HBOThe post-production team at Game of Thrones don’t need a fire-breathing dragon to feel the heat, as fans think they’ve spotted another editing mistake.
It seems like it’s all gone downhill since the glorious defeat over the army of the dead!
Following the release of the fourth episode on Sunday, eagle-eyed viewers were quick to point out the show’s first blunder, which saw a modern-day coffee cup find its way on to a table at Winterfell.
Somehow it had gone unnoticed by the cast, crew and editing team, but it didn’t manage to slip past fans!
You're telling me they had TWO YEARS to put together a decent show and they couldn't even spot the goddamn Starbucks cup in Winterfell??!?! #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/8opg7nyydv
— Jenna Guillaume (@JennaGuillaume) May 6, 2019
Unfortunately HBO couldn’t come up with a good excuse as to why the cardboard cup would fit in among the horns and goblets usually used to carry liquid in Westeros, so they owned up to the mistake and have since digitally removed the offending item.
But it seems they can’t relax just yet, as fans are now raising questions about another discrepancy in the latest episode.
did HBO deliberately put that starbucks cup on the table so that the internet would get obsessed with it while simultaneously forget that… The Red Keep / king's landing now seem to be a fort in the middle of a fucking desert? #GameofThrones
— Flavia F. (@misss_ff) May 7, 2019
Where’s this desert in King’s Landing? Hello? pic.twitter.com/wYFaRgbxAx
— FRANK (@Facetious_Frank) May 6, 2019
Long-time viewers will know that King’s Landing, where Cersei currently resides along with the Iron Throne, is often depicted as a packed city surrounded by ocean and luscious mountains.
However, as Daenerys descended upon the city gates towards the end of episode four, the landscape was inexplicably barren.
Here’s how King’s Landing has looked in the past:
HBOAnd here it is in the most recent episode:
HBOQuite the difference, isn’t there?
What’s more, the teaser for the upcoming episode shows some of the troops approaching King’s Landing via boat, so there has to be some water still in the mix:
But Daenerys’ army is pretty big, so there has to be enough land around the walls to accommodate them, too. I suspect the Game of Thrones creators chopped and changed the landscape to fit their needs in the hopes fans wouldn’t have noticed, but if that’s the case, then they wildly underestimated the committed viewers.
Fans took to Reddit to discuss the inconsistency, where one person posted:
Everyone’s talking about the coffee cup but can we talk about why the fuck King’s Landing is now in a desert without mountains?
Another commented:
I don’t understand where this even is, isn’t KL surrounded by water except for the entrance?
However, social media users came up with a possible explanation for the change of scenery, with one person suggesting the lack of water was a result of the long-awaited Winter.
They wrote:
The sea receeds [sic] during winter, like a super long lasting low tide. This is one of the areas where the bay has receded leaving barren area leading up to a city wall.
Whatever the explanation, the confusing inconsistency has certainly left fans baffled. We’ll have to wait and see if the characters offer any sort of reasoning for the barren landscape in the upcoming episode!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.