Game of Thrones creators: the theme of Season 6 is “homecoming”

Even hours before the Game of Thrones Season 6 premiere, interviews are still coming in. The most interesting is probably this recent one in Variety, where showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss go big picture on Season 6. For example, here’s what they had to say when asked if the new season had a particular theme.

"Benioff: “We talked about home a lot.”Weiss: “A lot of homecoming. Coming home.”"

That brings a bunch of things to mind. First of all, we note that the second episode of the season is entitled “Home.” It also puts us in mind of the many characters who are living in exile—Arya, Tyrion, and of course Daenerys, who has been trying to make her way home to Westeros since Season 1. Will Season 6 find them on their way?

Characters coming home is bound up with the idea of characters meeting each other for the first time, or reuniting with each other after years apart, something Benioff mentioned was particularly exciting to write.

"Characters who have been separated for many seasons, seeing them reunited. Characters who have never met over the course of the show, seeing them come together for the first time. Those things become very exciting for us, both to write the scenes and also just as audience members to watch them."

Weiss mentioned the meeting between Tyrion and Daenerys in Season 5, and said that it “in its own way is as exciting as a battle of thousands of people fighting thousands of people.” He’s said there’s more of that kind of stuff on the way, and if it’s as entertaining as the Tyrion-Dany summit, we could be in for a great season indeed.

Benioff and Weiss also tease the all-important ninth episode of the season, although Weiss notes that, as important as it’ll be this year, they didn’t structure the season around it. “It’s not about let’s save all our marbles for this one scene in episode nine,” he said. “There are a lot of marbles in episode nine, but there are a lot of marbles all over the place. It’s just all marbles.”

Elsewhere on the internet, Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton) sat down for an interview with The Telegraph. He talked about the ever-more complicated relationship between Roose and Ramsay, and said that while Roose can be a difficult man to please, he does appreciate his son. After all, Ramsay helped him take Moat Cailin and defeat Stannis.

"I think there has to be something more than just “you are the heir to my throne”. There’s a Bolton kind of love, which does not speak its name! There’s something there but they are both very cold, twisted characters and it’s as a result of that that Ramsay is the way he is."

So there you go: Roose loves Ramsay, but it’s with a Bolton kind of love, the scariest kind there is.