Game of Thrones fans react to George R.R. Martin holding a real-live dire wolf

Earlier this week, scientists at Colossal Biosciences revealed that they had revived the dire wolf, an ancient species of wolf that went extinct over 10,000 years ago. Direwolves play a big part in author George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, but I don't think anyone expected to see them walk the Earth again. Colossal was savvy enough to play on the connections to Game of Thrones by bringing in Martin himself to hold one of the new dire wolves and pose for a photograph:

We posted that picture on Tuesday, and it went on to get thousands of replies and hundreds of thousands of likes; this picture is a perfect combination of science and marketing! People have a lot of feelings about it. Let's hit some highlights.

First, I'll point out that plenty of folk took issue with calling these animals "dire wolves" at all. As
Stoic_liberty pointed out, the animal Martin is holding is a "Grey wolf with dna modified to replicate some dire wolf attributes like larger size. It is not a clone of a real dire wolf." Folks like Matt Oska reply to that critique thusly:

I'm of two minds on this point. It's true that Colossal didn't literally clone a dire wolf; it couldn't, they're extinct. Using ancient dire wolf fragments as a reference, it modified the DNA of modern grey wolves to give them traits similar to the ones possessed by dire wolves.

So are these new animals — named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi — dire wolves at a genetic level? Probably not. Do they walk and act like dire wolves used to? Are they as famously big and strong? Seems like it. And if they are, is there that big a difference?

I'll leave readers to debate the finer philosophical points. Seeing as how this news is part scientific achievement and part marketing stunt, I'm happy to treat the new animals as dire wolves, because that's the more fun option.

Finish the books, George!

Looking over the thousands of responses to our tweet, a lot of them had the same basic thrust. And if you've been waiting to read the next book in Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series lo these past 14 years, you can probably guess what it is:

• Sandra Rugina: We’ll have better luck with an ending to the story if that wolf learns how to write.
• Grizzly Gator: They really brought this man a dire wolf to inspire him to get back to writing.
• Luiz Persechini: Lived long enough to hold a genetic engineered Dire Wolf but still have not finished book 6
• johnny kiz: Maybe in 10,000 years someone will be holding a finished copy of Winds of Winter
• Jacob Davison: No touching the wolves until the books are finished!!!
• R: He’s the Rihanna of authors
• Brandon: He holding everything but a piece of paper and a pen. I respect that.

And I've got to highlight this comment from Chandra-El ➳, because it's so true: "If George locked the fuck in this would've been generational marketing campaign for Winds of Winter." Can you imagine if Martin had finished The Winds of Winter and promoted it alongside the literal return of dire wolves to our world? It would be the best-selling in the history of humanity.

For the first time in thousands of years, the night came alive with the music of dire wolves

Not everyone used the photo as an excuse to rag on Martin for taking well over a decade (and counting) to complete his book. Some people just thought it was cool:

• Subiemike_: No lie if anyone in our era had a right to meet a dire wolf, it was probably George R. R. Martin.
• subham: bro so powerful he made a fantasy character real
• Kira Shizumi: George; "This is very neat, I'm excited to hold this wolf." The Wolf; "Holy fucking shit it's George R.R. Martin"

And I loved this one from JG, which repurposes the final lines from A Game of Thrones:

I don't care if they're just genetically modified grey wolves! They look and act like a long-dead species and that sends a chill up my spine. All the more so if you pare it with the most influential fantasy book series of the last 20 years.

I'd end this post by saying when we expect The Winds of Winter to come out but you all know we have no idea. No one does.

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