by C. A. Taylor
Ian McElhinney portrays new advisor Barristan Selmy.
IAN MCELHINNEY (BARRISTAN SELMY): You could definitely argue that Barristan is one of the true honorable characters, one of the only “good” men in the piece. There are some who would argue he switched sides, but it was with a royal pardon. In my mind, I’ve always thought of him—and I think the audience does, too—as loyal and decent, “the honorable man.” Now that he is in Daenerys’s court, he will do anything to prove his loyalty and, in his mind, hopefully serve someone who is a good ruler.
— banishing jorah —
episode 408: “the mountain and the viper”
“You sold my secrets to the man who killed my father and stole my brother’s throne. You want me to forgive you?”
—Daenerys Targaryen
* * *
Throughout her time in exile—ever since her marriage to Khal Drogo, when she became the khaleesi of Drogo’s khalasar—Daenerys Targaryen has placed her trust in Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), who has been her most steadfast and loyal advisor. Jorah educated her about local customs, advised her on military strategy, and fought by her side through a myriad of challenges. In a market outside Vaes Dothrak: Jorah recognized and stopped an assassination attempt on the young queen, proving to Daenerys his loyalty and concern for her safety.
Then Daenerys discovers the truth: Barristan has discovered that the exiled knight provided information on her to King’s Landing, and in exchange he received a pardon. This revelation brings Dany’s trust in Jorah to an end. Jorah protests that he renounced this betrayal long ago, but Dany banishes him from her dominion forever. This act leaves Daenerys a changed woman, and it returns Jorah to his former life, as a disgraced wanderer in exile.
* * *
EMILIA CLARKE (DAENERYS TARGARYEN): It’s interesting to me that Dany can be merciful with the outside world, but those closest to her are burdened with a far more exacting standard. In many ways, I feel like the core of who Daenerys has become is related to the loss of her husband and the loss of her child. In that moment, to discover what she does about Jorah—I believe that she places every scrap of blame at his feet. She feels that he put them in the crosshairs, that his action led to the assassination attempt of the wine seller and all the dominoes that fell from there.
BRYAN COGMAN (CO-PRODUCER AND WRITER): I think viewers take for granted, much as Dany does, that Jorah will always be there—giving sage advice, support, and protection to the khaleesi. So when he’s dismissed so abruptly, in shame and disgrace, it’s a real blow to the characters and viewer. Emilia and Iain are amazing in that scene, so much so that director Alex Graves kept the entire thing tight on their faces—very few cutaways or establishing shots. It’s very powerful.
EMILIA CLARKE (DAENERYS TARGARYEN): It’s the worst possible time to be dealt such a blow. There’s a moment in that scene—she’s felt the betrayal so deeply that you can almost see the flip of the coin between madness and genius in her. There’s no question that she chooses exile [for Jorah] knowing that that type of purgatory is the worst possible punishment for him, more so even than death.
Jorah Mormont, one of the key advisors to Daenerys during her campaigns until his earlier treachery is discovered.
— creating the dragons —
“They are dragons, khaleesi. They can never be tamed. Not even by their mother.”
—Jorah Mormont
* * *
Of course, Dany’s three young dragons—Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion—represent a potentially dominant and perhaps unstoppable military force, but for many they also represent something more: they are apparitions from a time forgotten, a time of legends. For the VFX team, the constant task is to create creatures that are both fantastical and yet grounded in reality. This challenge has only grown along with the dragons, as they increase in size and ability.
* * *
JOE BAUER (VFX SUPERVISOR): In terms of reference, the design of the dragons is based on the movements and shape of bats and eagles. Of course, as they are carrying more size and weight, they are also displacing more air to hold them aloft. When it comes to performance, each one is developing a different personality—one is cunning, another more aggressive, and of course, Drogon is the alpha, the lion of the pride. They are supposed to be increasingly wild, dangerous, and unpredictable.
STEVE KULLBACK (VFX PRODUCER): The dragons are designed under Joe’s supervision by Dan Katcher, who begins the initial sculpting using z-brush, before moving over to Maya for the modeling, texture, and lighting. For us, though, it’s less about what program we create in and more about the way it’s created. We have an incredibly gifted team that work from Pixomondo in Frankfurt. The dimension and scale have become much more prevalent; it’s less about the size and detail of the head and more about the body length and wingspan—which is about twenty-eight feet on Drogon, who is approximately 15 percent larger than the other two. A huge amount of work goes into creating the details that suggest a physical threat, taking inspiration from real elements in nature to insure the dragons look as realistic as possible.
JOE BAUER (VFX SUPERVISOR): Aside from bats and eagles, we also look at reptilian examples—monitor lizards and komodo dragons—for particular looks. In terms of attitude, we consider Drogon to have a personality of a lion, and Rhaegal and Viserion to be great white sharks. There’s a sort of nobility, but also a viciousness. When it comes to their specific weight, we haven’t actually worked it out. Instead, we have focused on what scale works best visually.
STEVE KULLBACK (VFX PRODUCER): We also don’t know how many teeth they have—just that they do, and that they look gnarly.
JOE BAUER (VFX SUPERVISOR): Also, they push out their teeth during attacks. We took that and the eye roll from the great white. There is something about the fact that we have all absorbed a little from things we have seen, nature shows and such, that helps lend the dragons more realism.
DAVID BENIOFF AND D. B. WEISS (CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS AND WRITERS): A while ago, we asked the VFX team to draw up a dragon growth chart, tracking them season by season to get them where we needed them by season seven or so. They eat a lot in the off-season, apparently. We love them and pay extra attention to them, especially at the beginning of each season when the final looks are being set—but the credit here belongs to Joe, Steve, Adam, and all the guys at Pixomondo. God is in the details with Dany’s babies, and every breath, blink, stretch, and snort has been so lovingly worked over.
In the beginning, we were worried that we wouldn’t get the execution right. But assuming that they were done well—and we think the guys have gone above and beyond on that score—we were never afraid of them as an element of the show. They were crucial to the show from its conception.
EMILIA CLARKE (DAENERYS TARGARYEN): It is a challenge to react to something that isn’t there, but for me, from day one, the idea of the dragons and what they represent is so strong, it almost makes sense that they would be imagined. It’s always amazing to see what my mind has manifested made real. The first time I saw them, I was really ill. I was lying prone in bed, and my brother was watching in another room. I actually heard them first, and my reaction was visceral. I ran to the other room thinking, “My babies!” It’s quite incredible to see them brought to life.
In season three, multiple layers show the VFX process that brings the dragons to life; Daenerys’s greatest weapon is the threat of what her dragons will become.
Jon Snow enters the wildling camp, with one mission in mind—to end the assault on the Wall, even if it costs him his life.
PART EIGHT
a different war
* * *
“Those are giants down there! Riding mammoths! You think your cold-rolled steel is going to stop them?”
—Jon Snow
While the great houses of Westeros continue fighting one another for the Iron Throne, different concerns animate the players north of the Wall. Bran Stark and his companions are battling for survival, against all odds, in order
to follow the strange visions guiding them toward a life-changing destiny. Meanwhile, Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch face an invading wildling army unlike any seen before, either in size or composition. Somehow, though they have lost their leader Commander Mormont, and their forces are depleted and still reeling from the revolt at Craster’s Keep, the men of the Night’s Watch must struggle to defend the Wall and uphold their oaths to protect all of Westeros from the terrors that have come knocking at their door.
[top] Stannis and Davos meet with the Bank. [bottom] Between set-ups, the set floor was polished for every mark.
— building the iron bank —
“You can’t run from them, you can’t cheat them, you can’t sway them with excuses. If you owe them money and you don’t want to crumble yourself, you pay it back.”
—Tywin Lannister
Concept art of the Iron Bank.
* * *
Stannis Baratheon is driven by an unrelenting desire to reclaim the Iron Throne from the Lannisters. With a renewed conviction in the powers Melisandre seems to hold after the death of Robb Stark, Stannis agrees to follow his vision of a great battle in the snow and responds to the call for assistance from the Wall, but his forces are still massively depleted from the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Then the newly pardoned Davos Seaworth suggests a new alliance, this time with the legendary Bank of Braavos—the first glimpse of a world unseen until now.
* * *
DEB RILEY (PRODUCTION DESIGNER): One of the very first creative meetings that I had in LA included a conversation with Dan Weiss about the work of Albert Speer and the architecture of the Nazis—about how architecture could be used to intimidate. That was precisely the tone they wanted to create, the verticality and strength of the designs. It worked perfectly for the Iron Bank, which is one of the richest institutions in the world. I loved the idea that there is one table, and there isn’t anything even on that table. Applying the Game of Thrones aesthetic to something with such a strong perspective was very exciting. One of the most insane things about the set was that it was up for less than a week.
TOM MARTIN (CONSTRUCTION MANAGER): Over the course of an eight-week build, the team put together three sides of the bank, which were filled in by VFX. The strength of the design allowed us to use twenty-foot-high windows along one full side of the chamber. Each of the door panels stood over twelve feet high; they were modeled gold panels inset into the bronze frame. Each section was designed to depict the investment interests of the bank; for example, shipbuilding or scenes of warfare. The floor, a high-polished dark green marble, was made up of seven hundred individually marbled and dip-dyed tiles, so there were no repeats in the stone.
DEB RILEY (PRODUCTION DESIGNER): Nothing says wealth like a perfectly polished marble floor. Something Gemma did very well was establish color pallets for each new environment, and I was really keen to do that here. The richness of that green worked really well for Braavos. The finish was so beautiful you would never believe it was polished painted marble. It was a nightmare to keep clean. On the filming days, everyone had to wear little booties over their shoes, but it was worth it to have these marvellous reflections. We’ve never had that in King’s Landing. When you walk on those floors, it’s intimidating, just because of the sound it creates—I thought it was very successful.
BRYAN COGMAN (CO-PRODUCER AND WRITER): I loved that Iron Bank set. The clean lines, the shiny marble floor, that huge table which intimidates anyone who dares enter in seek of a loan. That was a fun scene to shoot—what other fantasy epic delves into the financial side of things?
— creating the mammoths and giants —
The giants dominate in battle.
* * *
Game of Thrones has staged many epic action sequences, but the Battle for the Wall in Episode 409, “The Watchers on the Wall,” was arguably the largest battle ever. Key to the spectacle was the appearance of mammoths and giants within the wildling army. As the Giants used their massive strength to fire arrows to the top of the towering wall, the Mammoths were used to pull apart the gates at the foundations, a force unseen before and seemingly unstoppable due to their massive and dominating size. In this episode, the mammoths were created by the VFX team, and the giants were conjured by the prosthetics and the costume teams. The VFX department also oversaw a good deal of the giants’ green screen and on-set work and ensured that their interactions with the mammoths were to scale and believable.
* * *
STEVE KULLBACK (VFX PRODUCER): The mammoth was approximately twenty-two feet tall from ground to head, fifteen feet wide, and eighteen feet long. When it comes time to shoot, the mammoth needs to live in a space that actors are performing in, so we needed a stuffie similar to what we used with the direwolves. You need to be able to frame up your shots, and the actors need to know what to leave space for, how to react appropriately. Joe Bauer came up with the idea of using a space frame and he worked together with Stuart [Brisdon, VFX] to design a lightweight steel frame that could be carried around by four people as a placeholder. A second frame was made for the shots with the giants that was half the size, which allows the scale to be proportionally accurate.
JOE BAUER (VFX SUPERVISOR): At one point there was some consideration of using elephants dressed in special mammoth suits. It’s actually been done before in the movie Quest for Fire. We considered it because it seemed like a CG mammoth that would look right and be effective would be out of our budget, and this might be our best secondary option. Animal behavior and all that hair? It’s just about the most expensive CG thing you can ask for. We got incredibly lucky. The vendor MPC made available to us models they had started for other reasons, which were within our budget.
JOE BAUER (VFX SUPERVISOR): The giants were first developed in season three. The best decision was to use unusually tall performers to give a sense of a great deal of weight to the giants’ movement. Ian Whyte measures in at around seven feet, one inch in height. He is a well-known suit performer in the UK, and he had been our giant before, as well as a White Walker in season one. Production then found Neil Fingleton, the tallest man in the UK, who in his suit comes in around seven feet, eleven inches. We also slowed down the speed on-screen a tiny amount. In terms of design, the idea was that we would always be looking up at them, so the costumes were deliberately made smaller at the top with big tree trunk legs at the bottom.
Green screen filming captures the mammoth riders.
Starting to build the bodies of the giants during the test stages.
BARRIE GOWER (PROSTHETICS SUPERVISOR): We had two giants, Mag the Mighty and Dongo the Doomed. We inherited the molds from season three, but we wanted to rework some of the detailing and the hair. It begins with foam body suits that create the overall shape of the giant, but they are brought to life by the amazing animal-skin costumes and raw finished weapons.
To get the suit, we begin by making a full-body cast. Then a fabricator created the suit by layering and piecing reticulated foam into a creation that could actually be zipped up. For Neil Fingleton’s suit, we sewed in a set of his own shoes for comfort. The costume team then dressed the foam suit, but we still needed to create a new silicon prosthetic headpiece for the second giant, which was designed from scratch. The head alone was several kilos, so they are carrying a great deal of weight when they move—I think this might help with the lumbering. Prosthetics alone takes three hours of application for the heads. We were eventually able to get down to around one-and-a-half hours, so with hair and costume the process could take between three and five hours for each of our giants.
NEIL MARSHALL (DIRECTOR): Bringing in the mammoths and giants adds a whole new dimension to what’s happening north of the Wall, creating a real spectacle in the way that the arrival of tanks and planes might. The wildlings use the mammoths in a very strategic way, trying to use their strength to breach the gate. Logistically, this meant that the army north of the Wall becomes quite CGI heavy. Because of the need for different image references, some things needed
to be shot three times over. It reminded me of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when the Imperial AT-AT Walkers appear from the snow. They lend a weight, a gravitas, to the assault.
Jon Snow takes on Styr in the courtyard of Castle Black..
— the battle for the wall —
episode 409: “the watchers on the wall”
“Brothers! A hundred generations have defended this castle! She has never fallen before. She will not fall tonight!”
—Ser Alliser Thorne
Sam and Gilly find themselves thrown in the path of danger once again.
* * *
Time has run out for the Night’s Watch. The wildlings have arrived at the Wall, determined to breach the gates and invade Westeros. Their army includes giants, mammoths, and the cannibilistic Thenn, who hunger for more than blood. All are ready to conquer the Wall and the depleted Night’s Watch forces trying valiantly to prevent their success. For Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly, life will be changed forever by the loss of friends and the security of the Wall. Jon must assume the mantle of leader and with it the burden of sacrifice for the greater good above personal preference. For Sam, it is a chance to assert himself as a man of knowledge and experience, to prove that his place in the Watch has been earned and to work with Jon as an equal to play his part in the battle.