The grim scythe of death itself has reaped another soul in Westeros. We regret to inform you that Ser Pounce the Cat, like his master Tommen and approximately one gazillion other characters on Game of Thrones, has pounced his last.
Ser Pounce — best known for appearing in literally one scene of season four, where he interrupted Margaery and Tommen’s flirtatious bedside meeting to…well, pounce—has been mostly absent from Game of Thrones since his iconic debut, creating a mystery that has wracked the minds of fans almost as much as the disappearance of four years, or countless other Thronesian intrigues. But rest easy: The mystery has been solved. But maybe don’t rest too easy, because, like so many things in Game of Thrones, it’s not a happy ending.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, David Benioff confirmed that Ser Pounce was done in by none other than Cersei herself after the events of Tommen’s suicide in season six:
Cersei hated the name ‘Ser Pounce’ so much she could not allow him to survive. So she came up with her most diabolical [execution]. Ser Pounce’s death was so horrible we couldn’t even put it on the air.
Just another kill to add to her total that day!
The real reason for Ser Pounce’s lack of any real appearance on the show after his debut, however, was for more practical reasons than setting up one of Game of Thrones most vital mysteries of all. Instead, Benioff continued, it was because Ser Pounce was a bit of a diva to work with:
That cat was really not fun to work with. There’s a reason the phrase ‘like herding cats’ came into existence.
When you play the Game of Thrones, you play nice with the directors or die. There is, it seems, no middle ground.