Valar morghulis (All men must die)
The Game of Thrones actors have mastered the art of talking without really saying anything, writes Stephanie Merry. They’ve been making the rounds, doing endless publicity for season 7, which starts Sunday on HBO. It’s something to behold the way these pe
Viewers anxiously awaiting the return of Game of Thrones can get an early start on the action with a lesson in High Valyrian. Language-teaching app Duolingo and U.S. linguist David J. Peterson drafted a virtual course that lets fans pick up the fictional vocabulary spoken on HBO’s show.
It’s most commonly used by Daenerys — the ruler known as the Mother of Dragons — on the series, but Valyrian has quickly become a dying language as many of the characters get killed off.
Petersen was instrumental in adapting the fictional language used sparsely by author George R.R. Martin in the fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, on which the TV show is based.
He started building the language with those parts, in particular phrases like “valar morghulis,” or “All men must die,” and “valar dohaeris” or “All men must serve.”
Picking up languages from fictional TV series is a popular tradition, particularly for sci-fi and fantasy devotees.
Various iterations of the Star Trek series birthed several languages, most notably Klingon, while the Lord of the Rings books and films popularized Elvish languages created by author J.R.R. Tolkien.
Game of Thrones already has various online dictionaries that dissect various dialects on the series, while online language service Living Language offers a US$30 course in Dothraki, another language developed for the series. The Canadian Press
Warning: If you haven’t yet caught up with season 6, though, there may be spoilers ahead.
EMILIA CLARKE
Rolling Stone interviewed Clarke, who plays Daenerys, for a story titled Emilia Clarke, the Queen of Dragons, Tells All. Of course, she didn’t.
“Spoiler alert — I normally don’t spend very much time in Belfast, but this last season I spent a little more time there,” she said. This was a pretty savvy tidbit because fans would logically obsess over what she meant, though it’s most likely just evidence that she’ll end up in King’s Landing, the interior shots of which are shot in Northern Ireland. We knew that’s where she was headed though, anyway. She has always said the Iron Throne is where she belongs, and where else would she be sailing at the end of last season?
But she also used such empty phrases as “it’s a really interesting season in terms of some loose ends that have been tied” and “rumours are going to be confirmed or denied.”
But then — then — she also revealed that she’d be around for another season. So she makes it through season 7!? That’s not the kind of thing she was probably supposed to reveal, even if we had already figured as much.
AIDAN GILLEN
Gillen, who plays the puppet master Littlefinger, used an interesting tactic designed to both generate headlines and give us nothing in the way of new intel. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he revisited a scene from season 2 in which he bumped into a disguised Arya Stark, who had somehow managed to score a gig as Tywin Lannister’s servant.
The question at the time was whether Littlefinger recognized her. Well, what do you know? Years later, Gillen gave us an answer.
“It was unclear if he recognized her or not, but I have my own thoughts on that,” he said. “Yes, I did recognize her — I just didn’t say anything or do anything about it.”
There you go — mystery solved! Only not really, because it’s just the opinion of the actor. Also, it has no bearing on anything to come. Very crafty!
SOPHIE TURNER
Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, had plenty to say to Time about what it was like growing up while her character was — none of which matters when you’re looking for spoilers.
But she did give a little away when she talked about whether she worried that Sansa might go to the dark side after quenching her bloodlust and killing Ramsay Bolton last year.
“I think she may change a little, but at the end of the day, I think her heart is still good,” she said. “The way she deals with her problems and her enemies may be different from how she would have dealt with them in the day when she was 13 or so.”
That’s mildly thought-provoking. After all, Littlefinger wants to make her his sinister sidekick, but Turner intimates that won’t happen. She also — maybe — revealed something when asked how she hopes Sansa will end the series.
“I still haven’t seen a script — and you never know, I might not have made it through seven!”
Good catch.
DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS
The showrunners have mastered talking (and talking and talking) without saying anything.
“For a long time we’ve been talking about ‘the wars to come,’ ” Benioff told Entertainment Weekly. “That war is pretty much here.”
Added Weiss: “There’s a whole bunch of reunions and first time meetings that people have been waiting for a long time and when you put it on paper you just want to do justice to the work that these guys have done building these characters over so many years. You want to give them as much as you can.”
Reunions, you say? The war is here!? Um, yeah, obviously. The drawback to the Benioff-Weiss strategy is the interviews might keep the secrets, but they’re also pretty dull. They could learn a thing or two from Gillen.
KIT HARINGTON
Harington’s strategy is straight out of the Weiss-Benioff playbook: Tell people stuff they already know and hope they tune out.
To wit: When asked by Entertainment Weekly about potential tension between Jon Snow and Sansa, he said, “There are the same problems — she questions his decisions and command; he doesn’t listen to her. But as far as where that goes or takes them or how dark it can get, we’ll see. It gets past sibling squabbling, it gets into two people power struggling.”
Fascinating. Really, go on.
“It’s a nice change for me this season, he talks more, he’s more sure of himself,” he said. “He doesn’t just know what he’s got to do but he’s more sure of what he’s saying — whereas before there was always some fear and doubt. I’ve gotten to enjoy not just grunting.”
Yawn. What were you saying again?
LENA HEADEY
Headey was delightfully Cerseiish when The New York Times asked her about next season.
“Um, she’s not having a good time — there you go,” she told the interviewer. “Apparently winter is really coming, finally.”
Finally is right. What she didn’t give up about season 7, she more than made up for with a wonderfully bizarre story about a nurse chanting “shame, shame, shame” while trying to help Headey breastfeed just after her baby was born.
“I was flying on morphine, so it was sort of funny,” she said. “Had I been vaguely in the world, I might have been more offended.”
If Cersei’s skills are anything like Headey’s interview abilities, she’ll be on the Iron Throne for a long time to come. The Washington Post