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"Spartacus showrunner Steven S DeKnight has revealed that the series&amp;#039; second season was influenced by Game of Thrones. DeKnight told IGN that an incest sub-plot was removed from Spartacus: Vengeance to avoid comparisons with HBO&amp;#039;s fantasy drama. &amp;quot;All of us writers on Spartacus love Game of Thrones,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just so well done. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s interesting because we did have an incest plot planned for Vengeance, with the twin characters of Seppius (Tom Hobbs) and Seppia (Hanna Mangan), but when I heard that Game of Thrones had it as an integral part of the story... we didn&amp;#039;t go there.&amp;quot; DeKnight continued: &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#039;t want to repeat something that somebody else was doing. And Game of Thrones did it so brilliantly [with the relationship between Cersei and Jaime]. &amp;quot;We have to find our unusual extremeness in other ways. Which, believe me, by the end of the season we do.&amp;quot; Spartacus star Nick Tarabay (Ashur) recently promised that future episodes will shock fans. &amp;quot;Whatever you think you know about Spartacus or the characters of Spartacus, forget it,&amp;quot; he warned. &amp;quot;The people that you love, you&amp;#039;re going to hate. The people that you hate, you&amp;#039;re going to love. And just when you think you&amp;#039;ve got it figured out, it changes again.&amp;quot; Spartacus: Vengeance begins on Friday on Starz in the US and will air on Mondays on Sky1 in the UK. &amp;gt; Lucy Lawless Spartacus: Vengeance Q&amp;amp;A: &amp;#039;This season is enormous&amp;#039; Watch the opening scene from Spartacus: Vengeance below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a361866/spartacus-exec-game-of-thrones-changed-our-new-season/>