Props and Weapons at the Game of Thrones Exhibit
Earlier this year, to celebrate Game of Thrones, Sky Atlantic hosted the London phase of the worldwide exhibition tour at the O2 Arena. It was a chance for fans to get close to the costumes, props and interactive features and see how it is all brought to life. After spending 3 hours queuing for tickets on the internet, my wife and I were on hand to go and see what was on offer. We weren't disappointed!
I'll be describing what we saw at the exhibition but if you want to see what was in store, check out the video at the bottom of this page and it shows you everything all nicely edited together! In this part of my blog I'll be describing all of the weapons and props that we saw at the exhibit. Swords like Ice and Longclaw, the King's Crown, masks from Meereen and much more will be detailed!
The Swords.
There were all different swords shown at the exhibit from all of the major characters all around the Seven Kingdoms. The first one you see is Ned Stark's Valaryan steel sword, Ice. It is presented next to Needle, Arya's sword given to her by her half brother Jon Snow in Season 1. It's interesting the difference between the two swords, Ice being a 2 handed beast and Needle, a tiny and nimble sword in comparison!
One sword which was even bigger than Ice was the Mountain's. You were able to hold the sword, aided by a stand, and it made the largest person seem a dwarf! As you can see by the picture on the left, my beautiful wife would find it hard to carry around this mighty two-handed sword let alone fight with it!
There were other swords that were on show including Jorah Mormont's sword that he uses to protect Khaleesi with and also Stannis Baratheon's sword, Lightbringer. There are also some Dornish Daggers displayed from the upcoming season 5.
The star of the sword show was certainly LongClaw, Jon Snow's sword given to him by Lord Commander Mormont. It has a white carved wolf head on it's hilt and is also made of the legendary Valaryan steel, much like his father's sword.
Longclaw is accompanied by it's sheath, Jon's belt and dagger, all incredibly detailed and crafted. In fact all of the items have been designed and made to look as authentic as possible and I can imagine it makes the Actors jobs that much easier when using these props.
Other Weapons.
There are a few other weapons on display at the exhibit which are worth mentioning. The first is Prince Oberyn Martell's spear used during his epic battle with Gregor "The Mountain' Clegane in which he meets his demise! Also there is the favourite weapon of King Joffery, the crossbow. You can see that this is a King's crossbow by the red and gold colouring and the granduer of it. Again it has very intimate detailing, signifying how it is fit for a King!
On the right you can see a Dornish whip used in Season 5 of Game of Thrones.
The Props.
There were many props at the exhibit from Jaime's hand to a full sized White Walker. A lot of the props were in glass cabinets so you couldn't touch them, but this is understandable as they are fragile.
The first prop you see is the Dragon Eggs that are given to Daenerys in Season 1 as part of her wedding gifts. They are accompanied by the scrorched child bones, a victim of Drogon the Dragon in Season 4, and a slaves neck chains.
Not far from this is two glass cabinets with an array of props from the show. The first glass cabinet, includes the Dornish whip & Daggers, and a Viper Box all from the new Season 5. It also includes Jaime's gold hand. It was hard to get too excited about the Dornish props as we weren't sure what relevance they have towards the story at the moment but Jaime's gold hand was pretty cool!
The other glass cabinet contained some of the jewellery from the Game of Thrones series. It included an exciting mix of beautiful gold and silver pieces. These included the Hand of the King pin, the one that Ned Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Tywin Lannister all wear in the series. It also had the gold chains that were a present from Tyrion to Shae in Season 3, and are later used to strangle her dead. The poison filled necklace worn by Sansa Stark that include the poison that takes Joffery's life is also displayed!
The two main pieces of jewellery on display are the crowns for the Royal Wedding, belonging to Joffery Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell. Beautifully crafted and fit for a King and Queen, they really are a work of art.
Joffery's Crown & Sansa's necklace.
The biggest prop was the life-sized White Walker. I think it's the one which attacks Samwell Tarly and Ginny north of the Wall and Sam kills with the dragonglass he finds at the Fist of the First Men. It's very impressive and next to it is the ice spear and ice sword that the White Walkers use.
I hope you've enjoyed reading about my time at the exhibit. Again there is a video below which shows everything! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below or leave any comments!
