50 Fun Facts About Game of Thrones Season 7

Season 7 premiered late, in July, because its makers waited for what?

Winter weather. With winter finally arriving in the story, Benioff and Weiss said sunny skies no longer suited the show, so they pushed the whole shoot back to catch grim skies even at their sunniest locations.

Why did season 7 run to only seven episodes, not ten?

Production time. Benioff and Weiss said they could no longer finish ten episodes in the usual 12 to 14 months, with Weiss likening the shoot to a mid-range movie's schedule.

Moments before she dies in season 7, Olenna Tyrell tells Jaime she was behind the death of which king?

Joffrey Baratheon. Jaime let her drink a painless poison instead of facing the public execution Cersei wanted, and only then did Olenna admit the murder and ask him to tell his sister.

Which Thor: The Dark World director returned for season 7's sixth episode after an absence since season 2?

Alan Taylor. He directed Ned Stark's execution in season 1, then left for two Hollywood blockbusters that he later said cost him his will to direct.

Which director, later of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, handled season 7's Loot Train Attack episode?

Matt Shakman. He was best known for the comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a favourite of Benioff and Weiss, who had once written an episode of it themselves.

Season 7's finale confirms that Daenerys, Jon Snow's new lover, is also what relation to him?

His aunt. Bran and Sam work out that Jon is the lawful son of her eldest brother Rhaegar, at the very moment the pair fall into bed together aboard ship.

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, a Spanish islet with a long winding staircase, became which Westeros castle in season 7?

Dragonstone. The staircase Daenerys climbs on her homecoming is real: the episode's director said it looks like a computer creation, but the crew shot it on location.

Arya's reunion with her direwolf in season 7 was filmed in which country?

Canada. The scene was shot in Alberta, and a local film-industry chief said the producers came because the province has the biggest wolves in the world.

Jim Broadbent joined season 7 as which teacher of Sam's at the Citadel?

Archmaester Ebrose. He accepts that the White Walkers are real but trusts the Wall to hold them back, so he keeps the restricted books locked away and Sam ends up stealing them.

Tom Hopper replaced Freddie Stroma in which role for season 7?

Dickon Tarly. Stroma, who played Sam's younger brother for one episode in season 6, had since been cast as H. G. Wells in ABC's Time After Time, a likely scheduling clash.

Which musician cameoed as a singing Lannister soldier in season 7's premiere?

Ed Sheeran. Benioff said they had tried for years to book him as a surprise for Maisie Williams, a fan, and it is her character who stumbles on his singing soldier.

Which New York Mets pitcher, nicknamed 'Thor', cameoed as a spear-throwing Lannister soldier in season 7?

Noah Syndergaard. When the episode aired he had not pitched since April because of a torn muscle, and he called his few seconds in the battle a dream come true.

Whom does Arya spar with on her return to Winterfell in season 7?

Brienne. Arya asks her for a training bout and proves every bit her match, while Arya's sister looks on, uneasy at how dangerous she has become.

Which season 7 episode is the shortest in the whole series at 49 minutes?

Short but explosive: it ends with the Loot Train Attack and Drogon meeting a scorpion bolt.

Who composed the music for season 7?

Ramin Djawadi. Benioff and Weiss wanted the show to sound unlike other fantasy, so he was told at the start to avoid flutes; his score for this season's finale won him an Emmy.

Which cast member won the 2018 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama for season 7?

Peter Dinklage. His third Emmy as Tyrion came at the expense of his screen brother, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who was nominated beside him in the same category for playing Jaime.

Which adviser does Daenerys warn in season 7 that she will burn him alive if he ever betrays her?

Varys. She challenges him over the rulers he has abandoned, he answers that his loyalty is to the people, and she forgives him on condition that he is always honest with her.

Season 7's fourth episode leaked early from which HBO international partner?

Star India. The copy still carried a 'for internal viewing only' watermark, and within two weeks four people had been arrested over the leak.

Whose face is Arya wearing in season 7's cold open?

Walder Frey. In his face she hosts a feast for every man of his house and toasts them with poisoned wine, wiping out the family that staged the Red Wedding.

Which old friend does Arya meet at an inn in 'Stormborn', last seen in season 4?

Hot Pie. He tells her that Jon has retaken Winterfell, and on that news she gives up her ride south to kill Cersei and turns for home.

What is the name of the direwolf Arya encounters leading a wolfpack in season 7?

Nymeria. The wolf turns away instead of following her home, and Arya's 'That's not you' echoes her own answer in season 1 when her father pictured her as a lady: 'That's not me.'

Who leaps overboard instead of fighting when Euron attacks Yara's fleet in season 7?

Theon. With his uncle holding Yara captive in front of him, he freezes, jumps, and ends the episode clinging to driftwood among the burning wrecks.

Whom does Jon name regent of Winterfell before sailing south in season 7?

Sansa. The choice visibly surprises her, and before leaving Jon takes Littlefinger by the throat and warns him to keep away from her.

Whom does Sam cure of greyscale with a forbidden treatment in season 7?

Jorah Mormont. Sam risks the banned procedure out of loyalty to Jorah's father, his old Lord Commander, and actor Iain Glen spent about five hours in make-up for the scene.

In season 7, Cersei poisons Tyene Sand with the same poison Ellaria used to kill whom?

Myrcella. Cersei delivers it the same way, with a kiss, then leaves Ellaria chained in the cell to watch her own daughter die.

Which Sherlock actor returned in season 7 as the Iron Bank's envoy, Tycho Nestoris?

Mark Gatiss. His banker arrives to call in the crown's debts, and Cersei settles them with the gold her army has just seized from Highgarden.

Which stronghold do the Unsullied capture in season 7 through sewers Tyrion designed?

Casterly Rock. It was a trap: Jaime had left only a small garrison and marched his army off to seize Highgarden, while Euron's fleet burned the Unsullied's ships behind them.

Which actress played Olenna Tyrell, bowing out in 'The Queen's Justice'?

Diana Rigg. Her Queen of Thorns goes out sparring: with her castle fallen, she drinks the painless poison Jaime offers and uses her last minutes to needle him about his sister.

What object does Littlefinger give Bran at Winterfell in season 7?

A Valyrian steel dagger. It is the blade a hired killer brought to Bran's bedside in season 1, and Bran hands it straight on to Arya, who ends up cutting Littlefinger's throat with it.

Which of Littlefinger's own sayings does Bran unsettlingly repeat back to him in season 7?

Chaos is a ladder. Littlefinger had said it in a private conversation years earlier, so hearing it from a boy who was nowhere near shows him that Bran can see his past.

Which weapon, built by Qyburn to kill dragons, wounds Daenerys's mount during the Loot Train Attack?

A giant crossbow. Qyburn's 'scorpion' was shown to Cersei as able to punch through a dragon's skull, but in battle its bolt only wounds the beast and forces Daenerys to land.

The Loot Train Attack set a record for which stunt?

Fire burns. The showrunners wanted real flames for the dragon's breath instead of computer effects, so the shoot ran to 73 separate burns, with 20 performers alight in a single shot.

Who tackles Jaime out of the dragonfire and into the Blackwater Rush in season 7?

Bronn. He then hauls Jaime, sinking in full armour, all the way to the far bank, where the pair agree they cannot beat an enemy with dragons.

Which father and son are burned by dragonfire for refusing to bend the knee in 'Eastwatch'?

Randyll and Dickon Tarly. Daenerys offers the beaten Lannister army a choice, join her or burn, and once the two Tarlys have refused and died the rest go down on their knees.

Whom does Davos fetch from King's Landing in season 7, three seasons after his last appearance?

Gendry. Fans had joked for three seasons that he was still out in his rowing boat, and Davos greets him with the same gag, saying he thought he might still be rowing.

What do Jon and his raiding party set out to capture north of the Wall in season 7?

A wight. The plan is Tyrion's: carry one of the walking dead south and show it to Cersei, so that she believes the threat and agrees to a truce.

Who looks into the flames in season 7's premiere and sees the army of the dead on the march?

The Hound. The man scarred by fire and terrified of it turns out to be able to read it, describing the dead marching past a mountain towards the eastern end of the Wall.

Which member of Jon's raiding party dies of his wounds after a beast's attack in 'Beyond the Wall'?

Thoros of Myr. The red priest is mauled while saving a comrade from the creature, walks on with the party, and later dies of his wounds, so the others burn his body.

Which dragon does the Night King kill with an ice javelin in season 7?

Viserion. The dead drag his body out of the frozen lake, the Night King raises him, and in the finale his blue fire brings down the Wall.

Who rescues Jon from the frozen lake in season 7 and gives him his horse?

Benjen Stark. Jon's long-lost uncle rides in out of nowhere, puts Jon on his own horse and stays behind to hold off the dead alone.

Which undead creature did the showrunners request for about four seasons before finally getting it in 'Beyond the Wall'?

A polar bear. Benioff and Weiss expected the effects team to love the idea, but it was turned down year after year as too costly, until they simply wrote it into the script.

Who reads aloud the record of Rhaegar's secret annulment in season 7?

Gilly. She is reading out a High Septon's journal when she reaches the entry that makes Jon a lawful heir, and Sam, fuming at the maesters, cuts her off without noticing what she has found.

Season 7's Dragonpit summit was filmed in which kind of Roman ruin in Spain?

An amphitheatre. The cast rehearsed the 40-to-50-page scene like a play in Belfast, then spent six days shooting it in the old Roman arena at Italica, near Seville.

What does Cersei reveal to Jaime about herself in season 7's 'Eastwatch'?

She is pregnant. She adds that this time she will name Jaime openly as the father, and in the finale Tyrion works out her condition for himself during their private talk.

What is Jon Snow's birth name, revealed in season 7's finale?

Aegon Targaryen. Bran's vision shows his dying mother whispering the name to Ned, and proof of his parents' secret wedding makes him a lawful prince instead of a bastard.

Whom has Euron secretly sailed to Essos to bring back for Cersei in season 7?

The Golden Company. Euron's show of fleeing in terror from the dead was an act: Cersei had already paid for the sellsword army, a deceit that makes Jaime ride away from her.

Season 7's finale takes its title from the sigils of which two houses?

Targaryen and Stark. The title marks the new alliance of the two houses, sealed when Daenerys and Jon become lovers, in the same hour that Jon is revealed to belong to both.

What does Sam discover lies in a huge deposit beneath the castle where Daenerys lands in season 7?

Dragonglass. Sam finds the reference in a book taken from the Citadel's restricted shelves and writes to Jon, and that letter is what sends Jon south to ask Daenerys for leave to mine it.

The cave drawings Jon shows Daenerys in season 7 depict the First Men fighting alongside whom?

The Children of the Forest. The carvings show two old enemies uniting against the White Walkers, which is Jon's whole pitch to Daenerys, though she still wants him to bend the knee first.

Leaving for Essos in season 7, Melisandre says she must return to Westeros one last time to do what?

Die there. Before sailing for Volantis she says she must come back because 'I have to die in this strange country', and she tells the man she is speaking to that he will die there too.