If you watched Game of Thrones last night you might have spotted something a little out of place. No, there wasn’t an ewok riding a dragon or anything as cool as that. The HBO show aired a modern coffee cup that was definitely not supposed to be in the shot.
The mistaken coffee cup appears at roughly the 17:50-minute mark in the episode titled, “The Last of the Starks,” and as you can see, it’s clearly a to-go cup from the 21st century.
Can you spot it? Maybe this zoom will help.
Yep, there it is. Someone was enjoying their pumpkin spice half-caf double latte before the camera was rolling and forgot to get rid of it.
Social media users quickly turned the rogue coffee cup into a meme, poking fun at how difficult it would be if the Mother of Dragons gave her full name at Starbucks.
That Winterfell starbucks cashier ain't ready to write Dany's name on her coffee cup #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/N4ktWH1NlJ
— Joseph (@JosephTheJStar) May 6, 2019
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1125340705621037057
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1125314605406879744
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1125315529709735937
Her name is long and Starbucks isn’t supposed to be in the Game of Thrones universe. Get it? Do you get it?
It was a dumb mistake, especially given how closely the show is watched, but Game of Thrones certainly wasn’t the first high-profile movie or TV show to make this kind of error. There’s a long tradition of period dramas and action films where modern-day conveniences and contemporary fashion accidentally make their way into the final cut.
For example, the 1995 movie Braveheart accidentally showed a modern van during a big battle scene, the 2000 film Gladiator included a gas cylinder on one of its chariots, and the 1959 movie Ben Hur included a modern wristwatch.
And just last year, the The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman included a promotional shot of a reporter who’s wearing an Apple Watch. The movie was set in 1987, long before smartwatches were a thing. Can you see it below?
Again, it’s too bad that the Game of Thrones gaffe couldn’t be something badass like an ewok on a dragon. I swear it would be cool. But I guess we’ll have to settle for something like this, where Starbucks invades Winterfell. Sorry, but this is canon now.
Update, 9:25 am ET: LOL.
OH MY GOD, the showrunners were literally in the same scene as the Starbucks cup. pic.twitter.com/TS7wNPUCDf
— Ellie Hall (@ellievhall) May 6, 2019
Update, 9:50 am ET: Former Deadspin video guy Timothy Burke has a good theory on why the coffee cup may have been there. The horns look like they were filled with a brown liquid that comes spilling out. You can see it in this clip:
i believe the Starbucks cup is there because the steins and horns were full of lattes, not wine pic.twitter.com/eQzyjcFO0C
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) May 6, 2019
The production staff were probably refilling the horns with coffee and forgot to move the paper coffee cup out of the way.
Update, 4:45 pm ET: And HBO just made a chucklegoof about it.
“The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake,” HBO said in a press release. “Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.”
