We have new pics from a Game of Thrones set still under construction in Belfast. The good news is that there are quite a lot of them. The less-good news is that they don’t reveal very much that we don’t already know!
Courtesy of Wiki of Thrones, you can check out several glimpses of the castle currently being built in Northern Ireland for season 8.
While there are still no sigils or other identifying marks, there appears to be a tower that’s separate from the rest of the castle. Given the monumental importance of tower scenes in the past, it’s fun to imagine the potential significance of this one.
Furthermore, in the photo below we can see a gap in the castle walls. Look closely and you can see that they’ve started constructing an arc so it’s likely that this set will serve as the gate of whichever castle this is intended to be. It’s also quite possible that these are the defensive outer walls of a town we’re looking at, not a castle at all.
Share your thoughts and theories with us below!
Man it seems like WOTW isn’t getting any scoops this season like they did for previous seasons.
Just as much in the dark as all of us. Trying to go guesswork from random construction photos.
The more I see the more I wonder if this will be a combined set… possibly the Red Keep and streets of KL, for battle and potentially fire scenes, as some of the set has multiple floors and window sizes that’d possibly reflect the city buildings. I’m guessing they won’t be able to film a firey KL on location in Spain.
Someone on Twitter also posted some photos of stone horse/wolf/dragon head props (hard to tell which).
It’s only 1 month in, out of like 10. :p
It’s still hard to guess what final outlook the walls will acquire. Now it looks like they are putting something white on the plywood whish was painted black. Probably, that black paint is just a primer. But that stand-alone tower confuses me even more. I guess I have to give up with my guesses.
Inga,
One thing I really don’t get is, why so many windows? So huge? I recall a comment, I think by you, saying that it’s not like mediaeval architecture at all… And I agree. This doesn’t look defensive. At all. This looks more like the inner courtyard of a nondefensive mansion, or a palace.
And by the same token… With that many windows, it can’t be a Northern castle, can it? It would be too breezy.
It can be Red Keep ..but the grey/black color of the buildings and the alone tower it confusing me …We know that North/Winterfell hasnt any building with so big/large windows and they had walls around to protect the castle…and that alone tower is another story…Maybe to is the Red Keep but maybe to is also another Northern castle[Dreadfort,Karhold,High Heart and etc]…maybe…we dont know yet…this season will be the most confusing season of all the series..bcoz we have so many mysteries to solve and some theories to got proved or not.
To me it looks like a wall with a gate and a street leading from it, so I’m going with city walls and a city street, probably KL.
If you look at the last picture, you can see the dark part seems to be the back of a set, with scaffolding & stairs visible. It also appears to be painted white on the other side, like the set opposite it. The big, irregular windows also point to rows of houses along a street. But we will see.
Yaga,
talvikorppi,
Probably, Talvikorppi has a best guess so far: a city street leading to a gate (or from that). And we have seen only two cities in Westeros: KL and Old Town. Others were just castles. There was nothing like book Lanisport. So, we can return to KL idea.
It looks like several of the ‘real’ buildings on that site are in need of some repair; missing windows and roof panels.
Yeah, when we saw the very first pictures of this build it had more of a southern area or city structure design. The further along that it’s gotten it just appears more like that. The mystery continues to grow as the structure does…
I’m thinking this is Last Hearth or Karhold coming under attack from the White Walkers but it may also double for Kings Landing if there is to be a big battle sequence there.
If they are painting white on dark and not the other way around it could be White Harbor – but the comment about all the windows does seem to indicate a southern city
Whatever it is, I don’t think they’d spend this much time and effort into building a structure that would only be used for a minor scene or a setting that no one really cares about. This is obviously the setting of something major.
This set is going to provide some epic scenes I bet. I see on a facebook page that they were testing the trebuchet…
That’s why I think it’s another Hardholme style slaughter of humans by the White Walkers, does anyone really believe there will be a huge battle for Kings Landing if Jamie or Tyrion kill Cersei?
I concur: KL city walls.
Until there’s evidence to the contrary, I’m sticking with my guess that Cersei is going to deploy her Catapulting Wildfire Plan from S2e5, and it’s going to backfire spectacularly as Bronn predicted:
(Two scenes from S2e5):
Lancel to Tyrion: Cersei is “making wildfire…The alchemists’ guild is being commissioned…They have thousands of pots already stored in their vaults. They are planning to launch them from the city walls into Stannis’s ships and armies. … I heard her talking with the Pyromancer.”
——————————-
Pyromancer Hallyne of the Alchemists Guild (to Tyrion and Bronn):
Hallyne: “The jars are put in catapults and flung at the enemy.”
Bronn: “If you could get real soldiers to man the catapults, then maybe you’d hit your target one time in 10…”
“….I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a battle, old man, but things can get a bit messy. ‘Cause when we’re flinging things at Stannis, he’s flinging them right back at us. Men die, men sh*t themselves, men run, which means pots falling, which means fire inside the walls, which means the poor cu*ts trying to defend the city end up burning it down.”
***
Hallyne: “We have been working tirelessly day and night ever since your royal sister commanded us to do so. Our present count stands at 7,811…”
Bronn: “This is a sh*t idea.”
Tyrion: “I’m afraid I have to concur with my advisor, wisdom Hallyne. The contents of this room could lay King’s Landing low….”
Testing it with…pots of wildfire to burn the wights?
The more I look at that set, the more I think it’s Pyke.
http://www.rene-borst.de/gallery/GoT_Pyke_Establisher_h266l692.jpg
That’s an interesting one but it doesn’t make too much sense for the successful forces from the North to have a big battle on the Iron Islands in my opinion. Theon has one ship and a handful of men so we can rule him out – unless he somehow rallies the golden company to his side as some have speculated.
I still maintain it’s either a Northern Castle being attacked by white walkers which is surely going to happen in the first two episodes or it’s Kings Landing in episode 6.
Kaka,
As Bearded Onion says it’s early days yet. It’s always been hard to glean information from the Titanic Studio site. WOTW has kept us informed about members of the cast showing up in Belfast and the photos of the trebuchet etc are something to be going on with. Do we know if actual filming has started even or if the cast are just reading through their material/doing preliminary rehearsals etc? It looks like the powers that be are being stringent about random people observing this year but it’s always been the case that photographs of cast members in costume have emerged from outdoor location filming rather than what takes place in the studio.
It’s not. Doesn’t look anything like it. Note the windows, for example.
My understanding is filming has been going on now for several weeks and will continue until next June.
And the oddly cut shape in the set is equally curious!
https://twitter.com/mabe_updates/status/927600825429618694