"Game of Thrones" creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss ended this year's season 6 with epic scenes, surprising twists and power plays. Episode 9 features an epic battle, one of the amazing production feats on the small screen. Furthermore, the show's season finale ended up with a bang on June 26, Sunday, with "The Winds of Winter."
The George R.R. Martin-based fantasy series has a weekly viewer total of 23.3 million for season 6, with the season finale having 8.9 million live on HBO, not including streaming data, on-demand or those who watched the next day, The Verge reported. Last year's finale had 8.1 million. "Game of Thrones" season 6 finale revealed Jon Snow's birthright, new alliances and those vying to rule the Seven Kingdoms being narrowed down.
The epic battle in episode 9 between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton made the series more unforgettable. Filming Jon Snow with his sword and bodies flying dead was not easy. It was made more complicated with the horses.
"They (horses) make everything difficult and more complicated." Benioff told Deadline. "They're dangerous to themselves and the people around them, and they have their own minds and don't take direction as well as people do."
The set is lucky to have Camilla Naprous, a brilliant horse mistress who is in charge of the horses and who demanded that she should be given something more interesting to do this season. So the show creators gave her challenge with "Battle of the Bastards." With the cooperation of everyone, including that of Miguel Sapochnik and his men, they came up with an unforgettable scene on the screen.
The "Battle of the Bastards" had a lot of computer graphics, with 500 extras and 50 to 60 horses. They were blown up to appear like there were 7,000 to 8,000.
As for Iwan Rheon who played Ramsay Bolton, Benioff and Weiss were all praises for the actor, predicting he is going to have a long brilliant career. The Welsh actor and musician is versatile, charismatic, intelligent and humorous that he is not just for playing a bad guy. According to the showrunners, Rheon auditioned for Jon Snow and went down to the very end.
"He never just played Ramsay like the snarling villain," Weiss told the online news site. "He put a little spin on every line and so it was great to write for him and to watch him perform."
With two seasons more, the Emmy-winning fantasy series is coming to an end, with Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) returning to Westeros, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) becoming King of the North and Cersie Lannister (Lena Headey) sitting on the Iron Throne. Benioff and Weiss intended the story to be a non-ongoing show but a one big story without the need to add extra hours because people are still watching.
"If people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story," Benioff said in the interview. "We're definitely heading into the end game now."
Watch the ending scene of HBO's Emmy-winning series below.