It sounds like House of the Dragon's Battle of the Gullet was almost filmed in a totally different way

In a few short weeks, HBO will debut the third season of its Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, and by all accounts it should be epic. Unlike the slow burn style of the show's first two seasons, season 3 will have to kick things into high gear to get through all the bloody turmoil of the Dance of the Dragons civil war laid out in George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood. That will start with the Battle of the Gullet, a vicious naval clash between the armada of Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and a pirate fleet from the Free Cities led by Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn).

The Gullet is interesting as Game of Thrones set pieces go in that it's been talked about extensively before airing. Originally, this chaotic battle was slated to serve as a capstone to season 2, but after it was mandated that House of the Dragon trim its sophomore outing from 10 episodes to eight, the battle was pushed back to season 3. Since the show has so many devoted fans who've read Martin's work, and since season 2 left off on the eve of the battle, the cast and crew of the series have been less cagey than usual about discussing what's ahead, with everyone from showrunner Ryan Condal to stars Steve Toussaint and Abubakar Salim (Alyn of Hull) hyping the Gullet up long before it's even hit our screens.

The trend continues. This week Toussaint is in attendance at SXSW London, where he reflected on the ambitious filming process for the Battle of the Gullet — including an abandoned plan for shooting it that has me wringing my hands with anxiety.

The Battle of the Gullet was originally going to be produced in South Africa

"It's mad. For people who know the story, they've all been excited and waiting for this particular battle, sea battle, which luckily for me...my character and my son are central to that," Toussaint said of the Gullet. "It's huge. I don't know what the budget was, but it was a lot. They built three ships, they built two tanks, a wet tank and a dry tank, and then they just squirted lots of water cannons at us, we cut people's heads off and they poured blood on us, and it's mayhem."

When the moderator noted that the entire battle was shot at Leavesden Studios in London, Toussaint laughed, revealing that while the Battle of the Gullet was filmed entirely on the studio backlot, that wasn't always the plan.

"When we were discussing shooting this sequence way back at the end of season 1, Ryan and Miguel [Sapochnik], our showrunners, said to me, 'When we come back to do the battle, we're gonna do it in South Africa,'" the actor recalled. "And I was like, 'Oh my god, I've never been to South Africa, and I know the seas are blue, the sun shining'...and then we started season 2 and they went, 'It won't be South Africa, it'll be Wales.' And I was like, 'Okay, Wales is good.' And then when we finally went to do it, they were like, 'We're just gonna do it on the backlot, we'll build it ourselves.'"

Toussaint is clearly joking around with this story, but it still tugs at a concern I've long held about the Battle of the Gullet: Game of Thrones as a franchise has a spotty history with naval battles, specifically with making them look real enough to be convincing. And knowing that the plan was once to film this important sequence in South Africa — the place where productions like Black Sails and One Piece set up shop to film convincing naval scenes — I can't help but feel those fears grow.

Yes, I know it might seem a little alarmist to worry about a battle scene that hasn't yet aired, and while I am personally still hoping the Battle of the Gullet is every bit as spectacular as Condal and company have promised, it's still worth taking a beat here to think about how the production managed to shrink from a sprawling South African practical shoot, or even a location shoot in Wales similar to what The Witcher season 4 did with its river setting for the Battle of the Bridge, to a bunch of backlot sets in London. I have no doubt that what we'll see on screen is going to push boundaries in a number of ways, especially where its dragons are concerned, but I'm much less confident in the ship-bound aspect of the clash.

The thing that caught my attention most about what Toussaint said is that it was Ryan Condal and former showrunner Miguel Sapochnik who originally pitched the idea to him of shooting the Battle of the Gullet in South Africa. When it comes to filming Game of Thrones battles, Sapochnik's track record is unparalleled; he's the director behind basically every top tier battle scene for the entire back half of the original show's run, including Hardhome, the Battle of the Bastards, The Long Night, and Daenerys' immolation of King's Landing. In the behind-the-scenes book Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon, Sapochnik stressed that the reason he pushed for the insane 11-week night shoot schedule for "The Long Night" was because without it, he feared the sequence wouldn't feel real, a defining trait in his opinion that made Game of Thrones resonate so much with fans.

With that in mind, I'm not surprised that Sapochnik might have had a hand in envisioning the Gullet being filmed more practically in South Africa. That's what Black Sails did with its ship combat, putting its actors on actual seaworthy ships, and many still stand as some of the most immersive naval combat scenes ever put to film because of it. But since Sapochnik exited the series after season 1, leaving Ryan Condal as the sole showrunner, this initial vision for filming has changed. Without Sapochnik's involvement, the production gradually shifted away from real, practical settings for this battle, something I have a hard time imagining the visionary director signing off on. Granted, I'm reading between the lines here, but I think what we saw from him on Game of Thrones supports the theory.

It all raises a question: how might the production for the Battle of the Gullet gone differently if Miguel Sapochnik were still involved in House of the Dragon? And even more importantly, can this show deliver a battle with scale, immersion, and technical mastery on the level of Sapochnik's best from Game of Thrones? If it does, the Battle of the Gullet could become every bit as iconic as the Battle of the Bastards. If not, it'll just be one more thing for fans who were disatisfied with season 2 to gripe about.

We don't have to wait long to find out. House of the Dragon season 3 is set to premiere on June 21, and there's a very good chance the Battle of the Gullet will occur in its opening episode. Stay tuned.

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