‘Game Of Thrones:’ A Certain Hammer-Wielding Blacksmith Is Getting A Bigger Role In The Final Season

The running joke for the better part of four seasons of “Game of Thrones” (from season 3 to season 7) was how poor Gendry has just been paddling his way around Westeros for years, never to be seen again. The bastard son of Robert Baratheon, Gendry (played by Joe Dempsie), always felt like a big part of the ultimate plot of the series, but for some reason he was sent to paddle on a boat, never to be heard from again. Well, until last season.

Last year, fans of the show were elated to see long, lost Gendry make his triumphant return as a hammer-wielding badass, ready to team up with everyone’s favorite hero, Jon Snow. And in a recent interview with Dempsie, it looks like we’ll get even more Gendry in the upcoming final season. The actor says to Digital Spy:

“I’ve done well out of it this year, for sure..For me personally, the only real hope I had for the character was just that he would be there when the reckoning came. You got the sense – even back in season 3 – that this was a show that was building towards some incredible climax, so you just wanted to be there when it all happened.

“Not even necessarily just from a character point-of-view, [but] from a personal point of view – to be stood there on the set when they’re making that ending… that end game. So yeah, I’m very happy to be involved and be on set for season 8.”

While viewers won’t get a chance to see the further adventures of Gendry until 2019, this is great news and adds to the already massive hype for the final six episodes of “Game of Thrones.” With everyone wondering who will survive, and who will be the person to sit on the Iron Throne (if it exists), the addition of Gendry adds another wrinkle to the plot. Some might say that Gendry is truly the rightful heir to the throne after his father was killed.

Dempsie also talks about how series creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss told the actor about his eventual return. But even still he wasn’t sure if it was going to happen. So for years, Dempsie was keeping the secret of his eventual (hopeful) return to the series.

“That became a fairly consistent part of my day-to-day existence for the years that I was out of the show, so it’s nice not to have to keep that particular secret! However, there’s a whole raft of new secrets that I now have to keep, so it never really lets up, the pressure to keep your mouth shut when it comes to anything to do with ‘Game of Thrones!’” he concludes.