We’ve been lucky enough this week to receive a batch of exclusive set photos giving us a taste of the Game of Thrones prequel, Blood Moon, as the pilot films in Northern Ireland. Today, our source has uncovered a few fresh angles among their stash of photos, offering a few more nuggets of info for us to pore over, including a hint at a familiar Great House of Westeros!
We more or less saw this shot yesterday but it was far away, as you can see in the photo up above, showing us the exterior of the cave; below you can see it with the weirwood tree off to the left. We can’t actually assume all these pieces are part of the same set; it’s possible that portions are sectioned off or shuffled around as needed for shooting.
Looking close….that’s a lion’s head statue! Game of Thrones packed up their stuff and left a long time ago, so this isn’t random.
What do they need this for? Speculation time! The new show is reportedly set in Westeros’ past, per the official announcement, “the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour.” House Lannister began around this time, with the surfacing of Lann the Clever, when he tricked Casterly Rock away from the Casterly clan. Will we see these famed events from the kingdom’s past? GRRM was always sketchy on the details so the prequel is a good opportunity to expand and fill in the blanks. It would be tremendously fun, and Lann would be a charismatic character- everyone loves a trickster.
In addition, our source has confirmed that the photos published this week were all taken at the Terraces location at the Studios, near the lion’s head.
The other new find from the photos, is a clearer shot of the prop board June schedule. It mentions for locations, WI COURT, VILLAGE (most likely Galboly filming), INN, ENCLAVE, BARN, SY & RA HOUSE, LONG HALL, FORT HALL/BATH HOUSE, OUBLIETTE, and TERRACES.
The filming at Marble Arch Caves Geopark appears to be for the “Enclave.” The created cave-tunnel at Titanic Studios is the Terraces, and of course Titanic Studios is used for almost everything else done on the lot or indoors.
Someone’s going to be in a rough situation though, because oubliettes are a particularly nasty type of dungeon.
What are your thoughts, readers? What do you hope to see in the prequel, based on this?
#ForTheThrone
What are my thoughts?
1. Well, I learned a new word. I had to look up “oubliette.” According to my dictionary, it’s “a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling.”
You’re right. It does sound “particularly nasty.” Makes the Vale’s sky cells seem like the Ritz Carlton.
2. Naomi, wherefore art thou? 🙁
To be more specific, an oubliette is a cell whose only way in or out is a hole in the ceiling, and its name comes from the French verb that means to forget. It’s a place to put people who will never be heard from again. Not a torture chamber per se, but not a nice place, either.
Gotta wonder if SY and RA are major characters’ initials. Time to run through our knowledge of the Great Houses and see if we can figure out whose ancestors might be onstage here.
I remember when several blonde actresses were announced as having been cast in the prequel, someone raised the possibility that we’ll discover that Lann the Clever was actually a woman. I for one would find that delightful. Maybe we’ll also learn that dwarfism tends to run in the family? Although if that were so, Tywin would likely have known it from old family lore and not been quite so judgmental about Tyrion.
Firannion,
I like the idea of Lann being a woman but realistically I feel like Jamie Campbell Bower is the most likely candidate of the known cast. He has a sneaky fucker look to him.
Sue the Fury,
But it has already been established in the books that Lann was a man. If I recall correctly, someone was talking about him fathering so many bastards that the guys from Casterly Rock had to accept his claim as a ruler/ accept him as one of them.
If Lann were a woman, I mean, an actress, that would be a terrible retcon. But I can imagine that stories are just stories, and the one I referred to could have been modified through the ages, so that people that told it in the books were just mistaken. Yet it still would feel like changing a character into a woman for the sake of… well, I don’t even know what would be a good reason to do so. Why not to create a new, interesting and strong female character instead of retconning the existing ones? 🙂
It’s a constantly recurring theme with GRRM that histories, legends and conventional wisdom are not to be trusted, so I don’t see retconning as being an issue when we’re talking about delving into the roots of tales that are already millennia old at the time period covered in GoT. As in our own world, patriarchal institutions have their own PR reasons to downplay or even erase earlier cultures/traditions in which women shared equal power with men. Haven’t we already been tipped off that this prequel series is largely about how the histories were wrong? Finding out that patriarchy wasn’t always the norm in Westeros would warm the cockles of my flinty old feminist heart enough to satisfy me as a “good reason.”
Sue is probably right about Jamie Campbell Bower, though. But I can dream, can’t I?
Ten Bears,
Naomi is in Belfast, there are pics of her checking into her hotel on Twitter (and per her IG, she was working yesterday).
Interesting, my father’s friend was a warden at a castle owned by English Heritage. His dog would go anywhere on site except anywhere near the oubliettes. *shivers*
Enclave suggests to me possibly a community of COTF surrounded by First Men.
High Heart? Isle of Faces?
Signing of the Pact?
Just musing out loud really…
Firannion,
Okay, well, with the opinion of patriarchy I disagree, so that might be the issue 🙂
Not that I devaluate the women’s role, but when it comes to medival times, to be honest I am unaware of it being a world erased from patriarchy on the other hand. It actually WAS a world ruled mainly by man, which isn’t a surprise since that were
savage, brutal and unfair times to live. Thankfully it changed. But I you base the story on the certain timeline of a real world, what’s the point of changing it – and actually, Game of Thrones gave a lot of beautiful, strong and fascinating woman characters in roles of mothers, rulers and even KNIGHTS! I can’t see it believable to turn back in time for like 5.000 years and have even more women on the major roles. But I get your point though.
Yet, it maddenes me, when I had seen people fighting for asian actors to play in Game of Thrones for the sake of erasing racism. It’s just againt the common sense, but whatever.
So for me, the story and it’s reality is what makes a good show. Not the proprtion of women, people of color, gay people, transgender people or whatever you can come up with. So making Lann the Clever a woman is simply weird. And as I stated before, I know stories are just stories, but still – why would you turn this character into a woman.
Apollo,
Thanks for that update! As you can probably tell, I’m a huge Naomi Watts fan. I thought it was a major casting coup to get her. Now I just hope they don’t pull a Sean Bean with her after a handful of episodes.
Adam,
Agreed.
Sue the Fury,
Completely agreed. Of the known cast, Campbell Bower is the most likely candidate to play Lann.
Adam,
Because they can, are you satisified with this answer ? And if not, who cares,you’re making this a way bigger issue than it needs to be! It’s a fantasy show after all, it’s not based on real life, they aren’t turning Richard III into a woman or whatever else wacky example, seems to me this is more your issue than anything else . Oh my god they might possibly change a mythical character from a fictional story that we barely knew anything about into another gender, the horrors/s
Hoggle:
This is an oubliette, labyrinth’s full of ’em.
Sarah:
Oh, I didn’t know that.
Hoggle:
Oh don’t act so smart. You don’t even know what an oubliette is.
Sarah:
Do you?
Hoggle:
Yes. It’s a place you put people… to forget about ’em!
Adam,
I’ve mostly just been reading here since the maelstrom erupted over the end of the main GoT series. There does seem to be a fad for changing genders in shows/plays of late. Dr Who as a woman will be a well-known one. Last year I saw a version of Julius Caesar where some of the conspirators had been made female (it was also in modern-day dress). Michelle Fairley played Cassius. That worked reasonably well. I haven’t seen it but there is a production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter in London at the moment. Indira Varma (Ellaria) plays one of the leads. Apparently they have changed it slightly so that one of the dalliances of one of the male characters is another man (a female character in the original). In the review I read that change wasn’t awfully well received (apparently another GoT alumnus, Enzio Cilenti, one of the slave owners in GoT plays the character dallied with).
Some years ago I read a book by Rosemary Sutcliffe (who GRRM has said he admired) about Boudicca. In that interpretation of Boudicca’s story the royal line descended through the maternal line, so her husband ruled the tribe through her). I have no idea whether in real life the Iceni ruled through the female line though.
Changing the gender of a character in adaptation isn’t entirely new though. Some male characters in the original book version of The Guns of Nazarene became female in the film adaptation and that’s a good while ago. Coming more up-to-date I’ve said before I’ve liked some of the Scandinavian thrillers on BBC 4 (I know not everyone agrees with me on that) – I may have mentioned this before. I borrowed a couple of the source books of the Mysterioso “Arne Dahl” TV series and the character who headed the team was Jan-Olov Hultin in the books but had become Jenny Hultin in the TV series.
Actually this news more than any other so far makes me excited about the prequel. I still have my reservations and concerns but this does excite me having read the History of Westeros book it’s potentially going to be exciting to see Lann the Cleaver on screen. Also didn’t Bronn hint at Lann in S8?
Adam,
I would like to point out that history (real or fantasy) isn’t always linear in the progression of these kinds of things. So, the argument that because the world in GoT is pretty strictly patriarchal then surely it must have been even more so 5000 years ago isn’t necessarily true. For example, what if the patriarchy of current Westeros is mainly a product of the Andal culture? After all, there are examples of cultures in real history from before the medieval times that were much less strictly patriarchal, some even matriarchal. To be clear, I don’t think Lann the Clever will be female, but I wouldn’t expect female roles to be any less prevalent in this show just because it takes place 5000 years before GoT.
If GoT were actually based on medieval times we would have had way more females in power in both the books and show. People need to stop using that phrasing IMO. The Victorians gave a completely screwed up picture of the Middle Ages and for some reason that’s the one people imagine in this day too. In the Middle Ages power came from land, the more you had the more power. And women often were left in charge of said lands (due to war for example) and no one had an issue with it. Women were allowed to rule and inherit in their own right. It was actually after the Middle Ages that women were forced into a Patriarchy due to power shifting away from land and moving towards institutions. If anything Got/aSoIaF is based on after the Middle Ages for the most part or based on the false impression Victorians gave of the time.
IMO if the prequel is based more in the Middle Ages, aka women are allowed to have power, then all the better. After all, it’s hard to believe that the world of GoT has been completely static for thousands of years. Something that has always been bugging me about the story. Martin’s world seems to be inhabited by humans incapable of progressing past ‘the Middle Ages’. Which is completely unrealistic.
Guys can we please just stop with the gender and minority check-listing (it’s boring already), and just be excited for these new scoops?
Maybe its like House Baratheon. The Sigil is for House Casterly, and will be taken by House Lannister
Apollo,
The banter is only a bit of fun, Apollo. I’ve been away from the board (the main threads) for a short while because it became very salty at one stage. Nobody is saying that there is going to be a gender swap and for my part I’m quite happy for Lann to stay a man (if in fact he does feature in this story). Firannion was mentioning some speculation she had heard; she was not saying it was definitely going to be so. My speculation about the main GoT was often wrong and when I thought (when I did get round to the books) so-and-so actor/actress would suit such a part, the character was either cut or cast with someone completely different. Not that such things are the end of the world.
Dame of Mercia,
Thanks, that’s the reasonable answer I have been looking for 🙂
It’s funny you should say that. A very well-received production of Richard III was put on in Sydney last year with an actress playing the lead role. No change to the script, or to other characters, was made to accommodate the oddity.
Somehow it worked. I believe it worked because Richard’s physical deformities are important to his character in the play. Having him be further removed from what a man should be fit, in an odd way.
Apollo,
People are having a fun and civil discussion. Have a seat.
Imagine Lann the Clever taking over Casterly Rock while Rains of Castamere is playing. Basically laying the groundwork for one of the biggest houses of Westeros. Hearing the theme will be so epic when we already know what will go down thousands of years later with his offsprings. Really makes me hope for Tyrion to reproduce to keep his badass family bloodline alive, those Lannisters are just too interesting to go extinct.
It’s worth noting that when Shakespeare was writing for the stage, women’s roles were played by young boys, which limited the kinds of roles that could be written for women. A lot of the recent impetus to have women play men’s roles was intended to highlight the weirdness of having such mismatched representation during such an important time for Modern Drama. If it bothers you to see a woman play Richard III, imagine how women felt about seeing their roles as mothers represented by Tween boys…
Sincerely Thine went to an all girls (convent) school. While I personally seldom trod the boards at my school, the male parts in the plays (usually nativity plays in the prelude to Christmas) such as shepherds or the three kings were played by girls, so a reverse of what happened in Shakespeare’s time. I like radio drama and sometimes in BBC radio drama, actresses have played prepubescent boys, but of course with radio one paints the picture of the character in one’s own mind.
The banter here yesterday did make me think – so I looked up the Salic Law (whereby descent was through the male line) and apparently it goes back to the Franks – though I’m sure there were patriarchies before that. We’re adults here so I won’t place a link; I’m sure people are capable of looking it up on Wikipedia if they so desire. In Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings series of novels (which Mr Martin is said to have taken inspiration from) the Salic Law is invoked in the fourth novel The Royal Succession though a more literal translation of the French title is “The Law of the Males”. I won’t go into the whys and wherefores the law is invoked in case anybody hasn’t read the books and thinks they might like to.
GeliTripping,
Which is weird considering the stigma of homosexuality in the past, having romantic plays like Romeo and Juliet and Juliet being played by a boy would have been quite awkward, but hey apparently no one had a problem with that as long as those pesty women just stayed in their place, the only job suitable for them should be prostitution, at least that’s what most men thought in those times .