The infirmary set had become considerably less impressive once the cameras stopped rolling. Half the candles were electric, the stone wall nearest the balcony ended abruptly behind a lighting rig, and Travis Fimmel (Ragnar Lothbrok) was still sitting in the chair that the wire team had spent most of the morning throwing him into while Jinx Tyrell (Jinx Stark) lounged nearby with the harmless rehearsal version of Dark Sister across his knees. Robert Aramayo (Eddard Stark), who was the Eddard actually being used for this part of the story, had wandered in between setups and was leaning against one of the false stone pillars, watching Travis explain for perhaps the fourth time that his startled noise during the first take had been entirely intentional.
Nobody believed him, especially because Gustaf Skarsgård (Floki) had somehow acquired a recording of the sound and had been playing it whenever Travis became too confident. Clive Standen (Rollo) had encouraged this until Travis threatened to tell wardrobe who had torn one of Rollo's sleeves during rehearsal, while Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell) had been repeatedly warned away from the hero version of Dark Sister by a prop master who now seemed able to sense Pedro approaching expensive weapons without looking. Jinx had contributed almost nothing to any of these arguments beyond occasionally glancing up and saying something sufficiently unhelpful that everybody else became louder.
That was when Sean Bean (older Eddard Stark) stepped onto the set.
He was not in costume because he was not actually filming yet, and the modern jacket and trainers made him look particularly out of place beside Robert's Stark leathers and the rows of supposedly unconscious Northmen. Sean had apparently come to visit George and watch some of the new production work, but whatever casual interest had brought him there faded once he stopped beside the monitors and watched playback from the morning.
Onscreen, Ragnar woke unarmed in a foreign castle, Jinx summoned a chair across the room with magic, lifted Ragnar bodily from the bed without touching him, and flung him into it before calmly going back to polishing Dark Sister. The playback then moved into the conversation about visions, England, forgotten First Men traditions, gods, and the possibility that Ragnar had somehow crossed more than an ocean on his voyage.
Sean watched the whole thing without interrupting.
By the time the clip ended, he had folded his arms.
Jinx noticed first. "You look concerned."
Sean kept staring at the monitor for another moment before looking toward George R. R. Martin (creator, writer, and Jinx's uncle), who was seated nearby with a script covered in notes. "I'm beginning to wonder if I agreed to this a bit too quickly."
George's eyebrows rose.
Sean gestured toward the screen, where Jinx had just casually explained to Ragnar that his entire voyage had gone somewhere it had never been meant to go. "When you rang me, you said I'd be coming back as Ned. You didn't mention Vikings, magic swords, disappearing religions, whirlpools between worlds, or your nephew throwing Travis Fimmel around with his mind."
Travis looked over from the chair. "Thank you."
Jinx glanced toward him. "You're still upset about that?"
"I've been thrown into the same chair seven times."
"Six."
"The first rehearsal counts."
Robert Aramayo laughed quietly from beside the pillar, and Sean looked between the younger actor and Jinx before turning back to George. "I should ask for a raise per episode before this gets worse."
George smiled in a way that did absolutely nothing to reassure him.
Sean caught that immediately. "That smile is exactly why I'm asking now."
The director, who had been reviewing another take with one of the camera operators, finally looked over after hearing the word raise. George turned his chair slightly toward him, then back toward Sean as though deciding how much of the schedule he was allowed to reveal without making three departments angry.
Sean pointed at Robert. "He's Ned now, obviously. So when am I actually coming in?"
Robert straightened slightly, interested as well.
George looked toward the director. "Season three?"
The director made a face that meant probably rather than definitely.
George nodded to himself. "Most likely season three. It depends how much room we give the earlier years."
Sean stared at him. "Most likely?"
"The story's moving around in time more than the original series did." George rested the script against his stomach while he explained it, speaking as though this were entirely reasonable and not a scheduling nightmare for everyone involved. "Robert carries the younger Ned material through the early part. Then we jump ahead enough for you to come in during season three."
Robert glanced toward Sean. "So I'm fired in season three."
"No." George looked at him. "Then we go back to you."
That got a laugh out of Travis.
Robert blinked. "You bring Sean in and then go backwards again?"
"Possibly more than once."
Sean rubbed a hand over his face. "This already sounds expensive."
George ignored that. "The plan is to let the audience feel Ned aging instead of just switching actors once and pretending nothing happened. We use Robert for the younger periods, bring Sean in when the timeline reaches the right point, then return to Robert when the story goes back."
Sean looked toward the director again. "And when do you finally stop sending me home?"
George considered that longer than Sean seemed comfortable with.
"End of season four," he said eventually, though his eyes drifted toward the director again. "Or beginning of season five."
The director lifted one hand. "Depends on pacing."
George pointed toward him. "Exactly."
Sean stared at both of them.
Jinx took a drink from somebody's abandoned coffee and watched with the detached interest of a man observing a problem that belonged entirely to other people. "You should definitely ask for the raise."
Sean looked at him. "You're not helping."
"I'm helping you."
"You're helping yourself."
"That too."
George gave his nephew a look that suggested he knew exactly where the conversation was going, but Pedro had already joined in from beside the weapon table. "Ask for danger pay as well. I've seen the scripts."
Sean turned toward him. "That bad?"
Pedro gave Jinx a suspicious glance. "He has a sword that turns into black liquid and makes everything heavier, Ragnar has apparently arrived through a hole in reality, and George keeps smiling whenever somebody asks what happens next. I would negotiate now."
Luke Roberts, passing behind them with part of Arthur Dayne's costume draped over one arm, nodded as though Pedro had finally said something sensible. "Before the dragons get involved."
Sean's head turned very slowly toward George.
George looked down at his script.
Sean's eyes narrowed. "There are dragons involved."
Nobody answered quickly enough.
That was answer enough.
Robert Aramayo had begun laughing now, partly because Sean's expression had changed from mild contractual concern to the look of a man mentally calculating exactly how many additional zeroes should appear beside his name. Travis abandoned Ragnar's chair long enough to come over and clap Sean on the shoulder, clearly delighted that someone else had discovered the production was more complicated than advertised.
"You'll be fine," Travis told him. "Apparently we just get thrown around until George is happy."
Sean looked toward Jinx. "Does he throw Ned?"
Jinx considered the question with enough seriousness to make Sean immediately regret asking.
George cut in before his nephew could answer. "Don't tell him anything."
Jinx's faint smile became much worse.
Sean pointed at George. "Raise."
Then he pointed at Jinx.
"Danger pay."
Finally he gestured toward the monitor where Ragnar's chair was frozen halfway through its magical flight.
"And I want it in writing that if somebody decides Ned Stark needs to fly across a room, you're using Robert."
Robert stopped laughing immediately. "Hang on."
That finally broke the room.
Even George laughed, while Travis nearly doubled over beside the monitors and Robert began protesting that younger Ned should not automatically receive every dangerous stunt simply because Sean had seniority. Jinx remained seated through all of it, looking far too pleased with himself for someone who had caused at least half the discussion without actually doing anything.
The assistant director eventually appeared in the doorway and announced that they were ready to shoot again, which sent everyone reluctantly back toward their places. Travis returned to the infamous chair, Gustaf disappeared beneath his blanket to resume being unconscious, Clive stretched out on the neighboring bed, and Robert started to leave for his own setup before Sean caught his shoulder.
Sean leaned closer and nodded toward Jinx.
"Keep an eye on that one."
Robert looked across the set, where Jinx was already back in position with Dark Sister.
"I've been trying."
Sean considered him for a moment, gave his shoulder one sympathetic pat, and walked back toward George.
Robert watched him go before muttering, "Season three cannot come quickly enough."
From across the room Jinx spoke without looking up.
"I heard that."
Robert closed his eyes.
Travis started laughing again before the cameras were even rolling.
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
The ballroom the studio had rented for the afternoon panel was far smaller than the halls they had been pretending were part of the Red Keep all week, yet somehow it felt louder. Several hundred people filled the seats beneath warm overhead lights, many of them carrying early promotional posters that still did not have an official title printed anywhere beneath the artwork, because apparently the production had managed to begin shooting before everyone agreed upon what to call the thing. At the front of the room sat Jinx Tyrell (Jinx Stark), Robert Aramayo (Eddard Stark), and Travis Fimmel (Ragnar Lothbrok) behind a long table littered with water bottles, microphones, and folded cards containing questions the moderator had already warned them they were under no obligation to answer.
That warning had mostly been directed at Jinx. He had arrived looking as though somebody had interrupted a perfectly good nap to inform him that several hundred strangers wished to know about his personal life, while Robert seemed genuinely pleased to be there and Travis had spent the five minutes before the panel asking one of the stagehands whether there was anything stronger than water hidden backstage. The audience had already learned enough from leaked set photographs to know that Travis was playing someone named Ragnar Lothbrok, though almost no one knew exactly what that meant yet; there was no Vikings television series for them to compare him with, no established screen Ragnar waiting in people's heads, and this would be the first time Travis ever put that name on screen.
The moderator got through perhaps two safe questions about filming before a young man near the aisle raised his hand and asked Travis whether the now-infamous chair scene had actually hurt. Travis leaned nearer the microphone, his face already settling into the faintly put-upon expression that tended to make the audience laugh before he had spoken. "No. My pride suffered terribly, though." He glanced toward Jinx, whose interest in defending himself appeared nonexistent. "They told me I was going to be pulled perhaps this far." Travis held his hands roughly two feet apart, then widened them considerably. "What happened was more like someone decided Ragnar ought to meet the chair before either of us was ready."
Robert bent toward his microphone before Jinx could answer. "The best part was watching him pretend afterward that the sound he made was in character." The room broke into laughter, and Travis slowly looked toward Robert with the patience of a man storing a grievance for later. Jinx had been gazing out across the audience until then, but a small smile appeared when someone near the front actually imitated the startled noise from the leaked rehearsal footage.
Travis caught it immediately. "You see? That's your fault." Jinx lifted his microphone almost reluctantly and pointed out that he had not been the one who made the noise, which only made Travis accuse him of sitting there trying not to laugh while pretending to polish Dark Sister. Jinx considered denying it, then apparently decided lying required more effort than the matter deserved. "I was succeeding until you hit the chair."
Robert lost whatever composure he had left, lowering his head while the audience applauded Travis's long-suffering stare. The next woman at the microphone had evidently come prepared for trouble, because she looked at Robert and asked whether spending this much time playing Jinx Stark's brother had made him more sympathetic toward Eddard or merely convinced him that Eddard ought to have strangled Jinx in childhood.
Robert laughed before he could answer properly and glanced sideways at Jinx, perhaps checking how much danger there was in being truthful. "There are scenes where Ned has spent perhaps five minutes trying to understand what his brother has done, and I honestly don't have to act very much. I'll read the next page and think, Why would you do that? Then Jinx turns up on set completely calm, so I understand Ned a little better every week." Jinx's expression remained serenely unconcerned as he answered that Ned simply worried too much, which made Robert turn toward the audience and say, "There. Exactly that."
The laughter had barely settled when somebody asked which of them was most like his character. Travis immediately pointed at Jinx, while Robert pointed at Travis, and Jinx merely looked between the two fingers aimed across him with the vague disappointment of somebody surrounded by children.
Travis explained his vote first. "He does that thing Jinx Stark does where everyone else is arguing and he's sitting there as though we're discussing somebody else's problems. Yesterday one of the props broke right before a take, everyone started shouting, and he was eating grapes." Jinx replied that he had not been responsible for the prop, and when Travis insisted that was not the point, Jinx said it seemed rather central to the point.
Robert laughed and admitted that Travis had a case, though he still thought Travis resembled Ragnar more than Travis wanted to admit. Even before the public knew much about Ragnar, Robert had watched enough filming to recognize the similarities: the restless curiosity, the habit of asking strange questions at inconvenient moments, and the tendency to examine any unfamiliar object as though he might either buy it, climb it, or discover how it worked.
Travis scratched along his jaw while listening. "I don't know whether that's flattering." Robert told him it had not been entirely meant to be, which earned him a shove against the shoulder.
A teenager farther back asked whether Jinx and George R. R. Martin actually argued about Jinx Stark, and something in Jinx's face changed enough that Robert immediately started smiling. Family questions, unlike production questions, had a way of finding the places where his detachment became more deliberate.
"All the time," Jinx said. "My uncle thinks being older means he is correct more often." When the moderator asked whether it did, Jinx answered with a simple "No," and the roar from the audience forced him to wait before explaining that most of their arguments were less dramatic than people imagined. George cared enormously about consequence, family history, politics, and whether a character could actually survive the thing Jinx wanted to make him do, whereas Jinx often arrived with some new magical idea and discovered his uncle sitting across the table asking what it would do to inheritance law.
Robert leaned closer to his microphone. "That's genuinely happened." When he asked what the last one had been, Jinx thought for a moment before answering, "Dragon eggs," which made Travis stare at him and ask how a dragon egg could possibly affect inheritance law. Jinx gave him the exhausted patience of someone who had already endured this discussion once. "Exactly how the meeting started."
The next question changed the mood of the room. A woman wearing one of the first House Stark promotional shirts asked what many people online had already begun asking: why the story seemed to be getting larger every month. Early announcements had sounded like an original story set around George's Westerosi families, but then rumors appeared about other fantasy properties, stranger magical systems began showing up in promotional material, and now Travis was playing Ragnar Lothbrok opposite the Starks. Was the production changing direction halfway through?
Jinx sat back and glanced toward Robert before looking at Travis. Neither spoke, which left the answer with him. "It wasn't really a change halfway through," he said after a moment. "It was more that the thing kept becoming larger before we had finished deciding what the first version was supposed to be."
When the moderator asked how that happened, Jinx's thumb moved idly against the microphone while he considered where to begin. "My godmother is J. K. Rowling. She and my uncle had wanted to work together for a while, but neither of them wanted to make something that was just one person visiting the other's world for an episode and then going home. Around the same time, she'd acquired the rights to several fantasy properties and a few other franchises through her production people."
A considerable portion of the audience reacted at once, and Jinx raised a hand before they could begin shouting franchise names at him. "No, I'm not naming them. George would murder me, and J. K. would probably help him hide the body."
Travis turned toward him. "Would she?" Jinx gave him a long look and reminded him that he had met her, which made Travis consider the matter for a moment before conceding that, yes, perhaps that was fair.
Jinx explained that the Ragnar side had come later. People working with J. K. Rowling had become interested in taking part of the larger project toward historical fantasy as well, something built around mud, ships, farming, belief, war, and kingdoms before the production began throwing every impossible creature it owned at the audience. Ragnar Lothbrok came up during those discussions, and the production rights were eventually acquired to build a story around Ragnar and the people surrounding his legend, leaving the writers with the considerably harder question of how to connect that world with Westeros without making either side feel like a cheap guest appearance.
Travis had been listening quietly until the moderator turned toward him. "And that's how you became Ragnar?" Travis pointed immediately at Jinx. "No. This idiot is how I became Ragnar."
The audience laughed, and for once Jinx looked genuinely amused rather than merely tolerant. They had known one another for several years before the production, Jinx explained, long enough that the friendship existed before either had any reason to imagine they would eventually be sitting at a convention discussing Norse voyages and Westerosi politics. When George asked whether Jinx wanted to become involved in developing the project rather than simply appearing in it, one of the first questions that followed was who could carry Ragnar.
"I said Travis."
Travis turned toward him, and the joke that had been ready on his face softened a little. "You never told me you said it that quickly."
Jinx shrugged, suddenly looking slightly less comfortable with the conversation than he had while discussing contracts and fictional bloodlines. "There wasn't much to consider."
"That's almost nice."
"Don't make it strange."
Travis smiled and looked down at the table for a moment before telling the audience that the original call had been considerably less sentimental. Jinx had asked whether he fancied growing his hair, living in mud, learning to fight with an axe, and spending several months pretending the North Sea wanted him dead. Travis had apparently asked what the part was called, heard Ragnar Lothbrok, and then spent several days reading whatever he could find before agreeing to meet George.
"I thought we'd be making something mostly historical," Travis admitted. "Then the next meeting had maps of Westeros on the wall." Robert laughed and asked whether nobody had warned him, while Travis shook his head and immediately looked toward Jinx.
Jinx's expression shifted toward something almost guilty. "I assumed someone had."
"You were the someone."
"That seems poorly organized."
The moderator had to wait for the room to settle before moving to another question, and the next one produced an unexpectedly serious response. A fan asked whether this strange shared production meant audiences would never receive a straightforward adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire itself—one without Ragnar, imported properties, or Jinx Stark altering the established history.
Jinx's posture changed. That question mattered to him in a way the earlier teasing had not, and when he answered there was less of the distant amusement he normally carried.
"It's being discussed now," he said. "A dedicated adaptation, directly from the books, much stricter about what belongs there and what doesn't."
That brought one of the loudest reactions of the panel, and Robert looked toward him in surprise. "You weren't supposed to say that much." Jinx replied that he had not actually said very much at all, only that discussions were happening, which had already become public enough that nobody involved could reasonably kill him over it.
When the moderator asked how far along those conversations were, Jinx shook his head before anyone could become too excited. The problem was not merely scripts or money; casting an enormous story from the beginning meant finding people who could carry roles for years, including children whose characters would grow under constant scrutiny.
"We already have a surprising amount of the cast sitting around this production," Jinx said. "Some of them could carry over if the other series happens, assuming contracts, schedules, and everyone involved actually agrees. But we're still missing people you cannot make the story without."
When the moderator asked for examples, Jinx counted lightly against his fingers rather than producing some rehearsed list. "We don't have our Arya. We don't have Jon Snow. Grey Worm isn't cast. There are whole families where we've got three people and still need the one person who makes the family work, and then there are the children. Casting children for characters people have loved for years is the sort of thing that gets grown adults sending you threats because somebody's nose wasn't the shape they imagined."
Robert gave him a sideways look and muttered that this was a wonderfully encouraging way to announce a possible adaptation. Jinx merely replied that it was true, which did little to improve Robert's expression.
Travis leaned toward his microphone. "Would I be in that one?"
Jinx turned toward him. "Are you planning to play a secret Targaryen?"
"I could."
Robert made a noise of disbelief.
Travis spread his hands. "Apparently everyone might be one."
That got a particularly loud laugh from the readers in the audience, and Jinx actually lowered his microphone because he was laughing too.
When it eased, someone asked whether Jinx himself would play Jinx Stark in a book-faithful adaptation, which left him quiet for noticeably longer than the other questions had. Robert looked at him, and even Travis stopped smiling for a moment because they both seemed to recognize that this one touched something more complicated.
"There isn't a Jinx Stark in the books," Jinx said eventually. "If it's truly meant to be A Song of Ice and Fire as my uncle wrote it, then no. I shouldn't be there."
There was no dramatic sadness in his voice, but Robert's expression softened anyway. Jinx noticed and immediately looked irritated by it, asking him not to look at him like that when Robert had not actually said anything. Robert protested his innocence, only for Jinx to tell him that his face was very loud.
That brought the laughter back without erasing what had just been said, and the moderator wisely moved toward a safer question by asking each of them whom he would least trust with a real weapon on set. Travis chose Gustaf despite Gustaf not even being present, explaining that he had already met him during preliminary rehearsals and had learned enough to know better. Robert chose Pedro Pascal because Pedro had begun treating prop weapons as decorative walking sticks, while Jinx spent enough time considering the matter that both men eventually turned toward him.
"My uncle."
Robert stared at him. "George?"
"He kills people professionally with a typewriter. Giving him reach seems unwise."
Even the moderator had to stop for that one.
The final audience member was a girl who could not have been older than fifteen, and instead of asking about contracts, death scenes, or secret franchises, she looked directly at Travis and asked whether he was nervous about being the first screen Ragnar when people already carried so many different legends about the man.
Travis became quieter. He rubbed his thumb along the side of the microphone before answering, the casual humor falling away enough that the room followed him into the change. "Yeah. Of course." He admitted that there was something frightening about playing a legendary person precisely because nobody could tell him exactly who Ragnar had been, if there had even been one man behind all the stories. What he could play was the man in their version: a farmer who loved his family, looked west when everyone else looked east, and was curious enough to become dangerous.
Jinx listened without interrupting him. When Travis finished, he glanced over and found Jinx already watching, but when he asked what that look meant Jinx only shook his head and said it was nothing. Travis knew him well enough not to believe that, yet he let it go, and Robert did the same.
For several seconds the panel remained strangely quiet before somebody from the rear of the hall shouted, "MAKE HIM SCREAM IN THE CHAIR AGAIN!"
Travis dropped his head while Robert folded over laughing, and Jinx reached for his water with the smallest, most insufferably pleased smile on his face. Travis pointed across him toward the audience as the room descended into noise again. "This is what you've done to me, Tyrell."
Jinx took a drink before answering, still far too pleased with himself. "You agreed very quickly."
This time Travis laughed with everyone else.