The best bit of Game of Thrones’ season premiere was censored in China

HBO’s Chinese partner Tencent deleted more than five minutes from the final season premiere

Reading Time:2 minutes

Tencent’s version of the Season 8 premiere is less than 49 minutes, while the original episode is 54 minutes. (Picture: Tencent Video)

Published: 9:44pm, 16 Apr 2019Updated: 9:01am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Chinese Game of Thrones fans really hoped they would be able to watch an uncensored version of the show’s final season. But when they streamed the premiere for the long-awaited final season on Monday, the viewing experience was lacking… literally.

Tencent Video, HBO’s official distributor for the show in China, streamed the episode online on Monday morning -- at the same time as it was airing on TV in the US. But the version Chinese viewers saw cut more than five minutes out of the new episode, including one whole scene.

“You’ve cut too much and it’s over the line,” one user on Weibo wrote, including the hashtag “Tencent Video censorship”.

Censorship of Game of Thrones is more of a disappointment than a surprise at this point. Earlier seasons of Game of Thrones were also censored on Tencent’s video streaming platform. However, Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on online content over the years, and this time viewers are complaining they’ve gone too far.

Apart from the usual cuts for nudity and violence, there was another major part of the episode missing.

Without spoiling too much, a party of fan-favorite characters stumble across a grisly message from the Night King. It's exciting, it’s scary, and it’s totally absent from the Chinese version, much to the anger of fans.