HBO has uploaded the Inside the Episode segments airs after every episode of Game of Thrones. This week, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss discuss some of the pivotal moments from “Stormborn.”
This week’s offering begins with a discussion of the scene where Arya Stark encounters a long-lost friend. (If you haven’t seen the episode yet, here there be SPOILERS.)
As Weiss points out, Arya’s line when Nymeria leaves — “That’s not you” — is a callback to season 1, when Arya’s father Ned tries to convince her that she’ll be happy one day as the lady of a castle and married to some lord. “That’s not me,” she responds. Like Arya, Nymeria is her own woman…wolf…being. Arya’s not domesticated and it makes total sense that her wolf wouldn’t be either.
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Next, the two discuss Jon Snow’s decision to personally answer the summons from Daenerys Targaryen. Jon knows the North needs dragonglass and that there’s a ton of it under Dragonstone. He also knows they need powerful allies if they want a chance to beat the Night King, and that dragons would be pretty useful in a fight against ice zombies.
As David Benioff notes, this isn’t an easy decision for Jon. “He doesn’t have that many good decisions left. It’s the best of a series of horrible choices.”
Dany’s war council is the next topic of discussion, as Weiss draws our attention to the fact that there aren’t that many situations on television or in film where four women are in a strategy session discussing power and war. “I think it’s a scene that had it been the exact same information, situation being put forward by a bunch of old grizzled guys with gray beards, it would have been a lot less interesting.”
Finally, we take a deeper look at Euron Greyjoy’s assault on his niece and nephew’s fleet. The final segment is actually part of a longer mini-documentary called “Battling the Silence” — it explores how the the battle sequence was shot, and in addition to talks with Weiss and Benioff includes interviews with Gemma Whelan (Yara), Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy) director Mark Mylod, production designer Deborah Riley, and more. Watch it below!
Asbæk seems like he enjoys the work. Perhaps too much? It’s a good fit for Euron, at any rate.
David Benioff points out that, however manic the scene is, the close-ups of Euron, Yara and Theon’s faces were the most important part of the sequence, which took “weeks and weeks” to film.
Next: Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke and others discuss the war room scene from 'Stormborn'
Finally, HBO uploaded a clip from the episode to the Game of Thrones YouTube page. The clip for this week: Arya’s reunion with Nymeria.
Aw.
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