Production on Game of Thrones Season 8 continues with the quest to cast eight new characters for the final season officially underway. The final season's giant battle has already been filmed, and these new characters do not appear to fold into that action. So what will these eight characters be doing? Here is what we know.
Watchers on the Wall broke the Season 8 casting story. The site is reporting that five of the characters being cast will be involved in the same scene. That scene involves the purchase of land. None of the leading cast members are involved, so the scene's bearing on the main story is unclear. The lives of the regular people who inhabit the world of Game of Thrones are seldom honed in on unless one of the main characters is involved in some capacity. So this scene is rare. What about the other roles being cast?
One of three remaining roles is that of a soldier, which Game of Thrones has a lot of. There is nothing that makes this role stick out until you read that it requires a "physically intense performance" from the actor. The next role described may explain that part. That casting call is for a young adult village woman, who is attacked. Could the second role, explain part of the first?
While Watchers doesn't feel like the soldier fits as the attacker, the role of the young woman and the soldier film the same day. One thing missing from the eight roles being cast is a part described as a straight-forward attacker. If the soldier and the woman's attacker are one in the same, why not just say so? Is there a reason for the casting of these characters to remain vague?
The final role is that of a "grieving man" in his thirties, with an age cap of 40. The scene films on June 18 and is described as "highly emotional." Due to the filming dates, we can probably rule something out. The grieving man's scene probably doesn't involve the aftermath of what happens to the young woman. Like the soldier and the woman's roles, the setup seems to fit together. Who or what is this man grieving? When it comes to a show as dire as Game of Thrones, there are a lot of possibilities.
The series deals in tremendous carnage and after a season that saw the main cast spared, Season 8 is set to ratchet things up a bit. It will be quite a while before we learn for certain where these characters fit into the overarching final season. Game of Thrones Season 8 will premiere in 2019, which feels like an eternity from now. For what else is coming up on HBO, check out our guides to TV's midseason and summer premieres.
