After Lena Headey revealed what-could-have-been Cersei Lannister's powerful scene, director Miguel Sapochnik unveiled another sequence that was cut from Game of Thrones Season 8. The final season could have been more epic if the battle of the direwolves against the undead dragon, Viserion, made it on the screen.
In a podcast interview, Sapochnik revealed that "The Long Night" was supposed to feature an epic battle between 50 direwolves and a dragon. The famed director said there were supposed to be too many things that fans would have been happy to see happen, but didn't make it to the show.
Sapochnik disclosed they didn't have the chance to film the 50 direwolves' attack to an undead dragon because "it was part of the process." Direwolves have been a fan-favorite character in the series. People went mad to Jon Snow (Kit Harington) when he didn't pet Ghost when he left Winterfell at the end of "The Last of the Starks" episode.
If the direwolves scene made it to Game of Thrones Season 8, fans could have been surprised and celebrated the epic storyline. However, Sapochnik wasn't the one to blame. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were the ones who had the final say on what sequences would be made on TV.
"They were completely ruthless when it came to that thing of 'no we want this,'" Sapochnik said, via CNet. "At some point, there were moments of realization of 'we physically can't do some of these things, and some things we can.'"
In a different talk with IndieWire, Sapochnik also discussed his work on the episode "The Bells." Although the filmmaker didn't know what would happen in the series until he received the scripts, he had an idea Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) would eventually turn into a mad queen.
For Sapochnik, the destruction of the King's Landing had always been fan service. As viewers wanted to see Cersei's fall down, they delivered what they wanted to see, but he questioned if that it was they wanted to happen.
He felt like fans were bloodthirsty for revenge and payback that Daenerys personified. As an audience member, Sapochnik saw that what viewers were looking for were death and destruction. So when Clarke's character and her dragon, Drogon, burnt the city into crisp, he wanted people to see how lousy death and destruction could be.
In the end, Sapochnik only took Benioff and Weiss' message about war. "There are no winners, only survivors," they said. In the final episode of Game of Thrones Season 8, the last of the Starks - Jon, Arya (Maisie Williams), Sansa (Sophie Turner), and Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) - survived, along with a few major characters.
