Between the dragons and the terrifying wights, it's easy to focus on the fantastical parts of Game of Thrones and forget that much of the human-on-human violence portrayed actually happened throughout history. In HBO's upcoming miniseries, Gunpowder, GoT alums Kit Harington (Jon Snow) and Mark Gatiss (Tycho Nestoris) will recreate some of the horrors imposed on people in the 17th century under King James I's oppressive regime, only this time, they'll be pitted against one another.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the miniseries is centered around Robert Catesby (Harington), who, along with Guy Fawkes, famously plotted to assassinate the king by blowing up the Parliament, in which Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (Gatiss), loyally served. Their reasoning for this terrorist plot? Under the king's regime, Catholics were brutally tortured and murdered, and these men were sick of the injustice.
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Behind every plot is a mastermind.#Gunpowder, a three-part miniseries starring Kit Harington premieres December 18 on #HBO. pic.twitter.com/eOeH4D1Gl8
— HBO (@HBO) December 4, 2017
Though Gatiss joked to EW that he never really worked with Harington on GoT, he said that it's been a great experience playing opposite him and getting to know him while shooting Gunpowder.
"I was delighted to work with Kit," he said. "I've met him a few times, and Gunpowder is his idea, actually. He's descended from Robert Catesby, the character he plays. His middle name, in fact, is Catesby. We had a lovely time, but actually not very much together, because he is plotting it, and I'm uncovering it. Obviously, the two don't really meet much."
With the GoT finale nowhere in sight, we'll take any sort of reunion we can get, even if that means these two characters wish each other dead.
As for the violence, Gatiss told EW that the show by no means tries to downplay just how horribly people were treated, essentially guaranteeing that the series will embrace gore as much as GoT does.
"There was quite a lot of controversy over here about how graphic the torture was, but it's what they did, and if it had been stinted on, there would have been just as many complaints, saying history was being whitewashed, I imagine," he said.
Watch the teaser trailer below: