Note to self, and to anyone else who has ever dreamed, thought, or tweeted a variation on “Jason Momoa slap meâ€: If the cruel fates of Game of Thrones have taught us anything, it’s to be careful what you wish for. On Thursday’s episode of HBO’s animated Backstories web series, GOT showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recounted the story of the wildest production injury we’ve heard of this side of Kit Harington almost losing his right ball to a dragon: the time Momoa squooshed Benioff’s hands to the point of almost no return in a slap game. When Momoa returned to Belfast to film the finale of season two, Benioff challenged him to a sportsmanlike test of strength, endurance, and spirit: a slap-off. “A chance to beat Khal Drogo in a physical contest,†Weiss chimes in to explain the rationale, “who could pass that up?†(Clearly, they hadn’t seen Momoa’s haka.)
As their story goes, Benioff endured Momoa’s merciless firestorm of slaps like a true khal until Emilia Clarke noticed that his hands looked like what Benioff describes as “catchers’ mitts with bubonic plague on them.†The next day at the hospital, the doctor gave him an X-ray and the diagnosis was “squished.†So we can thank Emilia Clarke for saving the Hands of the King, and you can watch the whole video here.