HBO’s Game of Thrones brought its showrunners and a sprawling cast of actors to San Diego to tease the upcoming but far off seventh season (summer 2017!), but even with six thousand fans screaming “Hodor” in anguished unison throughout the hour it was clearly no longer Comic-Con, but Sansa-Con.
“Sophie Turner made us all do shots of vodka before we came out here,” co-creator David Benioff apologized, briefly explaining why we won’t see the seven-episode Season 7 until the summer of 2017.
“We’ve got to shoot in places with trees where leaves fall off,” he shrugged. “We don’t finish shooting until February. There’s no way to finish post—there’s no way to get the show out there before summer.”
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As a result, the GoT gang didn’t have much to preview although they did drop a Peter Dinklage-heavy blooper reel and a less than riveting production video of sets being dramatically built for the upcoming season.
Thank goodness for Sophie Turner.
The 20-year-old actress reigned supreme at Comic-Con, flanked by co-stars Conleth Hill (Lord Varys) and Iwan Rheon, who met a gruesome fate last season thanks to Sansa Stark. “It was an honor to be killed by you,” Rheon smiled to Turner.
Asked why Sansa didn’t tell Jon she had the Knights of the Vale coming to help the Starks in the Battle of the Bastards, Turner offered the most sensible explanation.
“Sansa didn’t tell Jon because she wanted all the credit,” she said, drolly. “And it makes for really good television.”
She also had fierce words for Sansa’s bastard bro.
“I think she believed it was more of a joint effort in terms of the Battle of the Bastards,” Turner said. “She believes they should be king and queen of the north.
“I’m not sure she believes Jon is capable of running Winterfell in the north. She thinks he doesn’t have the intellect, the knowledge, and the experience that she has,” Turner added with a sly smile, “and I concur.
“She knows that he has wonderful morals and those Stark morals and inevitably he’ll make the right decision… but if it benefits anyone is another story. Whatever, Jon.”
Turner went on to troll the audience of thousands with her pick for who should rule on the Iron Throne. “I think I want Littlefinger on the throne. I think it would be fun, it would be quirky, sadistic… we all watch Game of Thrones. We like that kind of thing.”
Every actor save Hill protested that they had no idea what’s coming in Season 7 (“I know—but I can’t say,” he teased). Turner said she doesn’t know yet if Sansa will take a turn for the heroic or if she’ll become “completely sadistic”: “You wonder if she has a taste for killing.”
When a fan inquired after the romantic possibilities between the power-playing Stark siblings, Turner threatened to dispatch showrunners Benioff and D.B. Weiss if they shipped Sansa and Jon into the unknown GoT future.
“Jon likes redheads, he does,” she said, “but Sansa and Jon have grown up together! They may as well be siblings! I swear to god, Dave and Dan—if you make anything happen, I will kill you.”
“It hadn’t occurred to us,” Benioff replied, “but thank you.”
