Did we see Strong Belwas in Episode 507?

Toward the end of Game of Thrones Episode 507, we saw Jorah storm into the gladiatorial ring and kick some ass, because he knew that his Khaleesi was in attendance observing the blood sport. While Jorah was doing Jorah things, Tyrion was left chained to the bench, with nothing but a dull file to try and free himself. The situation looked dire for both Tyrion and Jorah, who had revealed himself to Dany only to find out that he was still lost in the murky depths of the friendzone.

Tyrion yanked, clawed, and filed away at his chains with no results, until a rather large man with a large arakh (Strong Belwas’ weapon of choice), set him free with one fell-swoop and a bro-nod to boot. Many book fans, myself included, jumped for joy (no, seriously, I literally joyously jumped out of my chair), when the big man with the large arahk had his brief moment in the sun (shade, whatever). Of course, Reddit noticed as well, and began to guess as to who he was. Some thought he was Elden Henson, who played Foggy Nelson on Netflix’s Daredevil, and it was this line of thinking that brought the actual actor out to post in a thread about himself.

To be honest, I’ve looked for the actor’s actual name and haven’t found it, but he does go by the Reddit handle ReinhardtUK, and he seemed to have fun with the whole idea. When asked if he was Foggy from Daredevil, this was his response:

The actor was then asked  if he was in fact Strong Belwas, to which he replied “Not that I’m aware of…” Now, as we all well know, most of the actors are under strict guidelines to not reveal any secrets that may give away certain plot points, so maybe this is just his way of ducking the answer. Since this guy wasn’t wearing a tiny little vest and didn’t seem to have loads of scars across his belly, he may have just been some random extra who was in the right place at the right time. But I like to believe that this was just another subtle nod to we book purists who have mourned the exclusion of Strong Belwas from Dany’s storyline. And while he may not look like the  fried liver and onion eating badass of A Song of Ice and Fire, it still doesn’t mean his isn’t Belwas. I mean, Areo Hotah is supposed to be a white guy…I’m just sayin.

UPDATE: Although the jury is out on whether the mystery man who freed Tyrion was actually Strong Belwas, it has been confirmed that the slaver who bought Jorah and Tyrion was Yezzan zo Qaggaz, the same character who bought the two of them in A Dance with Dragons. Enzo Cilenti, the actor who played Yezzan, gave an interview with Hunger TV about the show’s take on the character.

Those of you who have read A Dance with Dragons know that this Yezzan bears little to no resemblance to the Yezzan from the books. For one thing, he isn’t morbidly obese, and he buys slaves in the hopes of using them as pit fighters, not so he can fill out his menagerie of grotesques. We don’t even know if the Yezzan on the show is from Yunkai. This seems like an example of the producers creating a new character and just slapping him with a name from the novels, although any nod to the source material is appreciated.

• Published on 05/26/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT