Video: Go behind the scenes of the Sept of Baelor sequence in “Uprooting the Rose”

Whenever Game of Thrones stages a sequence the production is particularly proud of, it does an extra behind-the-scenes breakdown with the folks who made it happen. From discussing the costumes and props at Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding in Season 4, to diving deep into the VFX that went into the creation of such violent battles as the Massacre at Hardhome and the attack on Daznak’s Pit, these “Anatomy of a Scene” videos are often times as fascinating to watch as the episode itself.

The sequence that opened “The Winds of Winter” was made for an “Anatomy of a Scenes” video. But this week’s climactic wildfire explosion wasn’t just a standalone exercise in how can we stretch what is normally done on a television budget to something beyond what we’ve seen onscreen before. It was a takedown of an entire phalanx of characters, including almost everyone from House Tyrell. This breakdown is so thorough that it gets its own completely separate subtitle, “Uprooting the Rose.”

Everyone is rounded up for this piece, including director Miguel Sapochnik producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who explain their choice to use wildfire, which was first introduced in Season 2, for this set piece. Many of the actors who were part of it also talk about their reactions to this scene, from Lena Headey (Cersei) to Eugene Simon (Lancel) to Jonathan Pryce (the High Sparrow), the High Sparrow and Natalie Dormer, who has my favorite line of the video when she says it’s the first time she’s filmed a big scene in the Sept of Baelor that didn’t involve her getting married.

Note that when the visual effects artists talk about blowing up the Sept, they don’t just discuss the 20-minute opening—we get shots of the smoking aftermath generated for Jaime’s return to the city. We also roll into the final scene in King’s Landing and Cersei taking the throne.

And it was also interesting to me that Bryan Cogman sees Tommen’s suicide as not part of Cersei’s plan. Personally, when I watched it, I saw Tommen being locked in his room watching this unfold as Cersei both punishing him for siding with those people against her, as well as a display of her power to him. I don’t think she wanted him to commit suicide, but there was an angle here where she had to know she was hurting him, and that’s why when he kills himself, she doesn’t mourn. She just keeps moving.

Sadly, the clip that goes with it is not the full 20-odd minute sequence. It’s just the final three in the Sept, from Margaery realizing that they all need to leave, now, to the Sept exploding while Cersei takes a sip of wine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFK0yG8xG5I

And for those, like me, who can’t get enough of that track that played under it, entitled “The Light of the Seven,” it is available on Spotify, as of yesterday.