Did You Catch The Great ‘Harry Potter’ Reference In The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Premiere?
What a crossover.
Game of Thrones and Harry Potter have a fair amount of fan crossover.
I could go into the similarities about them both being pop culture juggernauts that started as hugely immersive books, that they’re both concerned with magic and castles and perilous fights for power… They’re also both regularly dismissed by outsiders as ~fantasy nonsense~ (shoutout to the people I met at a party last week who had never read or seen any instalments of HP, what have you been doing?*).
* I’m so much fun at parties, you guys.
But really, I’m betting that 99 percent of the people who clicked on this story have screamed “fuck you, Filch” at some point during GoT and require no explanation.
Well, in the season seven premiere yesterday, Harry Potter fans got their biggest easter egg yet.
If you missed it, think back to the scene in which Samwell Tarly helps conduct an autopsy at The Citadel. Sam approaches Archmaester Ebrose, a new character, about his quest to find more information about the White Walkers. He specifically asks about a restricted section of the library that he’s caught a glimpse of in-between his shifts draining literal litres of diarrhea out of old men’s chamber pots.
While no one from the Game of Thrones cast or crew has yet made comment about the parallel, it’s an eerie reinvention of a scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince featuring Professor Slughorn and Tom Riddle.
There’s the actor: Archmaester Ebrose is played by Jim Broadbent, widely known for his portrayal of Slughorn. The tone and context: both queries are dangerous propositions that Broadbent’s characters ultimately knocks back. And the phrasing of the “restricted section of the library”.
Can’t believe this series is going to end with Samwell Tarly evading the White Walkers by splitting everyone’s souls into a million horcruxes, cool.
Of course, plenty of fans have been quick to point out the similarities:
Poor Jim Broadbent, everywhere he is, people are asking him about the restricted section in the library #GameOfThrones meets #HarryPotter
— ami (@essence_me) July 17, 2017
The part where Sam goes to the restricted section and reads about how to destroy horcruxes #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/i3RTXVeU9q
— Tara Ross (@rosstara) July 17, 2017
Clearly no one left Sam an invisibility cloak to get into the restricted section of the library (you know you were thinking it) #GoTS7
— Allison Fennessy (@allisonfenn) July 17, 2017
Lol at Sam asking Professor Slughorn for access to the restricted section without bringing him crystallized pineapple. Idiot #GameOfThrones
— Mason (@MasonJar38) July 17, 2017
When Jim Broadbent was first announced as a new character on GoT, the showrunners actually addressed the Harry Potter comparisons head-on. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, co-executive producer Bryan Cogman called this new storyline “the anti-Harry Potter“. “Sam shows up to this amazing place where he thinks he’s going to get all the answers and all his talents are going to be put to good use. But this ain’t Hogwarts and the maester is not Dumbledore.”
Since the episode aired yesterday, some TV writers have called the link “tenuous” and insisted it’s probably just “beautiful randomness of two worlds colliding” but… I’m sorry, as soon as this scene aired, my friends all screamed the word “HORCRUXES” in unison. I may be a nerd, but there’s no way I’m nerdier than everyone in the GoT writers room.
Well played.
