Game Of Thrones - Season 6
Season 6 of Game of Thrones was formally commissioned by HBO on 8 April 2014, following a substantial increase in audience figures between the third and fourth seasons. The fifth and sixth seasons were commissioned simultaneously, the first time HBO has done so for a major drama series.
The season consists of ten episodes. It began filming in late July 2015 and concluded on December 17, 2015. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss returned as executive producers and showrunners for both seasons five and six, having signed a new two-year contract with HBO in early 2014.
The season premieres on April 24, 2016.
Season 6 is based on the hitherto unreleased sixth novel of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, The Winds of Winter, along with a significant amount of material from the fourth and fifth books, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, which run concurrently but follow different sets of characters.
Plot
Winter has come.
Westeros braces for a winter which may become a new Long Night, as the White Walkers and their army of the dead are poised to strike against the Wall and the realms of men.
In King's Landing, Queen Cersei Lannister has been publicly shamed by the Faith of the Seven and awaits her trial for regicide and incest. Even Grand Maester Pycelle has abandoned her, and called her uncle, Ser Kevan Lannister, to rule as the new Hand of the King. Even though Cersei has been released to their custody, her inept leadership nearly destroyed House Lannister's hold on the throne and they have no intention of ever letting her wield power again. Kevan and Pycelle must attempt to mend the damage Cersei did to the Lannister-Tyrell alliance. The Lannisters and Tyrells on Kevan's Small Council maintain a shaky truce as they attempt to deal with the ongoing debt crisis to the Iron Bank of Braavos, as well as the rise of the fanatical Faith Militant due to Cersei's blunders. Cersei meanwhile, though seemingly humbled, still has a few schemes she will attempt to play to regain control.
In the North, the Boltons have triumphed over King Stannis — but in the distraction, Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy have escaped, desperately jumping off Winterfell's castle walls. Brienne of Tarth, who executed Stannis, must now deal with the consequences of putting her vow to avenge King Renly before her oath to protect Sansa.
In the Riverlands, after the Red Wedding the remaining Tully forces (who were not present at the massacre of their Northern allies) pulled back to Riverrun castle - where they have been hopelessly besieged by House Frey's army ever since. The garrison is under the command of Robb Stark's great-uncle Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully, and is the last bastion of Robb's short-lived independent kingdom that remains unconquered. Riverrun's garrison may be surrounded and alone, fighting for a dead king, but their defenses are formidable, they have enough food supplies to last for years, and their commander is one of the most experienced and skilled generals in Westeros. The Lannisters and their Frey allies cannot let the siege of Riverrun continue to drag on if they are ever to claim real control over central Westeros.
In Dorne, Ellaria Sand's poisoning of Cersei's daughter, the Princess Myrcella, may now force Doran Martell into the war against the Iron Throne he has been fervently trying to avoid.
Across the Narrow Sea, in the Free City of Braavos, Arya Stark killed Meryn Trant without the Faceless Men's permission — but without the proper training, the use of one of their masks has poisoned her and rendered her blind. Her training continues, as now the blind little girl must learn to rely on her other senses to survive.
In Slaver's Bay, Daenerys Targaryen's attempt to liberate Meereen has resulted in massive bloodshed, with the former slave masters conspiring to retake the city. In a large scale ambush on the opening day of the games in Daznak's Pit however, Daenerys climbed onto Drogon's back to try to escape the danger — but she could not make him return to the city. Instead, the young dragon flew north to the southern border of the Dothraki Sea, the lands of his birth, where the stranded Daenerys has been surrounded by a hostile Dothraki khalasar numbering in the thousands. Jorah Mormont and Daario Naharis have set out to search for her. Meanwhile, back in the city Daenerys's advisors Tyrion Lannister, Missandei, and Grey Worm are joined by Varys in attempting to hold together rule over the city wracked by the ongoing insurgency until Daenerys returns — if she returns at all.
At the Wall, Lord Commander Jon Snow attempted to prepare for the coming of the White Walkers by letting as many wildlings through to the south as he could — but tens of thousands more were killed and resurrected as undead wights at Hardhome. The leading Night's Watch officers, increasingly upset at Jon's proposed alliance with the wildlings, have staged a mutiny "for the Watch" and stabbed Jon multiple times until he fell.
Just before the mutiny against Jon Snow, he sent away Samwell Tarly to go to the Citadel in Oldtown in order to train to be a new maester to replace Maester Aemon after his passing. Samwell takes Gilly and her young son with him, rather than leave them in the path of the White Walkers. Oldtown, Westeros's second largest city, is located in the southwest of the Reach, not far away from Sam's former home, the House Tarly castle-seat at Horn Hill. Samwell and Gilly, however, face a long and difficult sea voyage before they get to the Citadel.
Distracted by the political intrigues in King's Landing, the exhausted lords of Westeros must now brace for the rise of the kraken — the ironborn led by House Greyjoy. Early in the War of the Five Kings, Balon Greyjoy declared the Iron Islands' independence and raided the North while the Stark's army was fighting in the south. Having remained relatively uninvolved ever since, the ironborn's massive fleet remains at full strength, a fact lost on the major powers of the mainland, who have been nearly exhausted fighting each other.
All of this changes with the sudden return of Balon's exiled younger brother Euron Greyjoy — cunning, ruthless, manipulative, and more than a little insane, he strikes fear even into the other ironborn. He pushes for the ironborn to launch massive new offensives against the other kingdoms, not simply to raid, but to hold and conquer territory, as Euron's ultimate ambition is nothing less than to conquer all of the Seven Kingdoms. He is opposed by Balon's daughter Yara Greyjoy, who urges that the Iron Islands must preserve their strength and engage in diplomacy with the mainland if they are to survive.
And as the winds of winter begin to sweep through the south, far Beyond the Wall the young Bran Stark has been staying with the last of the Children of the Forest and his new mentor, the Three-eyed raven, in order to hone his abilities. Bran will not walk again, but he has learned to fly.
Adaptation
While prior seasons followed a format of adapting roughly one book's worth of material per year (or one large book across two seasons, in the case of Season 3 and most of Season 4), Season 5 heavily condensed together most of the fourth and fifth novels in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. The fourth and fifth novels did occur simultaneously, and were originally intended to be one massive novel (the fourth novel focuses on events in the Seven Kingdoms and the Free Cities, and the fifth on events at the Wall, in the North and in Slaver's Bay, with the last third outpacing the fourth novel). The result is that by the end of Season 5 most - though not all - storylines in the TV series caught up with the current novels, including:
- Jon Snow and the Night's Watch
- Daenerys Targaryen and Meereen, including Tyrion Lannister
- King's Landing, including Cersei Lannister and Margaery Tyrell (except for one additional Small Council chapter)
- Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish and The Vale
Sansa Stark's storyline in the Vale was merged with Jeyne Poole's from the fifth novel, who is forced to marry Ramsay; Sansa's Vale storylines have now been diverted while she has reached the end of Jeyne Poole's material from the most recent novel.
- Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre
Davos Seaworth was involved in other subplots in the North which were cut, but with Stannis's defeat now it is unknown if these will be drawn on later.
- Roose Bolton and Ramsay Bolton
- Bran Stark, Hodor, and Meera Reed - already caught up at the end of Season 4, except for one chapter.
- Theon Greyjoy, except for his experiences after escaping Winterfell.
Season 5 was heavily condensed, however, and two entire books worth of storylines simply could not fit into a single season. Therefore, several subplots were pushed back until Season 6, including:
- Almost the entire House Greyjoy subplot since the second novel. The Greyjoys barely appear in the third novel (corresponding to Seasons 3 and 4), but then the narrative shifts to put a major focus on them in the fourth and fifth novels. Yara Greyjoy (called Asha Greyjoy in the books) even becomes a POV narrator. In contrast, the Greyjoys (as a faction, not including Theon) did not appear at all in Season 5.
- Though the Dorne subplot was introduced in Season 5, it was extremely condensed, to the point that Doran Martell only briefly appeared in Season 5, and many other members of House Martell didn't appear at all. Two of Doran's children were omitted from the TV series and may not appear at all in the TV continuity - particularly including Doran's eldest child and heir, Arianne Martell, who is actually the POV narrator for much of the Dorne subplot. Similar to the Greyjoys, the narrative widens to give focus on the Martells in the fourth and fifth novels, but ultimately very little of the Martell storyline appeared in Season 5.
- Arya Stark in Braavos - two more chapters after she goes blind at the end of the fourth novel. Another Arya chapter from the upcoming sixth novel was released as a preview before Season 5: the second half of it involved Arya killing a Lannister guard on her kill list who came to Braavos, and this was already adapted in Season 5; the first half of the chapter involved a lengthy scene at a stage play in Braavos, and screenshots confirm this will appear in Season 6.
- Samwell Tarly and Gilly's long sea voyage to Oldtown, on the exact opposite side of Westeros, which takes them through Braavos and the Free Cities, and having to face the ironborn who are now ravaging the southwestern coasts.
- The subplots in The Riverlands, centering around the Frey siege of the Tullys at Riverrun, the garrison commanded by Catelyn's uncle Brynden Tully. The Riverrun subplot involved Jaime Lannister in the novels, as he tries to negotiate with Brynden.
Also, Brienne of Tarth's wanderings in the Riverlands were omitted from Season 5. Much of this material wasn't directly relevant to overall plot threads, and several characters who were important to other plotlines now appear to have been reshuffled into other subplots in Season 6. Given how much Jaime and Brienne's subplots were changed in Season 5, it is unclear how these will play out in Season 6.
- Bran Stark has only one more chapter, in the Cave of the three-eyed raven, but as it plays out in live action it may stretch across a significant amount of time: training in his magical powers, Bran experiences several visions of the past. When Bran returns in Season 6, the TV show will use this as a framing device to show various flashbacks from the novels, such as actually showing Bran's father Ned during Robert's Rebellion, and certain other key events, such as the Raid on the Tower of Joy. Some of these flashbacks appeared in one form or another in prior novels, when other characters recounted them through vivid narration, but the TV series only started depicting flashback scenes in Season 5 (the Prologue scene when Cersei has a flashback to her youth when she was given a prophecy about her downfall).
- Tyrion's storyline as he was heading east to Meereen introduced a major new subplot involving a major political shakeup in the Free Cities. This was cut completely from Tyrion's storyline in Season 5, but after he leaves for Meereen it subsequently intersects with several other subplots (not Arya's). This will probably be cut entirely from the TV series continuity.
Some of these subplots were not omitted entirely but pushed back to Season 6, however this will inevitably lead to some changes compared to the novels, because they were originally interlinked with events happening in the other storylines. Particularly, Cersei's decisions as regent directly affected the Greyjoy, Martell, and Riverrun storylines, and to an extent the Braavos subplot (due to the banking crisis). Given that Cersei has already been arrested in the TV series, some of these choices may be shifted to her uncle Kevan Lannister, the new Hand of the King, loosely drawing on the long Small Council chapter from late in the fifth novel which hasn't been adapted yet. It also isn't clear why Jaime would leave King's Landing again to deal with Riverrun now that Cersei is arrested.
Therefore, Season 6 isn't really "entirely new material" because many subplots were adapted at an uneven pace - though the TV series has always been speeding up or slowing down the rate of different storylines: Jaime's storyline from the third novel was moved up to the end of Season 2 (because he had little material in the second novel), and Bran Stark's storyline from the fifth novel was actually moved up to Season 4, when other characters were still on their material from the late third novel. Jon Snow's subplot was actually delayed for some time - in the third novel, the Battle of Castle Black occurred immediately after Jon returned to Castle Black, which was quickly followed by Jon's election as Lord Commander: due to the mechanics of splitting the third novel in half, Jon returned to Castle Black in the Season 3 finale but the battle didn't occur until the climax of the Season 4 finale, which necessitated pushing the Night's Watch election to the beginning of Season 5 (had this occurred at the pace it did in the novels, Jon's election would actually have happened in the middle of Season 4).
Nonetheless, Season 6 will mostly draw upon the as-yet-unpublished sixth novel, The Winds of Winter - certainly for Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen's storylines, as the final chapters of the fifth novel were the cliffhangers of Jon being stabbed by his own officers and Daenerys being surrounded by the Dothraki khalasar. George R.R. Martin did give the TV producers an outline of events that will happen in the final two unpublished novels - though at the same time, they don't have access to hundreds of pages of source material anymore (for pulling specific lines of dialogue, etc.)
Though Martin has released about half a dozen preview chapters from the sixth novel, it isn't clear how much of a basis they can be for any material in the TV series, due to existing differences between the book series and the adaptation. Also, until the book is released, there is no way of analyzing the adaptation process fully (e.g., if the actions of one character in Season 6 are actually a condensation of the actions of two different characters in the sixth novel).
Production
Filming
In Northern Ireland, production ran from late July to late December 2015. Interior shooting returned to the show's headquarters, the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast. Meanwhile, location shooting took place at the following locations: Garron Point (previously Runestone), the Winterfell set in Moneyglass, Magilligan (reprising its part as the Dothraki sea), the Castle Black set at the Magheramorne quarry, Ballintoy (returning as Pyke), a rural sept set in Larne, Glenarm (previously the Vale), Carnlough Harbour (as a Braavosi canal), Shane's Castle (once more as the foundations of the Great Sept of Baelor), Carncastle (previously the fields around Winterfell), Aghanloo Wood, Saintfield (as the site for "The Battle of the Bastards", a climactic Northern battle, which demanded the show's lengthiest shoot for a battle scene), the Riverrun set in Corbet (newly built, since in the third season the castle was realized only with Gosford Castle's gardens, an interior hall set and a distant matte painting), the Knocklayd Mountain quarry, Ballycastle in County Antrim, and Murlough Bay.
Ever since Croatia was introduced into the production for the second season, it has been the main source of locations outside of Northern Ireland, yet this season only returned to the country for a brief shoot in Dubrovnik, which reappears as King's Landing.[22] Previously, Dubrovnik had been both King's Landing and Qarth, while Klis, Split and Šibenik depicted Meereen and Braavos. This season turned to new Spanish locations instead.
In Spain, filming took place between late August and late October. In Girona, the locations were the Sant Pere de Galligants abbey's exterior (as a Braavosi bridge, the Plaça dels Jurats (as a Braavosi theater stage), the streets of Ferran el Catòlic, Sant Martí and l’Escola Pia (as Braavosi street markets), another local street (as an alley in Oldtown), and the Girona Cathedral's exterior (as the Great Sept in King's Landing). Still in Catalonia, they filmed in the Santa Florentina Castle (as Horn Hill), Montgrí Castle and Besalú. Later locations where the Bardenas natural park in Navarre (as the Dothraki Sea) and the Zafra Castle in Guadalajara (as the Tower of Joy). In Peñíscola, all filming spots posed as Meereen: the Portal Fosc (as a dilapidated street), the Plaza de Santa María (as a granary), the Parque de la Artillería (as a garden) and the Plaza de Armas. In Almería, filming took place at a new Vaes Dothrak set in Pechina, on the Tabernas Desert (as the Dothraki Sea), on the Gypsum Karst of Sorbas, at the Mesa Roldán Tower (as Meereen), and at the Alcazaba (as Sunspear). Finally, filming without any of the cast briefly took place at the Alcázar of Seville (returning as the Water Gardens) and at the Roman bridge of Córdoba (once more as the Long Bridge of Volantis).
When the TV series began in Season 1, there were two simultaneous filming units - which is unusual for most TV shows, which have only one filming unit - called Wolf Unit and Dragon Unit. In Season 3, production expanded to include three filming units, with the new third one called Raven Unit. Season 4, however, switched back to using only two filming units, and Raven Unit was disbanded. Wolf Unit and Dragon Unit continued to film through Seasons 4 and 5. For Season 6, however, the TV series once again expanded to employ three simultaneous filming units: the new third filming unit was now called "White Walker Unit".
According to David Benioff, speaking at the red carpet advanced screening of the Season 6 premiere two weeks before its broadcast:
"This season was a beast to make. We shot 680 hours of dailies, which translates to 3.7 million feet of film. We shot in five different countries – Northern Ireland, Spain, Croatia, Iceland, and Canada. We employed 900 crewmembers in Belfast; 400 in Spain. We issued 140 script revisions. We two shot units a day for 22 weeks straight, three units a day for 10 weeks straight, four units for two weeks straight. And none of that would be possible without the greatest producing team on the planet.
Thus they briefly switched to using four filming units for two weeks (it isn't clear if the fourth unit had a name), and apparently returned to film some scenes in Canada (possibly on a sound stage again as in Season 5, due to working with the actor-wolves).
The budget for the TV series was drastically increased yet again for Season 6, to about $10 million per episode (ten episodes, for a total of $100 million). Back in Season 2, the show averaged only about $6 million per episode. Benioff and Weiss even infamously had to beg HBO in an "awkward" conversation for an additional $2 million to film the climactic Battle of the Blackwater at the end of Season 2 (and thus episode 2.9 "Baelor" totaled $8 million).
Episodes
Episode 0 - "The Story So Far"
Episode 1 - "The Red Woman" April 24, 2016
At Castle Black, Thorne defends his treason while Edd and Davos defend themselves. Sansa and Theon race the cold and the hounds.
Episode 2 - "Home" May 1, 2016
Bran trains with the Three-eyed raven. In King’s Landing, Jaime advises Tommen. Tyrion demands good news, but has to make his own. At Castle Black, the Night’s Watch stands behind Thorne. Ramsay Bolton proposes a plan, and Balon Greyjoy entertains other proposals.
Episode 3 - "Oathbreaker" May 8, 2016
Daenerys meets her future. Bran meets the past. Tommen confronts the High Sparrow. Arya trains to be No One. Varys finds an answer. Ramsay gets a gift.
Episode 4 - "Book of the Stranger" May 15, 2016
Episode 5 - "The Door" May 22, 2016
Episode 6 -
Episode 7 -
Episode 8 -
Episode 9 -
Episode 10 -
