{"id":14245,"date":"2019-05-03T12:58:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T16:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=14245"},"modified":"2019-05-03T12:58:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T16:58:54","slug":"religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html","title":{"rendered":"The Religious Symbolism in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BagoGames\/Flickr\"<\/a>
BagoGames\/Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winter has come, and America has been excidely watching the eighth and final season of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones”.<\/p>\n

What most of those watching don’t always notice, though, is how the series also inserts a huge amount of Christian imagery and references. It’s no coincidence that the show returned to TV on Palm Sunday this year, the beginning of Holy Week for Christians. For some, these Christian themes also give clues into how the series will end.<\/p>\n

The most obvious reference is Jon Snow paralleling Jesus Christ. He owns a pet Dire Wolf named Ghost, which some think actually refers to the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, the Winterfell Bastard has a pretty striking resemblance to Jesus.<\/p>\n

Like Jesus, Snow was born under mysterious circumstances. He was later betryed by his friend Olly, much like Jesus was betrayed by Judas. Viewers may have even noticed the wooden cross bearing the word \u201ctraitor\u201d it at the site where Jon is stabbed in Season 5. Both were executed for sharing and teaching the idea that we are to always love one another, and both came back from the dead just a few days after their death to fulfill a prophecy. Due to this, many GOT fans think that John will be the savior of the Seven Kingdoms and ultimately end up on the Iron Throne.<\/p>\n

Beric Dondarrion, played by Richard Dormer, is a character that has lived many times. Thoros of Myr resurrected him six times, thanks to some help from the Lord of Light, R\u2019hllor. Dondarrion finally meets his end in episode 3 of season 8, when he sacrifices himself to save Arya from a group of wights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I watched it I was struck by how almost religious it was,\u201d Richard Dormer told HuffPost of his character\u2019s final moment.<\/p>\n

HuffPost wrote in an article: “He said it was visually influenced by Christ\u2019s death on the cross. Beric is stabbed multiple times before making his way to safety, only to die, for the seventh time, in Arya\u2019s arms \u2015 ‘a spiritual number,’ Dormer noted.”<\/p>\n

Lastly, many see Jamie Lanister’s redemption story as an obvious Christian theme. Lanister is seen at the beginning of the show as being evil and cunning, but that all begins to change. In Season 3, Jamie loses his hand and confesses his sins to Brienne of Tarth.<\/p>\n

Through the show he begins to grow, and in season 7 he is pushed into the water to save him from being blazed by a dragon. Jamie emerges, at the beginning of the next episode, having been \u201cbaptized\u201d anew and gasping for life.<\/p>\n

The Christian themes are floating throughout the series, and if you look closely enough they may be giving you clues into how the show will end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter has come, and America has been excidely watching the eighth and final season of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones”. What most of those watching don’t always notice, though, is how the series also inserts a huge amount of Christian imagery and references. It’s no coincidence that the show returned to TV on Palm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[23,1085,3962,3973],"class_list":["post-14245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-television","tag-christian","tag-faith","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-religious"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Religious Symbolism in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Christian references in the series might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Religious Symbolism in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Christian references in the series might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-03T16:58:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Megan Bailey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/files\/2019\/05\/27787035151_226f5c003e_b-300x169.jpg\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Religious Symbolism in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'","description":"The Christian references in the series might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Religious Symbolism in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'","og_description":"The Christian references in the series might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2019-05-03T16:58:54+00:00","author":"Megan Bailey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/files\/2019\/05\/27787035151_226f5c003e_b-300x169.jpg","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html","name":"The Religious Symbolism in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/files\/2019\/05\/27787035151_226f5c003e_b-300x169.jpg","datePublished":"2019-05-03T16:58:54+00:00","dateModified":"2019-05-03T16:58:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/03d3c6d022f04655d71d8c66b4614dc2"},"description":"The Christian references in the series might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/files\/2019\/05\/27787035151_226f5c003e_b-300x169.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/files\/2019\/05\/27787035151_226f5c003e_b-300x169.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2019\/05\/religious-symbolism-hbos-game-thrones.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Religious Symbolism in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/03d3c6d022f04655d71d8c66b4614dc2","name":"Megan Bailey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/069\/06974c669f30cf83f15ef2892dfe26cex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/069\/06974c669f30cf83f15ef2892dfe26cex96.jpg","caption":"Megan Bailey"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/mbailey"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14245"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14249,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14245\/revisions\/14249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}