Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray boxset

Deleted Scenes

The deleted scenes on the Season 5 set were okay. The ones on Season 6 were stronger. There are four, and all of them are interesting. HBO released one itself: a tête-à-tête between Olenna Tyrell and her son Mace after the latter returns to King’s Landing from Braavos.

That scene was cut from Episode 2, “Home.”

Another is cut from Episode 1, “The Red Woman.” It follows Dolorous Edd as he collects Ghost from his enclosure and brings him to help the Davos and the loyal Night’s Watchmen protect Jon Snow’s body. He has a brief, intense run-in with Alliser Thorne that doesn’t make a ton of sense (Thorne lets Edd go on his way, which seems odd considering how loyal Edd is known to be to Jon), so maybe it was best that it was cut. The most interesting thing about it are the incomplete special effects related to Ghost.

Finally, we get two deleted scenes that extend the play Arya sees in Braavos. None of it is important, but it’s a good laugh. The play, called “The Bloody Hand,” already served as a parody of the first five seasons of the show, but the production actually went a lot deeper than we saw. It’s particularly savage to King Robert, who slaps a lot of characters while screaming for more wine.

Also, the faux-Shakespearian dialogue is purposefully terrible, which is a lot of fun. No wonder Arya recommended Lady Crane rewrite it.

For the moment, you can watch all the deleted scenes on YouTube. Not sure how long that’ll be possible…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPbSNQnkwS4

Episode Commentaries

Season 6 comes with 13 commentaries, more than ever before.

• Episode 601, “The Red Woman”: Director Jeremy Podeswa, Director of Photography Greg Middleton, and Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne)
• Episode 602, “Home”: Writer Dave Hill, Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton), Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), and Ben Crompton (Dolorous Edd)
• Episode 603, “Oathbreaker”: Director Daniel Sackheim, Production Designer Deborah Riley, and Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon)
• Episode 604, “Book of the Stranger”: Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont), and Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm)
• Episode 605, “The Door” (2 commentaries): Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy), Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy), Ellie Kendrick (Meera Reed), and Kristian Nairn (Hodor); Prosthetics Supervisor Barrie Gower, Camera Operators Chris Plevin and Ben Wilson, and Executive Producer Bernadette Caulfield
• Episode 606, “Blood of My Blood”: Director Jack Bender, Director of Photography Jonathan Freeman, John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), and Hannah Murray (Gilly)
• Episode 607, “The Broken Man”: Producer/Writer Bryan Cogman, Ian McShane (Septon Ray), and Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell)
• Episode 608, “No One”: Director Mark Mylod, Essie Davis (Lady Crane), and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister)
• Episode 609, “Battle of the Bastards” (2 commentaries): Director Miguel Sapochnik, Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), and Kit Harington (Jon Snow); Director of Photography Fabian Wagner, Visual Effects Producer Steve Kullback, and Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Bauer
• Episode 610, “The Winds of Winter” (2 commentaries): Executive Producers/Writers David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), and Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister); Special Effects Supervisor Sam Conway, Camera Operator Sean Savage, and Producer Chris Newman

As we did for Season 5, we’ll be diving into all of the commentaries in detail a bit later. As per usual, the ones that feature writers and directors are more illuminating than the ones with actors. But the actors are funnier.

The extras: Blu-ray

The Blu-ray set has a couple of extra things going for it. First of all, it has In-Episode Guides for each episode of the season. Turning on this feature while watching an episode allows you to access helpful text bubbles that fill you in on information regarding the characters, locations, and history involved in any given scene.

It’s a neat little bauble, but the reason to spring for the Blu-ray set, apart from the improved visual quality, is the History and Lore videos, animated shorts exploring different points of Game of Thrones mythology.

Histories and Lore:

The production really went all out with these videos, as if trying to relay as much information as possible while it still has time. There are a whopping 18 shorts in all, and a lot of them are terrific. They are:

• The Old Way: narrated by Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk). Euron Greyjoy made a minor splash, at best, in Game of Thrones Season 6, but he makes a good showing in these videos. His mania comes across especially well here, when he talks about his obsession with that old Ironborn religion.
• The Kingsmoot: narrated by Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk). The video on the Kingsmoot doubles as a primer on some of the more notable Ironborn kings before Aegon’s conquest.
• The Summer Sea: narrated by Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk). Euron takes us on a tour of some of the more far-flung areas of Essos here, including the Basilisk Isles, the Summer Isles, and Yi Ti.
• War of the Ninepenny Kings: narrated by Brother Ray (Ian McShane). For anybody who despaired that Septon Meribald’s “Broken Man” speech from A Feast for Crows didn’t make it onscreen, take heart that it turns up here.

• The Great Tourney at Harrenhal: narrated by Meera Reed (Ellie Kendrick). This is Meera telling the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree from a A Storm of Swords.
• Robert’s Rebellion: narrated by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). We’ve had explorations of Robert’s Rebellion before, but this one is told from Jaime’s perspective, and also fills in details of his early relationship with Jaime. Coster-Waldau does an especially emotive job with this one.
• Vaes Dothrak: narrated by Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). Jorah catches us up on the history and society of Vaes Dothrak, since we haven’t seen it in a good long while.
• The Dothraki: narrated by Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). Jorah gets into some obscure stuff here, describing the Dothraki’s massacring of the Tagaez Fen (Tall Men) long before the events of the series proper.
• Northern Allegiances to House Stark: narrated by Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). Sansa is in full avenging angel mode as she narrates an absorbing short dedicated to houses like Manderly, Glover, Mormont, and Umber. Her final lines: “The North remembers who united it. The North remembers who defended it, and the North remembers who stole it. Long ago, my ancestors spared the Boltons, trusting their oaths of fealty. I shall correct that mistake. Even the North can forget when there’s nothing left to remember.”
• Children of the Forest vs. the First Men: narrated by the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow). HBO released this short ahead of time. No one does sonorous narration like Max von Sydow.

• Brotherhood Without Banners: narrated by Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye). Now that the Brotherhood Without Banners is back in the picture, it’s time for a refresher with Thoros of Myr.
• Oldtown: narrated by Grand Maester Pycelle (Julian Glover) and Qyburn (Anton Lesser). This is easily the funniest short. It’s structured like an argument between Pycelle and Qyburn, with Pycelle describing Oldtown’s illustrious history while Qyburn discusses its seedier and more mysterious aspects.
• House Dayne: narrated by Young Ned Stark (Robert Aramayo). This video doesn’t limit itself to the history of Arthur Dayne. We get to know several of the famous Daynes throughout history, as well as what became of the Dawn, House Dayne’s ancestral sword.
• The Little Birds, narrated by Lord Varys (Conleth Hill). Varys narrates his rise from common cutpurse to Master of Whisperers, and explains how important the little orphan boys and girls he trained to follow in his footsteps were to his operation. He seems to be unsure of what happened to his charges after he left King’s Landing. Let’s hope Qyburn never gets the chance to turn Varys’ followers against him.
• Knights of the Vale, narrated by Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish (Aidan Gillen). Littlefinger is a bit of an odd choice for this video, but he tells an interesting story. It’s mainly focused on an ancient battle between the group of First Men who originally held the Vale and the Andal invaders who would become the first Knights of the Vale. The defeated First Men went on to become the hill tribes, so they got the short end of the stick there.
• House Tarly, narrated by Randyll Tarly (James Faulkner). Faulkner’s rich voice anchors this short. The history of House Tarly is interesting, but Randyll’s withering recount of Sam’s upbringing is the highlight. Apparently, Randyll dressed Sam up in his mother’s clothes and paraded him around the castle to “shame him into valor.” Yeesh, poor Sam.
• Riverrun, narrated by Brynden ‘the Blackfish’ Tully (Clive Russell). “In the long and glorious history of men butchering each other, we riverfolk make the best meat.” Whoever writes these things (I think Bryan Cogman has a hand in them) comes up with some good lines. Here, the Blackfish exposits about the defensive advantages of the ancestral Tully castle.
• Great Sept of Baelor, narrated by the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce). The High Sparrow’s passionate description of the Sept of Baelor underlines what a shame it is that the whole thing exploded.

Between all of these videos, we get exploration of some very obscure topics, including the Southron Ambitions conspiracy theory, Ashara Dayne, and even the Deep Ones. It goes to show how crazy detailed George R.R. Martin’s world is. It’s just a shame more of this minutia couldn’t make it onto the show. However, I’m glad to see proof that the producers are aware of it.

The season

At the end of the day, this is what you’ve come for. Season 6 was an exciting, propulsive year of Game of Thrones, and well-worth putting on your shelf.