It happened all the way back in the first season of Game of Thrones, but Ned Stark losing his head was one of the most devastating moments of TV I can remember seeing at that point (let’s not discuss The Red Wedding, I can’t handle it).
It was the exact moment I realised that this show would not be merciful in any sense. No one was coming to save the day at the last second and Ned was well and truly fucked.
And just before his head was lopped clean off in front of a number of his children, Ned murmurs something that you can’t really make out. Some fans theorised that he was communicating with his son, Bran, and others thought he was simply uttering the popular phrase, “Valar Morghulis,” but it turns out both of those are wrong.
According to a recent interview with the actor, Sean Bean, what Ned was really doing was saying a small prayer.
“I just thought, ‘What would you do if this were really gonna happen?’ You probably would pray,” he told The Huffington Post. “You probably would murmur some words and you’d keep it quiet. You’d keep it to yourself.”
During the lead up to Ned’s death, I was certainly waiting for a saviour to come along. One of those ‘yep, aannyyy minute now’ moments. But Bean went on to explain how, in that moment, Ned really was just waiting to die with nothing more to do.
“It’s quite subtle in that many people wouldn’t pick it up,” he said. “It was an interesting thing to do for me at that point. There’s not much you can do really, you’ve got your head on a block. That’s about the only thing you can do is murmur.”
So there you have it, folks. Ned was simply making peace with his god(s). Bean also addressed some rumours that he would be returning in the show’s final season, explaining that he’d heard nothing from HBO at the time.
“No, they’ve never said that,” he said. “And yeah, I’ve heard rumours, but not from very good sources that I might be back. But I think I’ve done my time there, and I created a good character. It’d be rather strange to see him resurrected.”
I agree, it wouldn’t make a helluva lot of sense to bring him back. But hey, stranger things have certainly happened.
