‘Game of Thrones’ season 4, episode 9: Neil Marshall, George R.R. Martin on Battle at the Wall

Sunday night marked one of the biggest episodes of “Game of Thrones” season 4 in “The Watchers on the Wall,” but before we say goodbye to this story, we have a pair of different reactions to the area and some of what happened there.

We begin here with Neil Marshall, who returned following his turn with “Blackwater” in season 2 to helm this extremely-important episode. Obviously there were many important action sequences for him to take on, but perhaps his biggest challenge of all was getting Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie to tear out viewers’ hearts during Ygritte’s death scene. Even though book readers knew this was coming, he still had to find a way to pull the emotion out of it.

So in speaking on this subject to the Los Angeles Times, Marshall tried to make it clear what he was willing to go to make this moment resonate with fans:

“Rose and Kit were both absolutely fantastic. The passion that they bring to their characters, it made for a very heartbreaking scene. My biggest concern was, ‘How do I do this heartbreaking scene in the middle of a battle?’ My instinct was to keep them in a little bubble to themselves so I could get all the emotion out of that moment because it is heartbreaking. They both played it beautifully.”

As a bonus, HBO also released today a new video featuring A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin explaining in great detail the complications that come with an invasion of the Wall. What is the most remarkable thing about this to us is merely that Martin is speaking about something fictional, but with the way in which he describes it, you would almost thing that if you headed up close to the Arctic Circle, you would actually see the Wall there.

If you want more reaction to this episode (which is understandable), click here to see what Leslie had to say about filming it. Also, be sure to sign up today for some further TV updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: HBO