4. Jaime's Hand Chop-Off Was Inspired By An American Werewolf In London
If you know where to look, you can find references to contemporary shows running all the way through Game Of Thrones. My personal favourite is the Mortal Kombat reference in the very first episode, and it's a bit blink-and-you'll-miss-it. According to the linguist David J. Peterson we discussed him earlier the Dothraki Khal Drogo utters upon seeing a murderous fracas at his wedding is 'I te waka,' a line taken from the Maori haka/war dance, a reference to Momoa's audition tape for Drogo solely comprising of the haka in its entirety. Yet later on, Peterson retroactively said he'd used the line 'itte oakah,' which is Dothraki for 'test your might' something which old-school Kombat players may vividly remember. Yet despite the amazing geekery, the one of the most obvious-yet-subtle (I don't know how that works, just run with it) references is to An American Werewolf In London at the end of Walk Of Punishment. As you might remember, this scene ends with Jaime getting his hand chopped off by Locke before the whole thing cuts to black with a rock song version of 'Bear And The Maiden Fair' from Indy Rock. It's a bit incongruous, but according to Benioff and Weiss, that was kind of the point. The reference to American Werewolf is in a similar juxtaposition come the end of John Landis' cult classic, David Kessler is dead, with his girlfriend crying over him. It's a very sombre scene to roll the credits on, but they commit to it anyway. Then suddenly, Blue Moon pipes up and gives you a gut-punch. Weiss badly wanted to re-create that shock for Walk Of Punishment, so bypassed composer Ramin Djawadi's usual credits-score to source a band and get them to play a furiously up-tempo version of the court song. The point was to knock you on your arse with shock, and I'd like to say it achieved that aim.