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Wiki of Westeros

"First time you've seen a giant, Jon Snow?"
Ygritte[src]

Dongo was a giant in the wildling army of Mance Rayder.

Biography[]

Background[]

Dongo is one of the non-human race of giants who joined the Free Folk army assembled by Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall.[1]

Game of Thrones: Season 3[]

Giant working S3 Ep1

Dongo's presence dominates Mance's camp.

While approaching the camp of the Free Folk in Skirling Pass, Jon Snow witnesses this giant building a tent from the bones and tusks of a mammoth. As Jon stares at the giant in disbelief, Ygritte warns him that giants are shy, but quick to anger and tells him how she once witnessed a giant smash a man into the ground like a hammer to a nail. This giant catches Jon gawking at him and grunts in annoyance.[1]

Game of Thrones: Season 4[]

Giant with his bow

Dongo takes aim.

During the battle for the Wall, Dongo emerges from the Haunted Forest holding a bow with the other members of Mance Rayder's army. He escorts Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg and his mammoth to the outer gate of the Wall. While a wildling bowman fails to reach the black brothers on top of the wall with his arrow, this giant crouches next to him, pulls a massive bow out and shoots a ballista bolt at the wall, wreaking havoc on their defenses. His next arrow hits a brother with such force it causes him to fly off the other side of the wall and land in the middle of Castle Black.[2]

At the gate, while Mag turns around the mammoth and several wildlings tie ropes to it, Dongo violently exposes the gate's supports and ties the other end of the ropes to them. While the mammoth tries to pull the gate open, men of the Night's Watch throw down flaming barrels of tar, which explode and drive the mammoth off. The giant chases after it, but this brings him within the firing arc of a large ballista mounted atop the Wall. The ballista bolt impales him from behind and he is killed, which enrages Mag and spurs him to lift the gate and confront the men within all by himself.[2]

Giant (The Children)

Dongo's body lies before the Wall.

When Jon leaves Castle Black to kill Mance Rayder, Jon walks past Dongo's corpse, which has crows picking at its flesh.[3]

Behind the scenes[]

  • It wasn't initially clear that the grey-haired giant seen in the Season 3 premiere was meant to be the same individual as the grey-haired giant who later appeared at the end of Season 4, despite being played by the same actor. It was later confirmed that they were the same individual in the book Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: Seasons 3 & 4.
  • The character has no direct counterpart in the novels. The giant never received an official name in on-screen dialogue. The Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: Seasons 3 & 4 book, however, mentioned that the production team assembling the costumes took to calling him "Dongo the Doomed" by the end of Season 4 ("doomed" because he gets shot in the back with a ballista bolt). There were in fact only two specific giant costumes, for two distinct individuals: Mag the Mighty and Dongo the Doomed. The script for "The Watchers on the Wall", however, does refer to him as "Dongo the Doomed".[4]
  • "Mag the Mighty" is really a nickname that the human wildlings came up with for the giant whose full name in the Old Tongue is "Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg". While "Dongo" isn't a name from the novels, presumably the in-universe explanation would be that "Dongo" is a shortened nickname for a longer name in the Old Tongue - the few giant names revealed so far always have five syllables in them, written as distinct words. For example, something like "Don Goh Tun Doh Weg", etc.
  • The Blu-ray commentary revealed that the way Dongo falls down after being shot in the back is an homage to the famous scene in the 1971 film The French Connection, when Gene Hackman's character shoots the hitman Nicoli.[5]
  • Although Dongo died, actor Ian Whyte returned in Season 5 to play a new giant, Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun ("Wun Wun"), who unlike Dongo, is a character from the novels.

In the books[]

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Mance Rayder uses giants for breaching the tunnels at the Wall. However, none of the giants wield bows during the battle for the Wall. The most complex weapons that the giants seem capable of wielding are clubs and simple mauls.

Appearances[]

References[]

Notes[]

  1. In "Winter Is Coming," which takes place in 298 AC, Sansa Stark tells Cersei Lannister that she is 13 years old and Bran Stark tells Jaime Lannister that he is 10 years old. Arya Stark was born between Sansa and Bran, making her either 11 or 12 in Season 1. The rest of the Stark children have been aged up by 2 years from their book ages, so it can be assumed that she is 11 in Season 1. Arya is 18 in Season 8 according to HBO, which means at least 7 years occur in the span of the series; therefore, each season of Game of Thrones must roughly correspond to a year in-universe, placing the events of Season 4 in 301 AC.
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