10 Magical Game Of Thrones Details Explained With Science

4. Can You Crush A Skull With Your Hands?

It's an iconic scene that put us all off watermelon for a bit, but could a guy like the Mountain really crush a man's skull with his bare hands?

The answer is, sadly or gladly depending on whose side you're on, probably not.

In a study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery, scientists put this to the test by soaking cadaver skulls (to mimic your warm and squishy living tissue), then exerted huge amounts of pressure on them to see when they cracked. It should also be noted that they did this to test the efficacy of bicycle helmets, rather than wasting precious human skulls on a question from a TV show.

They found that the average skull would experience "catastrophic failure" at around 520 lbs (2300 N) of static force. Mountain actor Thor Björnsson, aside from having the coolest nickname in the universe, weighs in at around 400 lbs, so he wouldn't actually even be able to crush Oberyn's skull if he stood on it, let alone try to exert that force through just his upper body.

On the other hand, a boxer's punch can generate up to 5,000 N of force - nearly twice as much - thanks to a little thing called acceleration. So, although it might not be possible for the Mountain to pop Oberyn's head like a football filled with haggis, he might be able to punch him so hard that it explodes, which is arguably just as cool.