‘Game of Thrones’ season 5: ‘A Dance of Dragons’ director on difficult Shireen scene

It has been two days now since the “Game of Thrones” episode “A Dance of Dragons” aired, but it is still not any easier to think about now than it was after it wrapped. (Warning: Yep, we’re still giving a spoiler warning here.)

We’re still upset about the decision to have Stannis Baratheon kill his own daughter Shireen at the end of the episode, and there are a variety of different reasons for that. For one, it was just a terribly uncomfortable scene to watch, and given how much he has worked to ensure that he treated her when she was suffering from greyscale, while kill her now for a possibility that this “sacrifice” to the Lord of Light works?

Personally opinions aside, David Nutter (who already directed “The Rains of Castamere” a.k.a. the Red Wedding episode) did his best to explain what it was like shooting that extremely difficult scene in a recent interview with Vulture. As much as we are frustrated with the choice, we do at least like that he shot this in a way that did not subject us to watching what happened:

“It was quite a serious and somber day. Basically, the world you’re filming and the tone on set have to match. As with any story with such an intense nature, you try to match real-world reality. Even the reaction of some of Stannis’s soldiers indicates they didn’t sign up for this, and sadness on their part. But Stannis has been told that this is his destiny, and it had to happen. So the situation for me, doing a sequence like this that’s on a huge scale, is about making sure the actors don’t have to wait, so they can keep their wits and emotions about them. As for Kerry, she’s a wonderfully talented and seasoned actress who understood very clearly how she would react as a young woman in Shireen’s place.”

What do you think about the scene and the choice to kill Shirin, now that you have had at least a little bit of time to be removed from it? Share below, and head over here to get some other news related to the big sequence of events. Also, you can sign up here if you do want to get some other TV updates on everything we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: HBO.)