Game Of Thrones Reacts To That Spin-Off Scene: 'I Don't Know If We Need The S**ts'
Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin has admitted he was “a bit surprised” by the graphic pooping scene in the opening episode of new spin-off A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms.
In the first episode of the new fantasy prequel, which takes place 90 years before Game Of Thrones, the original show’s epic opening theme is heard not over credits, but instead over Peter Claffey’s Ser Duncan projectile pooping.
Although the original author Martin was involved in the writing of the show, he revealed he was still somewhat taken aback by that moment.
“Not to say that my characters don’t take shits, but I normally don’t write about them at any length,” he remarked to The Hollywood Reporter.
“When I saw the rough cut, I wrote, ‘What is this? Where did this come from? I don’t know if we really need the shits’. But [showrunner Ira Parker] liked it for whatever reason.”
Meanwhile, Ira Parker claims to have a good reason for using graphic bodily functions under the theme music rather than the franchise’s usual family tree-related opening graphics.
“Duncan hears the hero theme in his head,” the showrunner said of the moment, which is one of the more human scenes in the spin-off, showcasing a more real and down-to-earth side of Westeros than the usual world of iron thrones and dragons.
“He was going to hear that call to greatness that we all hear that when we decide we’re going to do something really difficult that we’ve never done before,” Parker added. “It’s a little scary and you feel like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be the guy. I’m gonna do it!’ He picks up the sword. He’s thinking about it,” he said. Fans were expecting lavish opening credits with maps of the fantasy land and family trees to accompany Ramin Djawadi’s theme music, not a man pooing by a tree.
Asked how the far-too-realistic scene came about, Parker wasn’t ready to give up his secrets.
“I will say that we don’t have the budget for fake anything on this show. Very, very little is done fake,” he did admit to the outlet. “We’re not crazy. It’s not a fake up there shitting on screen, that’s his butt,” he said.
A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms is the third TV series based on Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire books, and is an adaptation of the Tales of Dunk and Egg series of novellas.
The show follows Ser Duncan, also known as the Dunk, a character Parker describes as not a hero yet but “just a nervy kid with a nervous stomach”.
The opening episode sees a lowborn Dunk navigate the Seven Kingdoms and meet a mysterious bald child called Egg.
“As badly as you want to do something great, as soon as you actually have to go off and do it, it becomes trickier. And that’s what the whole season is for him,” Parker added.
Fortunately, it seems Martin has a better working partnership with Ira Parker than House Of The Dragon showrunner, Ryan Condon.
The author recently admitted that his relationship with Condal is “worse than rocky” and described it as “abysmal”.
New episodes of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms air on Mondays on Sky Atlantic and Now.