the posters? This was Psycho‘s shower scene on the small screen. And then there was the series’ handling of this shocking event. Realizing that the execution’s power lay in the idea, not the image, it kept the actual killing blow off-camera, letting Arya Stark’s devastated reaction and the startled flutter of birds taking wing bear silent witness to what we ourselves didn’t see. Our minds were more than capable of conjuring the horror on their own.
Though Ned’s beheading is undoubtedly the standout in this category, off-screen deaths, though less common than their on-screen counterparts, are a vital tool in the show’s lethal arsenal. Neither seen nor heard, they typically take place under very specific circumstances. Deaths intended to brew uncertainty are withheld from view as if to echo the characters’ confusion as to what happened, and what will happen next: Think of King Robert expiring unseen in his bed, Rickon Stark’s direwolf Shaggydog making his final appearance as an already severed head, or even Jon Arryn, the victim who started it all and whose murder set in motion the Stark-Lannister war (though it was Littlefinger’s doing all along).
And while Westeros may be no country for old men, those who die in service of an ideal are often (though far from always) granted the dignity of expiring away from prying eyes and ears. This season, Brynden “The Blackfish” Tully fell to Frey/Lannister forces, but we only hear about it in an after-action report to Jaime. Last year, Stannis Baratheon regained some of the honor he’d lost in his gruesome sacrifice of his own daughter by calmly accepting Brienne of Tarth’s death sentence; the fatal stroke was obscured by a cut to black. The Three-Eyed Raven was cut down by his nemesis, the Night King, in similar fashion. And Maester Aemon, the lovable blind advisor to the Night’s Watch, helped Jon Snow ascend to the role of Lord Commander, then died peacefully of very old age in the company of those he cared about — a fate half of this fantasy planet would probably kill for.