In a new interview, the Merlin showrunners reveal new series 5 details, and talk about the comparisons between their show and HBO’s Game of Thrones. Beware of mild spoilers.

Speaking to SFX, Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps talk about the first couple of episodes of series 5, and reveal that they’re introducing a new part of the kingdom. Capps says:

We’ve got the northern plains, we’ve got snow. We’re being ambitious; each year we push the look of the show. And script wise we’re telling multi-stranded stories. We needed to grow the show up a little bit.

He also admits that this push into Jon Snow territory wasn’t a conscious effort to emulate Game of Thrones.

I hadn’t watched Game Of Thrones! Then I noticed they had snow and I thought everyone’s going to say ‘you did snow because Game Of Thrones did snow!’ But there’s no such thing as an original idea, is there?

Murphy also weighs in on the differences between the two shows, pointing out that Game of Thrones has four times the budget of Merlin, which means that, “we have to work within the world that we have.”

Interestingly, another Thrones character we’ve seen grapple with the winds of winter, Samwell Tarly, is coming to Merlin too – or, at least the actor John Bradley is.