This Game of Thrones character was originally going to survive until the end

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Game of Thrones has never been shy about killing off major characters, and the final season of the HBO series certainly found quite a number of high-profile characters meeting their demise, but there was at least one character who was initially supposed to make it to the very end. MAJOR SPOILERS for the final season, obviously.

Game of Thrones writer Dave Hill recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly and explained that when the show's writers first began plotting out the final season, they were planning on keeping Ser Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) alive until the end. As we know, Jorah died in the third episode of the series valiantly defending Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) from the Army of the Dead, but Hill says that they originally wanted Jorah to accompany Jon Snow (Kit Harington) behind The Wall.

For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end. The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund. But the amount to logic we’d have to bend to get Jorah up to The Wall and get him to leave Dany’s side right before [the events in the finale] … there’s no way to do that blithely. And Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves.

Given that Daenerys would go on to destroy Kings Landing and kill tens of thousands of civilians just two episodes later, actor Iain Glen says that it's probably for the best that Jorah didn't live to see it. "There’s a sweetness in that because Jorah will never know what she did," Glen said. "That’s probably best. It’s a blessing for him that he never found out what happened to her. And from a pragmatic story point of view, his death served a greater purpose. Where could we have taken Jorah from there? F— if I know."