It’s a Song of Ice and Fire fanatic’s wildest dream: a website that allows fans to search through the complete text of every book in the saga, plus offshoots like The World of Ice and Fire, The Rogue Prince, The Princess and the Queen, and all the stories from the recently released A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms collection. It’s A Search of Ice and Fire, and it’s just become more useful than ever.
If you’ve never heard of the site, here’s how it works: you check off the particular books you want to look through, type in a keyword, and hit the ‘Search’ button. The website will produce relevant excerpts from the complete texts of the chosen works. It’s a beautiful time-waster. You can, for example, use it to find out how many times George R.R. Martin mentions that Stannis grinds his teeth (just seven, although it feels like more), or how many times he describes Tyrion’s walk with some form of the verb “to waddle” (just shy of 60). Also: all but one of the references to something being “as useful as nipples on a breastplate” are made by the Lannister children. You think that’s something Tywin said when they were growing up?
Following yesterday’s exciting reveal by Entertainment Weekly of a Game of Thrones Season 6 photo featuring Bran, many people are excitedly talking about the where and the how of the pic. The last time we saw our dear Bran, his hair was much longer and curlier, his legs weren’t working, and he was getting ready to start his training to be a greenseer. So, when this photo dropped, and we see Bran with a closely shorn head, sitting atop a horse outside the cave, the questions began to swirl.
In an all new interview with Isaac Hempstead Wright, EW got the scoop on some storylines that will impact Season 6, calling Bran’s plotline “Inception-like storytelling.” This means that we are going to be shown a lot of flashbacks (and possibly flash-forwards) through dream-like sequences, via Bran’s weirwood/greenseer magic.
…we’re given looks into very important events in the past, present and future of this world and Bran is beginning to piece them together like a detective, almost as if he’s watching the show. Equally, he’s now discovering how crucial he could be in the Great War. It’s quite Inception-y.
This means that Bran is going to be spending a ton of time in the cave, viewing important scenes from the past and future of Westeros that will come into play in what Wright calls “the Great War,” all under the watchful eye of the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow). By the way, I believe this is the first time we’ve heard that particular title (Great War) given to the events of what is coming.
Now, with all that information from the actor himself, let’s look a little closer at that photo:
Bran is outside the cave
I think the simple explanation here is that Bran is having a green-dream. Remember back to Seasons 1 and 2, when Bran would dream following his fall from the broken tower. In these dreams, he could walk around Winterfell as if his legs were working fine. Those dreams seemed real (like the photo above), until he awoke in his bead.
Bran is on a horse
Where did that horse come from? Bran arrived at the cave on Hodor’s back. There’s no way he’s found a horse since, unless the horse is Uncle Benjen’s. Where is Bran’s special saddle? After his fall, he could not ride a horse without the special saddle design given to him by Tyrion Lannister. In my mind, this only cements that the EW photo is from a dream.
Bran is looking up…at what?
Here’s where it gets fun. If this is a dream, then it’s probably a dream that holds some importance. Wright used the descriptor “The Great War” to describe what his character is preparing for. Could Bran be looking up at the Night’s King? Perhaps as a full-fledged greenseer, Bran is now dreaming about the real enemy to all life in Westeros, and that is the Night’s King.
Regardless of what’s really happening in the photo, until we get to April/May, the speculation is going to be running wild. And, with Game of Thrones Season 6 relying heavily on flashbacks, added to the fact that book readers and non-book readers are on the same page for the first time in the series’ history, we really have no idea what is coming. Isn’t it exciting?
Following up their tantalizing first look at Bran Stark in season 6, Entertainment Weekly spoke to a nearly 6-ft tall Isaac Hempstead-Wright about his absence from season 5 and what we can expect from Bran’s storyline this April. Potential spoilers below. Proceed at your own discretion.
The 16-year old actor addressed Bran’s omission from last season, recalling the meeting in which showrunners, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff told him his character wouldn’t appear in season 5.
“When I first heard the news Dan and David wanted to have a chat with me, I was like, ‘Oh no!’,” he says. “Usually that’s to tell you [your character is] dead. So comparatively, missing a season was like, ‘phew!’”
The showrunners decided to omit Bran from season 5 in order to fast-forward through Bran’s psychic-Weirwood-tutelage under Bloodraven, comparing Bran’s learning curve to Luke Skywalker’s largely off-screen mastery of the Force.
“And they’re exactly right,” Hempstead-Wright says, “I would have just been sitting in a cave going, ‘Oh, I can nearly do it now.’ “
Presumably, this means we can expect a fully (or nearly fully) trained Bran Stark in season 6 which interviewer, James Hibberd, describes as Bran’s “biggest and most crucial season yet.”
“Previously Bran’s seen tiny glimpses of future or past but never has he been very much in control in the situation,” Hempstead-Wright says. “Now we’re given looks into very important events in the past, present and future of this world and Bran is beginning to piece them together like a detective, almost as if he’s watching the show. Equally, he’s now discovering how crucial he could be in the Great War. It’s quite Inception-y.”
Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly debuted the first official image from Game of Thrones Season 6: a shot of Bran Stark, last seen in Season 4, sitting on a horse after having gotten a major haircut. Bam:
Now, the magazine has published the interview it did with Isaac Hempstead Wright, who has played Bran for five seasons of the show. Well, four—he sat this last season out.
Speaking of his absence from Season 5, Wright talked about how that came about. “When I first heard the news [executive producers] Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] wanted to have a chat with me, I was like, ‘Oh no!’” he said. “Usually that’s to tell you [your character is] dead. So comparatively, missing a season was like, ‘phew!’ “
There are a whole lot of plotlines to deal with on Game of Thrones, and apparently the producers didn’t want to distract from the others by adapting a storyline that would have consisted mostly of Bran sitting still while he learned how to use his latent powers.“And they’re exactly right,” Weight said. “I would have just been sitting in a cave going, ‘Oh, I can nearly do it now.’”
Instead, the producers took a cue from the original Star Wars trilogy. At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker is sorta handy with a lightsaber, but has a ways to go before he can be called a Jedi Master. Then, in Return of the Jedi, he walks into Jabba’s palace using mind tricks and ready to slay an entire war party’s worth of bad guys above the sarlacc pit on Tatooine. Apparently, he got a lot of training between movies. That’s what the producers want for Bran (that’s also the analogy they used, because they’re dorks), so we can expect him to begin Season 6 with a firm handle on his abilities.
Bran Starkwalker
And just what do those abilities entail? Those who have read A Dance with Dragons know that Bran is learning to use his greenseeing abilities to peer into the past, present, and future of Westeros by looking through the eyes of the weirwood trees that dot the landscape. Here’s how Wright puts it:
Previously Bran’s seen tiny glimpses of future or past but never has he been very much in control in the situation. Now we’re given looks into very important events in the past, present and future of this world and Bran is beginning to piece them together like a detective, almost as if he’s watching the show. Equally, he’s now discovering how crucial he could be in the Great War. It’s quite Inception-y.
I’m sure fans have plenty of ideas about what some of those events may be. It’s also intriguing to hear that Bran will discover “how crucial he could be in the Great War.” Bran has been a character in transition since the end of Season 2, after Winterfell was sacked and he started heading north. Considering that Bran’s plotline has been heavily featured in promotional material for the new season, I’m betting this will be the year when he finally reenters the story as a major player.
Entertainment Weekly seems to think so, too. James Hibberd writes that this season is “a game-changer” for Bran, and Wright is very excited about it. When Hibberd asked the 16-year-old actor about his reaction to reading the Season 6 scripts, he described a time when he couldn’t contain himself. “Oh! That’s the best scene I’ve ever done!” he said. “Oh! That scene is even better!”
The final piece of the puzzle is the Three-Eyed Raven, the mysterious figure who’s been appearing in Bran’s dreams and beckoning him north since Season 1. Bran finally met him at the end of Season 4, where he was played by actor Struan Rodger, pictured above. Since then, the producers recast acting heavyweight Max von Sydow in the part, and Wright is characteristically enthusiastic about it. “There are certain lines that you think are almost fillers, like, ‘He’s over there,’ but when Max von Sydow says them, he can make it sound like it’s the most important news you’ve ever heard,” he said.
So that’s where we stand on Bran. You can hear him chatting with the Three-Eyed Raven in the Season 6 teaser trailer.
For those not familiar with it, And Then There Were None tells the story of ten people who are lured to an island under various pretexts (well, two are already there, but close enough). Once together, it’s revealed that each of them has a dark secret from their past, and they begin to die off one by one. What’s more, they die in ways that reflect each of the verses in Ten Little Indians, an old nursery rhyme. It’s classic murder mystery stuff. Since it was published in 1939, it’s become one of the best-selling books in the world.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR AND THEN THERE WERE NONE FOLLOW, ALTHOUGH IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT BY NOW YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO
Noah Taylor stars as Thomas Rogers, an unscrupulous butler who murdered his former employer by withholding her medicine (she’d left him and his wife some money, and he wanted it now, please). Game of Thrones fans may remember Taylor as Locke, the lackey of Roose Bolton’s who chopped off Jaime Lannister’s hand in Season 3. He’s no nicer here.
Meanwhile, Charles “Tywin Lannister” Dance himself stars as Justice Lawrence John Wargrave, a retired judge with a serious sadistic streak. He’s the one who summons everyone to the island, so he can kill them for their crimes. It’s not hard to imagine Dance excelling with the part of a cruel hardass.
The BBC aired And Then There Were None in three parts. Hopefully we get to see it on this side of the pond at some point. Nothing like a good murder mystery to fill a lazy Sunday in winter.
Shifting gears, have you ever wanted to have your makeup done by the professionals who paint the White Walkers? Well, I can’t guarantee that exactly, but Sugahfix.com has a contact list for several of the makeup artists who worked on Game of Thrones Season 6. Now that they’ve finished with the show, they’re available for weddings, parties, and other big occasions in early 2016.
Having worked on Game of Thrones, most of the makeup artists are situated around Belfast, but many travel to clients. If you’re planning to throw a Game of Thrones-themed party, or just any party, you couldn’t ask for better.
Makeup artist Fiona Hunter creating an Avant Guard makeup look.
By now, if you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, then you either don’t like Star Wars, or somehow didn’t know that the first live-action Star Wars film in 10 years had finally come to theaters. Many actors from Game ofThrones landed roles both large and small in the film. Foremost among these is Gwendoline Christie (Brienne) portraying the blinged-out First Order Stormtrooper leader, Captain Phasma.
With Christie taking on the role of another strong female, it was a only matter of time before some enterprising fan made a video mashup of her Game of Thrones and Star Wars characters. Enter YouTuber levellord, who did just that with The Birth of Captain Phasma. Check it out:
I mean…how well done is this video? That suit of Phasma armor looks like it was there in the original Game of Thrones episode from Season 4, “Oathkeeper.” Also, I’m just now seeing that Nikolaj Coster-Waldau would make the perfect young Han Solo—in Han’s very own standalone Star Wars story—as long as he could master that gritty North American accent.
WARNING: THE FORCE AWAKENS SPOILERS AHEAD!
Gwendoline Christie called Captain Phasma a “Boba Fett-style character”…and for the most part, she was right. She was barely on screen, had maybe five or six lines, and she suffered a stupid end that may or may not mean she’s dead. In my mind, Captain Phasma was the biggest failing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a film that didn’t have many failings.
For all the hype and hoopla surrounding Phasma, she took a punch from Chewbacca, and was immediately intimidated into dropping Starkiller planet’s shields after a few clumsy threats from Finn. Can you see the correlation between Phasma and Fett now? For all the love Boba Fett receives from Star Wars fans, he was knocked into the Sarlacc pit by accident, and didn’t even try to use the myriad of tools at his disposal to climb out…onscreen, anyway.
Hopefully, Phasma climbed out of the garbage chute she was thrown down (off-screen) and escaped Starkiller planet before it exploded. I would love nothing more than to see Phasma in Episode VIII, chasing down Finn and the Resistance, in order to get revenge and redeem herself in the eyes of Supreme Leader Snoke.
