Game of Thrones: The 'Guillotine Swings Quite Heavily' in Season 6 

Game of Thrones: The \'Guillotine Swings Quite Heavily\' in Season 6

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The night is dark and full of terror in the days leading up to the Game of Thrones: Season 6 premiere, especially as the series ventures off-book into territory not yet written by author George R.R. Martin. The cast and creators of the HBO drama are the keepers of this season\'s secrets, and according to star Liam Cunningham, Game of Thrones is going to be as bloodthirsty as ever.

To preview what\'s ahead in the new season, Cunningham got on the phone to discuss where his character Davos Seaworth stands now that his king is dead and the Night\'s Watch is without a leader. He promises that the "guillotine swings quite heavily" in Season 6, and that Game of Thrones will switch things up with the new year.

IGN: I have been a fan of the books for six or seven years now, so this season\'s a little weird for me going in not really knowing what\'s coming.

Liam Cunningham: [Laughs] Uncharted territory for you!

IGN: Exactly! So I\'m curious, did it feel different for you shooting this season as we\'re heading into that uncharted territory?

Cunningham: Absolutely not, because one of the reasons is I haven\'t read a page of the books. There\'s actually a creative reason for that. I\'ve always said on the few book adaptations that I have done -- a couple of times before I made a start, and then comparing them to the script I went, "No, can\'t do that. Shouldn\'t do that." You get some sort of schizophrenic thing in your head. So I avoid it, and basically the reason being that my Bible is the work of David and Dan. Dave and Dan\'s Bible is the work of George, and I try to keep those separate, and I\'m keeping that pleasure of reading those books for when I\'m finished with the show and I\'m sitting back penniless, broke, end of my career, and I\'ll have plenty of time to read the books.

IGN: Something I found really interesting thinking about where we\'re going to pick back up with Davos is he is a soldier without a king at a Night\'s Watch without a Lord Commander. So where does he stand when we see him again in Season 6?

Cunningham: This is the thing! When we leave him at the end of [Season] 5, bizarrely -- and you\'re absolutely right -- bizarrely, Melisandre\'s in the same position. And both of us, even though there\'s no love lost between the two of us, I\'ve lost my reason for being on this show. I\'ve lost Stannis. I\'ve lost Shireen, the love of my life. And whatever bond I had formed with Jon Snow, which looked like it was going somewhere, has evaporated into nothing. So you\'re absolutely right.

He isn\'t a leader either. He\'s a corner man without a boxer, and it\'s incredibly sad. The interesting thing is, as we\'ve seen from the end of 5, Melisandre\'s just come back, so she\'s in the same boat in a sense. So we\'ve got these two lost souls who have found themselves in Castle Black without a reason for being on the show. And as you can see from the trailer, their faith is shaken to the core, so we\'re in kind of an interesting position and very, very much in transition.

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IGN: As you said, there\'s no love lost between these characters up until this point, but the fact that she has lost her faith and this one unshakable element of her being is proven wrong. Where does that put their relationship moving forward?

Cunningham: What\'s more interesting is the fact that, as we\'ve seen from the end of 5, specifically [episode] nine, the audience is completely aware of who is responsible for the death of Shireen. He isn\'t. So the audience are one step ahead. So when she comes in at the end of 5 through the gate on the horse and he looks up and sees her, he knows there\'s trouble.

She gives him the information, although quietly, that Stannis and Shireen are dead. He\'s only going to assume that they died in the battle or whatever it may be. So he doesn\'t know that she\'s responsible. So where we start off in Season 6 is him not knowing what has happened -- or he knows what has happened, but he doesn\'t know who\'s responsible for it, let me put it that way. So that could dramatically make things very, very interesting.

IGN: I know we don\'t always get what we want on Game of Thrones, but to me good storytelling dictates that we will eventually get that payoff where he finds out what happened to Shireen and how she was sacrificed.

Cunningham: It would be bad storytelling if that didn\'t happen.

IGN: Right? So how do you think he would handle that news? Is there anything that can lower Melisandre in his opinion more than even that news at this point?

Cunningham: I mean, that would be devastating news for him. Absolutely devastating. It\'s not going to do the relationship any favors, let me put it like that, should that happen.

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IGN: When we do pick back up with him, he doesn\'t have Stannis anymore. Jon Snow is dead. But then we also have the Boltons, we have the Wildlings, we have all these other things. What is Davos\'s most pressing concern when we pick back up with him?

Cunningham: Well, I think the most pressing thing for the entire show is what Melisandre has said, that this skirmish in the south, this whole thing with the Boltons and with whoever, with the Lannisters and who\'s going to run Westeros, is that she\'s saying, "This is chump change compared to what\'s coming from the north." So I think it\'s becoming evident on the show that, especially after Hardhome, these boys are in a lot of trouble. The entire place, the entire Seven Kingdoms, is in a lot of doo-doo, as they say. [

So something\'s gotta give. And these little, tiny wars, you know, it\'s a little like being on the moon watching these stupid regional wars back on Earth and kinda saying, "What are these dickheads doing fighting over a little bit of turf? Who\'s in charge here?" It\'s all kind of ego-driven, when you\'ve got the big bad monster north of the Wall who\'s gonna come down with 100,000 and wipe out every living creature.

IGN: Well, it is a little crazy that, as people do find out about this threat, they sort of keep dying. There aren\'t that many people left who really know that this is even a thing. It\'s pretty much reserved to the north.

] You may well be right! By the time this gets to the end of the story, it could be a one-man show.

IGN: What are Davos\'s motivations that are keeping him at the Night\'s Watch and at Castle Black?

Cunningham: You know what -- it\'s so sad. There\'s no motivation for him anymore. That\'s where we find him, in a terrible position. All his motivations are gone. He\'s in Castle Black because, where else is he going to go? We may find him in the castle as the only person there when all the rest leave. There\'s less than a hundred Night\'s Watchmen there I think at the end of [Season] 5 or something like that. It\'s an absolute catastrophe. The Watchers on the Wall, there\'s very few of them left. It\'s a rather depressing position to be in.

IGN: With so many of the major players dead on this show at this point, if you as Liam could just pick Davos up and place him anywhere in Westeros and Essos, who would you most like to see Davos ally with?

Cunningham: Ooh, good question. I\'d like to see him retire to the Florida of [Westeros] -- where do they have that beautiful... Dorne! He needs to go to Dorne. Get himself a couple a\' hundred-thousand barrels of Dornish wine, put the feet up and to hell with the lot of them.

IGN: Where does Davos stand with the war against the Boltons when we return with Season 6?

Cunningham: Ramsay Bolton can\'t keep on, can he? That guy is just bad to the bone.

IGN: I can\'t say that "they can\'t do anything" on Game of Thrones. Every time I think there\'s something unthinkable that they\'re going to do, they do it.

Cunningham: That\'s true. You know what, as the words left my mouth, I was kind of going, "You\'re talking crap, Liam." You may well be right. Ramsay is an ambitious man and a very dangerous man. I mean, where is he going to go? There are so many permutations. The whole Lannister thing, what are they going to do? They\'re in a bit of trouble with the High Sparrow. Daenerys, she\'s having a bit of trouble as well. There\'s a lot of people in a lot of trouble at the end of Season 5. There aren\'t too many good stories. Arya\'s the same, Sam\'s the same. There definitely won\'t be a comedy episode any time soon.

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IGN: Are there going to be more happy moments and moments of victory in Season 6 compared to Season 5?

Cunningham: Well, happy is a relative thing, as they say. I will tell you, every season, I think, is different than the season before. That\'s what\'s glorious about the show, is that there are hugely unexpected things in every season. I mean, the show wouldn\'t be the show it is unless there\'s unexpected turns. It would be safe to say -- and I\'m saying this in broad strokes -- there are style changes this year, style of the show. There are certainly a lot of new characters coming in, and characters that we look in-depth into, fully formed, glorious, new characters.

There is the usual, for lack of a better word, death and destruction. The guillotine swings quite heavily this season, and there is -- I can guarantee it because I was there for some of it -- there is some astonishing stuff this season. There are jaw-dropping moments this season that, when I read them, I was dying to see how they were going to be filmed, and I was part of some of that stuff. They\'ve pushed the boundaries this season -- and I know we say that every year, but that is absolutely our job.

If you\'re turning around and saying, "Oh, I preferred Season 2 to Season 6," or Season 4 or Season 3, whatever it is, we\'re not doing our job. Every season should be pushing the boundaries beyond the previous one, otherwise we can\'t keep the interest up, otherwise we\'re going to lose people, which would be just an insult to the story. It\'s been so good so far, and it is going to come to a finish soon, because the level of attention to detail that this show takes to keep it at the level that it is is enormous, and it can\'t go on like this. Something\'s gotta give, and what\'s going to give is that the circle is going to be closed. The story will be finished. It\'s not going to go on ad infinitum.

IGN: Do you guys feel, when you\'re shooting, like you\'re getting close to the end and close to getting some of those answers we\'ve been promised?

Cunningham: No, it definitely doesn\'t feel like that, but it definitely feels -- you know what? It\'s like climbing Everest, let me put it like this. The most dangerous part of climbing Everest isn\'t the going up, it\'s the going down. We\'ve hit the summit, and we\'re climbing back down again, which is the most dangerous bit, and it\'s the easiest place to metaphorically drop the ball. It\'s got to be done properly, and it\'s got to be done with honor and respect, to the best of everybody\'s abilities. If we\'re lucky, it\'s a few years.

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IGN: Going back to the idea that so many people Davos is usually with are dead, what can you say about any upcoming pairings that we\'ll see and maybe characters we\'ll get to see him shoot with that we might not have seen before, if there are any?

Cunningham: Umm... there might be. Yeah, there\'s a couple of -- you\'ll see who they are, but I don\'t want to give too much away. There are some fantastic scenes with some very interesting people that perhaps I haven\'t had a dealing with before. So that should be interesting.

Game of Thrones: Season 6 premieres Sunday, April 24th at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter -- about Game of Thrones, and all other things -- at @Terri_Schwartz.

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