Game of Thrones Showrunners on Finale's Big Betrayal

"So much of that scene is about what happens beforehand."

By Alex Osborn

Full spoilers for Game of Thrones' Season 7 finale, "The Dragon and the Wolf," continue below.

Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish met his end at the hands of Arya Stark in the Season 7 finale of Game of Thrones. During the "Inside the Episode" segment for "The Dragon and the Wolf," series showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss discussed the work that went into setting the stage for that shocking moment, much of which was done in Season 7's prior episodes.

"So much of that scene is about what happens beforehand, and building up the tension between Sansa and Arya in the earlier episodes of the season, where you really believe that one will potentially kill the other," Benioff explained.

Thanks to the unpredictable nature of Game of Thrones, they were able to create an apparent rift between the Stark girls that viewers could buy into. "It's one of the benefits of working on a show like this, where over the years so many beloved characters have been killed, and so many characters make decisions you wish they hadn't that you can believe Sansa might conspire against Arya, or that Arya might decide that Sansa has betrayed the family and deserves to die," Benioff added.

So when the tables turn on Littlefinger and he learns Sansa and Arya were working together against him, the master manipulator finds himself in a situation that until then had been completely foreign to him. "I was actually very interested and excited to see what Aiden [Gillen] would do with that moment because it's a moment he's never been in before," Weiss said. "He's imagined every conceivable eventuality except this one."

Benioff noted that while Littlefinger is "clearly a sociopath amongst other things, he does have strong feelings towards Sansa," and it's because of these feelings—as inappropriate and unhealthy as they may be—that he struggles to believe Sansa is capable of betraying him. In the end, however, Sansa proves to indeed be capable, as Benioff notes that "he's trained her too well and she's not about to be swayed by his tears or his pleas."

For our thoughts on the Season 7 finale, which not only featured a game-changing ending but also finally confirmed the identity of Jon's parents, read IGN's "The Dragon and the Wolf" review.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @alexcosborn.

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