Philadelphia is already home to one high-profile dragon in Drexel University's Mario the Magnificent. But this week, we’ll host one that’s a little more fearsome, courtesy of the folks behind Game of Thrones. Beginning at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Dilworth Plaza will house one of the pesky beasts. You’ll be able to tell due to the “dug up concrete, skid marks, dragon footprints, rippling smoke, [and] crushed benches,” as a release notes. That night at 8:15, the Game of Thrones dragon will “take flight” as part of a 3D animated projection known as “Dance of Dragons.” The “flight” will begin at 13th and Market. Game of Thrones is bringing a dragon to Philadelphia this week as promotion for the series’ fifth season being released on DVD. Previously, the Game of Thrones crew took the “Dance of Dragons” to New York and Los Angeles, and will wrap the production up Thursday in San Francisco. Judging from those previous stagings, Philly is in for a bit of a mess:
The Dragons have landed in ny, have you seen them? — José S (@Killahkazx) March 15, 2016 — Kim Renfro (@kimrrenfro) March 15, 2016 — Gotham News (@GothamNews_) March 15, 2016 Wednesday’s dragon happenings, meanwhile, can be followed on Twitter under the hashtag #GOT5DVD. Season six of Game of Thrones premieres April 24 on HBO. Published: March 15, 2016 — 9:38 AM EDTSponsored Content Pretty Fucking Awesome Media consumers across the United States are reporting this week that sponsored content—articles and videos paid for by advertisers and distributed by print and digital publications—is easily the coolest ... Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Most Buck-Wild Pride Parade Nation’s Ever Seen Nation’s Homophobic Bigots Pack It In ‘Rules Are Rules,’ Say Those With Deeply Ingrained Prejudices Disney World Forced To Euthanize Character That Attacked Visitor Stupid 16-Year-Old Completely Wasting Adderall Prescription On Mental Health
South Carolina Refuses To Remove Confederate Flag From Capitol Trailer Mentor To Younger Women In Company Lets Herself Knock One Down Once In A While As Treat ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens Beefy Little Boy On Boogie Board Misses Fourth Wave In A Row Report: San Francisco To Shut Doors Over Rising Rent Popular Bay Area City Seeking New Location New Claritin Flamethrower Incinerates Whatever Causing Allergies New Music Festival Just Large Empty Field To Do Drugs InAn ornately carved throne and matching footstools from the Summer Palace, Peking, Bejing, 1870.1 of 12Thrones Are No Game: A Brief History of Chairs and PowerEver heard of the "seat of power"? Or used the phrase "the throne" to refer to a whole monarchy? What about calling someone a "chairperson"?As it turns out, there's a very good reason those idioms exist. As Game of Thrones returns to HBO on Sunday, there's no better time to be reminded that the real history of thrones is a fascinating one—as should be obvious from the examples seen here.
It might sound silly to say that people have gone to war over chairs or that others have decided that it is better to always stand than to sit in the wrong chair, but the people who did so had serious reasons. Chairs were literal embodiments of societal status.Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletterThe use of seats to signify power is "something that does seem to go from culture to culture," notes Kevin Stayton, Deputy Director for Collections and History at the Brooklyn Museum, which holds several examples of important chairs in its collection. Though thrones, chairs and stools might be differently decorated or shaped in different regions, the idea was the same. Generally, the higher and fancier the seat, the more power the sitter. “Chairs were fraught with political and social meaning," Stayton says.But Stayton thinks the real takeaway is that "our modern notion of what it means to sit down is so different from what it would have been historically."
Until modern times, chairs were generally hard to come by, far more expensive and more difficult to make than stools or benches. It would be the rare room that contained more than one. So, naturally, the most important person—the chairman—sat in it.Read more: 7 Times Game of Thrones Drew on History in Season 5Stayton traces the moment of change to around the 18th century. It's no coincidence that the United States came to be then, too: the same Enlightenment ideals that inspired the Founding Fathers also applied to the world of chairs. Imagine a small-town mayor in nascent Massachusetts who is the "chairman" in the rooms in which he sits; in order to combat the democratic notion that they are all the same, fancy European aristocrats made their chairs comfortable. Soon enough, the mayor has the same idea. “At first comfort arises for those people who used to have just status," Stayton says. "As is so often the case, these status symbols begin to filter down to different layers of society."
Before long—well, after at least a century—everyone could have a chair, and everyone's chair could be comfortable.That idea would have been foreign in the pre-modern world. Chairs were mini thrones, meant to make you sit up straight and look important. And what better chair to do that than the Iron Throne?A few days ago, Facebook delivered one of those “Remember This Memory?” posts to my feed from SXSW of years past. It had to be four years ago, considering the much smaller amount of grey in my hear and the several less pounds on my midsection. It was a photo of my sitting on the Iron Throne, which had been setup in a random spot in the Austin Convention Center. It was the first time HBO had made a concerted effort to have a Game of Thrones presence during Austin’s annual Film/Interactive/Music/Everything festival. That year it was a random photo-op with the Throne and some Iron Throne-styled pedicabs all over the downtown area. The next year, HBO brought the massive Game of Thrones Exhibition to Austin.
The year after that, a sword-fighting art display.This year, HBO is back again with another Game of Thrones themed activation: The Hall of Faces. In keeping with the theme of the upcoming sixth season of the show, this exhibit is all about death and the ghosts of the past. It’s heavy on the idea that even though characters have died, that doesn’t mean their spirit (or even their face) is gone forever.Let’s do a little tour.The exhibit, which is located at 213 West 5th Street at Lavaca Street (for those hitting SXSW this weekend) opens with a large lobby calling out The Hall of Faces. Through a curtained entrance way, we found a bar where samples of the latest Brewery Ommegang flavor, a tasty blonde, were being handed out.The largest display within the exhibit is The Hall of Faces itself, a rendition of the basement of The House of Black and White discovered by Thrones audiences in season 5. Walking up to the display, attendees can use a row of iPads to make themselves part of the Wall of the dead.
Among the familiar faces of Oberyn Martell, Ned Stark and his wife Catelyn, I was able to temporarily pick out my own mug, recently added to the faces available to the Faceless Men.Here’s what I look like as part of The Hall of Faces. .Elsewhere in the exhibit, fans can sit on the Iron Throne and take a picture. To the right of the Throne (pictured below), another wall of faces shows pictures submitted from fans via the Hall of Faces website.Since we’re in the Hall of Faces, two costumes are on display. Both the robes of Jaqen H’ghar and the new costume of Arya Stark are on display.Not far away is Arya’s sword Needle, available for pictures if you want to make a goofy, bearded face and look like an idiot.Near the entrance of the exhibit is a gallery of posters from the Beautiful Death collection, the fabulous Game of Thrones art project. This includes a new House of Black and White themed centerpiece.The final area of the exhibit is one that required us to place our cell phones in a basket.
An HBO spokesperson was quick to remind us that we couldn’t talk about the content of the display, as it might be a bit of a spoiler. The display is a small triangular hologram display that looks like the fires into which Melisandre might look into for visions. Inside the hologram, a clip from the upcoming sixth season plays. Two character converse about the future, the dead and how sometimes visions can be deceiving. If you really want to see it, there are outlets who have published it. Even though I’m a big proponent of spoilers being fair game (with fair warning), we like to be respectful of HBO’s request not to drop it into our coverage, as they were kind enough to let me in early and give me free beer. The least I can do is not actively spoil it. That said, it’s somewhat juicy and goes a long way to further confirming what we all know to be true.This year’s exhibit, while being considerably smaller than years past, is a nice little diversion for Game of Thrones fans who are running around SXSW.