Dornish Newcomers Excited To be Part of Westeros

Dorne has always considered itself separate but equal. According to the histories of Westeros, when the Andals invaded and defeated the First Men, they avoided Dorne completely. As did Aegon I Targaryen, when he and his sisters invaded on the backs of dragons and conquered the continent. After a fly over and a warning, they initially skipped Dorne. When they decided to go back for it in 4 AC, dragons did not help, and after a gorilla campaign where the Targaryens took ugly losses, including Queen Rhaenys, they retreated. It wasn’t until Dorne agreed to marry into the Targaryen clan generations later that the region became the seventh of the Seven Kingdoms. (For those who always wondered why Rhaegar was married to Ellia Martell instead of wedding brother to sister as Targeryens so famously did, he was upholding the tradition of keeping securing Dornish loyalty through marriage.)

One might therefore expect that the Dornish characters who are joining the cast this year would bring an aloof and haughty air to their interviews. Not so! In fact, in talking to the Toronto Sun, they all seem to be quite excited about it.

Check out what they had to say below!

Alexander Siddig says it’s all about the ratings.

“It’s fun doing another big, big, big show,” said a grinning Alexander Siddig, who plays Game of Thrones’ Doran Martell, the Prince of Dorne…. “Everybody is really happy, because they’re all on a hit show. We don’t have that whole year of where we’re wondering whether or not people are going to like the show.”

And with the marketing department bound and determined to make the Dornish invasion feel as natural as possible, he doesn’t have to worry about the fan’s reaction to the region. He does however have his constituents to worry about back home in Sunspear, now that the news of Oberyn’s death has reached the masses.

“Half of my nation would like to go to war now,” Siddig said of Prince Doran’s mindset. “Should we be going to war? Should I put at risk all the people in my nation? How many people are going to die? These are the things I grapple with.”

The Sand Snakes are part of that constituency–and they’re in the half that would like to go to war now, please and thank you. As Jessica Henwick puts it:

“Someone very close to us has been taken away. And so we go, ‘How can we get them back in the same way? Well, let’s take something away from the Lannisters that they love.’ So that’s where we’re coming from this season.”

Apparently the three Sand Snakes bonded immediately, and are improvising scenes for their own spin off series when Game of Thrones ends after Season 7, according to Rosabell Laurent Sellers.

“We improvised our own little scenes that had nothing to do with the script. It would make an amazing spinoff.”

Personally, I’m hoping for the Internet to get on that and create something for them along the lines of One and a Half Man.

Meanwhile, DeObia Oparei, who plays Areo Hotah, feels that the moral ambiguity of the show is why it’s so exciting to be in.

“This is the kind of show where really, who’s the baddie? Who’s the goodie? It’s so intertwined, just as it is for all of us…. I mean, there are parts of us here that are bad and parts of us here that are good. I think the show does that really well…One character is seen in the light of goodness for one episode, the next episode they’re seen killing their best friend or reneging on their word. I think that’s what makes it so exciting, and being a character who has that potential is really exciting.”

Oparei would also be totally down for one of Game of Thrones’ notorious nude scenes. “I’d love to show my willy!” he said, awkwardly. Sexposition, anyone? To check out the rest of the interview, click here.

• Published on 04/01/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT