Season 8 filming: A swordfight before Easter

Of late, the Game of Thrones production has been hard at work filming scenes for season 8 at Magheramorne Quarry in Northern Ireland, to the point where fascinating new details seem to be leaking out every day. According to Twitter account @GoTlikeLocation, a tremendously reliable source of on-set footage, the crew is taking a break for the Easter holiday. But before they go, @GoTlikeLocation posted one more behind-the-scenes video for us to examine. Watch it below, and beware minor SPOILERS.

"Jeez, Dany, no need to gorge on the chocolate bunny. from freefolk"

The video looks similar to a lot of what we’ve seen over the past couple of days: the cast and crew are filming in front of an enormous green screen at night, with fires burning on set and a lot of extras milling about. When you watch it, pay attention to the bottom right-hand corner of the green screen. You’ll see several actors shooting (or rehearsing) a sword-fighting sequence in silhouette:

Here’s a stabilized, close-up version of the fight:

First of all, it’s always fun to see sword-fighting on this show. The last time Game of Thrones went all in on an elaborate sword fight was probably when we saw a young Eddard Stark and his comrades fight Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Gerald Hightower at the Tower of Joy in Dorne, glimpsed by way of one of Bran’s trips into the past. That was a blast of a sequence, and if you watch the fight in the video above, it looks as though it too features one guy fighting several.

As for who the combatants are, it’s impossible to tell, although we can see that some of them are wearing helms and cloaks, meaning they’re probably not main cast cast members — if you’re a leading cast member, your face must be bared for the camera, safety be damned. Really, it’s interesting that members of the living are fighting each other at all — based on everything we’re seen over the past couple weeks, the production is using this set to film a massive battle between the armies of Westeros and the army of the dead, and you’d think that now would be the time for the living to come together. On the other hand, we know that a lot of different factions will be present for this battle, and the impulse towards in-fighting is very strong in this world.

It’s also possible that these combatants are filming a different scene entirely — HBO can put anything it wants on the green screen, after all — but it seems more likely that this is part of the bigger battle sequence.

What do you guys make of this? And happy Easter.

Next: And now Amazon is spending $1 billion to adapt a series of science fiction novels

To stay up to date on everything Game of Thrones, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels