Season 8: Huge new castle set rises in the Titantic Quarter in Belfast (UPDATED)

With the cast gathered in Belfast to film Game of Thrones season 8, fans are on the lookout for anything that might indicate what they’re going to shoot and where they’re going to shoot it. Los Siete Reinos has some fascinating new photos of an enormous set going up near the Paint Hall in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the show does much of its filming.

We’ve seen this set before, but it was in much smaller then. Here’s what it looked like the last time LSR checked in on it.

The new photos show that it’s come along quite a ways:

That…that is big. Although the set isn’t dressed yet, it looks like the facade for a castle, and an uncommonly large one.

LSR cautions that there’s no guarantee that the set is for Game of Thrones, but considering the expanse of it, and how frequently Game of Thrones makes use of this area, it’s a very good bet. But what might it be? The Red Keep? Storm’s End? Moat Cailin? Casterly Rock? And why would the production feel the need to build it? If they’re going to the trouble of constructing something rather than filming it piecemeal and using CGI to create the rest, odds are something big will go down there, possibly an action scene.

UPDATE: Okay, it’s definitely for an action scene. How do we know? Because Paulo Ross snapped a couple more pictures of the set…

…and you can clearly see an enormous trebuchet nearby — look on the right of the image below:

The trebuchet, a siege engine, is taller than the shipping containers to the right of it and the structure behind it. Whoever’s using it means business.

The other photo gives us a better sense of the castle set:

It’s made in two parts that have yet to be connected. Could we be looking at the entrance to a castle or city?

The production is building more of the Winterfell set this year, too — big is the name of the game.

Next: Game of Thrones theory corner: Davos, not Melisandre, raised Jon Snow from the dead

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h/t Irish Thrones