For the past week, the Game of Thrones production has been all about King’s Landing. A critical mass of cast members has gathered in Seville, near the Dragonpit set in Italica, while the enormous King’s Landing set in Belfast underwent some major changes. Let’s go over the few new bits of info on hand to see if we can make better sense of what’s happening in Westeros’ biggest city. Light SPOILERS follow.
First, Seville. HBO dazzled us last week with a procession of major cast members arriving on the scene. (Click here for a complete list.) The stars continued to make their presence known over the weekend, posting pictures to their own social media accounts, like so:
Usually, the production is carefully polices what cast members post on social media. For example, a couple weeks back, an actor we didn’t know we would see again posted a picture of themselves near a Game of Thrones set in Belfast. A day later, the picture was gone. And yet now, cast members in Seville are posting pictures willy-nilly, giving away that they’re all gathered in the same place with no objections from HBO. I try not to overindulge in conspiracy theories, but this smells fishy to me, like the stars are trying too hard to draw attention to themselves.
The conspiracy angle on the situation is that some of the actors gathered in Seville will be involved in the Dragonpit shoot and some won’t, and that HBO has summoned so many so we won’t be able to tell which is which. This theory is underlined by the fact that actors like Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H’ghar) and Faye Marsay (the Waif) are both in the city, even though we can’t see either of their characters returning for season 8. And some of the cast members have already left Seville. For instance, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) has been sighted in Cannes, France as of yesterday:
Did Coster-Waldau pop by Seville in the middle of last week to shoot his scenes at the Dragonpit and then peace out, or was he an HBO plant? We can’t know for sure, which may be exactly HBO’s intent.
Honestly, if they are doing this whole misdirection thing, it’s not a bad plan.
We know even less about what’s actually being filmed on the Dragonpit set. The closest thing we have is a rumor from Spanish-language fansite Los Siete Reinos. It reports that HBO has been shooting night scenes in Italica with Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), although it stresses that this is not 100% confirmed.
Speaking of LSR, it also have some new photos of the devastation at the huge King’s Landing set in Belfast. The production built a couple of stout stone towers to either side of a city gate. Here’s what they looked like before last Friday…
…and here’s what they looked like after:
Kaboom!
Per LSR, HBO sent out notices to local businesses beforehand saying that there would be controlled explosions on the set Friday morning. A shame no one was around to capture to moment, but the results speak for themselves.
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