Game of Thrones showrunners originally wanted to cut off Rickon Stark from the show, but George R.R. Martin said they should keep him because he’s got plans for the character. Unfortunately, he didn’t do much in the story and even met a very underwhelming death.
At this point, we’re still unsure what plans the author has for Rickon as The Winds of Winter is still in the works. All we know is that the character is alive in the books, and therefore we’ll possibly meet him again sometime in the future.
Game of Thrones showrunners almost completely omitted Rickon Stark
David Benioff and Dan Weiss have faced a number of criticisms for their work on Game of Thrones, and one of these was their choice to eliminate certain characters from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s obvious that they had planned their own version of the narrative from the get-go, and those book figures that didn’t fit their vision were bound to be excluded.
Martin revealed in his interview for James Hibberd’s Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon that he fought to keep Rickon Stark in the series as the showrunners wanted to cut him off completely.
The biggest thing was Dan and David called me up and had the idea of eliminating Rickon, the youngest of the Stark children, because he didn’t do much in the first book. I said I had important plans for him, so they kept him.
Played by Art Parkinson, Rickon is the fifth child and youngest son of Catelyn and Eddard Stark. His arc in the show followed closely with Martin’s books, with Season 3 being the last installment viewers heard of him as he left for the Last Hearth with Osha and his direwolf, Shaggydog.
Rickon returned to the screens in Season 6 and, having reached his destination, he was betrayed by Smalljon Umber and was brought to Ramsay Bolton. As we know it, he was killed during the Battle of the Bastards episode. He didn’t even utter a single word in that season.
Needless to say, the showrunners might have only agreed to Martin’s wish not to completely remove Rickon, but they truly had no prospect of giving him a significant arc.
What George R.R. Martin plans for Rickon Stark in the books
Since we know that Rickon is alive in Martin’s novels, we can expect that he would play a key role in The Winds of Winter. A Dance with Dragons has set up more tension between the followers of the Boltons and the Starks, and Ser Davos Seaworth’s point-of-view chapter reveals that he’s on a quest to find the Stark boy.
After Robb died and Bran went missing, we know that Rickon is now the heir of House Stark, so it’s no wonder Martin had given a hint of his possible plan for the character.
Game of Thrones is currently available to watch on HBO.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
