Game of Thrones

The outlaw band is back in Belfast, plus a rumor about a returning character

by Dan Selcke

Even though outdoor shooting for Season 6 is mostly finished, the Game of Thrones production is still filming material inside studio space in Belfast, and some of the Season 6 actors are heading back to the Northern Irish city. For example, Ricky Champ, who will play a member of an outlaw band in Season 6, put it pretty plainly.

We’re just gonna assume he means Game of Thrones there. Meanwhile, fellow Season 6 actor Jóhannes Haukur is also in Belfast. We reported that Haukur was joining the cast a couple of months ago. Based on the number of episodes he’ll appear in (two), and the amount of time he’s spent chatting with Champ on Twitter, we guessed that he would also be a member of that outlaw band. Incidentally, their chatting continues.

So clearly the members of the outlaw band still have a couple things to film. Also in Belfast: the hard-to-miss Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane). Haukur posted a photo of himself and Björnsson about town. It seems he’s not done filming stuff, either.

Okay, back to Champ. The actor had a Twitter interaction within the last day that raised a few eyebrows. First, a couple disclaimers: 1) The interaction is fairly minor and could very well mean nothing, but it’s been a crazy couple of days for wild spoilers, so we’re gonna lean in; and 2) If this interaction implies what it seems to imply, it would constitute SPOILERS. Proceed with caution. Here’s the tweet in question:

“Say hello to Paul Kaye!” Note that Ricky Champ favorited this tweet, which could indicate his agreement with it. Paul Kaye, for those who may have forgotten, is the actor who played born-again red priest Thoros of Myr back in Season 3. He’s the guy who resurrected Beric Dondarrion after the Hound killed him. Melisandre was pretty impressed by that, which has interesting implications if she’s about to try a resurrection of her own…

The last time Kaye was interviewed about the possibility of coming back to Game of Thrones, he was hopeful. “I’m retired not out, but hoping to return,” he said to the Sunday Express in May of this year. We know that other characters last seen in Season 3 are coming back for Season 6 (e.g. Edmure Tully and the Blackfish), so perhaps his hope came true.

Thoros of Myr

If Thoros is back, and there’s definitely a big “if” involved here, it implies some extremely interesting things. In the books, Thoros belongs to the Brotherhood Without Banners, a band of do-gooding outlaws who have resorted for seedier practices by this point in the story. Could the outlaw band we’ve been hearing about since casting calls surfaced four months ago be the new and (un)improved Brotherhood Without Banners? And if that’s true, does that mean we’ll meet their leader? I’ll just let book-readers draw the natural conclusion there.

Before signing off, I’ll say again: the fact that Ricky Champ favorited a tweet that mentioned Paul Kaye does not necessarily mean that Paul Kaye is returning. People favorite tweets for all sorts of reasons. Still, what’s fandom without a little wild speculation?

Thanks to commenter Laura for pointing this out!

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