Just like its living counterpart, the prosthetic George W. Bush head has inspired some pretty passionate emotions, with some conservative groups calling for a boycott of HBO. The people at HBO has responded to these accusations of political bias in a statement: “We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste.”

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the actual people behind Game of Thrones had an even better explanation for putting George W. Bush’s decapitated head on a spike, saying that it wasn’t meant to be a political statement but instead was just a matter of using the means available to them:

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk.”

Despite this explanation, HBO has ordered all images of George W. Bush’s decapitated head removed from future copies of Game of Thrones on DVD, and presumably from future broadcasts. The former president has not been reached for comment. (The AV Club)