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"Game of Thrones star Gethin Anthony has praised the show&amp;#039;s willingness to kill off characters. Ned Stark (Sean Bean) was beheaded in the most recent episode of the HBO drama, though the character will reappear in some form in the first season finale. Anthony, who plays Renly Baratheon, told Shadowlocked: &amp;quot;[One] reason to have so many characters is you can just kill them off! It&amp;#039;s great, isn&amp;#039;t it? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what will be exciting for the television audience. You feel, even more so than in the books, like you&amp;#039;re going to follow a central character, and that doesn&amp;#039;t happen as much as you think it might.&amp;quot; Anthony also admitted that he was shocked by the death of Ned Stark, having not read the original A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George RR Martin. &amp;quot;[It&amp;#039;s] one of those moments that makes you think, &amp;#039;Wow, the gloves are off&amp;#039;,&amp;quot; he said. HBO previously defended the decision to kill off Bean&amp;#039;s character, insisting that &amp;quot;the star is the story&amp;quot;. Game of Thrones concludes this Sunday at 9pm on HBO in the US, and at 9pm next Monday on Sky Atlantic in the UK. &amp;gt; Game of Thrones&amp;#039; best characters: Friday Fiver "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a325490/game-of-thrones-star-loves-character-deaths/>