Game of Thrones: How Meeting Sam's Family Is a Game-Changer for Him and Gilly 

Game of Thrones: How Meeting Sam\'s Family Is a Game-Changer for Him and Gilly

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Hannah Murray and John Bradley preview their characters\' visit to Horn Hill.

Samwell Tarly is back on Game of Thrones in Sunday\'s episode, and it\'s finally time for viewers to see a bit of his past.

The promo for Season 6, episode 6, "Blood of My Blood," shows Sam and Gilly stopping by the Tarlys\' home, Horn Hill. There they\'ll meet Sam\'s father Randyll (played by James Faulkner), as well as his mother Melessa (Samantha Spiro), brother Dickon (Freddie Stroma) and sister Talla (Rebecca Benson).

To set up this meet-the-parents situation, IGN had a chance to sit down with stars John Bradley and Hannah Murray to find out what the visit to Horn Hill is going to mean for Game of Thrones.

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Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 6 "Blood of My Blood"

IGN: We know Sam wants to get to Oldtown. What is Gilly\'s goal this season? What is she hoping for?

] She\'s got a real tourist hat on at the beginning of Season 6. She\'s really excited about the whole journey. Her world has expanded over the course of the show, beyond her wildest dreams. There\'s that amazing moment where she sees the Wall, and that is so much more than she ever expected. The idea that she\'s now not only headed south, but she\'s headed to the most beautiful city in Westeros. Why wouldn\'t she want to go?

IGN: It\'s interesting because both Sam and Gilly have been stuck in the same location for years and years and years now. What was it like getting to move not only in the show to a new area, but also filming outside Belfast?

Murray: Well, what I was saying earlier, we were kind of having the same experience as the characters. We\'d heard that some people got to shoot in these other countries and these sunny places. It just sounded like a myth to us. [

] And then we got to do it, and it was really -- it felt like a different show.

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Bradley: What I really liked about it was seeing not only Oldtown, but seeing the south and where Sam comes from and his relationship with his family. It all puts everything into context. You see where was raised. It\'s a very beautiful place. It\'s a kind of bucolic place, and you realize how much of a fish out of water he was at Castle Black, just how hard life must have been there -- but how hard life was at home as well. It all makes sense. All of the psychological, emotional, developmental boundaries that he\'s got are because of this relationship with his father, with his family.

So when you see them, when you see their whole world, their whole environment, you do start to make sense of him. You start to make sense of why he\'s so damaged, why the journey to Castle Black for him was such a momentous one, and how he was wrenched out of that home life and how alien all of that world was to him. It feels like a different show because they\'re such vastly different visual landscapes that they don\'t feel like there\'s any through line between them. But it\'s so interesting to play the part, Sam, where he\'s so associated with the north and Castle Black, but as a matter of fact the place you see him in this season is where he belongs. This is where he\'s from.

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IGN: Sam obviously knows where Gilly came from and he has context for all the trauma she suffered, so how does it affect Gilly to see Sam and get his history? Does that at all change their relationship?

Murray: Well, I think it\'s really interesting having this Meet the Parents-type thing. [

] In some ways, they\'re going through this very relatable relationship milestone but played in a very unconventional way. I think it\'s really interesting. Because of the experiences that Gilly had with her upbringing, she has a very clearly defined idea of right and wrong, and I think the whole reason she loves Sam so much is because he\'s such a good person, and she understands his motivations are pure and good and he does the right thing and has always tried to do the right thing.

I think you\'ve always seen the kind of character she\'s drawn to -- like I think she\'s a big fan of Mormont. She\'s a big fan of Maester Aemon. They\'re good people. They\'re people who do the right thing. So I think she kind of figures out Randyll pretty quickly and decides he is not a good person, and she\'s very clear on how she feels about people like that. Obviously the father kind of looms so large in this story, but it\'s also Sam\'s mother and Sam\'s brother and sister. It\'s quite a complicated family, and it\'s a very interesting dynamic. It\'s not all bad. There\'s a lot about that that\'s very positive and very interesting to her. I think she expects quite a different reception than she gets, actually.

IGN: I\'m glad it sounds like we really get to dive into that.

Bradley: Yeah, you do -- and it\'s interesting to see that dynamic, because all that family, their relationship with each other, they\'re all kind of unique. So the way the brother feels about the sister is a whole relationship as well... But when you see the fact that, as Hannah\'s saying, there is warmth and there is love between the mother and the sister, especially, and Sam, that puts the whole struggle into context as well, because he left a place where there was love. It wasn\'t like

hated him and he left to go to Castle Black. There\'s no real jeopardy there. The fact is he had to leave one of the most beautiful relationships anybody would ever have. The struggle just becomes more heightened, then everything gets put into context when you see that dynamic.

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IGN: Sam is going to Oldtown to try and find out more about how to defeat the White Walkers, and magic plays a key function this season. What are your thoughts about how much Game of Thrones has fully embraced its fantasy DNA?

Bradley: I think it\'s the fact that the show has now developed these characters to such an extent that people are so familiar with them, people can place them in a kind of psychological and emotional landscape. We know they\'re human beings, and now, if they do start to introduce more fantasy elements, it\'s because they know that people are invested in them as people. So to put them up against something that\'s mystical or un-understandable is going to be something that\'s heightened, because whenever you see mysticism on the show or anything like that, the characters are confused and scared by it.

Most of the time they don\'t accept it. They\'re wondering what\'s going on as well. So it\'s only because the characters are now so established that they are feeling their way through mysticism as well, that we feel the audience is going to be given a guiding hand through it, because nothing\'s ever taken for granted. They never say, "You have to buy into the fact that in this thing, there are White Walkers," because the human beings in this show are freaked out by White Walkers as well.

Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.

Game of Thrones First Aired Apr. 2011

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