Ed Sheeran’s “Game of Thrones” cameo last season proved divisive among the show’s fans, but the “Shape of You” singer wants everyone to remember that it was meant as a surprise for Maisie Williams.
Williams is a longtime fan of Sheeran’s, so showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff recruited him to be in a scene with her for the Season 7 premiere, playing a Lannister soldier she meets during her travels.
“She’s come to gigs for years,” Sheeran said in an interview with MTV News. “They basically put me in a scene with her to kind of be like, ‘Hey, thanks for doing the show for so many years. Ed’s going to be in it.'”
Though Sheeran’s appearance was brief and it‘s unlikely he’ll ever do more than the one scene, the backlash to his appearance was swift. Fans took to Twitter immediately after the episode to bash Sheeran and complain that his cameo was a gratuitous distraction from the otherwise highly anticipated episode.
The next day, Sheeran quit the social media platform entirely, though he denied it had anything to do with “Game of Thrones.”
Jeremy Podeswa, the director of the episode, later defended Sheeran in an interview with The Daily Beast back in July. “I’m a bit surprised that people have made that much fuss about it,” he said. “To me, he does seem quite organic, in his own way, to the show.”
“I think she was really happy to have him there, and they do have a lovely rapport,” he said.
'Game of Thrones': Everyone Arya Stark Has Killed So Far
Arya Stark has become one of the most ruthless killers in Westeros. For the last six seasons, she's been driven by revenge, even keeping a list of people she means to make suffer for what they've done to House Stark. In Season 7, with the powers of the Faceless Men in her repertoire, she's become a seriously formidable assassin. Here's everybody who's died by Arya's hand (or her will) ... so far.
HBO
Stable Boy (Season 1)
Arya's first kill was almost accidental. She used Needle to stab an unnamed Stable Boy as she was fleeing the Red Keep, just as Lannister soldiers were rounding up and executing all House Stark's people in King's Landing.
Kill count: 1
HBO
The Tickler (Season 2)
After she saves Jaqen H'ghar's life (along with two others, who will come up later), the Faceless Man offers Arya a repayment: Name three people, and Jaqen will kill them. The first name she gives him is the Tickler, the torturer at Lannister-occupied Harrenhal. Jaqen breaks his neck.
Kill count: 2
HBO
Ser Amory Lorch (Season 2)
The second name Arya gives Jaqen is Amory Lorch, a Lannister knight. Lorch catches Arya with a message she stole from Lord Tywin. Arya has him killed before he has a chance to tell Tywin that she's a traitor, and Jaqen gets him with a poison dart.
Kill count: 3
HBO
A Frey soldier after the Red Wedding (Season 3)
Not long after escaping the Twins and the massacre of the Red Wedding, Arya and the Hound happen across four Frey soldiers. Arya approaches them asking for food, then brutally stabs one who was telling the others how they mounted the head of Robb Stark's direwolf, Grey Wind, on the King in the North's headless body. Arya tells the Hound the soldier is specifically the first man she's killed.
Kill count: 4
HBO
A Lannister soldier at the Inn of the Crossroads (Season 4)
Traveling with the Hound, Arya happens across a handful of Lannister soldiers in an inn. Arya recognizes them as some of the soldiers who intercepted her and her friends leaving King's Landing. They recognize the Hound and start a fight, and Arya kills one the Hound has injured.
Kill count: 5
HBO
Polliver (Season 4)
In the same fight at the Inn at the Crossroads, Arya takes the chance to reclaim her sword, Needle, from the man who stole it. She stabs the injured Polliver in the throat with Needle, the same way he killed her friend Lommy when Polliver captured her, Gendry and Hot Pie near King's Landing.
Kill count: 6
HBO
Rorge (Season 4)
Back when Arya met Jaqen H'ghar in Season 2, she was traveling with Yoren, a man of the Night's Watch. Yoren had Jaqen and two others locked in a cage atop a cart. Arya freed Jaqen and the others, one of whom, Rorge, had threatened to sexually assault her. When Arya and the Hound were attacked by Rorge later, she stabbed him in the gut with Needle.
Kill count: 7
HBO
Ser Meryn Trant (Season 5)
Ser Meryn is the guy who killed Arya's sword instructor, Syrio Forel, back in King's Landing in Season 1. When he arrives in Braavos, she gets her revenge by borrowing a face from the House of Black and White and pretending to be a brothel girl. She brutally stabs out his eyes and then slits his throat -- but as punishment, Jaqen H'ghar strikes her blind.
Kill count: 8
HBO
The Waif (Season 6)
Arya refuses to murder the actress Lady Crane for the Faceless Men, so Jaqen sends the nameless girl known as the Waif to kill Arya. The Waif nearly succeeds, chasing Arya all through Braavos, before Arya leads her into a dark room and dispatches her off-screen with Needle.
Kill count: 9
HBO
Lothar Frey and "Black" Walder Rivers (Season 6)
Arya leaves Braavos after defeating the Waif, intent to be Arya Stark rather than no one. She heads to the Twins, where she gets her revenge on the Freys. Off-screen, she kills Lord Walder Frey's two sons, Lothar and "Black" Walder, and bakes them into a pie she feeds to their father.
Kill count: 11
HBO
Lord Walder Frey (Season 6)
Lord Walder doesn't realize what's happening until Arya reveals she was using her Faceless Man powers to disguise herself as a serving girl. She slits Lord Walder's throat, getting revenge for his betrayal and murder of her brother, Robb Stark, and her mother, Catelyn Stark.
Kill count: 12
HBO
Every male member of House Frey (Season 7)
After taking out Lothar Frey and "Black" Walder Rivers, then finishing off Lord Walder Frey himself, Arya used her face-changing powers to set a trap that annihilated House Frey. She drew all the remaining Frey men together and, posing as Lord Walder, poisoned them all.
A season's worth of manipulations and conspiracy culminated in Littlefinger's plan finally unraveling before his very eyes. Instead of turning Sansa and Arya against each other, he found himself on trial for treason. At Sansa order, Arya slit Littlefinger's throat, finally doing away with one of the most devious and deadly characters in "Game of Thrones."
Kill count: 64
The Night King (Season 8)
It turns out, I guess, that the Prince That Was Promised was actually Arya, since she's the one who delivered the killing blow to the Night King. Which in turn killed all the other White Walkers and the entire army of dead people. It's impossible to guess how many kills that is, but for the purposes of the counter we'll just count the Night Kind here since all those wights were already dead and she only indirectly killed the other White Walkers.
Kill count (official): 65
Kill count (unofficial): 100,000+
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Arya’s kill count skyrocketed during the Battle of Winterfell
Arya Stark has become one of the most ruthless killers in Westeros. For the last six seasons, she's been driven by revenge, even keeping a list of people she means to make suffer for what they've done to House Stark. In Season 7, with the powers of the Faceless Men in her repertoire, she's become a seriously formidable assassin. Here's everybody who's died by Arya's hand (or her will) ... so far.
HBO
HBO
