House of the Dragon: See the new and old Iron Thrones side by side

We’re still picking through the first teaser trailer for House of the Dragon, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show. If you’ve somehow still haven’t seen it, take it in below!

The new series is set some 200 years before the original. Westeros is a different place, but a lot of the iconic landmarks we remember are still around. King’s Landing is there, for instance, and the Iron Throne stands proud in the Red Keep.

But it doesn’t look exactly the same. As you can see towards the end of the trailer, the Iron Throne itself looks different, or at least the area around it does. It’s the same spiky chair we remember from Game of Thrones, but now it’s surrounded by dozens and dozens of other swords. Reddit has been on the case making some side-by-side images that show you just how different things are:

"[SPOILERS] I love the parallels between these two shots🔥 (apologies for potato quality) from gameofthrones"

"Throne room comparison from HouseOfTheDragon"

The new Iron Throne (or rather, the old one) looks a lot more dangerous to sit on that the one we’re familiar with, which is in keeping with how George R.R. Martin conceived of it. In both A Song of Ice and Fire and in Fire & Blood, Martin mentions how some rulers cut themselves on the blades the throne is made from. It was always hard for me to imagine that actually happening on Game of Thrones, but I could see how things could go wrong on House of the Dragon. That is not a comfortable chair.

The whole thing is closer to the version of the Iron Throne drawn by Marc Simonetti, which Martin has said is his preferred version.

Why is the Iron Throne different on House of the Dragon?

Part of me wishes the design team had gone even further and ditched the base Iron Throne entirely, but I get that they wanted to maintain continuity with the original show. Of course, this raises the question of why all those extra swords are gone by the time we get to Game of Thrones. Obviously, some ruler must have removed them after the time House of the Dragon ends and when Game of Thrones begins. Maybe they reminded Robert Baratheon too much of the Targaryens? Perhaps a king like Baelor the Blessed thought they were too intense?

While I’m not fully sold on the new throne, I do give the producers props for finding a way to make it look different while not technically breaking continuity. Clever work there.

We can see the new old Iron Throne in action when House of the Dragon premieres sometime in 2022.

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