The first scene of the episode opens on a gloomy and vengeful dragon queen clearly angry about Jon’s true parentage being blurted by the ones she had sworn to secrecy and she least expected to betray.
Having lost two of her dragons, most of the Dothraki Army, learnt Jon’s lineage and seen the capitation of Missandae’s head at the hands of Cersei, she is beyond gutted and furious.
As Danny learns about her hand and her confidante betraying her trust and plotting against her, she executes Lord Varys for his impudence and betrayal.
Here we see Drogon facing up against Lord Varys in all his glory and ready to burn the traitor to a crisp. Actors are placed against the screen where the dragon is added in the close-up as can be seen clearly here. A rather chilling scene where Lord Varys is ratted out by Tyrion. Lord Varys looks prepared to bite the bullet as he naturally anticipated what loomed ahead of his treasonous act.
We see the two armies; Iron Fleet and Golden Company face off against each other at the King’s landing entry gate when suddenly dragon’s fire takes out Cersei’s army in a blanket attack, obliterating the high gate along with it.
Covered by as many as eight cameras, each camera carried the explosion further and the fire element was extended for making it travel as far back as they needed it to.
We see Golden company army barbecued without a warning with an overhead Dragonfire smoking out the entire battalion that thronged the gate while the crowd inside attempts to escape. All scenes seem succoured by greenscreen, live-action and VFX elements. The real Gold Company and the digital gold-company for crowd simulation are created for the gravity of the scene.
The Iron fleet is simmering with blood-lust and Danny’s temper is riding high. Mounted on her dragon, she is on a genocidal spree, indiscriminately wiping out populations down below.
As the dragon rises and swoops over the monuments spraying fire all over, Danny seems in no mood of stopping. Despite their surrender, she refuses to cast mercy on any King’s landing dweller. Such is her anguish over the episodes that razed her over the past weeks.
Entire set at the backdrop of Green screens with red markings and a flame-thrower operated in a controlled environment served for the firebreathing scenes of dragon’s kings’ landing carnage.
Dragonfire over the crowd looks petrifying as different components are brought together to create the imagery on a canvas depicting the destruction brought on by Danny mounted on her dragon.
The entire set had to be designed only to demolish it later. While some scenes were created on software, most of them were physical set constructions.
A combination of makeup, prosthetics and a ton of CGI with green markers on the bodies, casualties and wounded were depicted in Danny’s genocide.
Witnessing a ton of popular characters being killed in one way or the other, we see a terribly injured Arya making out alive and approaching her horse at the end of the episode.
We can’t wait for the finale episode of Game of Thrones to see the fate of the remaining characters. We shall keep you updated on the VFX aspect of the final episode. Stay tuned.
