Season 8 filming: New images reveal big changes to the King’s Landing set

While most of the Game of Thrones cast members are gathered in Seville, the production has been making some major alterations to the massive King’s Landing set in Belfast. We’ve watched for months as HBO built its largest practical set ever; they’ve put so much work into it they even plan to leave it standing as a tourist attraction when shooting is over. But tourists may not get to experience the set as we’ve seen it up to now.

SPOILERS follow below.

We’ve known for quite some time that a battle will take place at King’s Landing during season 8. Even if we hadn’t seen Dothraki riders and Unsullied soldiers show up on set, we could have guessed that; you don’t build something this huge for decoration. No; HBO built the King’s Landing set so it could blow it up.

We now have an idea of what that will look like. One of the most prominent features of the set are two stout stone towers to either side of the front gate. Here’s what they looked like in their finished state:

Now, images from Twitter user A Red Priestess show that the towers have been decimated:

Here’s a closer look:

It looks like the tops of the towers have been exploded to smithereens. The platforms and scaffolding that once stood there are no more. We can’t think of anything but a dragon that could do this to stone towers. But which dragon?

Another shot, same devastation:

It’s not surprising to see this part of the set change like this. The first thing HBO built here was a nasty gash in the stone wall. Then it built a solid gate over it, with those towers to either side. From the start, we’ve expected that someone or something would blast through the gate and make their way inside the city.

Finally, we have a shot of the Red Keep facade, the Lannister banners that used to adorn it gone.

Has someone evicted Cersei? Or were the banners just removed for a good dusting? Who or what caused all the damage to the towers? We have so many questions.

Next: Emilia Clarke steps out at the premiere of Solo

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