'Game of Thrones' Season 7 will make the battle at Hardhome look like 'child's play'
Everyone involved in Game of Thrones knows better than to reveal plot details – especially now that the show has outpaced George R. R. Martin’s novels – but that doesn’t stop them from dropping the occasional hint to tantalize and torture us.
At the recent Con of Thrones convention in Nashville, the show’s sound designer, Paula Fairfield, proved that she’s almost as skilled in the art of teasing as showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, calling Season 7 “breathtaking.”
During a panel called “Bringing Westeros to Life,” Fairfield and language creator David Peterson gave fans some insight into their complex jobs – and managed to sneak in some Season 7 tidbits while they were at it.
Battle Royale
We already know that Season 7 will feature some epic battles – the show reportedly broke a record for the number of stunt performers set on fire in a single scene – but we might not be prepared for just how big the season is.
Fairfield’s job involves creating sound for “the weird shit,” as she describes it: designing what we hear when we see the direwolves, Daenerys’ dragons, the White Walkers, Bran's warging and the show’s other fantasy elements.
She admits that the battle at Hardhome was one of her most work-intensive episodes to date, but teases “that’ll look like child’s play this season, many times over -- there's a lot of fun stuff this season.”
We already know from the Season 7 trailers that we’ll be seeing Dany’s dragons involved in a full military attack, and that Jon Snow will once again have to face off with the White Walkers at some point, but considering how massive the battle at Hardhome was, it’s going to take something pretty huge to make that “insanity” look small by comparison. We can't wait.
There’s a reason why the White Walkers aren’t very talkative
The White Walkers we’ve met so far are generally strong, silent types, and Fairfield says there’s a good reason for that. Although she joined the show in Season 3, the White Walkers were introduced in earnest in Season 2, by which point Peterson had already created a specific language for them.
But when the Others started to become more of a presence in the narrative, Fairfield says it quickly became clear that giving them dialogue took away from their menace.
“It was demeaning for them to speak a language; they were beyond that. They are omnipotent; they control the forces of nature,” she points out.
That’s why, when the Night King does his “come at me, bro” demonstration for Jon at Hardhome, he only needs to gesture to get his point across. “The announcement of their presence feels like the earth could crack in half, and that is their voice and their language,” Fairfield says.
Try to decipher this:
Perhaps the most tantalizing clue – which could easily be referring to the White Walkers, dragons or direwolves – involves Fairfield’s preparation for Season 8, which is already underway.
“There are some amazing things coming, and I am planning them,” she teases. “There’s some stuff that will be embarked on this season that will become majorly in play next season. I have no idea what’s going to happen next season -- I only know this season -- so I’m starting to build a library of things that I think I’ll be using next season. I cannot tell you what it is, but when you see, you’ll know exactly what I mean.”
Could it be the White Walkers finally crossing the Wall and invading Westeros? The suspense is killing us!
As for Season 7, Fairfield offered this parting observation: “I can’t wait for you to see... I’ve been watching the theories and it’s super exciting that no one’s figured it out yet.”
Cruel, but also intriguing...
Game of Thrones Season 7 premieres Sunday, July 16 on HBO.
Topics Game Of Thrones
