Blink and you’ll miss it, but George R.R. Martin made a subtle “cameo” in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7 on Sunday, July 28. “Cameo” is a slight stretch, seeing as Martin himself was not physically in the scene, but his likeness was!
The moment came at Harrenhal, when Daemon (Matt Smith) was being put to the test by the new Lord Tully, Oscar (Archie Barnes). Look closely at the weirwood heart tree in the courtyard and you’ll see a face carved in. That face is Martin’s, as revealed by the Season 2 Episode 7 installment of The House That Dragons Built, a behind-the-scenes series tagged onto the end of each episode (and also streaming separately) on Max.
The idea to carve Martin’s face into the tree was series creator Ryan Condal, who shares a creator credit with Martin in addition to serving as showrunner and executive producer.
“What’s lovely about the show is everything’s so character-based that even the tree is a character,” VFX producer Thomas Horton said in the episode.
“Ryan wanted to do [the tree] as a bit of a tribute,” said production designer Tim Clay in The House That Dragons Built. It also features a shot of Martin and Condal posing for a photo by the Harrenhal tree, and Martin was pleased.
“This is really cool, guys,” he says in the clip. “Thank you.”
This marks the first time Martin has “appeared” in an episode in the Game of Thrones universe, but it’s not the first time a Martin cameo has been made. The author revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in 2022 that he filmed a cameo that was ultimately cut from the pilot episode.
“They left my part on the cutting room floor,” he told the Hall H crowd.
House of the Dragon Season 2 comes to a close next week, August 4. After weeks of trying and failing to build an army of men in the Riverlands, Daemon has finally found success and could at last leave Harrenhal to join Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) on the battlefield against the greens. With the Riverland army and Rhaenyra’s three new dragonriders to support them, the war tide may be turning in favor of the blacks.
House of the Dragon, Season 2 Finale, Sunday, August 4, 9/8c, HBO, Streaming on Max