Season 8 speculation: What are all those [SPOILERS] doing outside the Winterfell set?

The Game of Thrones production is still filming material at the Winterfell set in Moneyglass, Northern Ireland, and things are looking grim. What story do these recently released pictures from the set tell? Let’s get to speculating. Beware plentiful SPOILERS.

The new pics come courtesy of @GoTlikeLocation and show the aftermath of a battle at Winterfell, with the corpses of men and horses alike littering the ground:

But the excitement at the Winterfell set started long before, back in January, when photographers noticed armed extra milling about the refurbished Winterfell set at night.

Reports put the number of extras at somewhere between 400 and 500, further suggesting that we were in for some kind of battle sequence. In the video below, a group of them chant something in unison at the 0:45 mark. Are they trying to break into the castle?

Where have we heard that sound before? During the Battle of the Bastards, when Ramsay Bolton’s army traps Jon Snow’s dwindling forces between a literal wall of dead bodies and an advancing line of Bolton men holding long spears and shields. The chant they make sounds very similar to the men in the video above.

Our read is that there’s an army trying to break into Winterfell. And if they can chant, it’s probably not an army of wights. Sure, wights snarl, whine, growl and wheeze, but they don’t chant.

It’s hard to know what army it is, though. It’s possible they’re on Cersei’s side, although she outright told her brother Jaime that the Lannister forces weren’t going north, since she wanted her enemies to kill each other. Still, Cersei is fully capable of going back on her word, so anything is possible.

Whatever army it is, it explains the corpses outside the castle. No matter who attacks Winterfell, there will be fallout.

What these photos don’t show us, however, is what happens next. Even if the Night King isn’t present at this particular clash, he could be by before long, and that means that any corpses stand to become new soldiers in the army of the dead, as happened after the Massacre at Hardhome.

Now, this photo could be something as harmless as the crew staging the field, extras milling about after the scene has been filmed, or, they could be extras playing wights…milling about after the scene has been filmed.

The crew has been filming at the Winterfell set for over a month, and there’s no indication that it’s going to stop. What do you make of this? What armies are we dealing with here?

Next: Season 8 filming: Massive green screen erected in Magheramorne Quarry

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