Writing "Battle of the Bastards" was written by the series' creators,
David Benioff and
D. B. Weiss. Elements of the episode are based on the sixth novel in the
A Song of Ice and Fire series,
The Winds of Winter, which author
George R. R. Martin hoped to complete before the sixth season aired. In an "Inside the Episode" segment published by
HBO shortly after the episode aired, Benioff and Weiss said that the final battle was primarily inspired by the
Battle of Cannae and the
American Civil War. According to Weiss, "We went back to the Roman fight against the Carthaginians in the Battle of Cannae where the Romans got caught in an encirclement by Hannibal and just slaughtered to the man. We used that as our model". According to Weiss, "She's not her father and she's not insane and she's not a sadist, but there's a Targaryen ruthlessness that comes with even the good Targaryens". His first appearance was in "
Dark Wings, Dark Words", as a then-unnamed "boy" who helps a captured Theon Greyjoy. Before he was cast as Ramsay, Rheon auditioned for the role of Jon Snow. In an interview, he described learning about his character's fate: "I had received half the scripts, five episodes, then I got the call. They joked, 'Isn't it great Ramsay ends up on the Iron Throne?' As soon as they said that I said, 'He's dead, isn't he?' It's cool. I've had four lovely seasons here. It's been great to be involved with such an amazing show. I think it's kind of right he goes down. Because what else is he going to do after this? He's done so many things. It's justified and it's the right thing to do. It's the right path. He's reached his peak. It's nice for the audience that he goes out on this high, if you will." In an
IGN interview, Parkinson said that he was tipped off about his character's death: "Whenever I was told that I was coming back for Season 6, before they sent me through the scripts and stuff, they sent me through a ring just to say, 'Listen, so that you don't get a shock whenever you read the scripts, just know that you die this season. In an interview, Jagger talked about his casting: "I prayed for it. When I heard I got the part my knees buckled. It was a life-changing moment." he had played
Gregor Clegane during the show's
second season. In an
Entertainment Weekly interview before the episode aired, Sapochnik said he was brought on board by Benioff and Weiss after his previous-season success; "Hardhome" won several awards, including
Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. About how the episode should be shot, he said: "Every battle on
Thrones is unique. I think that's why Benioff and Weiss keep doing them. In the case of 'Battle of the Bastards' – or 'BOB' as we affectionately called it in production – David and Dan wanted to do a thing of spectacle, a strategic pitchfield battle they hadn't had the resources to do back in season 1 or 2. I was particularly interested in depicting both the horror of war and the role of luck in battle." Benioff called Sapochnik's work on the episode some of the best in the series' history. It took 25 days to film, requiring 500 extras, 600 crew members and 70 horses. Benioff described the difficulty of coordinating horses in battle scenes, which is why they are rarely used except in "big budget war films". Weiss added, "Miguel's really outdone himself. Fully fleshed out medieval battles require a tremendous amount of resources and choreography to get them right. It feels like we're doing something fresh that you don't see on TV and movies very often." Kristofer Hivju, who plays Tormund Giantsbane, said about the intensity of filming the scenes: "It was pretty intense, actually. When you have 20 people running around getting squeezed together, and you're trying to chop at another bearded guy with a sword, you are not out of danger. You're laying down in the mud, and one wrong step, you won't have a face anymore. It was very intense, and Miguel insisted on making it that muddy and messy. War is not beautiful. Sometimes you see action sequences where battles seem organized. I know that from how the Vikings fought. It's not beautiful. It's hard. It's hard work. We had to shoot moment-to-moment, chronologically. We would shoot one sequence 80 times per day." , in the
Second Punic War, was an inspiration for "Battle of the Bastards". In an interview after the episode aired, Sapochnik detailed the process of filming the battle and called
Akira Kurosawa's
Ran an inspiration in shooting the scenes: "I watched every pitch field battle I could find (footage of real ones too), looking for patterns — for what works, what doesn't, what takes you out of the moment, what keeps you locked in. Interestingly one of the things I noticed is that staging of these battles through the years has changed dramatically. Back in the day you'd see these huge aerial shots of horse charges and there were two big differences. First, it was all real — no CGI or digital replication. And second, often when the horses would go down, you can kind of tell they got really hurt. Nowadays you'd never get away with that, and nor would you want to." Asked about the greatest challenge in filming the battle, Sapochnik said: "Every time we charge the horses it takes 25 minutes to reset all the fake snow on the field and rub out the horseshoe prints. So how many times can we afford to charge the horses each day knowing we need to give time for a reset that's 10 times longer than the actual shot? Another thing was how to make 500 extras look like 8,000 when you are shooting in a field where there's just nowhere to hide your shortfall. It becomes a bit like a bonkers math equation. And finally: How do you get these guys riled up enough to run at each other and get covered in mud and stand in the rain and then run at each other again and again for 25 days, 10 hours a day, without them just telling you to piss off?" According to the director, the scene was filmed on privately owned land in
Saintfield,
Northern Ireland, and they had only 12 days to shoot. After reading the script Sapochnik came up with a 48-day shooting schedule, which was whittled down to 25 days. Sapochnik said that a crucial scene was filmed off-script. After three days of rain, unable to finish filming as scripted, he suggested a scene in which Jon Snow was trampled and nearly buried alive by bodies; the director described the character pushing his way out as "rebirthing." "When the crush starts happening, he slows down, and there's that thing of peace where he thinks: 'I could just stay here and let it all end.' And then something drives him to fight up, and that moment when he comes up and grasps for breath, he is reborn again, which I found weirdly reflective of the scene where Dany is held aloft at the end of season three." Rheon said that he had always wanted to film scenes with Jon Snow: "Anyone who has asked me, 'Who would you like Ramsay to meet?' My answer has always been, 'Jon Snow.' He's the antithesis of Ramsay. They're almost a yin and a yang. They both come from such a similar place yet they're so different. And even though they're enemies, they've both risen so far as bastards, which is almost incomprehensible, and now they're both here facing each other. They couldn't be any more different, yet more similar." According to Rheon, "The way I see it, if you don't get hit a couple of times doing that, you're not doing it properly." A notable goof occurred during the scene where Jon Snow mounts his horse in an attempt to rescue Rickon before Ramsay's arrows can reach him. As he is climbing into the saddle, Snow's Valyrian sword Longclaw and its scabbard can be seen bending wildly, betraying its status as a rubber stand-in.
Battle of Meereen For the Daenerys scene at the beginning of the episode where the three dragons burn part of the Masters' fleet, Sapochnik credited
VFX supervisor Joe Bauer and producer Steve Kullback for post-production work: Gemma Whelan, who plays Yara, talked about filming the scene: "Oh my goodness – I was so excited when I saw that I had a scene with those two [Daenerys and Tyrion]." About the dynamic between the two women, Whelan said: "It's clear as the scene plays out that Yara quite likes Dany. We share a lot of little looks and there's some playful language in how we talk to one another – Dany asks if the Iron Islands ever had a queen, and Yara says, 'No more than Westeros.' They recognize the girl-power undertow between the two of them." ==Reception==