Brandon Stark and Aerys Targaryen – Season 1

Nearly all of the footage for season one of Game of Thrones was eventually used for the show—with two notable exceptions. In a flashback scene filmed for season one, an unidentified actor plays Ned Stark’s older brother Brandon in one of the most iconic moments described in the books: when Brandon and his father Rickard were captured by the Mad King just before Robert’s Rebellion, he roasted Rickard alive in his armor and left Brandon hogtied with a noose around his neck and a sword just out of his reach. As he struggled to reach the sword, he slowly strangled himself to death.

This scene reportedly appeared at the beginning of the unaired pilot episode, but unfortunately was later cut from the final version of S1E1 for time reasons. While we can only hope the scene will eventually be released in its entirety, we’ll have to make do for now with a single still image from the scene, which has been released.

In the other deleted scene, Jon Arryn (Sir John Standing) was murdered in what Standing described as a “lunatic scene,” which involved Cersei herself finishing the deed (started by Lysa Arryn’s poison) by literally stomping on Jon Arryn as he crawls across the floor of his bed chamber.