Something to distract ‘Game of Thrones’ fans: Nicolas Cage and 150,966 deaths (thus far)

The seventh season of HBO’s blockbuster series Game of Thrones is all set to premiere on July 18 in India on the Star World and Star World HD channels, and the countdown has begun – as has the death count and the spoofs.

With news that Euron Greyjoy, who murdered his brother Balon and seeks to kill his niece and nephew, is going to be even more depraved than the departed Ramsay Bolton, it can be expected that that the pile of bodies and level of sadism will be higher than in previous seasons. Pilou Asbaek, who plays Greyjoy, declared in an interview that “After this season, Ramsay’s gonna look like a little kid.”

Who will make it to the end of the seven episodes of the penultimate season and who will die by the sword of the showrunners? The loose adaptation of the George Rr Martin novels isn’t exactly for the faint-hearted, as reiterated by a recently uploaded fan video. YouTube user Leon Andrew Razon claims to have reached an exact figure for the number of deaths during the show’s six-season run – a staggering 150,966 (thus far). The 21-minute long video includes not only the thousands or so deaths from the epic battles and sieges in the Westeros kingdom, but also the deaths of birds, dire-wolves, and horses. The actual death toll may even be more – eagle-eyed fans have griped that there have been oversights, such as the two men in Arya Stark’s gruesome “Frey Pie” in season six, and the off-screen death of her sword-fighting instructor, Syrio Forel.

The Gloria Gaynor classic song “I Will Survive” provides some much-needed inspiration. From Margaery Tyrell and Robert Baratheon to Osha and Robb Stark, the video by the YouTube account Sung By Movies lampoons the various depredations suffered by the long-suffering characters Look out for the outtakes (including Peter Dinklage grooving during his character Tyrion Lannister’s trial) and a compilation of the many, many slaps.

For die-hard fans who have been made to endure an excruciating wait between seasons, here is Cage of Thrones, a Reddit user’s clever act of morphing cult actor Nicholas Cage’s face onto various GoT Thrones characters. It’s exactly as amusing as it sounds.