Today, at the first-ever Game of Thrones fan convention, Joanna Robinson and David Chen of the A Cast of Kings podcast hosted a panel discussion with actors who have already died on the show. All of the questions were about death!
Called “Ghosts of Westeros,” the panel featured Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton), Kate Dickie (Lisa Arryn), Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Mace Tyrell), Amy Richardson (the original Myrcella Baratheon), Sam Coleman (young Hodor), Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon), and Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel).
The panel started with Robinson teasing Yerolemou about the long-standing fan theory that Arya Stark’s season 1 mentor Syrio is not actually dead, and that he might make a surprise appearance in season 7. “There was a rumor going around that Miltos might not be able to join this panel and I was wondering if that’s because you think Syrio might not be a ghost of Westeros?” she asked.
Syrio might not be a ghost of Westeros
Yerolemou laughed, accusing Robinson of “stirring up a lot of trouble,” but he later hinted that he already knows what many of the character conflicts will be in the upcoming season — HBO is notoriously guarded with the scripts for the show, not even letting actors remove them from set and often blacking out major plot points when they aren’t need-to-know, so it does seem odd that an actor who played a character that “died” six years ago would know anything at all. If you’re invested in Syrio truthing, let me know if this ostensible slip-up does anything for you.
All of the actors were asked to recall when they found out their characters were going to die, and to describe the experience of filming their deaths.