This news story contains multiple spoilers for Game Of Thrones Season 6, so, if you’re not yet caught up, you may want to make like a weirwood tree and leave.
“It was like the end of an era,” Irish actor Art Parkinson tells us about his final scenes in HBO’s Game Of Thrones. “But when I read it, I could see it would be one of the best if not the best thing I had done on Game of Thrones, so I was kind of happy at the same time. I thought it was a really, really cool death.” Yes, Rickon Stark himself (R.I.P.) is referring to his tragic demise in Season 6: a death that saw his running technique ripped to shreds on social media.
When questioning him on who he thought would make it to the bitter end, Parkinson confirmed the R+L=J theory that’s been the biggest talking point since the theories over Jon Snow’s death. “Khaleesi [will survive], definitely. I think with the thing that they’ve released as well, saying that Khaleesi’s brother is Jon Snow’s father [means] there is going to be some sort of synergy between Jon Snow and Khaleesi.”
As to whether the pair will make it to the bitter end is yet to be seen, but one thing is abundantly clear: Jon Snow is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, confirming him as Daenerys’ nephew. (Even if we’re not overly sold on the Mother of Dragons as the ‘aunt’ type…)
But enough of that – what about Rickon’s shoddy running technique? “It felt like a feral instinct to just sprint. To just get to my brother. Whenever I saw comments on Instagram and Twitter about zigzags, I was like, 'What the hell is everybody going on about?' and then my mum was like, 'Yeah, you should have zigzagged!'" Mother knows best.
Art Parkinson can next be heard as the lead in Kubo And The Two Strings, released in UK cinemas on 9 September.