The Game of Thrones season 8 premiere cast list has been revealed, and there are some surprising additions, including Robin Arryn and Edmure Tully. The series returns mid-April, and the premiere is undoubtedly going to be a massive event, catching fans up on where all the major characters are. This is going to be made a little easier by the fact that at the end of the last season, all the major players were coming together in Westeros to prepare for the final showdown for the Iron Throne.
HBO is known for keeping a tight lid on spoilers for the massively popular fantasy series, especially in the run-up to the finale season - they’ve used everything from drone killers to filming fake scenes to try and make sure that fans don’t learn anything they shouldn’t before season 8 hits the air. However, Game of Thrones fans are devoted and tricksy, and it seems that they’ve been able to dig up the cast list for the first episode of the final season, revealing the presence of two characters that fans might not have been expecting to see.
The cast list, shared by Watchers On The Wall, was discovered by fans who went looking for future episode URLs on the HBO website, which allowed access to the page created for the episode. The hour-long episode comes with a long cast of characters (most of which are pretty expected), ending with Tobias Menzies and Lino Facioli. Menzies plays Edmure Tully in the series, while Facioli plays the young Robin Arryn.
While it’s not surprising that the series isn’t done with these characters, it is surprising that they would appear in the first episode. At the end of season 7, both were pretty much out of the picture; Robin hadn’t been seen since he sent the armies of the Vale North in season 6, and Edmure was last mentioned as being “in a cell” by Walder Frey.
It would have been easy to have simply dropped these two characters from the series, so their appearance in the first episode suggests either that they are going to play a bigger part than expected, or that Game Of Thrones is going to kill them off early to make sure they aren’t loose ends throughout the season. Edmure Tully is presumably still a hostage of the Lannisters, despite the death of the Freys (thanks to Arya), however, he may be able to escape to Winterfell, or potentially even lead a revolt at Riverrun and take back the castle. Robin, meanwhile, will presumably learn of Littlefinger’s death - as will the Lords of the Vale. Baelish’s death leaves a place of real power open, as whoever controls Robin controls the Vale. Perhaps Sansa intends to manipulate the little Lord so that she can retain control of his armies, or perhaps someone else will step in to try and take control.
It’s also worth noting that this list may not be definitive; not all the characters we know will appear in the final season are on it, so it’s not a complete list for season 8, but it’s possible that some of these characters won’t appear in this particular episode. It’s also possible that given their place at the end of the list, Edmure and Robin make only a brief appearance in the episode. They are certainly unlikely to be the focus, but it will be interesting to see why the writers have made the decision to return to Robin and Edmure, rather than simply leaving them to fade slowly out of memory.
Game of Thrones season 8 premieres Sunday, April 14 on HBO.
Source: Watchers On The Wall
