Fans haven't exactly kept their feelings on the final season of Game of Thrones secret, but neither have those involved in its creation. During a recent appearance on IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, director Miguel Sapochnik spoke about how he felt, and expressed that he didn't doubt for a second Daenerys Targaryen dark turn in the show's final moments. He did, however, indicate that there were even more grand ideas for the grandiose Battle of Winterfell episode.
"There were many things that happened, that people would have been so happy to have happened," he explained on the podcast. "Attack of direwolves and crazy stuff. At some point you’re like, '50 direwolves attacking an undead dragon does not a good movie make.'" It's not clear why the direwolves scene, which never made it past the script stage, was ultimately cut, but it definitely would have made for an interesting setpiece.
As for Daenerys' turning point, which soured a lot of longtime Thrones fans, Sapochnik said he had anticipated the moment for years. "The way she has treated humans, and the conviction she has, means that conviction is eventually going to fall afoul," he said.
When she stopped questioning herself, that is when she stopped being human and relatable, he added. "We decided not to cut back to her. When she makes that decision, she and the dragon become one."
"The destruction of King’s Landing, for me, has always been an audience participation event," he continued, explaining why he decided to keep Daenerys' decision to lay waste to the city somewhat off-screen. "You wanted this, you wanted this, you wanted this. Here. Is that really what you wanted? I felt like there was this thing of this bloodthirstiness that exists in the fans, for revenge, for this payback that is personified by Dany. I just wanted to get to the core of what that actually means."
Sapochnik has frequently expressed how grateful he is to have worked on the HBO fantasy epic, but he also revealed that he originally wanted to "kill everyone" in the Battle of Winterfell. "I was up for killing absolutely everyone," he told IndieWire. "I wanted it to be ruthless, so that in the first 10 minutes you say, ‘All bets are off; anyone could die.’ And David and Dan didn’t want to. There was a lot of back-and-forth on that."
Throughout his time working on the show, the director clashed with showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, and also stated that they "visually policed" him during his first three months working on Thrones. Despite this, he continued to work with them all the way until the end with the penultimate episode, "The Bells."
