James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly has given us a (now-sanctioned) small glimpse behind the scenes of Game of Thrones filming in Croatia. The post includes some new photos, including a better one of the Qartheen gate.
In his report, Hibberd tells a fun little story of trying to track down Dany’s dragons.
So I hiked deep into the hills and found another obstacle. A massive, heavily guarded gate. This must be it. But how to get inside?
Left with no choice, I fought and defeated every guard by beating them unconscious with my laptop (I would have taken a photo of this part, but who can battle 20 spear-carrying sentries and take pictures at the same time?).
Beyond the gate — success! There are hordes of Dothraki milling about. I disguised myself in brown rags, kept my head down and wandered the crowd until … I found them.
Winter Is Coming: James promises more reports and photos from the set; can’t wait to see what else he has to reveal!
Loading ...
31 Comments
can’t wait for more!
tekQuote Reply
Unsullied!
at least I think they are … judging from the weapons.
Phantomwriter05Quote Reply
No, I don’t think they’re Unsullied. We saw Unsullied in Season 1. Their bronze helmets are topped by huge spikes.
LexQuote Reply
Those CGI dragons can burn through those clearly flammable ‘cages’! Also, you shouldn’t put all your power on one (stealable) horse.
Ack! What am I saying? This is totally awesome!!!
Franny BeeQuote Reply
I assume they are just guards. However, the Unsullied from season 1 looked like rejects from Xena so if they are Unsullied it’s definitely an improvement.
SamQuote Reply
I agree. I hope the Unsullied we saw in Season 1 are altered. They really looked bad. I don’t know what these guards are but they look pretty damn cool.
JohnQuote Reply
Oh EW with their crappy lo-res photo’s and terrible media-player. It’s details we want!
KnurkQuote Reply
I’m surprised there’s not more negative reaction to the cages, but it’s a decent way to keep costs down.
AlanQuote Reply
Quarth, shmarth. I wish we’d get more pics from Robb’s camp (especially Jaime!) and Renly’s camp, too. Why no Brienne?
SGQuote Reply
Looks Awesome! James is awesome! I would love to see the Starks though…but am glad to see what we got!
HildaQuote Reply
Lex,
Were they ever mentioned as Unsullied, though?
The Lightning LordQuote Reply
That’s funny, because when I was reading the books, I always read “Qarth” as “Quarth” (i.e. Kwarth) as well. However, I’m pretty sure it’s just “Karth”, right?
I’m not trying to nitpick here, so don’t get me wrong. Just curious. By any chance, can someone with the audio books give me the official pronunciation? If not, I suppose I’ll soon find out come Spring, one way or another.
Varamyr FourskinsQuote Reply
Yayyyy James Hibbard! You are my hero! Keep on keepin on!
Can’t wait for more…
Varamyr Fourskins,
Roy Dotrice says “Karth” and for the people, “kar – THEEN”.
userjQuote Reply
WHAT?! Where? Which episode?
LouisaQuote Reply
Louisa,
First episode, Illyrio uses unsullied as household guards. They’re in the scene where Drogo comes to Illyrio’s mansion and the wedding scene.
DogmayorQuote Reply
so NO CGI dragons AT ALL this season? That’s okay, as long as they let us clearly “see” that they are in those baskets. A little glimpse of a CGI dragon tail or something.
I guess it’ll either be CGI wolves OR CGI dragons every season.
G_LeeQuote Reply
G_Lee: The article didn’t say that the dragons will stay in the baskets all season long. You imagined that part.
mummerQuote Reply
Where is the photo of the dragons?
the Kneeling KnightQuote Reply
Alan,
Well you wouldn’t want fire breathing creatures in a normal bird cage.
Oi!Quote Reply
Actually it is said in the books (ASOS, I think) that those Unsullied who were sold in small groups to guard houses in the free cities became decadent and unfit. That’s why the Astaporians began selling them only in groups of 100 or 1000.
VirtusQuote Reply
mummer,
I know, its only speculation.
I thought the unsullied looked Great in Season 1!
G_LeeQuote Reply
Would you all believe I am still reading Dance with Dragons? Only about 200 pages left. I will re-read it with help from Tower of the hand when they put up their chapter summaries.
I swear, I don’t know what the hell is going on half the time in the book.
I want Starks, Lannsiters, Boltons, maybe some Freys, Dany, Melisandre, Jon at the Wall.
John Connington? Griff? Mazwat-mo-Grishnakh and and Umzat-mo-Mereen? (I made these up.)
Strange characters popping back up after 100 pages. How can anyone possibly know what is going on in this book?
Not my favorite Thrones book, but maybe it will grow on me.
And no, I am not a simpleton EZ reader. I done read me some darn big books in my time, young-un!
HollyoakQuote Reply
Hollyoak,
I wouldn’t know as I am stuck on page 73. Meereenese double knot, you see.
Epic failQuote Reply
I saw this on Collider first… you guys are getting slow…
TenesmusQuote Reply
Tenesmus,
Meh. This site has always operated like this. The critical stuff gets posted right away, the smaller bonus stuff, a little later. I have no problem with it.
OhDanyBoyQuote Reply
Virtus,
it’s not that they looked “unfit”. the costume design just looked incredibily cheesy imo.
SamQuote Reply
Those are Qartheen? They look much more Greek than I imagined (Qarth was always vaguely congruent with India in my imagination). Not a problem at all; I am very excited to see how HBO interprets these new cultures.
The dragon-carrying horse is pretty cool. I can’t wait to see more stellar CGI!
I think House of the Undying is still the ACOK moment I’m most looking forward to. If they don’t include it, I don’t know what I will do with myself.
LinaQuote Reply
userj,
Cool, thanks.
I don’t know why it is, but every time I see a word that starts with Q, I read it as making a Kw sound, as if all words that start with Q are followed by U… Weird.
Varamyr FourskinsQuote Reply
Lina,
Interesting, I always thought of Qarth as something more like Rome. It’s described as the center of all trade, the greatest city on earth, etc etc.
userjQuote Reply
I am not sure what was cheesy about Unsullied in Season 1. I think they were same as described in the book. As far as i remember – shield, spear, helmet with big spike (i think it was mentioned something about it being a foot tall). I am not sure if they were wearing tunic, armor or nothing in the book. But i think they were allright in the series. The half-nakedness quite fit them, as they are fearless almost as machines.
BTW i am also not sure, why i have someone elses icon when i write a post :-D It is definitely not mine, it is not me on the picture and i never had icon here before and i am not using fb or twitter account. So its mistery :-D
ExpendableQuote Reply
userj,
Your take is interesting as well. I’ve always thought of Valyria as Rome. Both are once-powerful empires that have since crumbled. Both have cultures that have defined the Western worlds. Just as Latin was the base for the Romance languages, High Valyrian was the base for the tongues of the Free Cities. Braavos, Pentos and company also all seem like Mediterranean-ish cities whose culture would have been based on Roman (or in their case, Valyrian) culture.
Qarth to me just seemed more Eastern. The colors and riches made me think of all my cultural references for India, and the citizens reminded me of Indian maharajas. And as an added note, Xaro, in my imagination, is basically a bedazzled Ben Kingsley.
I think it’s really interesting how different readers interpret the cultures in vastly different ways. I guess George has given us just enough clues to link his cultures to ones we can reference, but not enough to concretely define any inspiration.
LinaQuote Reply