HBO
While fans and critics alike were more critical of this season of Game Of Thrones than past seasons, one of the loudest, and most peculiar criticisms was of Ed Sheeran’s cameo appearance in the season premiere.
In the season opener, Arya is traveling to King’s Landing, she comes across a group of Lannister soldiers gathered by a campfire, singing a tune. And who was singing that tune? DING DING DING. Ed Sheeran, the Red Man (that’s a Red Woman pun, get it?). According to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Sheeran’s cameo was intended to be a surprise to Maisie Williams, the actress who plays Arya, who apparently has a real-life affinity for Sheeran.
Sure, Sheeran’s cameo was a little out of place and brought a little reality into a fantasy show, but the scene was about four minutes of an eight hour season. Who the hell cares? Does Ed Sheeran have a super punchable face? Yes. And do we hope Arya killed the shit out of his character? Of course! But did it really matter? Not at all.
Of course, Sheeran was eventually asked what he thought the fate of his character was, and like most of us, thinks he’s dead:
“We were all quite young, those soldiers. I doubt I’m going to survive for that long, to be honest, when there are dragons in the world.”
“No one wants to see me come back. I wanted to be a cameo in it, and I’ve done the cameo,” Sheeran told MTV.
Given that most of the Lannister soldiers were burnt to a crisp during the Loot Train Massacre in “The Spoils of War”, we like to imagine that Sheeran’s character was barbequed, too.
