Breaking down the Battle of the Bastards

The image of Jon Snow on foot with Longclaw in his hand, bracing himself to face a herd of horses galloping towards him, epitomises the Battle of the Bastards, which received a 10/10 on imdb, superseding Ozymandias (Breaking Bad), to become the highest-rated TV episode ever.

A lot of effort was put behind all that 20 minutes of perfection we saw on the battlefield, which contrary to what many thought as the brilliance of Computer-generated imagery (CGI) alone.

Battle of the Bastards is the most lauded scene of the super hit HBO series for its impeccable rendering of the brutality of war, like the Omaha beach scene from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, or the bloody battle between natives and immigrants in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.

The episode was the crux of Game of Thrones Season Six, which saw the Starks’ flag being reinstated at Winterfell, not to mention marking the rite of passage of Sansa Stark and Jon Snow. The crew did a commendable job visualising the underlying psychological battle, the tension between the characters, all the while unveiling the grisly battle.

It was a much-awaited cathartic moment for the fans to see the end of Ramsay Bolton, the most sadistic character of the show.

There is a scene where Jon almost kills Ramsay by repeatedly punching on the latter’s face for a full twenty-five seconds, venting out all his anger; you’d be surprised to hear that it took almost 10 hours of shoot to perfect that moment!

Watch the technical team behind Game of Thrones explain about the painstaking endeavour to perfect the Battle of the Bastards.