If you live in hope that Tormund Giantsbane and Brienne of Tarth will rekindle their “love affair” with Game of Thrones season 8, we have good news: Kristofer Hivju has been spotted in Belfast, the show’s home base, as filming on the eighth and final season gets underway.
First reported by BuzzFeed (with a tip of the hat to Instagram user ‘@ketel_cat’), it’s understood many of the show’s key players have been spotted moseying around Northern Ireland’s capital – Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Kit Harington (Jon Snow Aegon Targaryen), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy), Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont), Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark), and Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm).
But of all the many famous faces hitting the Belfast streets, it’s Kristofer Hivju that has generated the most excitement. That’s because his Tormund was last seen fleeing the Night King in season 7’s grand finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” just as the army of the dead came crashing down on Eastwatch. Viserion and all. Tormund’s fate was left on something of a cliffhanger, but now that Hivju is back in Belfast, it’s safe to assume his flame-haired Wildling will live to fight another day.
Which is just as well considering that the Night King (AKA the harbinger of death) is about to wipe out anything and everything in his path. Or, you know, resurrect them as blue-eyed Wights. Pictured here beside Ben Crompton (Dolorous Edd), there’s no question that this is Kristofer Hivju on location in Belfast, so don’t give up on that Brienne/Tormund dream just yet.
It’s the beginning of the end for the core Game of Thrones cast, what with season 8 tentatively slated for a release in 2019. Beyond that though, HBO has already drawn up plans for a successor series, and we recently learned that George R.R. Martin is now collaborating with Bryan Cogman on a fifth story idea.