If you're worried about accidentally catching spoilers for season eight of Game of Thrones turn back now: it's been confirmed that one huge fan favourite won't be returning for the finale having been snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Ser Pounce, King Tommen Baratheon's cat, was apparently brutally murdered by Cersei Lannister off-screen.

"Cersei hated the name 'Ser Pounce' so much she could not allow him to survive," co-creator David Benioff told Entertainment Weekly. "So she came up with her most diabolical [murder]. Ser Pounce’s death was so horrible we couldn’t even put it on the air."

"If you buy the super-extended, super-charged Game of Thrones box set that comes out, the death of Ser Pounce will be in there. Just one whole episode devoted to the death of Ser Pounce," fellow showrunner DB Weiss added.

There's a bit more to Ser Pounce's sudden, ultraviolent death than just Cersei's cruelty though. "That cat was really not fun to work with," Benioff explained. "There’s a reason the phrase 'like herding cats' came into existence."

"Cats have their own agenda," Weiss agreed.

Whatever the industry politics of the cat's demise, he'll be a big miss in the season eight shake-up. Ser Pounce first turned up in season four, bounding onto King Tommen's bed while Margaery Tyrell put the moves on the young king. You might recall Margaery calling him "a proper fellow" and "very handsome", which is a fairly solid epitaph. There's still the possibility that a reanimated Ser Pounce could have his revenge on Cersei as part of the Night King's army, but it's a long shot.

Either way, King Tommen himself chooses to believe Ser Pounce lives on. "I suppose there’s a lot of staff around the kingdom to look after him," Tommen actor Dean-Charles Chapman told the Huffington Post. "Hopefully, he didn’t get caught up in the blast. That’d be a tragedy. I like to think he’d also move on with his life and get a girlfriend maybe."