Actor hints at a return to an important location in “The Winds of Winter”

“The Winds of Winter,” the finale of Game of Thrones Season 6 (and probably the last Episode 10 of the show) is nearly upon us. Thus far, the episode hasn’t leaked and everybody is doing a pretty good job of not spoiling it, although a few of the cast and crew members have dropped hints. Now, we have one more hint from an actor we haven’t seen since much earlier in the season. Stop reading now if you want to avoid SPOILERS.

Back in “Oathbreaker,” we traveled with Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven back in time to see a young Ned Stark and his fellows do battle with Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Gerold Hightower, both members of Aerys Targaryen’s kingsguard, outside the Tower of Joy in Dorne*. At the end of the battle, both Dayne and Hightower lay dead, and Ned Stark made a move to enter the tower. Unfortunately, the Three-Eyed Raven plucked Bran out of the vision before we could follow him inside.

We haven’t seen Bran since “Blood of My Blood,” but he’ll be in “The Winds of Winter.” Might we continue with his vision from “Oathbreaker?” A tweet from Eddie Eyre, who played Gerold Hightower, suggests it’s possible.

69 minutes of pure Joy, huh? Eyre may claim the pun wasn’t intended, but then why did he capitalize the word joy? We have our suspicious.

Also, on the subject of the episode length, while it’s true that HBO once listed “The Winds of Winter” as being 69 minutes long, it’s since amended that. According to the network’s official schedule, it’s 68 minutes long. Either way, it’s the longest episode in the show’s history. Maybe that extra minute will show up as a BluRay extra?

That’s the big news, but there are a couple other actors who are making noise online. For example, Dean S. Jagger, who played the late Smalljon Umber, posted this to his Instagram:

Cheeky, that. Also, Tobias Menzies gave an interview to Vulture about, among other things, what it was like to play Edmure Tully again after a few years away from Game of Thrones. Edmure, according to Menzies, characterizes his decision to turn the castle over to Jaime as “cowardly,” but the actor admitted that there could be more dimension to it.

"Edmure now, the man we met in these last few episodes, is not the man we met before, the almost comic, buffoonish character of season three. He has changed. And I guess you can’t be a hero unless you feel fear. So maybe he’s heroically being a coward! There certainly is a moral dimension to the scene with Jaime, the investigation of Jaime’s position, to see Edmure wrestling with that larger question."

He also gave his take on the overall theme of Game of Thrones.

"Game of Thrones seems increasingly a meditation on deeply flawed people. I don’t think there are many inherently good people. Everyone’s been compromised. Everyone’s in a position they don’t want to be in."

We’ll see if that theme rears its head in “The Winds of Winter” tonight.

*For the book-readers out there, I have no idea what happened to Oswell Whent.