Things are happening in Moneyglass, Northern Ireland. And by things, I mean massive SPOILER-filled shenanigans. Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, now is your chance to turn back should you wish to remain unspoiled as the freshly fallen snow. For everyone else, let’s get to it.
As a reminder, the Game of Thrones production recently filmed a large battle sequence at the Winterfell set featuring between 400 to 500 extras, which is about as many as the show ever uses for any one scene. Also, they lit Winterfell on fire:
The local fire department was actually called to the scene by people fearful that this was an accident, but found that the crew had it under control.
After watching this, a lot of fans may have assumed that the Winterfell set was finished — how do you come back from that? But now, more than one source is reporting that not only is the set not gone, but that there’s still filming going on there.
Special effects wizards are practiced at making “controlled burns,” fires that look good for the cameras but that don’t damage the underlying set to the point where it’s beyond repair. Something like that may have happened here.
So what to make of HBO reportedly using the set after lighting it up? There are a couple of explanations. One: HBO is doing massive damage control and trying to make it look like the blaze from a couple nights ago doesn’t mean the end of Winterfell, and is ordering employees to downgrade it from an inferno to a campfire when talking about it. After all, HBO did film fake scenes for season 7 with the express intention of misleading people, little good that they did. Maybe the continued activity is all for show.
Another possibility is that while Winterfell will be set on fire at some point in season 8, it won’t burn down completely, as did the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen in season 6. Winterfell is made of stone and doesn’t burn easily — perhaps the production is filming characters mulling around outside a dilapidated-but-still-standing version of the castle.
Also remember that Game of Thrones doesn’t film scenes in chronological order. It’s possible that they lit the castle on fire one night and shot a scene set earlier in time where Jon and Dany take a moonlit stroll along the battlements the next, although that’s a stretch — why damage a set for one scene if you’re just going to have to clean it up to make it look like new for another when you could film them in a different order and save money?
But at the least, it looks like there’s more to this situation than “HBO set the Winterfell set on fire and now it’s gone forever.” What do you guys make of it?
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