Every SPOILER we know for Game of Thrones season 8

HBO built an ENORMOUS King’s Landing set in Belfast

A couple slides back, we said that HBO filmed some King’s Landing scenes in Dubrovnik, and that’s true. But they also built a stupidly big King’s Landing set on a backlot at Titanic Studios in Belfast. And I am not exaggerating when I call it stupid big. This thing is so massive HBO is planning to preserve it as a tourist attraction.

It’s hard to convey the hugeness of this set in words, so let’s try pictures. Here’s what it looked like when construction began…

…and here’s what it looks like finished (be sure to click the image below to zoom in for a better view):

The crew built a whole city street. At one end there’s the gate…

…and at the other end, the front of the Red Keep:

In between, there are all manner of buildings. Notice the stately white tower to the right of the center of this picture…

…and this cool dome, which may be the top of a sept:

There are plenty of props on set, too, like this massive trebuchet…

…and this huge crossbow, which is likely an updated version of the one Bronn used to shoot Drogon out of the air in “The Spoils of War”:

All that, and HBO has built even more set we can’t see inside Titanic Studios itself:

Holy god, you guys, this thing is big. But why would HBO build it in the first place? In past seasons, they’ve always just filmed King’s Landing scenes in real-life cities. Why spend the money and time to build a ginormous set?