We have ourselves a Red Viper folks! James Hibberd from EW.com broke the news earlier today that HBO has officially cast Pedro Pascal to play Prince Oberyn Martell, a.k.a. the Red Viper, in Season Four of Game of Thrones. The Chilean actor is best known for having previously appeared in CBS’ The Good Wife, ABC’s Red Widow and USA’s Graceland.
The Dornish Prince is arguably the most anticipated casting of the season and will surely play a major role in the upcoming installment of the series. For those who are unfamiliar with this character, here is a short, spoiler-free background from EW’s article:
Oberyn is a brash, charming, cunning prince of Dorne (part of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros). His sister Elia was brutally murdered by the Lannister knight Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane when Mad King Aerys was overthrown by Robert Baratheon and the Lannisters. In season four, Oberyn comes to King’s Landing with revenge on his mind.
Also: Nearly every Thrones character has a nickname and Oberyn has one of the coolest: The Red Viper.
Personally, I’m extremely happy to see a Chilean actor being brought in to play the Red Viper. Afterall, Dorne is described in the books as being more ethnically diverse than the rest of Westeros. Oberyn himself is a “salty” Dornishmen, which means he has dark hair with smooth olive skin. Pascal’s ethnic background should fit this role perfectly. Heck, it even looks like he even has the nose for it!
The show has really missed the mark at times with keeping the ethnically diverse characters from the novels present in the show. So, it’s nice to see that HBO is finally bringing some more color onto the set of ‘Thrones. What do you guys think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Game of Thrones season 4 premieres in 2014. We’ll get you an exact air date when we have it.
11 comments
Finally!!!! All smiles on this one :)
I’m just relieved to see that he’s not as far off from the character description as Daario Naharis. I think with makeup, hair & costume he’ll probably be fine. If he can act, I’ll be ok with this choice. Oberyn Martell is not a character I cared for in the books, so I can’t wait to see him meet you know who!
I am very sorry to all. I did not realize I would spoil things. I forget a lot of people have not read the books. Again, I am very sorry.
I’m just going to stress here that any spoilers, or allusions to spoilers, are absolutely not tolerated. Comments including such will be removed. Come on guys, there’s no need to spoil; it’s completely childish.
No- your obsessive compulsive need to not have one bit “spoiled” is incredibly childish and annoying. The fact that you say that without a hint of irony is astonishing.
No- your obsessive compulsive need to not have one bit “spoiled” is incredibly childish and annoying. The fact that you say that without a hint of irony is astonishing.
Sounds great, but, as per the book, he doesn’t last long.
Congratulations, you read the books. I know how so many of you just love that you can post unnecessary spoilers in comment threads for people who don’t want to know can stumble upon them.
Yeah get spoiled, Rob dies. And how do we care?
How is Dorne described as being more “ethnically diverse than the rest of Westeros?”
Because it clearly states it multiple times in the books. There are the ‘stony Dornishmen’, who are a mix of the Andals and the First Men (ie essentially the same as the rest of Westeros), the ‘salty Dornishmen’ (ie the Martells), who are of Rhoynish decent and have olive skin and dark hair, and the ‘sand Dornishmen’ who are somewhere between those two. It sounds pretty diverse to me when compared to the rest of Westeros.
Oh, and nice Dune reference in your username :P