Rickon Stark IRL ALSO thinks he made this huge mistake in “Battle of the Bastards”

Game of Thrones spoiler alert! Before you begin reading, just know that there are some massive spoilers here.

Somehow, Game of Thrones found a way to kill off Rickon Stark in this past Sunday’s “Battle of the Bastards” that was even more traumatizing than the deaths of his father, mother, and brother. Arguably the worst part of it (from an outsider’s perspective, at least), is that it could have been avoided if Rickon had just zigzagged. Were we the only ones yelling at our laptop screens, “WTF, RICKON! STOP RUNNING IN A STRAIGHT LINE OR YOU ARE GOING TO GET IMPALED BY LITERALLY A DOZEN ARROWS!” Apparently, Art Parkinson, the actor who plays Rickon, agrees.

The day after the episode aired, Josh Kurp explained for UPROXX why Rickon’s straight sprinting path was so frustrating:

“My question is: Why didn’t Rickon run right? Actually, let me rephrase that as a demand: Go right, Rickon. Or left. It was his choice, really. He could have zigged or he could have zagged, but he didn’t, and now he’s dead. Look, I get it. Rickon wasn’t thinking straight, only running straight. He was a hostage who saw freedom. His mind was distracted on what was in front of him, not who was behind him. And it cost him his life.”

And Art Parkinson tweeted later that day: false

Lol, the puns though. Well done, Art.

Art also recently talked to the Hollywood Reporter about his tenure on the HBO series and his eventual demise:

“When I was originally told I was coming back to the show, I didn’t actually know. But before they sent me the script [for “Battle of the Bastards”], they filled me in. They said, “Listen, just so you know and don’t get too shocked, you do die this season.” It was sad to finally let the character go. But at the same time, they explained how Rickon was going to die, and it sounded really cool. I was happy that it was going to be such a great death.”

He also talked about what it was like to film the now famous sequence:

“The whole scene altogether, I think it took about three and a half weeks to shoot the “Battle of the Bastards.” At first, I was a little bit worried. I knew it would be a hard scene to shoot. I knew it would be an awkward scene to shoot as well. They explained to me some of the ways you can get an arrow through you, and stuff like that. I was excited to learn more about that. But the scene basically consisted of two days of rehearsals. We blocked it out, and eventually we got the scene going and it involved a lot of running. That field is actually really, really, really long. I would say the length I was running was about a football field and a half. It was a lot of work, and it definitely took a lot out of you. It was very fun to shoot, but it was very emotional as well, working through the aspect of running to Jon and seeing Jon.”

We’ll miss you, Rickon.