Time to snap a selfie on the Iron Throne!
It’s been ten years since Game of Thrones arrived on our TV screens and changed the way we watched television forever. (For instance, instead of shipping your favourite characters, you simply hoped they’d make it to the end of the episode with their head still attached to their body.) To mark the occasion, the ultimate symbol of power and glory – the Iron Throne – has been added to Leicester Square’s free film-inspired statue trail, Scenes in the Square.
Though the back-stabbing and in-fighting over the Iron Throne has stopped (on screen at least; we’re still waiting with eager bloodlust for the next book), the appeal of the chair hasn’t gone away. From today, you’ll be able to park your royal behind on the throne, as the statue was unveiled this morning by Game of Thrones actor Isaac Hempstead Wright – a man rather familiar with this particular chair. It adds another excellent photo opportunity to the Scenes in the Square experience, and more film icons are set to join the square in the coming months and years.
The Iron Throne is the tenth statue to arrive in Leicester Square, joining the original eight (Bugs Bunny, Mr Bean, Mary Poppins, Batman, Laurel & Hardy, Wonder Woman, Gene Kelly, and Paddington) and last year’s addition, Harry Potter. As you may have surmised, that makes the Iron Throne the first TV-inspired statue on the trail, as well as perhaps the most child-friendly Game of Thrones statue available (one can only imagine a Red Wedding-inspired statue was swiftly scrapped).
The arrival of the new statue will also help stir up excitement for the Game of Thrones prequel series set to air in 2022. Titled ‘House of the Dragon’, it’ll be set hundreds of years before the events of Game of Thrones, and chart the arrival of House Targaryen in Westeros. You can visit the Iron Throne from today, and we can confidently predict that this one will inspire a lot less fighting and a lot more orderly queueing than the TV counterpart…