Small Council: What do we want out of a Season 6 trailer?

It’s February and the trailer for Game of Thrones Season 6 still isn’t here. It can’t be long now. What are we hoping the trailer delivers? Who do we want to see, what do we want to see them doing, and what tone do we want the trailer to have? What makes a good season trailer, anyway? The Small Council is in session.

DAN: It’s a little odd to be into February and not have a trailer for the next season of Game of Thrones. To assuage any nerves out there, we figure the Season 6 trailer will drop on Sunday, February 14, the day that HBO’s Vinyl has its series premiere. It’d make sense for HBO to try and drum up some interest in its new show by dropping a trailer for its most popular show right beforehand.

But if the Season 6 trailer comes out earlier, we wouldn’t complain.

As to what I’d like out of a trailer, I find myself most anxious to get a look at Euron Greyjoy. Euron sweeps onto the scene commandingly in A Feast for Crows, so commandingly that it almost stretches credulity. If the producers are going to pull the character off, he will need to drip with charisma in every frame, and I expect that to come through in the trailer. Danish actor Pilou Asbæk will be playing Euron, and while I’m not familiar with Asbæk’s work, I’m eager to see what he brings to the table.

More generally, I want what I always want when it comes to a new trailer: to be overcome with excitement for the coming season. It’s worked so far.

On a sidenote, I’m hoping the action isn’t underscored with a piece of modern-day music, as the producers are wont to do. It’s worked better in some trailers than in others, but it always takes me out of the mood. Composer Ramin Djawadi has done some amazing work for the show—spotlight it!

ANI:

WHAT DO WE WANT?
THE SEASON 6 GAME OF THRONES TRAILER
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
RIGHT AFTER SEVERAL TEASERS INFORMING US WHICH NIGHT TO TUNE IN AND CATCH IT AHEAD OF WHATEVER HBO IS TRYING TO PROMOTE THIS SEASON

While we’re chanting and picketing because we’ve somehow made it all the way to February with nothing to show for it but BranTree and a couple of banners flapping in the wind, it’s time to get real about how little the show is giving us ahead of this season. You know what else we’ve made it into February without seeing hide nor hair of? A Game of Thrones production special documenting the making of Season 6. Look, I’m not asking for a full 30-minute behind-the-scenes piece like last year’s “A Day In The Life.” I’ll happily take a 15 minute “You Win Or You Die” style recap with a few shots of footage for the upcoming season. But the fact that we have seen nothing coming down the pike on this—nothing on the HBO published schedule, which at this point runs through St. Patrick’s Day—as well as nothing on a trailer, points to one conclusion. Argue all you want that the season is starting “later” (by 14 whole days! And yet we have nothing?); no, Game of Thrones is doing everything it can to keep all those spoilers we superfans have been passing around the internet as quiet as possible, and that means giving us as little as possible when it comes to promotional content.

Because, let’s face it: they don’t have to. They don’t have to show us squat, and the internet still melts down, just at the idea we might have seen something officially confirming spoiler XYZ or Y2J. Like the Super Bowl, there’s no need to advertise; we’re doing it for them. They could literally do ZERO trailers this season and drop the show on April 24th, and it would still be the biggest thing on TV, because everyone—and that should be said in the most Gary Oldman-esque over the top style—will tune in to see if Jon Snow will rise again.

So what do I want from a trailer? FOR THERE TO BE ONE. Please, Benioff and Weiss, be kind.

KATIE: I’m on board with you, Ani, although I hadn’t realized how close we were getting until this week’s Small Council pointed it out to me. But considering all the “Who’s gone for good?” cliffhangers we left off with in the Season 5 finale, it’s no small wonder that HBO is trying to keep the details under wraps.

It almost generates more buzz this way—we not only speculate about where the next season is going, but the sheer magnitude of events that HBO considers so big that they have to be kept secret. What are you hiding, Benioff and Weiss? Perhaps not anything out of the ordinary at all, but lack of a full-length trailer is suggesting just enough to make us wonder. Maybe Season 6 is going to shatter every illusion we’ve held about the goings-on in Westeros, maybe the wildest fan theories will be proven true, maybe we can’t even imagine the wildest theories, or maybe the producers just want a good laugh at fans’ expense while we sweat over our laptops, waiting for a trailer to show up.

We don’t have too much of substance to make an educated guess, but it looks like HBO might be taking a leaf out of Beyoncé’s book when she dropped her self-titled album: don’t give the fans anything, and then watch us jump when you finally do. Game of Thrones really does sell itself, but I’d certainly like to see something with a little more punch to it than the teasers we’ve gotten so far. I’m not picky on the details; anything will do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxPytRkA5E

RAZOR: I don’t want much…I’d like to see Jon Snow up and about, and making snow angels with his pal Ghost. I’d like to see the gods make Sansa into a bird so she can fly far away. Far, far away from here. And then, at the end of the trailer, I’d like to see Lady Stoneheart walk into Walder Frey’s bedroom and, while he watches in terror, pull her hood back to reveal who she really is, as she draws a blade across his throat…again, I don’t want much.

In all seriousness, I’d like the Season 6 trailer to give us the briefest looks at Bastard Bowl ’16. Even if it’s a few seconds, I want to see Wun Wun stomping through waves of Bolton men like they were nothing but sacks of meat to be squished between his giant’s toes. I also would’t mind a glimpse of Jon Snow either opening his eyes, or at least showing us his face again, so that we can all obsess over what that means for another two months. Come on HBO, make my dreams come true.

CAMERON: I’m less concerned about the content of the trailer and more concerned in its packaging. In Season 2, we got the great “Seven Devils” trailer with Florence + the Machine providing an epic soundtrack to the show’s upcoming year. Season 3 gave us MS MR’s “Bones”—another lady with an ethereal quality to her voice, getting everyone’s hearts racing in sync with clips from the new season. I dunno what could be in store for us this year, but I miss these kind of trailers; I was kinda hoping it’d become a yearly thing after Season 3. Just gimme one, HBO! Just gimme one more before the show finishes in two years!

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