And that’s the undergirding tragedy of it, right? He must realize when he’s on that journey, that one of the few people that will recognize him at Dragonstone is Erryk. So then he must be prepared to kill Erryk from the beginning.
LT: Yeah, one hundred per cent, and that’s where I feel like the scene with [Criston], that’s kind of what’s going through his head: it was less the fact of it being a suicide mission, it was that he could sense it in his bones that he was gonna see his brother, because naturally, like you say, nobody else is gonna spot the difference. So if it [goes wrong], the chances are it’s gonna be because Erryk’s there. Percentages-wise, he’s gonna be by [Rhaenyra’s] side.
Elliot Tittensor: It’s interesting, because within that world, a lot of it is left in the hands of the gods in the eyes of the people participating as the pawns. In the book, there is a moment where I believe Aryyk goes and prays beforehand… In a sense he’s accepting the fate of it, because he knows that he’s gotta follow up with his honor and duty.
There’s a moment just before the fight where Arryk says that Erryk betrayed “Us”, as if they share a mind—that idea of the twin brain. Is that something that you guys get, also as identical twins?
LT: It’s funny really, because it’s something that we’ve never really tested, but recently we were doing some rehearsals for another project, and we were doing some meditative stuff—placing things on the body, and the mind. And it was funny how many things we placed in the same place without knowing… Naturally, me and Elliot have grown up all our lives [together], and nine months prior in the womb, so we’re very instinctively similar.
ET: Even with doing the scenes with where we’re swinging the swords… To go through a sequence like that, I think it’s definitely a bond where you have one hundred per cent trust, like any relationship. When you’ve spent so much time together, and been through a lot of situations together, naturally you build up a great bond.
It must be pretty weird to shoot a scene where you’re literally fighting your brother to the death.
ET: The ending was [especially] emotional to do, but that was great to be able to work off, anyway… It was emotional at times, but we were filming it for probably three— how many days did it take?
LT: I think it took three days to do the whole thing. We did it in stages, naturally, progressing through the stages of the fight, so it wasn’t really until the last day where it was the deeply emotional stuff, where you’re more with us.
The duel ends with Arryk catching the worst of it, and Erryk almost immediately falls on his own sword. Did you have a view on why he does that?
ET: He says that line to Rhaenyra, which is “forgive me,” but I feel like it was partly to his brother at that point. [It came] from him wanting to be connected with his brother, and he felt like in that moment, he’d felt the biggest loss he’d felt in his life. He couldn’t accept it.
One literally says to the other “I still love you, brother,” right? And if they think of themselves as an “Us,” as a pair, then ultimately one can’t live without the other.
ET: I think once they’ve seen each other in that space, and the severity of the situation, they both accepted in the hands of the gods that they’re both gonna die in that moment.
LT: And there’s something quite poetic about accepting at least it was in the hands of someone you love.
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