Game Of Thrones Deleted Scene Adds Context To Season 7’s Winterfell Arc

Leading up to the Game of Thrones season 7 finale, many felt that the subplot involving the Stark Sisters – namely Sansa and Arya – was completely contrived, and that the actual payoff wouldn’t have much of a bearing on the overarching story.

But as season 7 unfolded, and the show’s creative players began promising “violent” consequences, it became clear that the Stark feud was about to boil over in epic fashion. Staying true to that promise, “The Dragon and the Wolf” had Sansa and Arya flip the table on Littlefinger, Aiden Gillen’s meddling trickster who has been quietly pulling the strings behind many of Westeros’ key events – The Battle of the Bastards, The Battle of the Five Kings – from the shadows.

But on Sunday, Littlefinger’s time playing the Game of Thrones came to a bloody end, when Sansa ordered Arya to slit his throat in front of the northern lords – including the Knights of the Veil. Guess that fan theory of Arya using Littlefinger’s face to plot tyranny was a little off-base, but it may still be featured when season 8 rolls around in 2019.

When quizzed about the Winterfell storyline by IGN, Bran actor Isaac Hempstead-Wright revealed details of a Game of Thrones deleted scene, one in which Sansa sought advice from her on-screen brother.

There was a scene that we ended up getting rid of, I’m not sure why, where Sansa came to Bran’s chambers and said, ‘I need your help’. The way I understand it, Bran didn’t know what was going on.

Given that he’s already present in the Great Hall, and inexplicably recounts some of Littlefinger’s famous scenes (“chaos is a ladder”), it’s fair to say that most viewers already assumed that the Three-Eyed Raven was the one who unmasked Littefinger and all of his many sins, therefore leaving Sansa with little choice but to execute him for all the north to see.

I don’t think he would have let that happen and he wouldn’t have sat there while Arya got killed by Sansa, because Bran would have known that wasn’t the way things had to go. He would have known, ‘I need to be here to reveal what the truth is.’

Poised to become one of the show’s bona fide powers players in the eighth and final season, Bran Stark clearly has a big role to play in determining HBO’s Game of Thrones. Those answers likely won’t come until 2019, but we’ll be bringing you all the latest developments from Westeros as those ravens fly in.