In the season finale, Sansa apologizes to Jon for not telling him about the Knights of the Vale. He seems outright surprised when Sansa points out that his own dogs will indeed devour him because he starved them for a week. Using large numbers of. "Battle of the Bastards" received immense critical acclaim, with several reviewers calling it a "masterpiece",[1] and being praised as one of the series' best episodes as well as one of the greatest television episodes of all time. As stated above, it is speculated that Sansa did not tell Jon about the Knights of the Vale because she was unsure whether or not they'd come to their aid and she did not want to falsely raise Jon's hopes. He's an incredibly detailed actor who's created a character who's remarkable and despicable. It was written by series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Miguel Sapochnik. #6 "The Iron Throne", 'Game of Thrones' Recap: Battle of the Bastards. [16] Kristofer Hivju, who plays Tormund Giantsbane, said about the intensity of filming the scenes: "It was pretty intense, actually. [30] It had a 3.9 rating in the 18–49 demographic, the highest-rated show on cable television that night. They're almost a yin and a yang. '"[10] He continued, "Whenever I came back, I was excited to come back, and the scenes all seemed pretty amazing. Actually, Sapochnik said that in some ways the Battle of the Bastards was easier to film, given that live-action actors can just fake their way through a fight scene without a script, while, Sapochnik said that "The strategy and tactical aspect was a key thing for David and Dan. "[32], IGN's Matt Fowler gave the episode a 10 out of 10, writing in his review, "At this point, it seems like the pattern when it comes to the ninth episode of a given season of Game of Thrones is tragic death, amazing battle, tragic death, amazing battle, and so on. It is possible the the Starks will gift the Dreadfort to their allies for supporting them during the Battle of the Bastards, such as House Mormont or Hornwood, or perhaps the surviving wildlings. Even at this point Ramsay is still totally confident that he'll get out of this somehow, and does not fight back. During the melee sequence in the first phase of the battle, the camera follows Jon Snow around through the chaos of the battle in a tracking shot that lasts for an uninterrupted 60 seconds (though there are a few split-second moments when horses run in front of the camera which may have been used to hide shifts between different takes). In the case of 'Battle of the Bastards' – or 'BOB' as we affectionately called it in production – David and Dan wanted to do a thing of spectacle, a strategic pitchfield battle they hadn't had the resources to do back in season 1 or 2. Because Sapochnik filmed in chronological order to enhance the actor's performances, this meant that 3 full days of filming from the climax were cut. [6], "Battle of the Bastards" featured the first meeting of Daenerys Targaryen and Yara and Theon Greyjoy, and Yara's first meeting with Tyrion Lannister. We used that as our model". Weiss, Television episodes directed by Miguel Sapochnik, Short description is different from Wikidata, Television episode articles with short description for single episodes, Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention from May 2019, All Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Jane Walker, Kate Thompson, Nicola Mathews, Kay Bilk, Marianna Kyriacou, Pamela Smyth, Ronan Hill, Richard Dyer, Onnalee Blank, Mathew Waters, Steve Kullback, Joe Bauer, Adam Chazen, Derek Spears, Eric Carney, Sam Conway, Matthew Rouleau, Michelle Blok, Glenn Melenhorst, Sean Savage, David Morgan & John Ferguson, Tim Kimmel, Paula Fairfield, Mathew Waters, Onnalee Blank, Bradley Katona, Paul Bercovitch, Joe Bauer, Eric Carney, Derek Spears, Glenn Melenhorst, Matthew Rouleau, Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production, Nicholas Tripodi, Dean Elliott, James Hollingworth, Matt Weaver, Best Edited One-Hour Series For Non-Commercial Television, Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode, Joe Bauer, Steve Kullback, Glenn Melenhorst, Matthew Rouleau, Sam Conway, Outstanding Animated Performance in an Episode or Real-Time Project, James Kinnings, Michael Holzl, Matt Derksen, Joseph Hoback – Drogon, Outstanding Created Environment in an Episode, Commercial or Real-Time Project, Deak Ferrand, Dominic Daigle, François Croteau, Alexandru Banuta – Meereen City, Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal Project, Patrick Tiberius Gehlen, Michelle Blok, Christopher Baird, Drew Wood-Davies, Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project, Kevin Blom, Sasmit Ranadive, Wanghua Huang, Ben Andersen, Thomas Hullin, Dominik Kirouac, James Dong, Xavier Fourmond – Meereen City, Thomas Montminy-Brodeur, Patrick David, Michael Crane, Joe Salazar - Meereen City, Dominic Hellier, Morgan Jones, Thijs Noij, Caleb Thompson – Retaking Winterfell, Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing – Television Series – One Hour, Ronan Hill, Onnalee Blank, Mathew Waters, Richard Dyer, Brett Voss, Best Sound Editing in Television, Short Form: FX/Foley, Tim Kimmel, Brett Voss, John Matter, Jeffrey Wilhoit, Dylan Wilhoit, Paula Fairfield and Bradley Katona, Best Sound Editing in Television, Short Form: Dialogue / ADR, Best Sound Editing in Television, Short Form: Music, This page was last edited on 16 November 2020, at 03:13. A massive fleet, consisting of between 300 - 500 dromonds, is on its way from Volantis to Meereen. [11] In an interview, Jagger talked about his casting: "I prayed for it. how the camera is just over Jon's shoulder level with him as the cavalry approach. In the final version, both men stare at each other for a few moments before going their separate ways. Elements of the episode are based on the sixth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, which author George R. R. Martin hoped to complete before the sixth season aired. But during a sexual encounter, Theon had with the prostitute. The Boltons are swiftly vanquished, all except him, and Jon beats his face to a bloody pulp. The massive battle between Jon and Ramsay, and Ramsay's violent death, may also be adapted from. "[8], "Battle of the Bastards" was also the last episode for recurring character Rickon Stark (Art Parkinson), who had appeared since the series premiere episode "Winter Is Coming". So the very thing we were trying to do was not allowed. The 500 extras were largely the Snow and Bolton armies as Wildlings, archers, swordsmen and spearmen. [38][39][40] "Battle of the Bastards" has been nominated for 32 awards and has won 19. It's almost certainly the most exciting hour and had the most jaw-dropping battle sequence we've seen yet on TV. After several hours and guesswork, Sapochnik estimated around 28 days. Ramsay seems almost serious, not sarcastic, when he tells Jon he now "accepts" his offer of personal combat - despite being surrounded by Jon's soldiers with arrows pointed at him, Ramsay is still smiling at the situation as if this isn't the end. Ramsay's proficiency with a bow and arrow in this episode, however, hitting a fleeing person at great range, In the "Inside the Episode" featurette, the showrunners explain a major point about Ramsay Bolton's reactions from when the army of the Vale shows up onwards: Ramsay, When Ramsay's army gets caught out of formation and totally destroyed by the knights of the Vale, he tries to wave it off by saying that he still has. He felt that aerial shots were unrealistic because that isn't how men on the ground experienced them, with chaos and mud on the ground, i.e. In which case, Sansa had no real "agency" in achieving the victory at all, it was totally dependent on begging Littlefinger to come and help them - nor did Sansa really "defeat" Ramsay and achieve revenge on him: Jon was going to beat Ramsay to death and. "[6] To insert Emilia Clarke (as Daenerys Targaryen) into the scene, she rode a "multi-directional, computer-controlled hydraulic gimbal device shaped like the upper shoulders of the dragon"; Clarke was filmed separately in Belfast, Northern Ireland. However, to cement their hold on the North following the murders of Joffrey Baratheon and Tywin Lannister, they betray the Lannisters and secure a marriage alliance through Lord Petyr Baelish between Sansa Stark (formerly the Lannisters' hostage) and Ramsay Bolton, Lord Roose Bolton's recently-legitimized bastard son. Jon overpowers Ramsay and begins to beat him to death, but stops when he sees Sansa and orders him imprisoned instead, leaving Winterfell once more in the hands of House Stark. Ironically, Ramsay's army is defeated the same way that Ramsay had previously defeated Stannis Baratheon at the Battle of Winterfell: catching his army by surprise and out of formation with a massive cavalry charge. And then something drives him to fight up, and that moment when he comes up and grasps for breath, he is reborn again, which I found weirdly reflective of the scene where Dany is held aloft at the end of season three. Critics described the battle in the North as "terrifying, gripping and exhilarating", Harington's performance received high praise,[2] and Daenerys' reunion with her dragons at the beginning of the episode was deemed "thrilling". Sapochnik said his main cinematic influence was the main battle scene in Akira Kurosawa's, First, the showrunners told him their initial unscripted ideas for the battle, and they asked Sapochnik to give them a ballpark estimate of how many days it would take to film a battle scene on the scale they envisioned. The showrunners don't seem to realize this, because in the Inside the Episode featurette for the next episode, they genuinely act as if Jon should be "grateful" to Sansa for bringing the Vale army - even though in the events as presented, all she did was accept Littlefinger's offer. Sapochnik also alleges, though his memory is hazier of this, that Ghost and a wolf pack would have then arrived onto the battlefield to turn the Battle in favour of the Starks moments before Littlefinger and Sansa arrived with the Vale army. In the backstory from the novels, there have been several naval battles in the past during which, Tyrion claims that Theon made dwarf jokes during their previous encounter at Winterfell, like "The height of nobility", "a man of your stature", "someone to look up to". [6] He based the dragon shots on wildlife footage, allowing them to break the frame: "These things should be so big and fast it's hard to keep up with them. In the books, many of the Northern lords (such as the Manderlys) who only have small home garrisons left nonetheless want to fight the Boltons to the death to avenge his brutal treatment of his new bride, Ned Stark's daughter (who is actually Jeyne Poole being forced to, When Littlefinger first met Sansa again in Season 6 at Mole's Town in ", For that matter, Littlefinger was already shown planning to attack the Boltons, Sansa wasn't presented as being in control of the Vale army coming. When Stannis orders Davos to return to the Wall to barter with Jon (in truth an excuse to get rid of Davos so he didn't interfere with Shireen's sacrifice), he tells Davos to take several knights with him as an escort. [15], It took 25 days to film, requiring 500 extras, 600 crew members and 70 horses. [28] In the United Kingdom, the episode was seen by 2.450 million viewers on Sky Atlantic (the channel's highest-rated broadcast that week) and had 0.118 million timeshift viewers. 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