The history of the iconic Game of Thrones intro sequence

Game of Thrones has one of the most iconic intro sequences in television history. You all know it: Ramin Djwadi’s dramatic score blooms onto the soundtrack, we get an eyeful of the astrolabe high above Westeros and Essos, and then it’s off to explore the map:

Gets me every time.

Speaking to Empire, creative director Angus Wall (perfect name for this show, right?) remembers the original idea for the opening sequence. Apparently, showrunners Benioff and Weiss first wanted it to feature a raven flying from King’s Landing to Winterfell.

"We explored that with an animated sequence following the raven. In the interim, though, there was an issue that came up during the pilot, which was that nobody knew what the wider world looked like or where anyone was. So we created these little map journeys to go in-between scenes."

However, those transitions were jarring and interrupted the flow of the episode. I hear that and I can’t help picturing the little travel bits from the Indiana Jones movies, with the red lines:

Yeah, not a great fit for Game of Thrones. The solution was the combine the ideas they had, which resulted in the title sequence we all know and love.

Per Empire, the map of Westeros and Essos we see in the opening is laid out on the inside of a wooden sphere, with the flaming astrolabe in the center. “The idea was that everything needed to be hand-built,” said lead animated Kirk Shintani. “The idea of a mad monk in a tower, building all this stuff and going at it with a saw and a chisel, making sure he’s building his world the way he wants.”

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As we all know, the intro changes episode to episode depending on what storylines are being covered; there have been around 35 different versions so far. Originally, the team always made sure to include the Wall, Winterfell, King’s Landing and wherever Daenerys was in Essos at the moment, but things have changed a bit since Dany finally traveled to Westeros. Wall’s gotten plenty of comments on the intro over the years:

"It’s funny because I talk to a lot of people and they don’t even realize that the title sequence has changed at all. The initial idea was actually to have this fully interactive sort of  game board where you saw armies move and you could actually see things play out in real time, looking down at a world from a godlike point of view. We kept some of those things but not all of them. Like when Winterfell burned, it was smoking for many, many episodes."

How well we remember those dark times.

“There are a lot of Easter eggs in the titles if you’re paying attention, little things that will reward you over the course of the show,” says Wall. “And this last season won’t be any different.” We’ll keep a lookout.

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