The latest episode of Game of Thrones included a mistake where a coffee cup was left on a table in Winterfell, and now HBO has acknowledged the oversight by making a joke about it on Twitter. The error has been the talk of social media since the episode aired.
The most recent episode of Game of Thrones was "The Last of the Starks," and it opened with a memorial service for all the warriors who died in the battle against the White Walkers. The survivors of the war attended a feast in the Great Hall of Winterfell, where Daenerys, Jon, and Sansa sat at the head table. There's a moment around sixteen minutes into the episode where Tormund talks about Jon's prowess in battle while Daenerys looks on, and fans quickly noticed something off about the scene. It seems that there's a disposable coffee cup (most likely from Starbucks) sitting on the table near Daenerys during the scene.
"The Last of the Starks" is one of the last episodes of Game of Thrones, and it featured several prominent character deaths, but all anyone can talk about online is the cup of coffee on the table in Winterfell. The network behind Game of Thrones has responded to the blunder with a joke on the official Game of Thrones Twitter account. According to HBO's post, the mistake was that Daenerys ordered herbal tea and received a coffee instead.
Items being left on set is a common error on movie and TV show productions, with cups and spare copies of scripts being visible to eagle-eyed viewers. The mistakes are magnified when the item presents an anachronism, such as a disposable coffee cup appearing in the mystical land of Westeros. The fact that such an obvious blunder happened is funny, but it's a shame that a mistake that only appears for a few seconds has dominated the discourse concerning the new episode.
Game of Thrones is one of the most expensive TV shows of all time, and an incredible amount of work goes into the production of each episode. It must be hard on the cast & crew who go through so much work on each episode to see production problems dominating the discussion, as was the case with the lighting issues regarding "The Long Night". There are two more episodes of Game of Thrones remaining, and there are likely teams of editors checking every frame of the remaining episodes in order to make sure that no errant McDonalds wrappers or iPhones managed to sneak their way into King's Landing, in order to prevent the same kind of response that "The Last of the Starks" has faced.
Source: HBO