The Real Reason These Game Of Thrones Roles Were Recast

For seven seasons, Emilia Clarke has shined as Daenerys Targaryen, a.k.a. Khaleesi, the Mother of Dragons, who is fighting for a seat on the Iron Throne of Westeros. From a mild young bride to a fierce and often ruthless warrior, Daenerys has been through one of the show's most dynamic journeys, and without Clarke's portrayal, far fewer viewers would have fallen in love with the character the way that they did. Hailed as a feminist icon, fans haven't forgotten Daenerys' all time best moments, and thanks to the role, Clarke has been nominated for several awards and has become recognizable around the world. The role has been so career-defining that she recently got a dragon tattoo to commemorate the end of the series.

It might seem unbelievable, with all this in mind, that anyone else ever played Daenerys, but in the initially troubled pilot for Game of Thrones, Daenerys was originally played by Tamzin Merchant, best known for her role as Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard on The Tudors. Creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have been open about their disdain for the original pilot, but neither the two showrunners nor casting director Nina Gould have fully discussed the reason for Merchant's exit. Fans are left to wonder how different the series might have been with a different Daenerys.

In the early seasons of Game of Thrones, viewers knew that Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) had three children, all of whom were supposedly of Baratheon blood but were actually bastards borne of her incestuous affair with her twin brother, Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). However, nobody paid much attention to any of the children besides Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), Cersei's eldest and decidedly most evil child, who eventually ascended to the throne and wreaked a significant amount of havoc on King's Landing and Westeros as a whole. In fact, his impetuous decision to execute Ned Stark set off most of the current conflict. As a result, the two other supposed Baratheon children, Myrcella and Tommen, were often shunted to the side, making it easy for them to be recast as necessary — a frequent reality when dealing with young actors whose growth gets out of sync with a show's pacing.

Thanks to age issues, Tommen was recast in the show's fourth season — when it was time for him to take the crown, Callum Wharry was replaced by Dean-Charles Chapman. Chapman went on to handle many of the mild King Tommen's more difficult scenes, including a love scene with his new wife, Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) as well as his suicide at the end of the sixth season. However, fans quickly picked up on Chapman's familiar face, as he had actually appeared in the show's third season playing a young Lannister squire who was held hostage and eventually murdered, giving him the distinction of having played two separate roles during Thrones' run.

The Tarly family isn't the most important clan in Westeros, but viewers have gotten to know them pretty well over the years. They were first introduced to Samwell Tarly (John Bradley), the lovable bookworm of the Night's Watch and frequent companion to Jon Snow. Sam has proven to be the heart and soul of the show time and time again (even though plenty of viewers find him less than charming), but when it comes to the Tarly clan, he's not so beloved. In the sixth season, when Sam arrived at Horn Hill with his girlfriend Gilly, he didn't exactly receive a warm welcome from his strict father, Randyll, who exhibited a fair amount of disdain for Sam, clearly favoring Sam's handsome and fit brother, Dickon.

During season six, Freddie Stroma, who viewers might have recognized as Cormac McLaggen in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince or as the first season "bachelor" on the Lifetime series Unreal, appeared as Dickon. However, scheduling issues forced him out of the show, so Black Sails' Tom Hopper stepped in, to plenty of acclaim from fans. Sadly, Hopper's time as Dickon has also been cut short, as both he and his father Randyll were burned alive by Daenerys when they refused to bend the knee to her, leaving the Tarly line in Sam's likely clammy hands.

Game of Thrones' pilot, after setting up much of the world of the show, featured a relatively shocking final shot — specifically, a young boy being pushed out of a tall tower after catching a royal brother and sister in a compromising position. That young boy, Bran Stark, survived the fall, losing his mobility but eventually gaining a new set of powers, including the ability to review and even meddle in events of the very distant past, making him the heir apparent to the role of the Three-Eyed Raven.

When the audience finally met the mysterious Three-Eyed Raven in season four, he looked quite different than he would later. Originally played by Struan Rodger, Bran first met the Raven while the omniscient being was holed up in a secluded tree. By the time the Three-Eyed Raven returned to the show in its sixth season, Rodger had been replaced by legendary actor Max von Sydow, best known for The Seventh Seal and The Exorcist as well as more modern classics like Star Wars and Minority Report. Since then, it has been von Sydow that has guided Bran through the secrets of the past, present, and future — likely a matter of the Thrones crew wanting to upgrade to a legendary Oscar nominee for the Raven's expanded presence.

Much like Tommen Baratheon, Cersei Lannister's middle child, Myrcella, went largely overlooked until later seasons of Thrones, thanks to her overbearing older brother, Joffrey. As a child, Myrcella was essentially left out of the plot entirely until the second season, when her uncle Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) decided to send her to Dorne as either a bride or a hostage (his real intent, as with many of Tyrion's plans, remains unclear), creating a permanent rift between Tyrion and Cersei. In the fifth season, she reappeared as a lovestruck teenager engaged to Trystane Martell, the young prince of Dorne. Thanks to an ongoing battle between the Lannister and Martell families, she ended up murdered at the hands of Ellaria Sand shortly after discovering her true parentage (specifically, that her uncle Jaime is her real father).

Though Myrcella was played by the young actress Aimee Richardson during her appearances in the earlier seasons, when she returned, she was played by the dynamic Nell Tiger Free. Again, much like Tommen's strategic recasting, this can likely be chalked up to aging, as sometimes the original actor doesn't fit the part of a maturing character anymore. Though Myrcella's role has ended, both actresses did her justice during their time on the show.

When most viewers hear the name Frey, they likely think of Walder, the aging, vindictive patriarch of House Frey and one of the architects of the Red Wedding, one of the show's most gruesome and divisive scenes. As a house of the Riverlands, viewers were introduced to the Frey family in the show's first season, when Catelyn Stark, a highborn daughter of the Riverlands, asked for their help. They eventually turned on her, setting them up as one of the show's most sinister houses.

One of the hallmarks of the Frey family is its sheer size — at the age of ninety, Walder Frey is on his eighth wife — which means viewers may have had trouble keeping track of which Frey was which. Many surely remember Walder's son Lothar Frey, if only for his pivotal role in the Red Wedding. During the show's third season, Tom Brooke played Lothar for just two episodes, but by the time the sixth season rolled around, it appeared that Brooke was unavailable. A mysterious casting notice went up for a Frey son, and it was eventually announced that Daniel Tuite would take over the role. Of course, since Arya Stark paid a visit to the Frey family, nobody will be playing Lothar for the remainder of the show.