According to showrunner Miguel Sapochnik, the Iron Throne was much more dangerous on the set of the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon”. The action of the long-awaited series “House of the Dragon”, based on the novel by George R. R. Martin “Flame and Blood” in 2018, takes place 200 years before the events of “Game of Thrones”. The show is a prequel created by Martin and Ryan J. Condalami for HBO, will tell about the Targaryen House at the peak of its power and will tell about their possible fall, which led to a civil war known as the Dance of Dragons.
Paddy Considine leads the cast of the House of the Dragon as benevolent King Viserys I Targaryen, who currently occupies the Iron Throne as the prequel series begins. Doctor Who’s Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint, Eva Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno and Rhys Evans also complete the show’s sizable ensemble. Filming of “House of the Dragon” began in April 2021, mainly in the United Kingdom at Warner Bros. Studios. Leavesden Studios, where a large number of sets for the Game of Thrones prequel series were built, including a new throne room.
During a recent interview with EW, Sapochnik talked about the filming of “House of the Dragon”. The showrunner revealed that the Iron Throne was much more dangerous on the set of the prequel compared to its parent series, given that they used real pointed swords to level the path to the chair. Read below what Sapochnik shared:
We literally had to put up fences when we first built it. Some of them are real swords. It’s just as dangerous as [described] in the books.
Sapochnik, who together with Kondal is the showrunner of “House of the Dragon”, is known for having shot several of the most ambitious and eventful episodes of “Game of Thrones”, including “Harsh House”, “Battle of the Bastards” and “Long Night.” The redesigned and more “dangerous” Iron Throne in the prequel is much more in line with what Martin originally envisioned in A Song of Ice and Fire. In the books, he describes the throne as a huge asymmetrical plexus of blades forged from the swords of defeated enemies of Aegon the Conqueror.
While Game of Thrones took a much more modest approach to the Iron Throne, which Martin openly ridiculed, the prequel series is clearly trying to correct this oversight. According to Sapochnik’s estimates, about 2,500 swords were used in the “Dragon House” to create the scenery, and tennis balls were placed on the tips of the blades along the path to prevent accidental injury when the cameras were not working. While some thought that Game of Thrones went astray after the series overtook Martin’s books around the fifth season, the redesigned Iron Throne is just one example of how House of the Dragon struggles to stay true to the original vision and source of the author. material.
