There is no verified, episode-by-episode census of every buttocks appearance in Game of Thrones. This guide therefore gives representative, sourced examples—not a complete list. For clarity, it uses a published review study’s narrow threshold: a visible cleft extending all the way to the bottom of the cheeks; side-bum and views showing only the top of the crack do not qualify under that rule.
What counts as a buttocks appearance?
A published Game of Thrones review study defined its threshold as a “full cleft all the way to the bottom of the cheeks,” excluding side-bum and views that show only the top of the butt crack. That is one transparent way to draw the line, not a universal standard. Applying it to every episode would require a complete episode-by-episode review, and no verified total for the series is established here. Brief or obscured views would also need a consistent rule before anyone could claim an exhaustive count.
For the examples below, the character and scene are identified separately from the performer visible in the shot. That distinction matters when productions use body doubles. Read the review study’s coding definition.
Representative scenes with sourced performer attribution
Season 5: Cersei’s Walk of Atonement
In the Walk of Atonement, Rebecca Van Cleave served as the body double for the nude walk, while Lena Headey performed Cersei’s face and acting performance. Headey explained that filming nude felt like too much at that point in her life and career. The scene is a clear example of why it is inaccurate to assume that the actor playing a character is necessarily the person visible in a nude shot. The available reporting identifies the double and the production choice; it does not provide a buttocks-only count for the scene under the threshold above.
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The Independent’s report on Headey’s decision and Syfy Wire’s coverage of cast nudity and sex scenes discuss the double. The attribution is to the nude-walk performance, not a claim that Van Cleave played Cersei throughout the episode.
Season 6, Episode 4: “Book of the Stranger”
Emilia Clarke said she performed Daenerys’s nude scene herself, without a body double. The moment follows Daenerys’s emergence from the fire after killing the Khals. Clarke’s statement applies to this scene; it should not be generalized to every Daenerys nude appearance or to the whole series. TIME’s contemporaneous headline quoted her saying, “That Ain’t No Body Double!”
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TIME’s account of Clarke’s season-six scene and TheWrap’s report identify her as the performer rather than a double. As with the Cersei example, those reports establish attribution, not a series-wide tally or a formal count of visible buttocks.
Why there is no reliable “all” list or total
Counting every appearance requires deciding what qualifies, reviewing all episodes, and recording partial, brief, obscured, and double-performed shots consistently. A review exercise with a different scope cannot substitute for that work. GQ said its retrospective revisited 79 moments of nudity and sex under its own criteria; that figure is not an official count of buttocks appearances and does not claim to cover every qualifying shot.
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GQ’s retrospective is useful as an example of a deliberately defined editorial selection, not as a census. Its judgments about whether nudity was necessary are opinion, not a factual classification of which scenes meet a buttocks threshold.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read scene credits and body-double claims
- Character: the fictional role, such as Cersei or Daenerys.
- Credited actor: the principal performer portraying that character.
- Visible performer: the actor, body double, or extra actually shown in a particular shot, when reliably identified.
- Visibility threshold: whether the shot meets the chosen definition, rather than merely showing nudity or some part of the backside.
These categories prevent a common attribution error: naming an actor as the person in a nude shot based only on the character, a screenshot, or an assumption. The sourced examples establish different arrangements—Clarke performing a particular scene herself, and Van Cleave doubling for Headey in the nude walk—but do not identify every visible performer across the series.
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