Title sequence

The Game of Thrones title sequence introduces every episode and changes depending on the locations visited in that particular episode.

Description
The title sequence consists of a three-dimensional map of the world, with the continents of Westeros and Essos located on the inner surface of a sphere. At the center of the sphere is a light source, effectively a sun surrounded by an astrolabe-like arrangement of rotating rings. The details of the title sequence change each week depending on the locations visited. The following description is how the sequence appears in the first episode of the series, "Winter Is Coming".

The sequence opens with a close-up of the sun and the astrolabe surrounding it. Relief details are visible on the astrolabe, showing a volcano destroying a city while a dragon watches on and several people escaping in a boat, a reference to the Doom of Valyria and the Targaryens escape from it. The camera then pans to a wide-shot of Westeros and Essos before zooming in on the city of King's Landing, in particular the sigil of House Baratheon on what appears to be a large gear in the middle of the city. The gear begins turning, moving other cogs, and then three-dimensional buildings start rising out of the ground, such as the Red Keep and the Great Sept of Baelor.

Once the city is assembled, the camera moves north across Westeros to Winterfell, which similarly rises out of the ground while a gear bearing the sigil of House Stark rotates. The camera pays particular attention to the godswood of Winterfell and its heart tree as it rises out of the ground before panning up to the sun and astrolabe. There is then another close-up of the detail on the astrolabe, this time showing the Stark direwolf, Lannister lion and Baratheon stag engaging the Targaryen dragon in combat, a reference to Robert's Rebellion.

The camera returns to Winterfell and then pans north to the Wall, where more gears start turning and Castle Black emerges from the ground, while the pulley lift emerges from the face of the Wall. The camera pulls all the way back to King's Landing before moving across the Narrow Sea to the Free City of Pentos, which similarly emerges from the ground while gears rotate.

The title sequence ends with a return to the relief detail of the astrolabe, now showing the animals representing the various noble houses of Westeros bowing to the triumphant Baratheon stag. The Game of Thrones logo then appears over the astrolabe, with the heads of a dragon, wolf, lion, and stag emerging from the side of the logo.

Throughout the series, the title sequence continues to change and add locations, depending on the locations visited in that particular episode. In the first season, Vaes Dothrak, the Eyrie, and the Twins appeared. Dragonstone, Pyke, Harrenhal and Qarth first appeared in the second season. Astapor, Riverrun, and Yunkai first appeared in the third season. The Dreadfort, Meereen, Braavos, and Moat Cailin first appeared in the fourth season, while the region of Dorne was the only location added during the fifth season. No new locations were added to the title sequence during the sixth season. Oldtown and Eastwatch first appeared in the seventh season.

However, the title sequence shown in the eighth season differs majorly from that of previous seasons. Although the sequence still opens with a close-up of the sun and the astrolabe surrounding it, the events visible on the astrolabe tell the plot of the aforementioned seasons rather than than Westerosi history: showing the Breaching of the Wall. In contrast with previous the previous sequence, the large crevice left in the Wall following the breach is shown initially (rather than King's Landing), after which white tiles begin to emerge from the layers of mapping, symbolising the movement of the army of the dead. Then the camera goes to Winterfell as it emerges to the ground, focusing on the godswood, then coming inside the Great Hall and then to the crypt. After panning to the sun and the astrolabe (which depicts the Red Wedding at this point), the camera pans to the Kings Landing, then to the gears pulling up one of the gates. Then the camera goes to the Red Keep, then enters one of the towers, coming to the cellars while passing over the ballista and the skull of Balerion which shuts off its jaws, then finally to the throne room, with the Lannister sigil revealing up and the Iron Throne emerging from the floor. Last Hearth first appears in the eighth season.

Unlike previous seasons, the eighth season's sequence also seems to be strictly abiding by the events of the show, therefore changing many aspects in the process. For example, the theme of sigils is present throughout previous sequences, but are removed in the latest version. The title sequence also clearly highlights House Lannister's control of King's Landing, removing the sigil of House Baratheon, despite Robert Baratheon being deceased since the first season (even more so when one considers House Baratheon of King's Landing and its effectiveness as a puppet of House Lannister).

Conception
The title sequence was created by Elastic, the company that previously created the title sequences for Rome, Big Love and Carnivale for HBO. The latter won them an Emmy Award.

The title sequence was inspired by the maps of Westeros that precede each novel in the series (and maps in fantasy novels in general). The creators decided to place the map on the inner surface of a sphere with an astrolabe-sun object at the center. The camera would then visit different parts of the map, while illustrations on the astrolabe covered some of the backstory to the series. The turning gears and cogs were meant to be reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions.

As for why it is specifically an astrolabe with moving parts, producer Greg Spence explained that Angus Wall at Elastic came up with "a vision of a mad monk, in a tower somewhere," who was somehow keeping track of all this action, "and creating as he went. He would then fashion little automatons out of the materials that would be available in his world. They would be stone, or tin, or wood, and everything would feel very hand-crafted."

Rules
In an interview during Season 5, producer Greg Spence explained several rules about which locations appear in each episode's opening sequence. These rules explain why the map doesn't always match up exactly to what appears in the episode.

First, as a rule, every episode's map must contain King's Landing, Winterfell, The Wall, and "wherever Daenerys is at the moment" - even if Daenerys does not appear in that episode. The reason for this rule about Daenerys is because her locations outside of Westeros help show the vast sweep of the entire world, which is larger than just the one continent Westeros. If the camera simply panned up from King's Landing, to Winterfell, and then the Wall, it wouldn't really show much of the world at all. As Spence said:


 * "The way the main title, and the way that the camera travels, and crossing the Narrow Sea into Essos is important to us, because it communicates the expanse of the show, and it helps to remind the audience of the entire world in which the show takes place. I think if we tried to limit the main title to just places that appear in the episodes, or we're literally tracing each character, it would be more confusing and less successful at its primary task, which is really orienting people to the world."

Winterfell also appears in every episode, even though during seasons 3 and 4 it was never physically visited. Again, this is to ground the most important parts of the world within the narrative: King's Landing is the capital city, the Wall is meant to hold back the return of the White Walkers, and Winterfell is the home of all the Starks.

Second, they don't always have the time and resources to create specific animations for every minor location - thus the capital of a region is often used as a stand-in to represent the overall territory. For example, at the beginning of Season 5 the Eyrie appears in the title sequence, even though Sansa and Littlefinger left it at the end of Season 4. Instead, they are at Runestone, a major castle in the Vale. Even so, Spence explained, they didn't make a separate animation for Runestone, because it would only appear in that one episode and wasn't that important to the storyline as a whole, so it didn't justify the time and expense in creating an entirely new animation. Therefore, the Eyrie appears in that title sequence to represent the Vale as a whole, because it is the capital.

These budget constraints are also why they haven't made animations for many important locations which only appear once or twice: they have to skew their choices towards locations which they know are going to reappear more than once, so the money invested in producing each animation will get as much use as possible.

Pentos only appeared once in the first four seasons (and through Season 5 has been the rarest location), but it appeared in the first episode due to the rule that they need to show where Daenerys is.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, they can only show a limited number of locations in the 90 second duration of the opening sequence. The title sequence is never going to be delayed longer, in part due to the finite length of the opening theme song. As additional locations appear, some of the animations are being sped up to fit into the desired duration (most notably, in later versions of the title sequence usually only the last one from the original three takes of the Wall animation is being used). Added to this is the time it takes for the camera to zoom in and out, and pan across the globe, which can vary depending on which locations are in a single episode. The combined result is that through Season 5, no opening sequence has ever contained more than six locations, because there physically isn't enough time to fit more in (they might have more than six at a later point, if two are close together).

This became particularly notable in Season 5: up to that point, Daenerys (and her associated storyline) was the only major character not in Westeros (barring Stannis's one-episode trip to Braavos in Season 4). Starting in Season 5, however, other characters start traveling to the eastern continent, particularly Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, and Varys. Meanwhile, the TV series also physically visited Dorne for the first time, at the extreme southern end of Westeros - meaning it would take even longer for the camera to pan down to it. Also consider that each title sequence, as a rule, must show the Wall - which is on the exact opposite lengthwise side of the entire continent.

For example, in episode 5.2, besides the four constant locations (King's Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, and Daenerys in Meereen), the other major locations were Arya in Braavos, Tyrion in (the outskirts of) Pentos, the Eyrie for Sansa in the Vale, and the introduction of Dorne. This amounted to eight locations, and all at the far corners of the map, so there just wasn't enough time to zoom to each of them. Thus, the new Dorne animation could not debut in this episode, and the Pentos animation didn't reappear either. Greg Spence explained that they simply have to weigh how many motions the camera can physically make in a limited amount of time, and make tradeoffs relative to how important a location is in a given episode.

Similarly, in episode 5.3, in addition to the core four locations, both Sansa and Brienne went to Moat Cailin, Arya was in Braavos, and Tyrion arrived at Volantis. While Volantis is an important location within the narrative and characters have discussed it throughout the TV series, it was the first time it had been physically visited, and they didn't know at the time if it would be revisited - meaning it didn't justify the expense of creating an entirely new Volantis-animation that would only get used once. It also would have involved a large amount of panning by the camera, because Braavos is the northernmost Free City and Volantis is the southernmost.

Variations
The title sequence sometimes changes depending on the locations visited in each episode. The known variations so far are as follows:
 * Episode 1: The capital city of King's Landing, the castle of Winterfell, the Wall and the free city of Pentos all make their first appearance.
 * Episode 2: Pentos is replaced by the Dothraki city of Vaes Dothrak, where tents rise up out of the ground as more gears whir and rotate.
 * Episode 5: The castle of the Eyrie is added to the map between King’s Landing and Winterfell, with the castle rising out of the top of its mountain.
 * Episode 9: The Eyrie is replaced by the Twins.
 * Episode 10: The Twins are removed from the map.
 * Episode 11: The castle of Dragonstone is added to the map between King’s Landing and Winterfell, which rises up from the ground on the island of the same name.
 * Episode 12: The castle of Pyke of the Iron Islands is added to the map between Dragonstone and Winterfell, rising from the sea with each keep connected by a swaying bridge.
 * Episode 14: Dragonstone is replaced by the blackened ruin of Harrenhal by the shores of the lake of Gods Eye and Vaes Dothrak is replaced by the eastern city of Qarth.
 * Episode 21: Qarth is replaced by the slave city of Astapor. Dragonstone returns, replacing Pyke. Winterfell is now clouded in smoke to reflect its sacking at the end of Season 2.
 * Episode 23: Dragonstone is replaced by the castle of Riverrun which rises from the tributary of the Trident.
 * Episode 25: Astapor is replaced by the city of Yunkai.
 * Episode 29: Dragonstone and the Twins return, replacing Harrenhal and Riverrun respectively.
 * Episode 31: The Twins are replaced by the castle of the Dreadfort, and Yunkai is replaced by the slave city of Meereen.
 * Episode 36: Dragonstone is removed from the map and the free city of Braavos is added between The Wall and Meereen. This episode marks the first time two Essos locations are featured in the title sequence.
 * Episode 38: The Dreadfort is replaced by the castle of Moat Cailin.
 * Episode 41: The Eyrie and Pentos return, replacing Moat Cailin and Braavos respectively. Winterfell is not clouded in smoke anymore and the Stark sigil is replaced by the flayed man of House Bolton.
 * Episode 42: Braavos returns, replacing Pentos.
 * Episode 43: Moat Cailin returns, replacing the Eyrie.
 * Episode 44: Moat Cailin is removed from the map and the Kingdom of Dorne is added after Meereen.
 * Episode 52: Dorne is removed and Pyke returns, appearing between King's Landing and Winterfell.
 * Episode 53: Vaes Dothrak returns, replacing Braavos.
 * Episode 54: The Eyrie returns, replacing Pyke.
 * Episode 55: Pyke and Braavos return, replacing the Eyrie and Vaes Dothrak respectively.
 * Episode 56: Pyke is removed and Vaes Dothrak returns, appearing between Braavos and Meereen. This episode marks the first time three Essos locations are featured in the title sequence.
 * Episode 57: Vaes Dothrak is removed and Riverrun returns, appearing between King's Landing and Winterfell.
 * Episode 60: Riverrun is replaced by the Twins. Braavos is removed and Dorne returns, appearing after Meereen. The Bolton sigil in Winterfell is replaced by the grey direwolf of House Stark.
 * Episode 61: Dragonstone returns, appearing between King's Landing and the Twins. Meereen is removed and the port city of Oldtown is added, replacing Dorne. This episode marks the first time no Essos locations are featured in the title sequence.
 * Episode 62: Pyke returns, replacing the Twins.
 * Episode 65: Pyke is removed and the Night's Watch castle of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea is added, appearing between the Wall and Oldtown.
 * Episode 68: Dragonstone and Oldtown are removed. The Wall now appears destroyed where Eastwatch-by-the-Sea was located. The abandoned castle of House Umber, Last Hearth, is added. Winterfell and King's Landing have new animations showing the interiors of each location.

Homages
The Simpsons episode "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart" features a homage to the Game of Thrones title sequence, with famous buildings in the town of Springfield rising through the ground as characters watch on, dressed in Game of Thrones-style costumes. The Wall is replaced by the monolithic "Couch" at the end of the sequence.

Awards
The title sequence won a Creative Arts Emmy Award on September 10, 2011.