WInter WarrIors

At the time of SFX’s visit to the set, many of the GOT team have just returned from the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. The show won 12 of its 23 nominations. This took its total wins to 38, beating a record previously held by ’90s sitcom Frasier for the most rewarded prime-time series.

Still, everyone’s returned to the Northern Irish set with a soggy bump. The stakes are higher than ever. For one thing, while on the show, winter has finally come, the end is coming, too – this is the penultimate series of

Game Of Thrones. For another, season six featured acclaimed set-pieces by the fistful: Cersei’s wildfire spectacular, the Battle of the Bastards, the death of Hodor, the destruction of the slavers’ fleet and the doggy devouring of Ramsay Bolton.

How, then, to top those? Especially when, as the series’ sabre-rattling first full trailer recently promised, “the Great War is here”.

“Um, no,” Cogman smiles. “Believe it or not, the story just organically goes where it goes. The stakes are escalating, and the story is naturally escalating as the war escalates. So I don’t think we approach it with [the viewpoint of ], ‘well, we’ve got to top this’. But we

The joy of this season is throwing all these characters into the mix