Yes! George R.R. Martin, the original creator and mastermind behind the world of House of the Dragon, made a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ cameo in the penultimate episode of Season 2. The Red Sowing episode, which focused on the Dragonseeds claiming their dragons, surprisingly included the author’s face!
A behind-the-scenes video from Game of Thrones revealed that the face carved into the weirwood tree at Harrenhal resembled Martin’s. Production designer Jim Clay explained that this specification was made out of showrunner Ryan Condal’s desire to pay homage to Martin.
“Ryan (Condal) wanted to do it as a tribute, and the idea was to have it slowly disappear into the bark of the tree,” he said. “The brief was to make it feel like it was just like him, but you were never really sure.”
It was a well-deserved tribute, considering that Martin was the one who created the worlds of Song of Ice and Fire and Fire and Blood, which serve as the source material for House of the Dragon. In addition, he is also the executive producer of the prequel series.
Weirwood trees have existed in the world of Westeros for centuries and have been featured in numerous locations in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragons, including Harrenhal, Winterfell, King’s Landing, and Beyond the Wall.
The trees associated with the old gods of Westeros were believed to have been carved by the Children of the Forest. Only a few trees survived after the Andals cut them down to implement a new religion, the Faith of the Seven, or new gods, which became a common religious practice of the era.
In the behind-the-scenes video, Condal discusses how Harrenhal’s weirwood tree looks unkempt compared to the Red Keep. He also reveals that the castle was built using felled weirwood trees as wood, which ties in with the strange hallucinations Daemon experiences there.
Given that trees have such a huge but implicit role in the history of Westeros, it couldn’t be more fitting to have a George RR Martin-inspired face mold inside a tree! House of the Dragon is currently streaming on Jio Cinema.
