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George R. R. Martin Reveals The True Iron Throne
June 15, 2014 by dracs
The Iron Throne of of the HBO show is one of the most iconic images of the Game of Thrones show.
However, it turns out this isn't quite what George R. R. Martin had in mind. Now, he has revealed a piece of artwork showing what he calls the closest to capturing how he imagined it.
This fantastic art piece is the work of Marc Simonetti for the upcoming concordance, The World of Ice and Fire. It depicts a truly horrific Iron Throne, towering over any supplicant who might find themselves at the mercy of the king.
"Marc has come closer here to capturing the Iron Throne as I picture it than any other artist to tackle it. From now on, THIS will be the reference I give to every other artist tackling a throne room scene. This Iron Throne is massive. Ugly. Assymetric. It's a throne made by blacksmiths hammering together half-melted, broken, twisted swords, wrenched from the hands of dead men or yielded up by defeated foes... a symbol of conquest... it has the steps I describe, and the height. From on top, the king dominates the throne room. And there are thousands of swords in it, not just a few.
This Iron Throne is scary. And not at all a comfortable seat, just as Aegon intended." - George R. R. Martin
I love this artwork, and I hope that someone decides to make a miniature form of it at some point. A sculpt like this would make an amazing terrain piece, as well as just being a cool thing for collectors to have.
Do you prefer this version of the Iron Throne, or does the HBO version remain iconic?
Image used from stumbleupon.com
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I’m sure I saw this picture a few months ago, but cannot remember where 😛
It is a lot cooler than the show version, but I suppose the show has a budget to stick to. Still cool though 🙂
It was not just budgetary constraints that informed the choice of throne design for the show though – rememeber the now famous chaos is a ladder speech from the season 3 episode ‘The Climb’ (which can be found here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlIraEV8n4)? Little Finger uses the fact that the claims that the throne contains a thousand swords are apocryphal, and that it doesn’t actually contain even two hundred, as an allegory for the partially mythical nature of the concept of an eternal soveign nation state in a fuedalistic, medieval society such as Westeros – the thorne is an illusion, a piece of statecraft theatre designed to reinforce the often shaky powerbase and authority of the crown.
Whatever one thinks of Little Finger’s political philosophy that paints carnage, bloodshed and anarchy as opportunities to be exploited, the use of the throne, and the disconnect between the mythology surrounding it and the actuality of what it is, is rather effective (and links back to Varys’s earlier conversation with Tyrion about power residing where people think it resides – another riff on the idea of the fundamentally illusory and ephemeral character of political power, and a neat way of showing how alike, in some regards at least, Varys and Little Finger really are), and conveniently also serves to explain the discrepency between the show and the source material in this regard without requiring spending a large chunk of the show’s budget on TVs most uncomfotable chair, as you say.
For some reason a chunk of my post was cut off last time – let’s try that again…
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It was not just budgetary constraints that informed the choice of throne design for the show though – rememeber the now famous chaos is a ladder speech from the season 3 episode ‘The Climb’ (which can be found here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxlIraEV8n4)? Little Finger uses the fact that the claims that the throne contains a thousand swords are apocryphal, and that it doesn’t actually contain even two hundred, as an allegory for the partially mythical nature of the concept of an eternal soveign nation state in a fuedalistic, medieval society such as Westeros – the thorne is an illusion, a piece of statecraft theatre designed to reinforce the often shaky powerbase and authority of the crown.
Whatever one thinks of Little Finger’s political philosophy that paints carnage, bloodshed and anarchy as opportunities to be exploited, the use of the throne, and the disconnect between the mythology surrounding it and the actuality of what it is, is rather effective (and links back to Varys’s earlier conversation with Tyrion about power residing where people think it resides – another riff on the idea of the fundamentally illusory and ephemeral character of political power, and a neat way of showing how alike, in some regards at least, Varys and Little Finger really are), and conveniently also serves to explain the discrepency between the show and the source material in this regard without requiring spending a large chunk of the show’s budget on TVs most uncomfotable chair, as you say.
And it happened again – this is getting annoying…
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It was not just budgetary constraints that informed the choice of throne design for the show though – rememeber the now famous chaos is a ladder speech from the season 3 episode ‘The Climb’? Little Finger uses the fact that the claims that the throne contains a thousand swords are apocryphal, and that it doesn’t actually contain even two hundred, as an allegory for the partially mythical nature of the concept of an eternal soveign nation state in a fuedalistic, medieval society such as Westeros – the thorne is an illusion, a piece of statecraft theatre designed to reinforce the often shaky powerbase and authority of the crown.
Whatever one thinks of Little Finger’s political philosophy that paints carnage, bloodshed and anarchy as opportunities to be exploited, the use of the throne, and the disconnect between the mythology surrounding it and the actuality of what it is, is rather effective (and links back to Varys’s earlier conversation with Tyrion about power residing where people think it resides – another riff on the idea of the fundamentally illusory and ephemeral character of political power, and a neat way of showing how alike, in some regards at least, Varys and Little Finger really are), and conveniently also serves to explain the discrepency between the show and the source material in this regard without requiring spending a large chunk of the show’s budget on TVs most uncomfotable chair, as you say.
Looking at my bits pile, I could probably make one of these. Good grief, how did my hobby come to this lol?
I think I could make a full scale version built from Orcs and Imperial Guard.
If I was the king of westeros I wouldn’t like to sit in that throne the amount of people trying to kill you they would get you to easily on that thing if you didn’t die falling off in the first place.
Great art work, that is much closer to how he described it. So gruesome, I think in the books he describes how one of the mad kings accidently killed himself on the thing – looking at that you can believe it.
It also reminds me of the tree in Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
I think i like the show version more, seems more practical and for me more intimidating than the Ork version mr Martin wants it to be.
Yes i call it the Ork version, as it seems to have thrown in more loot to build sumting.