(Warning: This post contains mild spoilers for last Sunday’s “Game of Thrones,” titled “The Long Night”)
“Game of Thrones” fans lost many a beloved character thanks to “The Long Night” last Sunday a.k.a. the Battle of Winterfell episode. But one name that didn’t make the list of casualties was Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) and for that we can all be grateful — and just a little bit confused, because it definitely looked like Sam should have been killed based on how poorly he was fighting off the wights.
Ellen DeGeneres asked Bradley to explain himself when he stopped by her show Thursday, saying: “I don’t think you should have survived, do you? I don’t know how you survived that, there were people dying all around you and somehow you survived the entire thing.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think I was gonna survive either,” Bradley said, laughing. “Because you’re always kind of looking at the scripts for the new episode with one eye open. You’re so nervous. And people say, ‘Oh, Sam can’t die,’ and ‘Sam’s too important’ or ‘Sam’s too beloved.’ And you just think, ‘God, don’t you watch this show? Have you never seen this show before?’ Important and beloved doesn’t matter. Nobody is sacred and nobody is safe in ‘Game of Thrones.’”
As far as whether or not he makes it to the end of the show — which has just three episodes remaining before the series finale airs May 19 — he thought he knew, but now maybe he doesn’t? Bradley says they shot an ending, but he read an interview with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss where they said the actors “think” they know how it ends.
“I don’t know what I know,” Bradley said. “I may ultimately know, but I’m not gonna know that I know until I know that I know.”
“Game of Thrones” airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.