Casting news from Northern Ireland: Will we be seeing The Children?

We’re well into filming of Season 5, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not still some news trickling out about casting, including this post that recently surfaced. According to the casting call, Game of Thrones is looking for an “eclectic group of people,” in Ireland, both male and female. The catch? They only want people with a size 26″ waist or less.

Minor book spoilers and speculation after the cut.

The specific size suggests that we might be casting for The Children of the Forest–though that’s just pure speculation. We still don’t know how the series plans to approach its story as it delves into books 4 and 5, but The Children are a large part of Bran’s storyline. We already saw the appearance of one last season, helping Bran to reach the three-eyed raven. And though there won’t be any Hodor-ing this season, Isaac Hempstead-Wright’s involvement in Season 5 has been confirmed which means we could definitely see some more from that storyline.

It’s possible that Game Of Thrones could be looking for skinny people for a different reason–starving slaves or Wildlings–but the location in Northern Ireland would seem to rule out slaves from Braavos or Meereen, which are being filmed in Croatia.

Remember, this is all speculation–we have no idea what the casting is for, but this seems like a good educated guess. Personally, I’d love to see The Children play an expanded role, especially since Bran’s storyline seems to have deviated the most so far from the books.

• Published on 09/10/2014 at 9:41 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:40 PM CDT