Game of Thrones Final Season Shot Alternate Ending According to Kristofer Hivju

Few shows received as much media attention or scrutiny as the final season of Game of Thrones, leaving HBO and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss with the monumental responsibility of protecting the production from spoilers leaking. And while there were a lot of precautions taken about the episodes for Season 8, a lot of major details still hit online before the episodes actually aired on the network. But the showrunners did plan for some of these mishaps, and it’s been revealed that they actually filmed an alternate ending for the series in an effort to protect the spoilers.

According to Tormund Giantsbane actor Kristofer Hivju who spoke with Metro at a Game of Thrones event earlier this week, HBO TV is sitting on an alternate ending for the series — though it’s unclear if it will ever see the light of day.

“Well, we shot an alternative ending,” explained Hivju. “That was mostly for fun but I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you about that.”

When pressed for more details, the actor refused to spill the beans — those HBO NDAs are pretty strong.

Added Hivju, “I won’t tell you, but it was fun!”

He also addressed the backlash to the final season, speaking about how fan expectations might have grown to a massive level and possibly hurt how the final episodes would land.

“The funny thing is after season seven I had my theories, fans ahead theirs’, everybody the cast had their theories so there were thousands of theories,” Hivju explained. “To choose one path would be difficult to say but there were many things I didn’t see coming; there was the element of surprise which I liked.”

The final season of Game of Thrones, along with every other season of the series, is now streaming on HBO Now and HBO Go. It will be released on Blu-ray on December 3rd.