Game of Thrones is often noted for its willingness to subject its characters to brutal violence. And they show as much of it as they want because HBO, b*tch. But on at least one occasion, the showrunners created a scene so violent that even they decided it went a bit too far. The scene in question involves The Mountain Ser Gregor Clegane, which isn’t all that surprising since his appearances are often followed by body parts being lopped off or guts spilling everywhere.
There’s one particularly shocking scene with The Mountain that stands out, and that’s his season four battle with the Red Viper, Oberyn Martell. After nearly being killed, The Mountain gets a hold of Oberyn and basically crushes his skull with his bare hands. It’s definitely in the top three for most brutal moments, which says a lot when talking about Game of Thrones.
But it turns out that scene was originally much worse than what we actually ended up seeing. Actor Ben Crompton, who plays Night’s Watchman Dolorous Edd, saw another version and shared the experience at a release party in London for the season five Game of Thrones Blu-rays.
“I went in one session and they were flicking through stuff and they showed the Red Viper Mountain fight,” he said in comments reported by Trusted Reviews. “And they showed an edit where he puts the fingers in and he just pulls his face apart. But instead of cutting like it does in the show he just pulls his face apart and I just said, ‘Oh my god they are never going to be able to show that on telly!’ And they didn’t, but the effects were brilliant.”
Probably a good call from the show-runners to tone that scene down. Even without the full cut, people were like…
Oh, that Joffrey…
(via Trusted Reviews, hat tip Winter Is Coming)
