'Game of Thrones' Director Talks Audience-Paralyzing Finale

Sunday's finale inspired some fully dropped jaws and Twitter-proof fetal positions, but director David Nutter has some thoughts.

Image via HBO

As we here at Complex are not spoiler-promoting assholes, I offer the following warning for those under the frustratingly anti-internet trap of Pacific Standard Time:

The following article contains spoilers.

Tonight's Game of Thrones finale thrust viewers into a collective fetal position, grappling with the deaths of prominent characters and the promise of future conflict of a profound nature (should anyone expect differently?). Frequent Game of Thrones director David Nutter spoke with Deadline regarding tonight's emotionally exhausting finale, and we've excerpted that conversation below.

On Jon Snow's swift end:


"It’s really the true Julius Caesar moment for Jon Snow."

On the other demises scattered throughout the finale:


"It’s one surprise after the next. It comes right at you in this final episode, and it’s like no other season finale that I know I’ve been a part of or watched. Dan and Dave are so brilliant with respect to arcing out these stories, and how they take place, and how the arc of each of the stories and showing how they play out. They’re so brilliant at that that I treat episodes 9 and 10 like a 2-hour movie and as its own piece of work."

On the importance of the source material:


"I did not read the books, and for me, I let the scripts basically be my Bible. I think so much of the time, regardless if one has read the books or not, we forget what the first impression really is and why that’s going to matter most to the audience."

On his favorite moments from Season Five:


"Season 5 was such that I was just really moved by it all, and in that respect, it’s something that you can never give a short shrift to any of the moments. They’re so vitally important. As a director, I only know how to do it one way, is to pour my heart and soul into everything, as well as that’s the only way David and Dan know how to work as well."

Breathe easy, everyone.

 

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