Game of Thrones: Maisie Williams as Arya Stark

Game of Thrones Top 5 Questions Asked On Google [Article, Video]

Answers to the top five questions that people are asking about the cult TV series Game of Thrones, the top five searches on Google just before the premier of Season 6 and behind-the-scenes footage of the cast and crew on-location in Spain are in this issue.

Obviously, most of these questions are not being asked by diehard fans of the show; something tells me that they would already know the answers.

Top 5 Questions Asked And Answered

1.  When does Game of Thrones start?

Game of Thrones‘ season premier, Episode 51: The Red Woman, airs April 24, 2016 at 9 PM and will be repeated at various times after that.  Free streaming of past episodes is available on the HBO website.

2.  Where is Game of Thrones filmed?

The series is filmed in multiple countries at the same time in a variety of scenic landscapes, most notably, Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco and Spain.

Actor Peter Dinklage explains how being at a real site with actual history and depth informs the storytelling in this Game of Thrones Season 6: Journey to Spain (HBO) video that contains behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew on-location in Spain during shooting for Season 6 (Spanish voice-over version with English captions).

Game of Thrones Season 6: Journey to Spain video from HBO, above

Although the show is known for its incredible over-the-top special-effects in the form of a massive flying dragon and the like, it’s also known for the beautiful scenery. Dinklage says, “If it was all the effects, we would be in Studio City right now, instead, we are on the Mediterranean coast in Spain. Because, we need this.  We need the sun on our skin, ancient castles that the Moors built. This is Spanish dirt underneath my fingernails. You can’t get that in the studio.”

For Season 6, the crew visited five cities in Spain over two weeks experiencing greener landscapes in the north from the medieval city of Girona to Bardenas Reales (de Navarre) with mountainous deserts, to Castillo de Zafra, known as the Spanish Siberia because of the colder temperatures, to Peñíscola, a town by the coast, and finally to Almería where they will shoot in five locations.

“Game of Thrones filming locations”

It’s a travel agent’s dream come true. The locations are so wondrous but people also travel from around the world to visit those places because of Game of Thrones. Travellers plan their tours, vacations and honeymoons to those specific sites shown in the series, from the Forests of Winterfell to the Dothraki Sea filmed in Northern Ireland to King’s Landing, which was actually two locations in Croatia.

Travel planners are rejoicing. Travel+Leisure magazine has put together a list of scenic travel destinations based on the series, they call The Ultimate Game of Thrones Travel Guide, with the fictional locations and the real, mind-blowing locations where the series was actually filmed.  A favourite time-waster Bored Panda shows us the sites too. The Telegraph mapped all the Game of Thrones filming locations. Writer Oliver Smith says, “The show has been cited as a key factor behind the remarkable growth in annual visitors to Iceland…from 566,000 in 2011, the year it premiered, to more than 1 million in 2015.”

3.  How many seasons of GOT are there?

The sixth season began with episode 51 where R.R. Martin’s book ends.  The TV storyline has moved along past the books’ storyline, leaving  the writers to depend completely on their own imaginations from this point on.  There are many speculations that the television series will end after Season 7 or possibly, even 8, with fewer episodes in the final one or two seasons.

4.  What is Game of Thrones about?

This is a complicated question but the short answer is that it’s about greed, lust, inhumanity and depravity or the opposite of that.

5.  Is Jon Snow dead?

The Julius Caesar-style take-down of Jon Snow in the Season 5 finale left viewers in frenzied speculation about whether or not Jon Snow is really dead. No matter how many hints, denials or assurances by cast members or people in-the-know, the one thing we know for sure is not to trust anyone who says they know for sure. The only way to answer that question is with another question, or two. Does Jon Snow have to be alive to be in Game of Thrones? And, in his world, can death not be undone?

by Cherryl Bird – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Twitter @ladycbird | Instagram @cherrylbird

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