It’s almost here. After five years of waiting, fans of the Song of Ice and Fire books will finally get to see an onscreen adaptation of the fight at the Tower of Joy. The fight was first described from memory by Ned Stark in A Game of Thrones, but the show will likely let us see quite a bit more than what he revealed, and the implications for several characters in the story promise to be huge.
True, HBO hasn’t officially confirmed that we’re getting a Tower of Joy scene yet, but it’s not really fooling anyone at this point. A handful of weeks back, there was unofficial confirmation from some inside sources that the castillo de Zafra, a 12th-century castle located in Guadalajara, Spain, would be standing in for the Tower of Joy, and that’s saying nothing of the mountain of circumstantial evidence that we’ll be visiting the tower at some point during Season 6. Filming at the castillo de Zafra will run from September 28 through September 30, and according to La Vanguardia, the areas around the castillo are ready to receive the production team.
Daniel Sanz, the owner of the castillo, will be on hand for the filming, and mayor Francisco Garcia hopes that the production will bring some money into the nearby town. Around 200 people from the Game of Thrones production staff are expected to be on hand for the scene, and Garcia is helping to find accommodations for both them and their equipment. Sanz has revealed that the production staff has permission to film both outside and inside the castillo, but doesn’t know exactly what’s planned. More likely, the show will shoot material outside the castillo, and then shoot the interiors on a sound stage in Northern Ireland.
And what actors will be involved in the shoots? In A Game of Thrones, Ned Stark describes the fight as a battle between him, together with a group of his fellow soldiers, and three members of the then-current Kingsguard. Among those Kingsguard knights was Arthur Dayne, aka the Sword of the Morning, aka the deadliest sword-fighter in the west(eros). It’s been expected that Arthur Dayne would play a part in Season 6 ever since a casting call for a “legendary fighter” who wields a famous sword (Arthur Dayne wielded a famous blade forged from a meteorite) surfaced a few months back. Whoever got cast would be shooting “spectacular fight scenes” and would be on set for a week starting September 25th. The call went out of its way to ask for excellent sword-fighting skills, so it seems clear that it was casting Arthur Dayne.
Now we get into speculation territory, so the wary among you may wish to turn back. Even though all signs pointed to Arthur Dayne being cast in Game of Thrones Season 6, there was no announcement regarding an actor. However, it was announced a few weeks ago that an actor named Eddie Eyre would appear in Season 6 as Ser Alfred Hunrith, a character no one had ever heard of before. At the time, a few savvy commenters took a close look at Eyre’s CV and figured that “Alfred Hunrith” was just a front. Given Eyre’s qualifications (he’s listed as being “highly skilled” at sword fighting and stage combat), they figured he was actually the guy who would play Dayne.
Is Eddie Eyre our Arthur Dayne? Prooooooobably yes. Photo by John Goodwin.
The question is this: is Eyre playing acting Dayne or fighting Dayne, assuming he’s playing Dayne at all? You see, a while after the first casting call leaked, there was a second call with what looked like a revamped description of Arthur Dayne. HBO was still looking for someone to project the aura of a legendary fighter, but noted that “he flamboyant aspects of the fighting will be taken over by a stunt fighter but we need someone who looks like they can take care of themselves.” Maybe they looked for someone who could handle both the acting and sword-fighting aspects of Dayne’s character, failed, and decided to subdivide?
What’s more, the second call specified that shooting would take place in Northern Ireland during the week starting September 28th, the same week the show will be shooting at the castillo de Zafra in Spain. Assuming both of these calls are for different versions of Dayne, it seems like acting Dayne (probably Eyre) will be filming his lines on a soundstage in Northern Ireland (inside the Tower of Joy), while fighting Dayne—the stunt double—will be filming outside the castillo de Zafra.
Another possibility is that Eyre will be playing a young Ned Stark, both acting fighting divisions, and that someone else will play Dayne. It’s possible we’re making this too complicated—hopefully things clear up a bit when shooting begins in Guadalajara in a little over a week.