Surprising Things About Season 2 - Pt 2

1. The timber used to build the log structure of Craster’s Keep came from the area in order to be more sustainable and to look like it was created from its own environment.

2. The Great Hall of Pyke in the Iron Islands was designed to feel damp and mildewy. The production placed shells all over the floor to give the audience the impression that the sea is moving in.

3. Production designer Gemma Jackson used some of the same icons from the big gates of Qarth on Xaro’s vault. She wanted the key to be ornate, but to also to look like it could open a door of that size.

4. The white raven featured in Season 2 was brought in from Austria. 

5. Winterfell’s location moved to accommodate the big courtyard that was necessary for future shots. The rest of the structures and interiors remained the same.

6. Production designer Gemma Jackson got inspiration for the Harrenhal set from a trip she took to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Check out concept art below of several of the series' locations:

7. Dragonstone concept art

8. The Eyrie concept art

9. Pyke concept art

10. Qarth concept art 

11. There are still birds on the walls in the Chamber of the Hand (now Tyrion’s chambers) to show that no one has had time to change it since Jon Arryn’s death.*

12. For Stannis’ fleet, the production only had one ship to film with – Stannis and Davos’ ships are the same set just re-dressed for their scenes. Most of the other ships are special effects.*

13. The castle set in the “Blackwater” episode was created in a massive quarry just north of Belfast, where the Wall set used to be before it was moved to Iceland.*

14. The idols burned on the beach in “The North Remembers” were made out of plaster designed to look like wood. The seven statues had multiple gas outlets, which were connected to a pipe under the sand, so they could keep burning throughout the night.

15. The idols were meant to look like statues carved out of old ship masts.

16. The dragonstone table is 16.5 feet long and was designed to look like it was carved out of stone. The table was inlaid with forests, castles and other important locations; jewels and metal were also inlaid so the table could be lit up by flames in the dark environment.

17. The map table is actually a scale map of Westeros, and it is a favorite prop of creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.*

18. The costumes for the Thirteen of Qarth were made out of dyed silk that was hand-painted, and the underskirts were baked in clay and shaken out so they would maintain a crumpled look. The hoods were designed to protect the wearers from the heat but also as a theatrical element: Where the fronts are lavish, the backs are simple and linen, suggesting that it’s all a show.

19. The costumes for the mob scene in “The Gods Old and New” needed to look “dowdy and down and out,” explained wardrobe supervisor Tara Van Zyl. While the costumes were made new, they needed to go through a process to look “lived in, worked in, slept in, for years.”

20. Brienne’s armor was designed to reflect her travels from tournament to tournament, as opposed to looking like a matching set. Her armor needed to be practical and tailored to her without drawing too much attention to her waist and hips.

21. Gethin Anthony, who played Renly Baratheon, called filming his character’s death “extraordinarily fun.” 

22. Director Alan Taylor intentionally kept the White Walkers offscreen as much as possible. “I think their elusiveness is what makes them effectively nightmarish,” he explained.

23. Because Melisandre and Quaithe are from the same island, costume designer Michele Clapton wanted their costumes to have crossover: “Melisandre had the very ornate neckpiece with the ruby. I used the same shaped links as I had used on Melisandre’s necklace to have a mask made, which was quite articulated.” The women also share the same fabric print on their dresses.

24. Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, was initially hesitant about cutting her hair for Season 2. “My first reaction was, no way,” the actor said. It was actually internet commenters who made the decision for her. “People have said, ‘Oh I don’t think she’ll get her hair cut, she’s too young. It’s a big decision to make.’ I just sort of wanted to prove them wrong.”

25. The direwolves in Season 2 are real animals. Actors cannot shoot with real wolves for safety reasons, so all the backgrounds were shot with the actors and then the wolves, shot separately on a green screen stage, were added in later.*

26.In “The Prince of Winterfell,” the plan was initially to shoot the wildling scenes on the shore of a freshwater lagoon in Iceland. The night before the shoot, the lagoon froze over entirely –  so much so that you could drive a truck on it. Director Alan Taylor restaged the scene to occur over the frozen lagoon itself. The actors wore crampons under their costumes ‒ without them they would have looked like they were playing a “grotesque game of curling,” according to Simon Armstrong, who played Qhorin Halfhand.

27. The Fist of the First Men was shot on location in Iceland. The rock fortress is part of the natural landscape and did not need much design work to fit within the world of the show.

28 Sophie Turner, the actress behind Sansa, was surprised that Cersei would lose her cool during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. “Ususally she’s so contained,” Turner said of Cersei. “It’s good to have a change of role there and shows how much Sansa has developed and grown.”

29. Richard Madden, who played Robb Stark, described the experience of filming at the Stark camp: “Everything is touchable, and you can smell everything – my camp usually smells like horseshit. If you're out in the rain, then your cloak soaks up water, your boots leak and your feet are bleeding and damp. At the end of the day, you gradually unbuckle and unpeel and unclick every bit of the costume. Your back and shoulders and neck are just raw. But I wouldn't change it at all. That weight and shape of the armor dictates my posture and how I breathe. The drag of the cloak affects the way I walk. So all those things help me create Robb as a character; if it were fake chainmail and plastic armor, it wouldn't be the same.”

30. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, celebrated his birthday while the Kingslayer was held captive. “I actually had my birthday in prison,” Coster-Waldau recalled. “I think they have a picture of me getting my birthday cake while I was chained up.”

31. Richard Madden inspired series creator David Benioff to write more scenes for Robb: “Even though he’s a very important character, Robb doesn’t have a huge amount of pagetime,” Benioff explained about Martin's novels. “After we saw what he did in Season 1, we wanted him to have a great deal of screen time, so we kept writing more scenes for him and several scenes that either aren’t in the book or are kind of mentioned in the book but you don’t actually witness them we wanted to be there for.”

32. Two of Craster's daughters featured in “The North Remembers” are actually director Alan Taylor’s daughters dressed up as wildlings.*

33. Author George RR Martin described his idea for wildfire as “partly Greek fire, which was the secret weapon of the Byzantine Empire that they used in many naval engagements, and partly nitroglycerin, and partly napalm, and more than a little bit of magic, all colored green because it looks cool.”

34. Renly and Robb’s camps are meant to stand in contrast to each other. “Renly wants to show the finery that he’s traveling with,” set decorator Tina Jones explained, “whereas Robb is just concentrating on the job at hand and is much more of a warrior.”

35. There were some 240 people brought onto set to participate in the riot scene in “The Old Gods and the New.”

36. Director David Nutter was inspired by footage in the real-world news. The angry reaction of Robb’s men as Jaime Lannister is brought into the Stark camp was informed by watching the news and seeing Muammar Gaddafi walking through a “gauntlet of Libyan freedom fighters,” Nutter explained.

37. Peter Dinklage deviated from the script in “Blackwater” when Tyrion says “I’ll lead the attack” first under his breath before announcing it to his men. “I think that that choice was such a smart choice,” D.B. Weiss said, “You can see the look of shock on his face that he’s actually made this decision…. it’s at the crux of the question: Is Tyrion surprised by his own actions?”

38. Author George RR Martin penned the script for “Blackwater.” “It's very difficult,” Martin said. “If you look at the Battle of the Blackwater in the books, it occupies seven or eight chapters, intercutting from three points of view. If you shot it as I wrote it in the book, it would cost $100 million and take two months to shoot.”

39. Daniel Portman, the actor who plays Podrick Payne, is the real life son of Ron Donachie who played Rodrik Cassel.*

40. Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen, was protective of her children.  “For Seaon 1, I had kind of a lime-green sausage,” Clarke said. “They put a face on it for me. Then in Season 2, we had live-scale dragon models – which I got very protective of. Even when we weren’t filming. It was a little alarming.”

41. One location was shut down due to a hurricane. “That was the day we first shot Catelyn’s arrival at Renly’s camp, when we meet two of our new, amazing female characters in Brienne and Margery Tyrell,” recalled on-set blogger Cat Taylor. 

42. The Lannister army in “Blackwater” was equipped with extra-long arrows to allow for attachments of flame.

43. Director Alan Taylor maintains that when Jon Snow “grows up a little bit in the fight" when he kills Qhorin Halfhand. "He becomes a warrior and allows himself to be a warrior for the first time.