Game of Thrones Gets All Handsy

Laura Bedrossian VP, Social Strategy, Hot Paper Lantern

As the highly anticipated ending of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ approaches, viewers are continuing to take to social media to critique . . . everything.

Last week, we witnessed the Starbucks heard round the world. Now we’ve got the hands where we can see them where they shouldn’t be.

What does that mean exactly?

A picture of Jaime Lannister embracing Cersei Lannister (his former lover and SISTER—I just like calling that out) with his two actual hands surfaced yesterday.

Fans of the show know that Jamie lost one of his hands many seasons ago. Non-fans of the show can make the jump because it looks like he has a prosthetic gold hand for the majority of the series.

Again, the internet exploded demanding to know why such a gaffe could happen again and so soon after Starbucksgate.

Viewers blame bad writing and say the showrunners are inept.

But, thanks to the blessing and curse that is social media I both learned about the gaffe, and  that it never actually aired, from fellow viewers and fellow Tweeters.

While the chatter may seem negative, it really drives views up. Views of people wanting to go back and see the error. It also helps to drive the conversation around the show for days on end on social media. What show and network wouldn’t want that? Especially when it’s as harmless as a production gaffe.

This show, like presumably many others, isn’t perfect and has included many other errors—both prop and continuity—along the way. Here are just a few:

  • A wooden toy car
  • Or nine highlighted here including a forgotten, but clearly visible laptop cord (do they have electrical outlets in Westeros?)
  • Or 10 here which include errors in the credits where the wrong house is displayed by the actors’ name (Dany is certainly no Lannister, how dare they!)

Buzzfeed called out that the hand error wasn’t actually aired, but the photo was a product of a lack of editing of a photo used to promote the show. Basically, if you watch, Jamie’s still got that golden hand throughout the whole episode. But, spoiler, the actor doesn’t actually have a golden hand—that’s added as CGI in aftereffects.

And while this season does seem a bit rushed, it doesn’t seem like there have been any errors because of rushing (dear god, they had over two years to make this), but seems to be more like the everyday errors that can happen in Hollywood. Guess that’s showbiz, baby.

Game of Thrones Gets All Handsy

(the hand in question!)