Few shows can achieve the level of spectacle that Game of Thrones does. Bleeding into House of the Dragon as well, if there is one thing this franchise knows how to do, it is to make an engaging battle. The spilling of blood is nothing unknown to the series; however, the viewers seem to be captivated differently when the casualties are higher.
From the fall of King’s Landing to the Battle of the Bastards, audiences have witnessed storytelling as grand displays within the seasons of this series. However, none seemed to top the hold that the Battle of Blackwater had on the viewers.
With its reputation, it is interesting to know just how much thought went into the making of the series, specifically by someone who wasn’t even supposed to be a part of the show.
The battle of directors and conflicting ideas
While the first two seasons of Game of Thrones saw a lot of conflicts and action, it wasn’t until the Battle of Blackwater that audiences truly understood the scale of the War of the Five Kings. Stannis Baratheon sailed to King’s Landing, outmatching Joffrey Baratheon with his army of 10,000. For the first time, audiences saw the entire capital quaking in their finery, only to come out victorious.
However, it wasn’t the fact that King’s Landing won that had fans enthralled. It was the way that they won, using magnificently clever war strategies to make sure that Stannis would not have a chance. With this, one cannot help but wonder how the series was able to execute such an excellent episode so casually. It would seem that there was nothing casual about it.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, the director of the episode, Neil Marshall, revealed that he wasn’t the first choice for the episode. It would seem that even though Marshall was interested in directing an episode from the series, he did not get an opportunity until production desperately needed to replace the director and picked him for the task.
I got an emergency call from Bernie to come and fix a situation that, from what I gathered, was a bit out of control. She asked if I would like to direct an episode. I was like, “Absolutely!” I’m thinking this will be in few months’ time. Then she said, “It’s on Monday morning and you’ve got one week to plan.
Neil Marshall
When he got this call, he was told very quickly that he did not have much time to put the episode together. To add to his plate even more, Marshall wasn’t very familiar with the series. One can imagine that this would have caused many problems for production as a whole. Then how did the episode turn out so well?
Neil Marshall was exactly what Game of Thrones needed
One of the writers of Game of Thrones, David Benioff, also gave the interview, specifically talking about how the creators of the projects helped Neil Marshall keep up with the series. Since the director was not familiar with the first season, he was told about what happened by the creators.
This did not seem to be a problem for Marshall, as he was not only able to keep up with them but also started to give candid opinions about how the battle should be executed. Being passionate about military history, he was well-versed in the happenings of a battle in theory and was then able to put it to the screen.
They wanted ideas. Military history is a hobby of mine, so I brought a sense of strategy to the battle. Because in the script, 40,000 people arrive on a beach and they stand around a door. They had all this stuff at sea and the green fire, but once they got to the beach, it wasn’t really clear who was trying to achieve what.
Stannis basically marshaled the whole battle from the beach. I felt that that wasn’t really in character and wasn’t interesting. I was like, “They can’t just stand around, they have to be doing other things, and we have to get Stannis in on the action.”Neil Marshall
Even though Marshall did not know much about the series, he was able to give some very interesting insight into characters he did not know anything about a few days ago. In fact, it was his contributions that made Stannis such a central part of the battle. George R.R. Martin also seemed extremely impressed by what the director had to say.
Neil Marshall reversed everything the previous director said. Marshall was like, “Put in more.” He put so much back that I’d previously taken out and even added some stuff I hadn’t thought of. He was the hero of that episode.
George R.R. Martin
Marshall completely wiped the board clean with his ideas, scrapping everything that the previous director had done and even stepping over Martin’s own vision. However, this ended up working well in the best ways possible. Fans are certainly glad that Marshall was given such a rare amount of creative freedom over a project he knew very little about.
Game of Thrones is available for streaming on Max.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
