TV Blog Buzz: Can ‘Game of Thrones’ top last week’s huge shocker?

By The Canadian Press

If you haven’t seen last week’s dramatic, shocking and thrilling “Game of Thrones” episode yet stop reading now and watch it as soon as possible.

If you’re caught up and have seen the episode’s pivotal scene — perhaps several times by now — keep reading for some insights into the game-changing plot twist.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, show co-creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss take readers through their thought process behind crafting the moment that fans had been waiting for. Weiss says it worked so well because it came at a perfect time in the series. Many viewers probably didn’t see it coming so early in the season and so close to another major character’s downfall.

“By the time you get to the ninth episode, the end of the season, it’s expected that something momentous is going to happen. Doing something this world-changing in the second episode seemed fun to us,” Weiss says.

Benioff tips his cap to George R. R. Martin, author of the books that inspired the show, for creating the death in a manner that’s somewhat understated and yet still satisfying.

“George doesn’t give you (what) you want right off the bat. A lot of people would have loved, after the Red Wedding, you would have loved to see Arya or Jon Snow kill Walder Frey and Roose Bolton. You want that, it’s a natural instinct to want to see your favourite characters avenged,” Benioff says.

“At the same time, a deeper side of you wouldn’t really want that because it’s too easy and wouldn’t seem remotely real. There’s something wonderful about reading the book, the way Joffrey dies, because it’s completely unexpected. No hero came back to vanquish the evil king.”

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Martin also spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the big episode and why he chose for the death to play out the way he did.

“I also tried to provide a certain moment of pathos with the death. I mean, Joffrey, as monstrous as he is — and certainly he’s just as monstrous in the books as he is in the TV show, and Jack (Gleeson) has brought some incredible acting chops to the role that somehow makes him even more loathsome than he is on the page — but Joffrey in the books is still a 13-year-old kid,” Martin says.

“So I didn’t want it to be entirely, ‘Hey-ho, the witch is dead.’ I wanted the impact of the death to still strike home on to perhaps more complex feelings on the part of the audience, not necessarily just cheering.”

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Twitter was flooded with stunned and celebratory tweets after last Sunday’s “Game of Thrones” episode went off the air and the website io9 compiled 50 of the best. Warning: language.

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(TV Blog Buzz will return May 11.)

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