When you sign up to be on Game of Thrones, you pretty much know that you’re also signing up for your character’s violent, lethal bludgeoning. Now, look, Alexander Siddig gets that. He gets that his character Dorne — spoiler alert — had to die. He’s fiiine with it. He would just like to nitpick a bit about how his character was killed off. In an interview with StarTrek.com, Siddig explained how Dorne’s death was moved from the end of season five to the beginning of season six, a switch he thinks smacked of curious decision making. Explaining his suspicions, he says: “I was like, ‘Okay, life goes on.’ But there was something wrong about that because I had been contracted for four episodes in the following season, so if they were going to kill me off at the end of the last season why would they contract me for those four episodes? Because it costs them money whether I do them or not, so it’s not great business sense to do it just in case.â€
As to what really caused the change, Siddig theorizes that maybe people just went too wild with their enthusiasm about his character. “There was an enormous amount of fan excitement when I got named to be on the show, and everyone was like, ‘Oh my god, yes, Doran Martell. He’s going to be great as Doran Martell.’ That might have been the kiss of death,†he says. Sure, could’ve been that. Or maybe Siddig blew it. He added: “Or maybe I just screwed up. Maybe I said the wrong thing to the wrong person.â€
Oh, and as far as Game of Thrones’ juggernaut status is concerned, Siddig is also something of an HBO conspiracy theorist, floating the possibility that last year’s “leaked episodes†of the show were leaked by HBO itself. He explained: “I am almost positive that those four episodes were leaked by HBO themselves. So there is an enormous amount of spin going on. I can’t tell you that for sure; that’s just my opinion, but it’s games; everybody’s playing these games.†Indeed, indeed. Games … of thrones, indeed.