Game of Thrones Season 6 Spoilers: Casting Call for 2 Northern Lords Hints at MAJOR Plotline
ByGame of Thrones introduced a plot in its fifth season that has come to be known simply as "the North Remembers."
You may remember that phrase from an old handmaid who met Sansa shortly after she arrived at Winterfell. The woman promised Sansa that there were still people in the North loyal to the Starks, her family that has suffered devastating losses pretty much since the beginning of the story.
"The North Remembers" was also the name of the season two premier episode and harkened to the beheading of Ned Stark. Thrones is now caught up with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, but the following spoilers concern a book plot the show has left untouched. Tread lightly if you want to go into season six unspoiled.
Watchers on the Wall learned Thrones sent out a casting call for two Northern lords: a young man in his 20s named Boyce and an older man in his 60s named Fletcher. The actors will only shoot for one day and will each have their own "speeches" in a scene with main characters.
Watchers speculates: "We're thinking this might be the new Lord Cerwyn. The Cerwyns are a Northern family. Last season, Ramsay flayed the current lord for not paying his taxes."
As for Fletcher, this character seems to be Lord Wyman Manderly.
In "A Dance with Dragons," the fifth and most recent ASOIAF novel, Stannis sends Davos to meet Wyman to try to get the Manderlys on his side. Wyman then takes Davos captive because his house is sworn to the new Wardens of the North, the Boltons.
The key phrase in Fletcher's casting call is "unexpectedly shifts political allegiances," because Wyman reveals to Davos during his imprisonment that he has been biding his time to strike against the Boltons. He even has three members of House Frey killed and baked into a pie that was later fed to the Boltons at Winterfell.
Feltcher will have a "stirring speech" in season six and it will most likely be the one he gives to Davos in "Dance." Read the full text here, or listen to a dramatic reading below.
Watchers already learned of a massive battle sequence that will likely take place in the ninth episode, and will be large enough to consume the full hour. The battle appears to pit Stark loyalists against the Boltons, with none other than Jon Snow commanding an army (that could include some wildlings and Wun Wun the giant) against Ramsay.
But even more intriguing about this battle is that Sansa will join Jon on the battlefield - certainly not to fight, but probably to rally the troops. As if we needed any more reason to pick the Starks over the Boltons in this clash, Ramsay is said to have "at least two bodies (known characters) upside down on X-crosses, burning during battle."
Circling back to the casting news, both characters' speeches will likely take place during some sort of meeting with other Stark loyalists preceding the battle. The North Remembers, indeed.