Actors in the dark, how DnD herd them with fake scenes?
Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 2:10 pm
A few times now, I've noticed in production Extras and deleted scenes that the plot, and more importantly character arcs, seem to differ significantly between what was filmed and what was aired. I've been thinking that this may be an effective initiative DnD have taken to guide the actors to perform as desired.
Just a few examples:
1. Kit Harrington filmed a scene in S3 where he was about to leave Ygritte early in the morning, when they were camping South of the Wall. He could've gone back to the NW but he stayed with her until he couldn't. Harrington has said it was difficult for him to understand why Jon was leaving this woman he loved. So maybe that scene helped him process it for his character. I'm not sure if they always planned to cut it...
2. Sansa and Bran filmed a scene where she's deciding to kill Arya, and Bran enlightens her, so she decides to kill LF. They didn't air it, obv. I find it hard to believe they filmed it and only very late decided to cut it. I think it was fake filming.
I'm inclined to think they did this so that Sophie Turner and others would be able to play the a part of naive enough, for us to believe what we saw in E1-6. This deleted scene reveals she wasn't acting that Sansa was faking LF out, which is how the final product looks, but for Turner it was Sansa actually falling for LF's plan.
Had it been included, this scene would have given away the LF plot twist death scene, and basically makes moot the entire season build up.
Now,I have no evidence that their intention was to influence the actors and get the best out of them. But there is substantial indication it wasn't ever intended to be in the final product....
The final product gives us a murder conspiracy plot Arc that flips the usual form. In most such plots, the protagonist is in the dark, we see the adversaries acting as if everything is good for the protagonist and then it suddenly flips and the protagonist finally sees their twisted scheme, at the moment of defeat it becomes clear. Now, inE7, LF is in the place of the protagonist, but the Starks are the fan favorites, the heroes, and the rat-like Villain is the one being tricked.
This was clearly intended from the beginning bc (a) the entire Arya storyline where she is overly obvious gng into LFs room despite being able to be completely silent, she's clearly putting on a show for him the entire time, as we know Maisie Williams is capable of portraying the double layer
(b) despite her still present resentments toward Sansa from childhood, Arya's explicit communication with Sansa that, though they may have sisterly divergence, Arya will have her BK anyway, is clear when she gives Sansa the dagger silently after leaving the door open for others (LF) to hear the conversation
(c) we leave the Stark kids altogether in their first conversation at the tree, in the middle of the conversation, indicating there's off-screen stuff we don't know about in this plot, between the three of them.... the same way this happened with tyrion and cersei e7. Were meant to be suspicious. I concede, could be a later edit, but there's no info that anything was cut.
(d) the time and precision it would take to plan with and convince rhoyce and everyone else in that room without LF's knowledge (not the hardest, but considering the other indications).
And (e) the fact that they didn't get the last scripts until right before filming means they filmed other episodes before having that knowledge of the pretending aspect (they knew LF died but maybe not that they were gonna fake him out that whole time) and so it's PoSSIBLE Turner and some others didn't know and could better act as if LF was succeeding.
Thoughts?
Just a few examples:
1. Kit Harrington filmed a scene in S3 where he was about to leave Ygritte early in the morning, when they were camping South of the Wall. He could've gone back to the NW but he stayed with her until he couldn't. Harrington has said it was difficult for him to understand why Jon was leaving this woman he loved. So maybe that scene helped him process it for his character. I'm not sure if they always planned to cut it...
2. Sansa and Bran filmed a scene where she's deciding to kill Arya, and Bran enlightens her, so she decides to kill LF. They didn't air it, obv. I find it hard to believe they filmed it and only very late decided to cut it. I think it was fake filming.
I'm inclined to think they did this so that Sophie Turner and others would be able to play the a part of naive enough, for us to believe what we saw in E1-6. This deleted scene reveals she wasn't acting that Sansa was faking LF out, which is how the final product looks, but for Turner it was Sansa actually falling for LF's plan.
Had it been included, this scene would have given away the LF plot twist death scene, and basically makes moot the entire season build up.
Now,I have no evidence that their intention was to influence the actors and get the best out of them. But there is substantial indication it wasn't ever intended to be in the final product....
The final product gives us a murder conspiracy plot Arc that flips the usual form. In most such plots, the protagonist is in the dark, we see the adversaries acting as if everything is good for the protagonist and then it suddenly flips and the protagonist finally sees their twisted scheme, at the moment of defeat it becomes clear. Now, inE7, LF is in the place of the protagonist, but the Starks are the fan favorites, the heroes, and the rat-like Villain is the one being tricked.
This was clearly intended from the beginning bc (a) the entire Arya storyline where she is overly obvious gng into LFs room despite being able to be completely silent, she's clearly putting on a show for him the entire time, as we know Maisie Williams is capable of portraying the double layer
(b) despite her still present resentments toward Sansa from childhood, Arya's explicit communication with Sansa that, though they may have sisterly divergence, Arya will have her BK anyway, is clear when she gives Sansa the dagger silently after leaving the door open for others (LF) to hear the conversation
(c) we leave the Stark kids altogether in their first conversation at the tree, in the middle of the conversation, indicating there's off-screen stuff we don't know about in this plot, between the three of them.... the same way this happened with tyrion and cersei e7. Were meant to be suspicious. I concede, could be a later edit, but there's no info that anything was cut.
(d) the time and precision it would take to plan with and convince rhoyce and everyone else in that room without LF's knowledge (not the hardest, but considering the other indications).
And (e) the fact that they didn't get the last scripts until right before filming means they filmed other episodes before having that knowledge of the pretending aspect (they knew LF died but maybe not that they were gonna fake him out that whole time) and so it's PoSSIBLE Turner and some others didn't know and could better act as if LF was succeeding.
Thoughts?