“The HBO throne has become iconic. And well it might. It’s a terrific design, and it has served the show very well. There are replicas and paperweights of it in three different sizes. Everyone knows it. I love it. I have all those replicas right here, sitting on my shelves.
And yet, and yet… it’s still not right.”
So spake George R. R. Martin, who recently posted an illustration on his Not A Blog of what he’s always imagined the Iron Throne from A Song of Ice and Fire to be. It makes our collective blood run a little cold, though it certainly inspires some serious awe.
Take a look below at the full illustration, created by Marc Simonetti for the upcoming Song of Ice and Fire companion book The World of Ice and Fire.
That’s… vaguely horrifying. We love it.
Here’s what Martin has to say on this rendering, after paying his respect to the HBO version:
“It’s a rough, not a final version, so what you see in the book will be more polished. But 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…”
We think this illustration did the trick in terms of capturing the words that Martin put on paper. As he points out on his blog, the throne was originally constructed of words, not metal, which might be the reason why it’s such a difficult thing to smith into reality. And if we can look forward to more gorgeous artwork like this, The World of Ice and Fire is bound to mesmerize us not too far in the future….
Stubby the Rocket is the mascot of Tor.com. Stubby think it wouldn’t kill the blacksmiths to make some cup holders for the throne. At least not like how Joffrey would kill the blacksmiths.
