As a person who enjoys partaking in all the fine dramas being pumped out by broadcast television but also as one who doesn’t always have the time or wherewithal to watch them live, I’m constantly on spoiler watch. Because of this, the entirety of the internet is a pretty big no-go for me on post-Game of Thrones Mondays. I’m not going to have the big reveal in the penultimate episode of a season ruined because you can’t keep your fingers from clucking “RED WEDDING! NOT ROBB!!!” across my Facebook feed.
The only exception to this no internet rule is for my job, editing and writing for Sprudge.com, a website, that exists on the internet. Luckily, the coffee space and the big budget TV drama spoiler space nary intersect. Until last night, when the entire season turned on its head and I had it spoiled for me this very morning while doing my daily coffee research. And if I’m going down, I’m taking allllll of you down with me. SPOILER ALERT: There’s a Starbucks in Winterfell and Daenerys Targaryen is a regular.
As reported by Gizmodo, at around the 17:50 mark of last night’s series antepenultimate episode titled “The Last of the Starks,” Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Tormund Giantsbane are all hanging out around a table, presumably in Winterfell, where they are probably discussing the last war. I dunno. I haven’t watched it yet, which is why we are in this whole predicament to begin with. Anyway, the trio is at a table, talking strategy, and while Tormund is sipping giant’s milk from a horn, Daenerys chooses something a little more urbane: coffee from a Starbucks to-go cup.
What was she drinking? Is she more pour-over or latte? And how hot must that drink have been for woman who was literally engulfed in flames only to come out the other side unscathed to need one of those cardboard rings they put on to-go cups? Pretty damn hot, if you ask me. A closer look at the cup provided by Twitter user @VRonni3 may provide some insight.
Close up of that Coffee cup mistake in #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/FighJzudwS
— Ronnie
Vuki
(@VRonni3) May 6, 2019
Unburnt? Must not be Starbucks then, amirite.
There are some rubes in the fake news literati who say this is a mistake, that the cup wasn’t supposed to be there. But they clearly don’t understand how truly expansive and fleshed out the world George RR Martin via David Benioff and DB Weiss has created. They’d have you believe the presence of the coffee cup was a sign of carelessness, but on the contrary, the show has been building up to this moment for a few seasons now. When Ed Sheeran makes a cameo in the season seven premier, was that just for funsies or was it because his music is, best I can tell, sold and listened to solely at Starbucks around the world? And what about Rob Mcelhenney’s appearance this season? You’re telling me that isn’t a reference to his It’s Always Sunny co-star Glenn Howerton’s oft-maligned movie Coffee Town? You’d have me, an incredibly intelligent person, believe that A Song of Ice and Fire is not an almost too literal description of an iced latte? It all seems a little too convenient to not be true, don’t you think?
And if you need any more proof of exactly how intentional the cup placement was, it has since been confirmed showrunners Benioff and Weiss were in that very scene! I mean, how much more can they telegraph it at this point?
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
You can of course believe whatever you want about the show. If you want to just let the pretty (and sometimes really very dark) pictures wash over you and discount any new information that challenges your shallow worldview of what story Martin et al are trying to tell, then go right ahead. But it ain’t me, babe. I see it all loud and clear. The real story is in the cup. It’s coffee. The real story is coffee.
When you play the Game of Sprones, you win(g it) or you die(l in).
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
Top image via Gizmodo
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Source: Coffee News
