Here's What Ned Stark Whispered During His 'Game Of Thrones' Death

The North remembers, dude.

Ned’s death scene is brief. You see the sword coming down and his head starting to leave his body, but then the camera cuts away.

The execution has had a lasting impact on the show, essentially setting in motion everything that’s happened since. But up until now, a question has lingered ...

What were Ned Stark’s final words?

If you look closely at Ned in his final seconds, you can see he’s whispering something. For the longest time, fans have been wondering, what was he muttering?

The theories about Ned’s final words are wild. Some suggest he was delivering one of the show’s favorite phrases, “valar morghulis,” meaning all men must die. Others propose that Ned was thinking about Jon Snow’s secret parentage, perhaps saying, “I kept my promise” as he died. And there are those who argue Ned was trying to communicate with Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright), who might have time-traveling capabilities.

There’s even speculation that Ned could’ve warged or somehow switched bodies, thus not dying at all. In fact, theorists who suspect Ned Stark is still alive believe his secret final words could lend credence to that speculation.

Well, in an interview with HuffPost about his new show “The Oath,” Sean Bean set things straight.

Ned was ... “just saying a prayer.”

“It appears that way, doesn’t it?” Bean said, alluding to the fact that, yes, it does appear as though the doomed man is praying. “I couldn’t be too specific, because I don’t know if religion [like that] was around in those days, whatever they were. I just thought, ‘What would you do if this were really gonna happen?’ You probably would pray. You probably would murmur some words and you’d keep it quiet. You’d keep it to yourself.”

“It’s quite subtle in that many people wouldn’t pick it up,” he added. “It was an interesting thing to do for me at that point. There’s not much you can do really, you’ve got your head on a block. That’s about the only thing you can do is murmur.”

As far as all those rumors and theories that Ned’s coming back, don’t count on it. Bean said HBO hasn’t contacted him about any possible return, and he thinks that would be weird anyway.

“No, they’ve never said that,” Bean said. “And yeah, I’ve heard rumors, but not from very good sources that I might be back. But I think I’ve done my time there, and I created a good character. It’d be rather strange to see him resurrected.”

In other words: Bean there, done that. Though he doesn’t plan to return in Season 8, Bean seems proud of Ned’s impact on the show. He was even appreciative after learning that fans jokingly suggested that a headless character who appeared during Season 6′s “Battle of the Bastards” was a Ned Stark cameo.

“Oh, really?” he said. “I didn’t see. Oh, that’s cool. That’s very clever.”

During our interview, Bean continued talking about his new show on the Crackle streaming network, “The Oath,” a drama about corrupt police and gangs, what happened after he was stabbed in real life, and what it was like seeing Nic Cage break and bury a prehistoric bear skull.