With a cast that can form a little country and production costs crossing $10 million per episode, Game of Thrones is the one of the biggest TV shows in terms of scale and fan following, with an estimated 10.7 million viewers! After over 60 hours of adrenaline-charged shows, the series is returning for its penultimate season- although, with seven episodes only. As fans gear up for the July 16 release, and the internet buzz grows with theories and predictions, why should you be left out? Here, we bring you some trivia to set the ball rolling for a full six seasons of binge watching!
House Stark-Winter is coming
The ages of the Stark kids were pushed by three years because the show starts 17 years after Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark’s rebellion, while the book is set 13 years after. In Season 6, viewers learned that Bran Stark can time travel. If he could make a White Walker touch him, he could do something as significant as turning King Aerys into Mad King Aerys! The theory says that Bran would whisper warnings of White Walkers to Aerys. The already paranoid king is bound to go mad this way!
House Lannister-Hear me roar!
In Season 5, Maggy the frog predicts Cersei’s marriage to the King of Andals, Robert, the death of all her children and her death by her younger brother. This leads to Cersei hating Tyrion all her life. But many forget that Jaime is also Cersei’s younger brother, and Jaime’s expression after seeing Cersei on the throne in Season 6 seems to solidify this theory.
Cersei never found true love out of her household. She was to be married to Rhaegar Targaryen, but then came Elia Martell. The next choice was Oberyn Martell, but before anything could happen, The Mountain killed Elia and thus was born a rivalry between the two families. When she finally married Robert, he was still in love with Lyanna! Poor Cersei.
House Targaryen-Fire and Blood!
Other than theories of R+L=J and Tyrion Targaryen, there is another, where Rhaegar Targaryen believed in the theory of the prince that was promised, namely, Azor Ahai. Which is to say, he believed he was Azor Ahai. Ahai is a prince who was born 5,000 years ago under a bleeding star, amongst salt and smoke.
The Valyrian Steel is a motif of Targaryen pride. Made by the breath of dragons and vast Valyrian ores, this steel even caused the doom of the Targaryen civilisation. One would be surprised to know that Valyrian steel has a real-life counterpart called the Damascus steel, found only in India and West Asia.
House Greyjoy-We do not sow
Here is to the only democracy in Westeros! The Greyjoys elect their king through a Kingsmoot (Season 6 Episode 5), where the contestants come before the crowds and produce their manifesto of kingship. Even though the candidates can be only from House Greyjoy, it at least lets the better of them be the king. Euron Greyjoy, the latest addition to the prospective villain list, is known to possess the dragon horn which, as the name suggests, can control dragons!
House Tyrell- Growing strong
Olenna Tyrell has an inexplicable connection in real life with her granddaughter Marjorie Tyrell. The younger version of Diana Rigg (who plays Olenna) and Natalie Dormer (Marjorie) bear a striking resemblance to each other!
House Martell Unbowed, unbent, unbroken
No one can forget Oberyn Martell’s (played by Pedro Pascal) horrific death in Season 4. Remember how the The Mountain gouged his eyes out? Lena Headey, who plays Cersei, threw us a clue even before the episode aired! A picture of Lena and Pedro with Lena pretending to crush Pedro’s eyes, circulated on social media. A little- noticed clue to what lay ahead.
Pride of Ireland
Back in 2014, the Ireland Tourism department recognised the unimaginable screen tourism that Ireland had been bagging as it served as the North of Westeros in the show. The tourism department thus acknowledged the Game of Thrones’ vital presence in Ireland, using it widely for promotional campaigns. The campaign began with the sale of dragon eggs in Belfast and three-eyed ravens placed all over Northern Ireland. There are over 20 locations used by the crew of Game of Thrones to film key scenes, which are now open to public viewing. The latest 2016 tourism campaign was a social media crusade, where the tourism department reached out to over 3.4 million followers on Facebook and 323,000 on Twitter. What stands out is the YouTube campaign led by a series of 10 intricately carved doors, released at the end of each episode; every door depicts a key scene. What makes the doors indigenous to the show is that they trace their origins back to the Dark Hedges, which served as the Kingsroad. Storm Gertrude felled many trees, which were later carved into these exquisite doors.
EASTER EGGS? MORE LIKE DRAGON EGGS!
Taking a dig at LOTR and GoT fandom, the prop masters slid Gandalf’s sword into
the Iron Throne.
In the scene when the Starks find their direwolves, the deaths of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark were foreshadowed by the deaths of the stag and mother direwolf.
Things got a little politically uneasy when the show featured the severed head of the 43rd President of the United States, George W Bush on a spike instead of Eddard Stark’s.
‘Little Finger’ Petyr Baelish knows it all! Proof? While consoling Robin Arryn in season 4 on the death of his mother, Petyr said, “People die at their dinner tables, they die in their beds, they die squatting over their chamber pots. Everyone dies sooner or later.” With that line, he foreshadowed the next three major deaths on the show — of Joffrey, Shae and Tywin Lannister.
Throne tale-In the Song of Ice and Fire, It took 59 days to hammer together the Iron Throne. Guess how long Gavin Jones, the prop master took to construct the 8 feet-tall iron throne? Exactly two months!
The three-headed dragon -A popular theory identifies Dany, Jon and Tyrion as the three heads of the Targaryen sigil.