Martin lamented that HBO viewers weren’t getting the full picture of his creation, writing about HBO’s iconic version:
“It’s not the Iron Throne I see when I’m working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. It’s not the Iron Throne I want my readers to see. The way the throne is described in the books… HUGE, hulking, black and twisted, with the steep iron stairs in front, the high seat from which the king looks DOWN on everyone in the court… my throne is a hunched beast looming over the throne room, ugly and assymetric…
The HBO throne is none of those things. It’s big, yes, but not nearly as big as the one described in the novels. And for good reason. We have a huge throne room set in Belfast, but not nearly huge enough to hold the Iron Throne as I painted it.”
According to Martin, if the show stayed true to his vision, his Iron Throne wouldn’t fit in St Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey. Because the thing is goddamn huge. It’s incredibly daunting, drawn purely from the stuff of nightmares and makes HBO’s version look like a fucking joke:
