Earlier this year, singer Ed Sheeran confirmed that he would be appearing on Season 7 of Game of Thrones. At the time of the announcement, it sounded like a pretty exciting event for someone who is such a huge fan of the show, but with everything else Sheeran has had going on this year, including releasing his third studio album and touring the world, we kind of forgot about the whole GoT thing.
During last night’s highly anticipated season premiere of Game of Thrones, we remembered. It would be pretty difficult not to, considering the show with literally hundreds of characters gave Sheeran about three minutes of screen time and one more word of dialogue than Daenerys-Mother-Of-Freaking-Dragons-Targaeryn. What?
Let’s be clear about one thing. We love Ed Sheeran. We love his music, we love that he works with other artists, we love how much he obviously loves Canada. Ed Sheeran did not decide how much screen time his character would get, unless he’s a secret producer of the show, which considering how many projects he works on at a time, would not be the most shocking thing we heard all day.
Fans of Game of Thrones love the series because it immerses them in the world of Westeros, where the people, the rules, and the events are different from what we see in our everyday lives. Dragons? Can’t get enough of them. Women as respected rulers? Yeah, let’s see more of that in real life, please.
Sheeran is not the first celebrity to make an appearance on Game of Thrones. Coldplay’s Will Champion, YouTuber Steve Love, Of Monsters and Men, Mastodon, Sigur Rós and Sheeran’s good friend and Snow Patrol singer Gary Lightbody have all appeared in scenes from Game of Thrones over the years. Admittedly, none of these musicians are as recognizable as Sheeran, and their cameos were also much shorter, often consisting of only blink and you’ll miss them shots.
When it comes to Ed Sheeran’s cameo, the extended clip not only takes the viewer out of the fantasy realm of Westeros because Sheeran is so recognizable, but even viewers who aren’t avid followers of the popstar would’ve had enough time to watch the singer on screen and recognize him, or at least find him familiar enough that they became distracted by trying to identify the Lannister singer instead of focusing on the overall story.
Ed Sheeran looked like Ed Sheeran in last night’s Game of Thrones premiere. He sang like him, and he even had a line that for sure we’ve heard Ed say in multiple interviews.
We literally held our breath over fear that Sheeran was about to plug his latest album. George RR would never.
Yeah, Grammy-winning producer Benny Blanco. We KNOW it’s pretty good. Everyone knows that, because Game of Thrones is one of the biggest shows of all time.
So, what was up with Sheeran’s extended screen time? Like how the Ironborn built one thousands ships in what seemed like a week, we may never understand this mystery. But at least the song was pretty.