Game of Thrones fans know that sometimes new episodes are a bit more eventful than others. This week's "Battle of the Bastards," for instance, is expected to be pretty exciting, as we already know the HBO drama shot the largest sequence the series has ever attempted, and that includes "Hardhome." However, when there is a down week on Game of Thrones, there are fans on the internet and who are avid on social media who do tend to get disgruntled. Recently, series lead Nikolaj Coster-Waldau tried to appease those disgruntled fans, explaining why Game of Thrones has to give us some filler episodes. Here's what he had to say:
You know that there's a reason why. You can't hit the maximum volume each episode. Then you get numb to it. It has to build up. You have to tell a story, lay the seeds. Then hopefully -- and I believe -- the payoff is so much better and so much greater, instead of just getting everything at once.
Last week's episode of Game of Thrones was one of the slower episodes during Season 6, although looking back at it, there was quite a lot going on. The chase scene between Arya and the Waif was quite intense, and the siege on Meereen, although it didn't escalate to hand-to-hand combat, was still visually appealing. Plus, both The Hound and his brother The Mountain got particularly violent with members of the Brotherhood Without Banners and The Faith, respectively. Still, compared to the episode when the white walkers caught up with Bran and his companions or the episode when Dany took down a whole slew of misogynistic khals, there wasn't a whole lot of stuff going on.
I think the best evidence of this was probably when director Mark Mylod chose to take 2-3 minutes to show Tyrion getting drunk and trying to teach Greyworm and Missandei how to tell jokes. In some of the bigger, more frenzied episodes, there would be no time for a scene like that, but when the show is simply trying to move the plot forward to reach some of the bigger moments, we often get more humor as well as more character development.
If you are into the episodes that feature the "maximum volume," as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau put it to TV Line, you won't have too much longer to wait. HBO has already released the trailer for this weekends "Battle of The Bastards," which will pit Jon Snow opposite Ramsay Bolton. We already know that arrows will fly and hand to hand combat will be frequent. You can give that trailer a watch, below.
In addition, Game of Thrones has already been renewed for Season 7, and since we are expecting a lower episode count next year, there should be less filler moving forward. You can find out what we know about the upcoming season, here.
