WARNING! Minor SPOILERS ahead for House Of The Dragon episode 1!House of the Dragon’s Iron Throne is far bigger and has more swords than it does in Game of Thrones. As King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) mentions in House of the Dragon episode 1, the Iron Throne is the most dangerous seat in the realm – not just because of how many cut themselves from the forged swords, but also due to the responsibility required and target put on the back of the one who sits on it. Viserys even cuts his own hand on the Iron Throne during House of the Dragon’s premiere, giving it the fabled danger that clearly differentiates it from Game of Thrones’ seat.
In Game of Thrones, the Iron Throne is described as the chair for the King of Westeros, forged by the swords of those who surrendered to Aegon the Conqueror. While the throne room is still vast, Game of Thrones’ actual Iron Throne isn’t anywhere near as intimidating as that in House of the Dragon, which is set “172 years before Daenerys Targaryen was born.” While Game of Thrones’ Iron Throne is large with plenty of steps leading up to the chair made of swords, House of the Dragon’s seat is massive, with an enormous amount of swords covering the seat and sticking out to cut the one who sits upon it – not to mention that even more swords line the stairs leading up the ruler’s chair.
The Iron Throne being so small in Game of Thrones was a significant point of contention for readers of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, as it was described similar to how Daenerys imagined it looked as a child. The design of House of the Dragon’s Iron Throne is far more faithful to its descriptions in the books, and truly captures the threatening aura that the chair was meant to elicit. While the Iron Throne sat upon by House of the Dragon's characters still doesn’t match up to the book chair in terms of its enormous height and scale, it manages to be more accurate than its predecessor. Considering House Targaryen is at the height of its power during House of the Dragon, it’s also fitting for the Iron Throne to reflect this influence and intimidation better than in Game of Thrones.
When Does The Iron Throne Change Before Game Of Thrones?
Given that approximately 200 years separate the two series, House of the Dragon’s Iron Throne is still drastically different from the seat in Game of Thrones. There are no swords on the Iron Throne’s stairs, the platform, the bottom of the steps, or even jaggedly extruding from chair during Game of Thrones; in essence, the physical danger has been removed by this time. The throne in House of the Dragon seems to reflect the way that Dany imagined the Iron Throne appeared when she was a child, which suggests that this is actually how it looked when the Targaryens sat on the throne. As such, the Iron Throne likely had a significant change in its appearance by the time Robert Baratheon usurped the crown and removed nearly all the Targaryen memorabilia from the throne room. However, flashbacks to the Mad King Aerys depict a similar Iron Throne to that of Robert, indicating that Dany's father could have made changes as his paranoia deepened.
The Iron Throne had likely seen many gradual changes over the 280 years before Robert Baratheon unseated House Targaryen. It’s reasonable to assume that each king that sat on the Iron Throne before him had made adjustments to the throne room and the dangerous seat during their reign, but perhaps saw the biggest change during Robert’s rule. Of course, the seat after the time of Daenerys Targaryen no longer exists, as Drogon completely destroyed the Iron Throne after the death of the Mother of Dragons in Game of Thrones’ finale. As House of the Dragon progresses, the danger of the Iron Throne will continue to become an important aspect of the Targaryens’ conflicts, suggesting the seat could still see more changes throughout the series.
New episodes of House of the Dragon release Sundays on HBO/HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET.